November 23, 2025

Sunday - Warm and Sunny

I woke up this morning around 9 am I think and went downstairs. F went downstairs just after me and then he stayed to make breakfast for K. I went back up to the room and back to bed.

I got up a couple of hours later and got myself dressed. I noticed that F’s bottle of soy sauce had fallen over and was leaking on the precious tatami in the room. Luckily, there was a medicine envelope underneath the bottle that took most of the soy sauce. I took the tube that was in the envelope out and put the envelope in the garbage and then cleaned up the soy sauce. 

I went downstairs with the kerosene tank as it was empty. I tried to fill it up, but the pump started working before I put it in my tank. Yikes. I swore a bit! I filled up the tank and let F know after that we had a situation with the kerosene. He fixed it for me and then carried the full tank upstairs. Yay.

We talked about lunch and he suggested going to karaoke. I was a bit surprised but said it was okay. The karaoke box has a lunch special so we thought we’d take advantage of that. 

We arrived at the karaoke box and the parking lot was busy. The clerk inside said that we could come back at 1:30 and we decided not to do that. I knew that F isn’t that into karaoke and it was his birthday.  

We ended up having lunch at his favourite fish restaurant. We were able to get in right away. They didn’t have a lunch special today, but F had a tekka-don and I had a gindara set meal. We were both quite pleased with our meals.

After lunch we went to the Art Forum. They had a free display of school children’s art related to books that they had read. I didn’t mind some of the art, especially the older kids stuff. We decided to have a drink and dessert at the coffee corner place at the Forum. F had apple pie and coffee, I had a strawberry and blueberry cake and tea. F accidentally hit the table and spilled some of my tea, but it wasn’t a bad thing. 

After our drinks and cakestuff, F booked a nice bento for K. We went over to the shop and picked it up. We came back to the house and F gave the bento to her, I went upstairs and charged my phone.

Later on, F came upstairs and we talked about our dinner. He wanted to go to Fujishima to see the lights first, but I suggested finding a good dinner place before that. I suggested a couple of places, F suggested one as well. I liked his idea, but when he called to see if we could get in tonight, we couldn’t. Aww! I suggested Iskiya, the place that F took me for my birthday and F called them. They said they were busy, but we could come and wait outside and maybe get in if someone left. 

We drove over to the restaurant, F went in to say that we were waiting outside. He came right back outside and called me in. They had a table for us!

We chose to have a set meal and it was great. We told them that I can’t have tomatoes and they were very accommodating for me. Yay. We had some prosciutto and mozzarella, some butternut squash soup, bruschetta with red and yellow peppers instead of tomatoes for both of us. Then, we had some pizza. It was half Genovase (pesto) sauce with Italian sausage, half quatro-fromage (4 cheeses). That part came with some honey. The pizza was excellent and we both enjoyed it. Our last dish was pasta and they used a pesto sauce again. It was good, but not as good as the pizza! Finally, we had dessert and a drink. I had rooibos tea and F had coffee. We had a very nice angel food cake with ice cream and fresh fruit. Everything was very nice and it was worth the price. 

When we paid up, we told the staff that last time  we were there it was my birthday and this time it was F’s. They gave us each a brownie to take with us! Nice!

F asked that we go out to Fujishima to see the lights. I was afraid that it would end before we got there, but we got there quickly. We had about half an hour before the lights were going to be turned off. We walked around and took a few pictures. It was lovely. It was nice because when we come around Christmas it is very slippery and cold, but tonight was great. No snow yet and not cold. What a win!

Fujishima means Wisteria Island and these lights look like Wisteria. Beautiful!

This felt very Star Trekkie!

The Birthday Guy with me!

We came back to Tsuruoka before the lights were turned off in the park. F wanted to get some meat for K’s breakfast tomorrow so we made a quick stop at the grocery store.

Back at the house we came upstairs. I decided to watch a movie and since I couldn’t pick something contemporary, decided to go to one of the free apps on my Fire Disk and watch The Scarlet Pimpernel from 1982 or so. It had Anthony Andrews, Jane Seymour and an incredibly young looking Ian McKellen. It was great. I’d seen it on regular TV when I was much younger and it was a fun movie. Anthony Andrews was fantastic and Jane Seymour was so beautiful. 

And that’s about it. Tomorrow is a national holiday so F is off work again. We’ll have to do the shopping as usual and hopefully will build in a few fun things to the day too.

Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….