April 26, 2026

Sunday - Warm and Sunny

I went to bed a little late last night and slept in a bit this morning. However, I woke up when F came back in the room or something. I went downstairs and then tried to go back to sleep for a while. F suggested that we go for breakfast to Komeda. I didn’t want to and then I thought,“why not?” 

I got up, dressed and a few minutes later we left the house. We got into the restaurant on time, but we weren’t seated for a few minutes. The waitress told us that we could still get our free breakfast, so we ordered it. F got a bun with adzuki beans, I got a half piece of toast and egg salad. It was okay. 

After our breakfast, we decided to go and have lunch! Breakfast was small. We tossed around a few ideas and then ended up at Tenkane again. We both had the same thing, the mixed bento box style thing. It was okay.

We went back to the house after lunch and spent an hour or so. I didn’t want to go out to Ikoiinomura while it was really hot and sunny. 

We drove up to Ikoiinomura and managed to find a parking space. We went and had a look at the tulips. It was still busy, but the flowers were pretty. There was a band playing and I realized at one point that they were doing “Can’t Help Falling In Love” in a sort of punk version. It reminded me of the Lick The Tins version from the Some Kind of Wonderful soundtrack. I finally got a glimpse of the band and noticed that they were Buddhist monks! Yup, there were three of them and they were rocking out!

Yes, these are tulips!

An assortment of tulips

Two of the three monks rocking out!

F and I bought some “long Potatoes” which were like formed French Fries and shared them. We watched the band for a while and then left. We went for a ride along the coast for a bit and then came back to Tsuruoka. We made a pit stop at a couple of drugstores, one for a toilet break, another for “stuff”! After the second drugstore, we went to the grocery store and picked up food for the next couple of days and tonight’s dinner. F didn’t want to eat out. I gotta say, I was a bit disappointed in that, but I guess I understand.

We came back to the house. I went upstairs and chilled with some YouTube. F called me downstairs a bit later. I really didn’t want to go and join “the family” but I did. F had made some miso soup with pork and daikon. It was decent, but I’d already had miso soup today and I didn’t want more. 

We had bought bentos at the grocery store so F heated up his and his mother’s, I heated up mine. I got a kara-age one, F and K had salmon. The soup was better than the bento, but I didn’t love it. 

I went upstairs after dinner and told F that I would join a Zoom meeting. I did that and it was fine. My women’s group happened to have a Zoom Meeting tonight. There weren’t too many people there, but it was nice to talk to other people who actually listened! There were a couple of people who almost had a fight, but I still enjoyed the meeting. I got to talk about movies a tad so that made me happy too.

I left the meeting around 10:30 and spent a few minutes with F. He was sitting by himself on the bed deep into videos on his phone. He did seem a little happy to see me!

I decided that tonight I’d watch an episode of Breaking Bad. I’ve never seen it before and of course I’ve heard about it a lot. I liked the first episode so I’ll probably watch a bit more before I decide if I’ll watch the whole series.

And that was it. Since midnight I’ve been watching YouTube and trying to do my usual end of day things. 

Tomorrow, F is back at work and I’ll be cooking dinner. I’m not sure what else I’ll get up to as well. If you’d like, come back later and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….