April 9, 2026

Thursday - Sunny in the early part of day, cloudy later on

Today was a decent day. I woke up at my usual time and F was in bed next to me watching something on his phone. I turned off a lot of my alarms and went back to sleep. I woke up again a couple of hours later, went downstairs and then came back to the room and got dressed. F came in around that time and said that he was getting ready to leave to run his errands. 

I spent a bit of time on my computer, had my breakfast, and half a cup of tea. F got back while I was in the middle of my tea and invited me out for lunch. His idea was intriguing, so I was fine with it.

F suggested a place that I had suggested a couple of months ago. However, when we had tried it, the place was closed. Today, it was open. We went in, got a private dining room near the window and had a lovely lunch. We ordered a bento box type lunch and it was a mix of tempura, sashimi and a few other items. We both enjoyed it.

After lunch, we drove to City Hall and went in. Then we left right away and walked over to the Park. Hanami is at it’s peak and it was such a gorgeous day that it was lovely to see the park. I had asked F not to traipse all over the park today but of course, he tried to! He will never buy anything at the kiosks so in my opinion there is no point in walking in those areas…he took me through a bunch of them. We did go to the old Shrine that I loved to visit in days gone by and finally did our Hatsumode. Whew. It was long past the time. We walked over to the big temple and then back through the kiosk. 

One of the moats in Tsuruoka Park

Close up of blossoms

Inside the old shrine looking back at the park. 

We went back to the car finally and then decided to go for a drink somewhere. We were going to go to one place, but ended up at another. We went to Standard, the coffee and Jazz place and both had cocoa. Mine was cold, his was hot.  It was a nice break.

I had thought about staying downtown, but decided I’d probably better go back to the house as I was tired. We drove back to the house and relaxed for an hour. F had a meeting at 4 pm so he had it downstairs and I watched the US news and relaxed for a bit.

Around 6 pm, F made his mother’s dinner. I’m not sure what he made, it doesn’t matter really!

At a bit past 7 pm F and I went out to have dinner. We went over to Gusto and had a fairly decent dinner. I had the chicken with a mushroom sauce, salad and a bun, F had the mixed grill with a Japanese set. We shared some fries and both had drink bar. Dinner was good and I enjoyed it.

After dinner, we went over to the Mina Shopping Area and did some grocery shopping. I got stuff for dinner tomorrow night and F picked up a few things for Saturday morning.

We came back to the house and after putting away the groceries went upstairs. I watched another episode of Scarpetta and then tonight’s episode of The Rainmaker. Both were good, although Scarpetta went a bit out there with astronauts being murdered!

F went to bed a bit after midnight, I’m still up, but will go to bed fairly soon. I’m not sure what I’m going to do tomorrow, but it’ll probably start with a bit of laundry! Yay me!

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

PS…remember with my pictures you can click on them to see them bigger!