April 3, 2024

Wednesday - Cloudy, warm and rainy

Well, I had a lovely time away. I got to the station in good time for my train and even managed to buy a couple of things to eat on the train for breakfast. 

When I got to Niigata I was really surprised by the station. They’ve been renovating it for years and they are still doing it. However, it is now completely different from the way that it was the last time I was there. I kept getting lost!  I was supposed to meet my friend and I didn’t see her at all. Happily, she phoned me and we figured it out. She had brought one of her sons with her and it was nice to see him again. With the pandemic it was really hard for her to travel here so I haven’t seen her in years.

I took them on a long walk over to Capricciosa, an Italian restaurant.  We had a lovely lunch there and then when we were finished, waddled back to LoveLa and she went to get her eyes tested. She did that, I took her son off for a brief tour of the shops. He was looking for a gift for a friend. We went back to the glasses shop and then tried to help her find a pair of glasses that she liked! Let’s just say that my friend took forever to make up her mind and her son and I were telling her that they all looked good by the end! We were over it.  However, I had a cool thing happen. My friend from the next city saw me and we had a little chat for a few minutes. I had no idea that she was even in Niigata, let alone that we would see each other!

After my friend finally picked out her glasses, she took care of the business things and then I took them to a nice coffee shop nearby. We had some nice drinks, some had food, and lots of conversation. Next up, we walked back to the station and then through it. They wanted to go to a bookstore. I wanted to check out their English books too, so we were all happy. They went off for Japanese books, and I looked at the English ones. I was a little sad to see that there just weren’t many English books anymore. It used to be a great shop for English books. 

After the bookstore, we went back to the station and they looked for their train back to my friend’s parent’s home. There was one in a bit, and they wanted to do some more shopping so I left them at that point, with many hugs.

I walked over to my hotel and checked in. I went up to my room. It was small, plain, but comfortable. I relaxed for a couple of hours. I’d walked almost 10,000 steps at that point and my feet and legs hurt!

I went out a bit later to grab dinner. I had thought of eating out, but there wasn’t anywhere close to the hotel that I would feel comfortable eating by myself, so I went to 7-11 and bought something for dinner!  I went back to the room and ate dinner. 

I talked to F later on but was in bed by 2 am I think. I was so tired!

This morning I woke up around 8 am and got up a bit later. I went downstairs to have breakfast and it was fine. It’s a free breakfast and they had a reasonable selection of food. I had some eggs, chicken and broccoli, salad, yogurt and granola. I skipped the more Japanese foods but enjoyed breakfast anyway.

I went back up to my room and finished packing up. I took a shower as well and then checked out at 11 am. I left my bags at the hotel and then went off on my way.  

I went into the station and checked where I had to go to catch my train. I found the gate and then I went and made a slight change to my tickets. I upgraded my seat. I wanted to be a little more comfortable on the train than I was on the way to Niigata so I got tickets for the Green Car. 

I then made my merry way back to LoveLa 2. I went to the coffee shop and had a sandwich and an iced decaf coffee with milk. It was very nice. 

From there, I did a lot of walking around and some window shopping. I explored some of the shops in the buildings and basically just tried to see as much as I could.

I had a proper lunch a bit later. I went to a Farm Restaurant that I like a lot and had grilled pork for lunch. My lunch was delicious and quite reasonable. After that, I made a slow return to the hotel. 

Around 5 I asked for my bag back and then went over to the station. I was really tired again today and my legs hurt a lot. I did more than 5 times the usual amount of walking I do in a day over the two days I was in Niigata!

I went through the ticket gate at the station and then spent a few minutes in the waiting room. From there I went upstairs and waited on the platform after I bought some water for the train.

The ride back to Tsuruoka was very pleasant. The seat was extremely comfortable and the car was quiet. Some young people were sitting up front and I was a little surprised that they had Green Car seats, but why not?

F met me at the station and we went to Gusto for a quick dinner. I had chicken and fries, he had fried oysters and a few of my fries. 

After dinner, we did some grocery shopping. Guess I’m back to the old grind again. Sigh. I’m going to make dinner for the next two nights. 

We came back to the house and I did the downstairs garbage. F did the upstairs garbage, which was very nice of him. He took it out to the gomi station too. 

And that’s about it. I’ve spent the last couple of hours blogging and doing computer stuff, trying to catch up. My legs hurt a lot, and my knees are quite annoyed with me, but that’s usual after one of these trips. I think I need to keep walking like I used to, but unfortunately, I have nowhere that I can do the DVDs in the house. I may need to physically get out of the house. Noooo!

Anyway, I hope this wasn’t too boring to read. Come back later if you like and hear all about my day. Until tomorrow….

November 21, 2023

Tuesday - Warm and sunny

I’m back!  I had a great time in Yokohama, and it was quite simple to get to Yokohama as well. I Google-Mapped it and it got me to a bus stop next to the hotel, so that was really cool.

The convention was really well done and Yokohama was a great place to have it. The hotel was fine…I didn’t like the bathroom, it was tiny and there was a high step to get into it. Not my favourite thing. Apart from that, the room I had was big, the bed was comfortable, and I really didn’t have many problems.

On the last day, we all checked out and then had a panel discussion. A bit later, we walked to Chinatown and had a dim sum lunch at a restaurant. The convention organizer knew the owners and got us a great price. 

After lunch, I walked back to the hotel, picked up two of my bags and then walked to a train station. I caught a train to Yokohama station and then transferred to a train going to Tokyo. I found Yokohama station to be insanely confusing. It wasn’t well marked and I had no idea where I was going. 

I got myself on a train to Tokyo station. It might not have been the best option, but it was fine. I got a seat all the way, so that was good! Tokyo Station was easy to get around and it is very well marked. I found the Shinkansen area easily and bought my tickets up to Niigata. I had a bit of time before my shinkansen was going to leave, so I grabbed a couple of bentos. I was starving! I’m not even sure why. 

I got on the shinkansen and for the first couple of stations I didn’t have a person sitting next to me so I gobbled up my bentos. My seatmate got on and we had a quiet ride to Niigata. 

In Niigata, I checked into my hotel and it was a lovely experience. Last year, a different hotel, that I often stayed at, gave me a terrible time and was extremely rude to me. In both cases, I had joined the hotel’s membership so they had my address in Japan. Basically, if you are a foreigner who is a resident of Japan, you don’t need to ask for ID. Last year’s hotel accused me of being an illegal alien and was so rude when I checked in. This year, a different hotel and no ID. The hotel was much nicer, the only downside was that it was a few hundred meters down the road from the station. 

I went out to grab some dinner, I went over to Royal Host which is a place I often go by myself. I had a nice pasta dinner and then walked back to the hotel and had a quiet evening. I watched a bit of YouTube and fell asleep. I woke up at 5:30 am on top of my bed and ended up going to bed properly then. Although I could get a free breakfast at the hotel in the morning, I decided to just sleep in. I had put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door so I got to sleep in. Yay!

A little after noon, I went out. This was Monday. I went over to the Aeon Mall and did a little shopping and wandering around. I didn’t buy too much, although I found a Twinnings Tea Advent calendar that I got for myself. I had lunch in the mall too, that was nice and quite good. I ended up leaving the mall a bit earlier than I had planned. I got back to the station and did a little shopping and picked up a tea at Starbucks. I grabbed a bento and went back to the hotel. I also somewhere along the way bought my ticket back to Tsuruoka on Tuesday.

Back at the hotel, I bought myself a movie card and then went upstairs, talked to F and then watched a movie. I stayed up a bit late but did get up and went down for breakfast this morning.

After breakfast, I took a shower and finished packing my suitcase. I checked out at 11am and left my backpack and my suitcase at the hotel.

I walked over to the Bandai area of the city and went for a decaf coffee in LoveLa2. I wasn’t feeling too great today, unfortunately. I checked the movie schedule and realized that I could go to a movie in a couple of hours and then I could relax and sit down for a while. That’s what I did. I went to see The Marvels again and quite enjoyed it. 

After the movie was over, I walked back towards the station. I stopped to have a light lunch at a food court and then made it back to the hotel. I grabbed my stuff and walked to the station. I was quite early, which was nice as I didn’t need to rush or panic.

I had decided to treat myself to the Green Car on the train. It’s like first class. It was a bit expensive, but the seat was nice and comfy and the car was very quiet. There was space for my suitcase on the floor behind my seat and I just really enjoyed myself.

F picked me up a few minutes after I arrived and we went to Cocos for dinner. He got his birthday dessert…his birthday is on Thursday but we have plans…and after dinner we went over to Pal shopping area and I bought a few groceries for tomorrow. I hope it goes well!

We came back to the house and two things happened. North Korea apparently sent a missile over Japan again, so F wanted to see the updates on the TV, and my DVR stopped working entirely. I assumed the batteries were dead in the remote, but when I hit the buttons on the machine itself, nothing happened. Despite my asking F to look at it, he got angry and refused. He told me there was too much stuff in front of the machine. Yes, there is a lot, but right now I don’t have the energy to move everything. I asked him if he had done anything to the machine while I was gone. Apparently not. I was gone for 4 days, how would I know what he’s done?

Anyway, I have an idea of what to try tomorrow and I’ll see if I can get it working again. Unfortunately, I missed my show tonight but that’s okay. 

This is terribly long, sorry about that. Are you still with me?

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

October 18, 2022

Tuesday - Cloudy and then rainy

I’m back!  I had a fabulous time in Toyama and an okay couple of days in Niigata. My travels went incredibly smoothly and the only problem I had was with my Niigata hotel. 

Convention was fun, I made some new friends and spent a bit of time with some old ones. I did have to sit at a table with an enemy one night though, that was horrible, but the people near me were okay. 

On the second night, the headband I ended up making with my leaves on it was quite popular. Quite a few people had made headdresses with artificial leaves, but mine was handmade so it was a bit different!  I even won a door prize, but I think I’ll give it to a friend as it doesn’t fit me that well.

Today, I took a bath in the hotel’s onsen bath around 2 am and then went to bed. This morning I got up eventually and checked out. I went over to the LoveLa buildings and had lunch and then did a little window shopping. I didn’t do much real shopping today. I had dessert in one shop and then a tea latte in another so that I could spend some time relaxing.

I walked back to the hotel to pick up my bags and then went across the street to the train station. I caught my train handily and had a quiet trip back to Tsuruoka.

F came into the station at the same time I did! We had a quick hug…it was too hard to kiss with masks on! After that, we went back to the car. F suggested going to Nagomi, a Japanese Soba/Udon restaurant that I actually like, so I said it was okay. I did suggest that if it was closed or too busy, we could go to another restaurant in the vicinity. We were able to get in at Nagomi and had a good meal.

After that, we went grocery shopping. I hoped F would stay in the car, but he came in. I’m going to do chicken tomorrow night, and then tacos on Thursday I think. I asked F if we needed any staples like eggs or milk, and he said no. Of course, when I got back to the house, there was only one egg left. Ack. I asked!! I put away the groceries and then I took my suitcases upstairs. That was hard. 

I unpacked tonight, I should do some laundry tomorrow too. I watched FBI International. It was okay. 

And that’s about it for my day. I’m quite tired tonight so I think I’ll head off to bed soon. 

Come back later if you like and hear all about my Wednesday. I’ll try and find a pic of my headband too, or I’ll take one!

Until tomorrow….

November 22, 2021

Monday - Rainy

F and I finally got underway yesterday at 11am or so.  We went first to Gusto and had an okay breakfast and then got on the road to Niigata.  We made a couple of pitstops but were able to check in around 4 pm. We made a few plans at the hotel and then F decided he’d take a bath. I suggested that he take his bath and I’d run over to the foreign import food store. He wanted to come with me, so off we went.

I didn’t get too much at the import store, I bought a couple of teas and F got something, I think he bought some wine. We went back to the hotel and took it all back with us. At the hotel, F phoned the restaurant to see if we could get in tonight. We were told it was fine, but there was only one cook tonight, so it might be a tad slow.  We were fine with that. We walked over to the restaurant, but took the time to have a decaf drink at Starbucks as we were going to be very early!

We went to El Mirasol, an excellent Mexican restaurant in Niigata. As usual, we had the couple set, but I suggested to F that we get the special nacho set too.  It wasn’t part of the set, but they very nicely took out the regular tortilla chips and put the nachos in instead, with a little extra charge.  F had a Corona and I had the aqua de Jamaica or hibiscus tea. So nice. We had a lovely meal.  There were the nachos, we also had salad, a shrimp taco and a beef burrito that we shared. We finished it up with some Mexican rice and some meatballs. It was so good. 

Nicely full, we left the restaurant and walked back towards the hotel. As we passed the bookstore we noticed that it was still open. Woot.  I had a gift card and I wanted to spend it. We went downstairs to the English books where I made a lovely discovery. They were having a sale and a lot of books were 50% off. Woot. I picked up three books and took them upstairs with us to pay. F offered to pay the extra that I would owe. I thought it would be about seven or eight hundred yen extra. Unfortunately, the card wasn’t a new one as I thought, it only had 300 odd yen left on it. F still paid for my books and wouldn’t let me give him any of the money for it. Sigh. 

We got back to the hotel and had a quiet night in mostly. F did take a bath. He wanted me to go, but I decided not to. I had a shower in the room. Later on, I watched a movie on the free video channel in the room. F was going to watch, but he fell asleep!

Today, we had breakfast in the hotel and it was very nice. There weren’t quite enough Western-style foods for me, but there was a good assortment of different foods available there.

We packed up our room and then checked out of the hotel. F drove us over to the mall. We had a couple of hiccups along the way as we got a bit lost, but made it there. I looked at some ladies' clothing, but didn’t buy anything. We also looked at men’s clothing, but I didn’t buy anything there either. 

F was getting a bit snarky so we decided to have a drink. He wanted to go to Komeda’s Coffee in the mall, but there was a long lineup. We could have gone to Starbucks and taken our drinks out, but he didn’t want to. Then, he got tired of waiting and wanted to leave. I was okay with that, if we stopped in the import store in the mall first.

We went to the import store and I picked up two boxes of my favourite rooibos tea. I also got a couple of other things, and F grabbed something too. I bumped into a friend in the store too, so that was nice!

From the mall, we headed over to the port to have lunch. F really wanted to see things at the port and have lunch there. It was his birthday trip, so I wasn’t going to turn him down! We wandered around the area, looking at fish and other interesting things, then went to the fish restaurant. We just sneaked in before last order. We both had a meal set, F had keisendon, or mixed fish on rice, I had salmon and ikura on rice. We shared a salmon jaw steak. It was very good.

When we finished lunch, F wanted to get going fairly soon, but there was one more shop I wanted to go to. It was a liquor store, but they had imported food too. I picked up more tea. Don’t laugh! I can’t get this stuff near where I live and it is amazing!

Finally, we were ready to come back to Tsuruoka. We got back on the road and I fell asleep. I woke up when F went over a big bump! I dozed a lot of the way back. 

At the house, K was in bed of course. It was about 6:30 or so. She didn’t need more food, as she still had some left. F spent a bit of time with her and then came upstairs.

We weren’t ready for dinner yet, but around 8 pm we decided to go out. I had suggested going for Korean food, but he countered with yakiniku. That was fine with me. We decided to check and see if we could get into the good place and we could in half an hour. 

We drove over to Togashi and were seated. We picked a mixed dish for two people, plus some tongue. We added on some kimchi and vegetables. We had a great meal and everything was delicious. 

We came back to the house and chilled out. F opened his bottle of sparkling wine and we both had some. It was quite nice. 

After midnight, he went downstairs for a moment and I put his present on the bed next to where he was before. When he came back he was a bit surprised at it. He thanked me for the bag (it looked like a backpack) and then casually tossed it off to the side. I was a little upset that he hadn’t even opened the bag up! I told him to look inside and he did. He found a DVD of a movie that he likes a lot! He was happy with it I think.

And that was my day. Not sure what we’re going to get up to tomorrow. It is actually F’s birthday on Tuesday so I hope to help him have a good day. Come back later and find out if he does have a good day. Until tomorrow….

January 24, 2021

Sunday - Warm and sunny

I’m back!  Did you miss me?  We had a really great weekend. It was so nice to be able to say that.

We got up early-ish on Saturday morning and finished any last minute packing. We loaded the car and then headed out. Two minutes later, F backed up the car and came back to the house. He’d forgotten to take his medicine. Good thing I knew to ask him if he’d brought it!

We went to Gusto for a quick and nice breakfast, then got on the road. The roads were in good condition and we made good time. We had a couple of breaks for snacks or whatever, and got to Niigata on time. We parked the car and walked to the hotel and checked in. We found out that F had used the wrong type of parking lot, so I stayed in the room and F moved the car.

We relaxed for a little and then decided to head out. I asked F to make a reservation for our favourite Mexican restaurant, he did! It’s so tiny that if they had a party or something there wouldn’t be room for us. 

I wanted to do some shopping before dinner. We walked over to the station and were surprised to see that the “front” of the station is completely boarded over. They are renovating the station. When we were here last year they hadn’t got that far. We went to the escalator on the far end and went up that way.  We found Jupiter, the foreign food store in a new location…yay! I bought some tea and some taco spice mix. 

We continued to the bookstore on the other side of the station. I was looking for something to read that would be light and hopefully good. I finally decided on a book, Kate Morton’s The Clockmaker’s Daughter, and then as I was going to pay for it, remembered I had a book card, so I got the book and I didn’t have to pay for it! We spent a bit of time looking around the book store and then headed to the restaurant. 

The sidewalks were icy and F was walking really fast. We were early so I tried to make him slow down, but he wouldn’t. We got to the restaurant 10 minutes early! It hadn’t opened yet, so we did a little more walking in the area. I still wasn’t too happy with him as my shoes had little traction and I was scared of falling on the ice. 

We went back at 6 and had a lovely meal. We had their combo meal and it was a good choice since we got a little of everything. They had real tortilla chips and F was amazed at how good they were. As usual, he overdid it on the jalapeños and hot sauce, suffered a bit today. I drank some hibiscus tea with my meal and then had rice pudding for dessert. Yum.  Only place I can get it here I think.

When we left, we walked to another place that a friend had written about on Facebook. We Google Mapped it and went to another restaurant. It was a bar too, so we didn’t feel bad about not eating too much. It was expensive, but the food was good and so were the drinks. F had an Australian lager, I had a cider and we shared an order of fries with a black garlic aioli dressing that was very nice. The owner is Australian and we had a nice little chat. His wife could also speak English, so it was nice for me.  I think we’ll probably go back if we are ever in Niigata again.

We went back to the hotel. It was quite early, only around 9 pm but we were tired and had both had drinks.  At the hotel, F took a shower and I checked out the Video on Demand. I discovered that it was still free and they had Last Christmas on it. I haven’t seen it, but I wanted to.

When F came out of the shower, we both watched the movie. It was fun. It wasn’t the greatest film ever, but it worked for us and we enjoyed it. F went to bed around midnight, I stayed up a few minutes longer and then decided that since I was really tired, I would go to bed then too. I was in bed by 12:30. I know that is hard to believe for me, but I was.

I wasn’t so happy when I woke up around 2 am though. F’s phone was going. Someone was phoning him at 2 am. All kinds of things went through my mind…the house burned down, his mother was sick…the hotel was kicking us out…F slept on! I woke him up and asked him to check his phone.

It was his mother.  K had phoned us. F phoned her back to see what was wrong. He was much nicer to her than I would have been.  She got the dates mixed up and thought that we were away on Sunday night and she wanted to go and vote in the Prefectural vote. I don’t know why she would want to go and vote at 2 am, I think she got mixed up with the time too. F had to speak really loudly and I was worried that the neighbours would complain, but I didn’t hear anything from them. Honestly though, don’t call people at 2 am unless there is some major problem.

We both went back to sleep.  We got up around 8:15 and went down for breakfast. The hotel, not a big expensive place, did have a nice breakfast and even had an omelette bar. 

I took a shower and then we checked out. The original plan was for F to bring the car around, but I decided I’d rather walk to the parking place with him. I kind of wished I had waited, but it didn’t matter much. The sidewalks were wet and very icy in places.

We drove over to the port area and had a look around. The space where we could eat outside was gone unfortunately, it looked like it was under construction. F couldn’t do the thing he wanted, buying raw fish and having a donburi from the fish market. We looked at some of the shops in the area, found a restaurant that did sell donburi so ended up going there. F asked me what I’d like to eat and I told him that I was going to let him pick the restaurant since it was his choice to be there and I wanted him to be happy.  We went to the donburi restaurant. F had a tuna donburi set meal, I had a sashimi set meal and we shared a grilled buri cheek afterwards. The food was really good, except F didn’t love his as much as I thought he would. Poor thing.

We hit up one more store and I found the tea that I’ve been looking for all over in the shop. It’s an organic tea from Australia. Although I’ve been looking for it, I’d forgotten about the shop that it came from. I got some more, plus we bought a wedge of cheese there too. The woman was giving out samples.

I thought we’d be heading back soon, but F had other plans. We stopped in at a tourist information area that had a museum component. It turned out to be quite interesting. We explored the building, watched some video displays and just had fun really. 

On the way out of the city, we stopped at the giant Musashi store and bought some stuff. In the grocery section we got some drinks for the road back.

Finally we headed back to Tsuruoka. We did make a couple of pit stops, but got back around 6:30.

Wonder of wonders, K was up! F took her to go and vote, he did too, and then they came back.  

I asked F about dinner since it was 6 hours since we last ate, so we went out. We went to Foodever. It was a little sad as there were no customers and only one of the restaurants was open, but the cook was happy to see us. We both had the same thing, “steak and curry”. We had the pork version and it came with a salad.  We both liked it a lot, but F said that my curry was better! 

After all of this, we just came back to the house and have relaxed ever since. F is in bed, and honestly, I’m rather tired myself. 

This was rather long but it does cover two days after all. 

Come back later if you want and hear all about my Monday. Until tomorrow….

February 9, 2020

Sunday - Snowy and Cold in Tsuruoka

I’ve had a pretty great trip away. I went to Niigata on Wednesday and stayed at a hotel near the station. On the first night, I didn’t do too much, just a tour of the bookstore and a look for someplace to eat, but basically ended up buying some food and taking back to the hotel. It was rather nice.

Thursday I got up at a reasonable time and had breakfast near the hotel. Then, I took the Loop Bus around the tourist sites and went to my favourite place, the Saito Villa. I wanted to see the garden, but with all of the snow, it was closed! I did tour the house though, and even had some coffee and cake, while looking at the garden out the window, so that was something! I caught the bus again and this time went to the Pier Bandai and walked over to the Niigata Bandaijima Museum of Art to see their exhibit on Tartan. It was really good. I was quite tickled to see some posters and records of The Bay City Rollers on display!

View out the window of the Villa

They wouldn't let us walk in the
garden. Maybe wise, but sad too!

Five hundred yen worth of happiness!

I caught a regular bus back to the station as I didn’t want to walk all the way back to Pier Bandai. It was freezing then.  I couldn’t get Google Maps to work properly, so I missed the first bus, but did have an interaction with another person waiting for the bus, so that was nice! 

I went back to the station, relaxed and warmed up for a while, then went to Lovela for coffee and a bit of shopping. It was really scary walking there as I had worn my shoes and there was ice everywhere. I saw one person fall, so I was a tad nervous. I dumped my shopping in the hotel and then went to Royal Host for dinner. I thought F didn’t like it and I do, so decided to go there. It was good!

F joined me at the hotel on Friday afternoon. I let the hotel know, and paid the difference of course between a single and a double. 

We did a little shopping at Lupicia, my tea shop. It’s a bit hard to find as it is across the bridge in Niigata. I would have had to take a bus to get there on my own. We also had lunch in the department store.

We came back to the hotel and F checked in. He was able to park the car too. Yay! He called the Mexican restaurant we like and made a reservation for 8 pm, so we wandered over to the restaurant. We spent some time in the bookstore. I looked at books but didn’t buy anything. I wanted to, but my to-be-read pile is shocking so refrained.

We had amazing Mexican food at the restaurant and really enjoyed ourselves. They make real tortilla chips there and homemade salsa. Just yum!

After we ate, we waddled back to the station area and grabbed a take-out drink from the brand new Starbucks opposite the station. It just opened that day, and we squeaked in just before they closed, hence the take-out.

We had a fun evening of watching movies on the free movie channel from the hotel. We watched a couple we’d already seen, Lady Bird and Rocketman. Really loved Lady Bird again!

On Saturday morning we checked out of our hotel and went to find another cinema! We found the mall it was in and then went to see Jojo Rabbit. Of course, because we’re country bumpkins and this was the big city, the cinema was nearly full and we didn’t buy our tickets early!  We got “couples seats” in the back row which were like couches. I liked it a lot, F thought they didn’t have enough padding in the seats. Jojo Rabbit was really good and we both enjoyed it. F got one of the main actresses mixed up with someone else and was trying to explain, but he confused me for ages!  

We went to our next hotel and checked in. We had a tiny little room that was so hot it wasn’t good. We relaxed for a bit and then went out for dinner. I found a place on Google Maps but when we got there, they were full. So was the next place we tried. I found another Google suggestion and got F to reserve it for us. He did, thankfully. All they had left was counter space, but it was so cold out I didn’t care!  We got there and it was a really interesting restaurant. It was an Indian/Italian fusion place!  We both had curry for dinner. F had Butter Chicken with rice and I had a keema curry with mushrooms in a creamy sauce with naan.  We’d made both our meals into “sets” and had salad, appetizers, soup, dessert and a drink with them. The food was amazing. I had found the place earlier on Google, but F wanted to take me to some crappy looking Japanese place that I refused to go to!  

We went back to the hotel and then we both took baths in the onsen in the hotel. They were on separate floors, men got the 10th floor with a rotenburo, women got the 2nd floor with none. Boo!

After our baths, we went to the restaurant for their “free” noodles that they have. As you might expect, F complained about them!

Back in the room, I did a little crochet and watched The Blacklist, then went to bed fairly early. I was tired!

Today, we got up for breakfast at the hotel.  It was okay, but I wasn’t too impressed with the bread. It wasn’t that great.

We checked out and went over to the Niigata City of Art Museum. We went to see an exhibit that just opened of Yayoi Kusama’s work and other artists that had gone to America to study.  It was interesting and quite fun.  We were both surprised to see people taking pictures of the art…F asked afterwards and it was okay apparently, as long as they didn’t use flash! That was a new one on us.

We had a drink in the museum and I visited the gift shop.  Then, we left and went to the Kameda Mall.  

I told F that I really just wanted to a) look at the yarn in the craft area and b) buy some tea in the Import store.  Oh, and c) have lunch somewhere!  That was what we did. I looked at yarn but didn’t buy, I did buy tea and a couple of other things in the import store.  We had lunch in the food court. I had steak from Pepper Lunch that was okay, and F had fish from a Japanese style restaurant that he complained about. Same old, same old.

We left the mall around 4:30 I think and got back to Tsuruoka somewhere around 6:30. K was still up and looked fine. F had asked his sister to check in on her and she had.  The house was fine, but our rooms upstairs were freezing. The heater said it was 0 degrees when we turned it on.  Yikes.  

F and I went out for dinner to Gusto and then picked up some groceries for tomorrow night. He’s going to make a nabe, so I hope he doesn’t get too tired at work tomorrow.  I did suggest that I make the soup, so we’ll see how that works out. 

We came back to the house around 10 pm. I watched a bit of TV and F went to bed.  I’ve been working on getting the room warmed up. It’s not bad right now.  

Anyway, it is late and I’ve written a novel. I have to get up soon so that I can Facebook the Academy Awards. It’s my tradition, I just hope things go well this year.  

I’ll be back later if all goes well! Until tomorrow….

August 2, 2019

Friday - Hot and Sunny

Had a great couple of days.  Thursday was hot and I had to run the AC here at the house.  When F came back from work we took his mother out for dinner and then a little grocery shopping.  We brought her back to the house and then after a little bit, we left.  

We made good time to Niigata, but we didn’t arrive until almost 11pm.  My hip was killing me by the time we arrived. I don’t like forced sitting. 

The hotel was fine. I didn’t get asked to provide ID, which was a great first.  The room was big enough for both of us and this morning breakfast was really nice.  

F and I went to bed around 2 last night I think.

This morning we got up early-ish. I thought that I would be up before F, but he woke up early and took a shower.  I took one before we went for breakfast. 

We checked out of the hotel around 10 am and drove to the mall. We were about 5 minutes late meeting our friend and her family, but no worries as the restaurant hadn’t even opened yet.  We went to a buffet place and had a lot of okay food!  As we were with 3 boys it was a good choice as there was something for everyone.  The adults had a decent meal and the kids had fun getting their own soft ice cream and cotton candy.  We walked around the mall a little when we were done, but sadly jet lag overcame our friends and they had to leave. It was lovely to see them and to catch up.

F and I spent a bit of time in the mall. The movie I wanted to see had already started, so not today, but we went up to Tower Records and I bought 3 different compilation sets…that’s a lot of music. We really didn’t shop that much.

We left the mall around 4 pm and went to the Musashi Superstore. We looked around there, on both floors. We didn’t buy anything there. To be honest, F visited the pet area and it really upset me. I wish he wouldn’t.  There was a young border collie puppy that had been marked down. He was really too big for the cage/kennel that he was in.  That bothered me. Also, they had a hawk and a couple of owls on sale too.  It just seems wrong to me to have wild birds in cages.  

We had drinks at the McDonalds and then headed out. As it was now 6 pm I suggested dinner. On our way back from the mall, we’d passed a sushi place. I suggested going there.  F did a google searched and found an address. I assumed he’d pick the closest one, but we drove for miles to find the right place.  Our meal was fine, but I was surprised about where we had dinner.

We drove back to Tsuruoka. We had a fairly good trip back. F had a bit of a heavy foot though and I was asking him to slow down. He did for a while.

Back at the house, K had already gone to bed. We haven’t seen her yet.  

It’s crazy stupid late now and I have to get at least some sleep or I’ll never wake up tomorrow. Come back later if you dare and see what happens. Until tomorrow….