Day 17 isn’t a full day but the day we traveled back from Japan. We did most of our last-minute shopping yesterday so we could just relax before getting on the plane. Surprisingly I didn’t have the pre-flight sleeplessness though I did have something like it last night. And I stayed up until 10pm which meant I had a 30 hour day without feeling woozy towards the end. Strange.

I also slept OK last night. Wanted to sleep in but I had to get up for the housecleaners (who didn’t come) and to let the HVAC guy get into my neighbor’s garage. He’s quite friendly and told me why the furnace was broken, why it needs replacing, and how much a new one costs. I was surprised he could do it all in one day!

Back to Japan. We got a lazy start and went out to my favorite Hoshino coffee which has pancakes! Very few locations seem to have them. Mariko isn’t a huge pancake fan but the ones are Hoshino are more cake-y. We discussed our shared childhood trauma of box pancakes and Aunt Jemima syrup. These are much better.

I have a second pancake is under the egg.

Mariko had a giant salad and one pancake.

Then it was time to pack and then wait for the ride to the airport. At the airport we wandered around for a while and got soft ice cream (matcha and hojicha swirl, which was the best).

Mariko got a fancier one. But the same ice cream flavors.

Then it was off to the lounge where we both got the traditional mini-ramen (no pictures this time) and a couple of snacks. Chatted with a couple who sat across from us and they were so nice.

The plane flight was fairly uneventful. There’s only one meal and one “breakfast” served so that usually leaves a lot of time for movies. The entertainment system for my seat was acting up and they had to reset it four times before they just gave me some miles and gave me the option to sit in a bulkhead coach seat just to watch the movies. I took them up on the offer and I watched some winners: Bad Boys (which I had never watched before), Bad Boys II, and Deadpool and Wolverine (again). I went back to my seat and while I couldn’t do much with my screen, it did have a limited selection of movies available so I watched part of The Beekeeper (again). 

And that’s it for this trip. I didn’t feel the dread I usually feel when coming home. I guess that’s probably because I don’t work at Intel any more. Hahaha. Oddly, one of the things I started fantasizing about is doing my laundry. And when I got home I did HOURS of laundry. Hahaha.

Today was mostly a travel day and the last full day in Japan. At least I hope so. A couple of years ago my flight was delayed and I was in Japan an extra full day, mostly in the airport. It turned out OK.

I woke up a lot last night but felt more rested than the day before. Can’t really explain it. I usually sleep pretty well in an APA hotel. I guess Mariko likes the harder beds everywhere else but the slightly softer bed at APA is more to my liking.

We went to Hoshino Coffee for breakfast. Mariko just had toast and a hard-boiled egg with her coffee. I had one of the more elaborate morning sets which really wasn’t that elaborate. One of the Hoshino Coffees in Shinjuku has pancakes and egg and bacon.

After that it was a 3+ hour shinkansen ride from Okayama to Tokyo. I remember it took four hours or so but maybe I’m misremembering. We sat on the side away from Mt Fuji (which looked socked in from where I sat) and a bunch of seats on the other side was a big group from SE Asia all with large suitcases. Fortunately, the green car accommodates those pretty well.

Anyway, we had ekiben from Okayama Station. Mariko had inari sushi.

I had the Okayama Station bento. Shrimp with small clams, potato salad, very stale karaage on the top row. Sukiyaki and rice on the bottom left. Egg and ham, vinegared fish and something, seaweed, and finally kinako mochi. It was pretty good.

We got to Tokyo and did some final shopping. Bought some candy and a new kitchen timer. We had dinner at the same place in Keio Department Store as we did before with our friend Chico but we went fancier this time.

Mariko’s started with the yudofu that I forgot to take a picture of last time we were here.

She had the matsutake dinner. Lots of mushrooms in the tempura. Matsutake in the rice and in the soup in the kettle.

I had the yuba and maguro.

Mine ended up with ochazuke with yuba flakes on the rice but I ate it before I remembered to take a picture.

Mariko wanted to get more strawberry daifuku at a store at NewWoMan (pronounced Newman) but it was actually inside the station! We had to pay ¥150 to go in and go right back out. It was worth it to get the daifuku, but the best we had was in Kamakura.

While we were screwing around we met a woman from Oz who was completely lost. We got her on a train to her station, but I hope she made it to her final destination.

Woo, I was tired this morning and I ate way too much last night. We met Yumi later but I wasn’t hungry at all so I had one of the box juices from the conbini for breakfast. Our first stop was food anyway, a very popular bakery in Soja named Bon Bon.

We got there a half hour early and there was no one else waiting. By the time they opened, there was a line.

Everything was fresh, large, and made with whole wheat flour or at least flour that was less processed that most.

One of my favorites was the “scone” that said it was the most popular item. It was somewhere between a scone and a biscuit and I loved it.

My seconf favorite was the sausage baked into a very dense bread.

After that we went to the five storied pagoda of Bitchu Kokubunji Temple. Finally, I got to see a proper pagoda this trip.

After that we went to Kibitsu Temple to meet Yumi’s brother, sister-in-law, and nephew. Her nephew was in very good spirits because he just got a new job and bought a new car. This is a Toyota Yaris that’s tricked out from the get-go for racing.

I thought I took a picture of the shrine. It’s so old that it seems like a temple. Back in the old days they were intermixed. It looked more like a temple, there was incense burning, and the priests looked like Buddhist priests. I thought I took a picture but I didn’t. Here’s one from Yumi of my sister buying traffic safety promoting stickers.

We parted ways with Yumi’s brothers’ family and went to Japan’s biggest candy warehouse. I was a bit disappointed because I thought it would have more old-school treats and that it would have warehouse-like prices. I guess it is a tourist destination so the prices are only slightly cheaper than normal.

Yumi found a coffee shop in the middle of nowhere that was very old-school. Lemon squash, cream soda, fruit parfait, etc. but it looked renovated and was run by a younger looking gentleman. I wish I could come back and try more things!

Yumi and Mariko got coffee floats!

After that it was dinner at a traditional Japanese restaurant that we’ve been to before. I got the same thing Mariko did, the pork filet katsu and I was not expecting it to be this elaborate. I still was semi-full from the day before, but I ate this whole thing.

I even had some of the amazake ice cream dessert. It seemed more like ice milk and tasted more like the kinako than the amazake so and it was light and refreshing.

Thanks to Yumi for a fun visit!

Oh, and the bonus picture – the pitch that got dropped on my head yesterday. Very very sticky and a bigger blob than it looks like here.

It’s been a very long day and I just had to wash mayonnaise out of my hair so let me post some pictures with comments coming later.

OK, we met our friend Yumi fairly early this morning and had to leave by 7am and didn’t get back until 9pm-ish. We went to a bakery at the station for breakfast that was the only thing open. I really didn’t need two bread things plus the yogurt, but there was a “set” deal that also got my coffee included.

Yumi drove us to Mt. Daisen which, as it’s name states, is a mountain. Everything from the parking lot is up.

There’s a little village with not much there. TabiEats was there and had a video on YouTube about it.

Up one of the longest (the longest?) stone path in Japan is a temple and a shrine.

I was told the shrine is more interesting than the temple but I don’t know because we just went to the shrine.

We kept going up to a viewpoint where there was a clear view of Mt. Daisen.

And there it is, Mt. Daisen.

We went back down to the village to get lunch we had curry and ran into members of Yumi’s climbing group.

After that we drove on the loop around the mountain to see some more fall views.

On the way back to Okayama, we stopped at a gelato store kind of in the middle of nowhere. They’re right next to the dairy areas and have prize-winning gelato. The closest is mine, Yuzu and Strawberry. Back left is Mariko’s, Kinako and Matcha. Back right is Yumi’s, Matsutake and Golden Milk. Lots of the flavor advertised and quite tasty.

Back at Okayama we went out to yakiniku with Yumi’s running group and it was an old-school store with gas grills.

I ate too much and I’m quite tired from the mountain. That’s about it for the day.

Oh, yeah, while on the mountain I got a glob of pine sap in my hair. A big glob. I didn’t know how I was going to get it out and every time I forgot and touched it I had pitch all over my fingers. We figured I could buy some cooking oil or peanut butter (like I’ve seen peanut butter here) to get it out but what I found was a mini bottle of mayonnaise at the combini. It worked great and didn’t take that much so now I have most of a mini-bottle of mayo to throw out.

We’re off to Okayama where my sister worked for a year, to visit friends. The night in the hotel wasn’t that bad but it was kind of smoky and cigarette smoke can trigger Mariko’s migraines. The breakfast there changes from year to year but this year it was quite minimal. That’s a very soft boiled egg that goes on the. The miso soup was in packets that required hot water, and the onions were freeze-dried in another packet. I also got a slice of toast and some weak but not bad tasting coffee.

We left Hikari and the station amazingly had three electronic gates. Other than that it really hasn’t change in years, other than the reduced frequency of trains.

Here’s the Sanyo Line that goes from, well, somewhere to Iwakuni. We rode on the train in the other direction. I think it’s an electric train because I didn’t hear diesel engines. There’s probably a pantograph somewhere but it’s hard to see with the overpass structure in the way.

We made it to Okayama with no real problems. This time my sister took a silly picture of herself.

We went to Nana Green Tea for lunch and I made the mistake of getting a latte. Dairy and I aren’t getting along any longer so I felt like I had a rock in my stomach for most of the afternoon. That’s passable taco rice with miso soup that once again tasted like it came out of a packet.

Mariko didn’t even get matcha. She had the ground chicken.

We went shopping in the afternoon and then out to get tonkatsu for dinner. I got something that looked small in the pictures but in real life it was kind of big. Roast tonkatsu on the left, two “bite sized” filet tonkasu on the right. They were both cut in half and each half was more than a bite. Mariko told me I didn’t need to eat the whole thing so I left some shredded cabbage.

And that’s it for the day. Oh, I had a giant ichigo daifuku but there’s no picture of it.

OK, weird pictures today because we were going from the middle of nowhere (Yuda Onsen at the edge of Yamaguchi City) to the middle of nowhere (Hikari City, where my grandma’s house used to be) to visit my cousin. As an added bonus her daughter was in town with her two kids! I finally got to meet her husband, whose name I forgot TWICE. He seems really nice.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. First we had breakfast and I kept it light since I knew we were having lunch with my cousin and because I did NOT sleep well last night because I ate a bunch of garlic and that made my stomach hurt. Oddly enough, I felt less tired than yesterday and my stomachache went away when I got up.

Checking google I noticed it was quicker to take the slow train than the Shinkansen because of wait times between the trains. We wasted the extra high-speed fare between two stations but that was only ¥970! Some of the Shinkansen stations are pretty close together.

I noticed that the first train stop abandoned the second rail and the second platform. A lot of people in the rural areas have purchased cars and rail use is falling.

You can see that it’s a diesel train, and not an electric train like most of the busier lines.

The local train that we took instead of the Shinkansen is electric.

We met for lunch and most of us had the daily special of tandoori chicken. It came with a small slice of quiche and sweet potato with mustard seeds.

My sister doesn’t like fatty chicken and was also afraid it might have onions so she had the mentaiko pasta with shiso leaves on top.

Most of the afternoon we spent with our cousin and we also got to shop at Jusco. This is the first time my sister didn’t buy anything at the Tamura Craft Store!

We’re staying at a very old school hotel and they finally upgraded to cardkey doorlocks! It was physical keys for years. I like it but my sister is kind of over the place. At least the toilet seats are sanitarized.

We were going to go to Joyfull for dinner but we’d just been to a family restaurant. We decided to try the Donk cafe. I had the hamburg steak with shaved daikon and it came with some goya tempura. 

Mariko got the tempura donburi.

It wasn’t great but it was good. We hit the Family Mart on the way back and I got some pumpkin pudding that I didn’t take a picture of. It was really tasty. Oh and today’s bonus pic is a tiny camper van we saw on a back street.

More pictures today because, I dunno. This was a full day in Yuda Onsen, which really is right next to Yamaguchi City, the Prefectural capital of my ancestral home. Ancestral home. That sounds so regal when my family were probably dirt farmers. Mud farmers is more likely since that’s how rice grows.

I slept pretty well considering I woke up 3 times very early in the night. Unfortunately the alarm went off when I was in a deep sleep, or was I since I remember a weird dream about being in the Intel parking lot and a co-worker had a Ferrari instead of his ancient Civic, and a Hispanic dude was giving me a bicycle he’d welded together from odd parts. TMI, I guess. Either way I got a very slow start.

Breakfast was at the hotel, buffet style. I got a little of a lot of things. Not a little of everything since there were too many things.

That reminds me, I don’t remember seeing any natto.

We walked an hour to Rurikoji Temple which has one of the “three famous pagodas of Japan” according to one sign I saw. I was looking forward to seeing it. The temple had the main doors closed so we didn’t see much. I’m visiting temples less and less. They’re stately and calming but they remind me of funerals and my impending demise. Lately I like to stick to shrines.

Behind the temple, through the closed Misunokamigami pottery shop, was a horse and the Reiwa Great Buddha (also known as the Corona Buddha). It was started by an artist group to make 1000 smaller Buddhas which are held on shelves of the larger Buddha. Probably hard to see in the picture since you can’t go in the horse paddock.

Then we wandered around the temple grounds to see the magnificent pagoda.

Yep, it’s undergoing renovation. Phooey.

My sister’s friend was obessed with the 7Eleven smoothie situation, so we decided to try them for lunch. I’ve been eating too much so I figured that would help tide me over until cake in the afternoon, and then dinner.

You get the cup from the freezer, pay for it, and then go to the machine. At the machine you scan the bar code from the top of the cup, put the cup in the machine, and off it goes blending your smoothie. Mariko got a Cafe Latte smoothie and she said it didn’t taste coffee-y enough.

Of course we saw soft ice cream soon afterwards (I often eat soft ice cream for lunch when I’m wandering around Japan in the heat).

Basically we wandered around town, had some baked goods and coffee, and then walked back up the hill to the prefectural museum when we realized it was only 12:30. It was one of the smaller prefectural museums I’ve been to. Fun, but there are others that are much better.

Oh, and there are maps all over. One thing I have to say, copy writers need editors too.

We had cake and I finally tried a Japanese Mont Blanc which had chestnut cream formed into the shape of Mont Blanc. I always thought it looked like the shape of an Ultraman monster and couldn’t imagine it would be great but it was quite light and tasty.

Mariko had a cheese cream thing? It was light and fluffy as well. I think most everyone who reads the blog (yeah, both of you) know Mariko and you can ask her what this was directly. I forget.

We went back to the hotel to get some towels so we could try two of the seven (Mariko says six) foot baths in the area. Oh, looking at the map I see my mistake. They’re lettered b-g. I assumed they’d start with a. So two of the SIX foot baths in the area.

The first was calming but not that warm. Kind of underwhelming if you ask me but in a nice quiet side area.

We skipped the ones on the busy street and went to the one in the park. Lots of kids playing soccer in the field and hoo boy this one was much warmer. My feet and calves were red by the time I got out.

Oh, and I remember seeing another foot bath on another map so SEVEN. Neener neener.

After a rest we looked for restaurants in the area (lots more drinking places than just restaurants). We settled on Gusto, a family restaurant chain, because it’s close and I wanted to see the delivery robot. I would say, go for the robot, go for the cheap food, go for the drink bar, but I won’t say go for the food.

If you’re going to a family restaurant, there Fujiya, Royal Host, Joyfull in this area, or even Denny’s and I bet they’re all better. But those places don’t have a robot.

And that’s it for today. I should get to bed soon because tomorrow we have to get on a train from nowhere to even more nowhere to visit another cousin who lives where my grandma’s house used to be.

Huh. I guess I’ve forgotten to do the crossword for several days. So much for my NYT streak.

My sister provided me with several pictures of, well, me looking goofy so let’s start with one where I was trying to get a tiny Japanese payphone that wasn’t yellow. I tried three times and failed.

It was our last morning in Osaka and we went to the Tully’s in the MBS building. I had a salad sandwich because my cousins said I was fat (and I am) but it didn’t help. My sister didn’t like hers so I ate two of them. I guess each was just half of a tiny sandwich so it wasn’t that bad.

Lots of broccoli. Hmmm. Also, Tully’s isn’t as good as I remember.

And then it was off to take the bullet train to Shin-Yamaguchi.

I insisted that there were more ekiben outside of the shinkansen station, in the regular train station, but my sister disagreed. I found out that this time I was correct. But here are the ekiben, first mine.

And then my sister’s.

From Shin-Yamaguchi we took a very old train (diesel, not running on overhead lines) to a station that had no attendants.

We’re staying at Onn Yuda Onsen, which is very nice. There’s not all that much going on here, but we did find some uiro (famous in Yamaguchi Prefecture and Nagoya). Here’s the sample they gave us.

Mariko wanted some coffee so we found a little bakery. Some sort of pistachio cream cake.

And for dinner we went to a very fancy curry restaurant with private rooms. The starter is drinkable salad (or a smoothie to us Americans).

I got the meat plate and Mariko got the little bear I think. We got to pick two curries to go with it and that’s why both sides are different colors. Mine had sukiyaki with egg, tonkatsu, and a little salad.

Here’s the other picture of me looking goofy.

It also came with a panna cotta dessert. I couldn’t read the kanji and thought it was strawberry (it tasted like strawberry) but when I figured it out it said “white peach”. Not sure what’s so white about it.

And that’s about it. We went to the very nice onsen attached to the hotel and it was odd for both of us. A Korean-looking young woman was swimming in the bath (usually forbidden) when my sister went. A dude with a full sleeve tattoo did a belly flop into the water bath (both usually forbidden) when I went. Yoots. What are you gonna do.

 

Another day in Osaka. We started out with a breakfast at Drip Cafe in the Hotel Vischio. It was surprisingly underwhelming. The ham and egg toast was bland but the bread was a little bitter. And the large coffees weren’t close to being full. I mean, it was OK but I think this might be why I had several hot dogs for breakfast at the same cafe last year.

Next we went to buy train tickets and the guy screwed up our discount. It’s kind of complicated so I don’t blame him, and I don’t know how much we would’ve saved. Whatever.

It was also the day we went to visit our cousins in Nishinomiya. We rode the Hankyu train which was the train I rode to get home when I lived near Osaka so many years ago. We usually take it to get to Hankyu Nishinomiya Gardens, a semi-fancy mall, walk to my cousin’s, and then take the JR train back since it’s closer to my cousin’s “mansion” (Japanese for apartment/condo).

We did a bit of shopping at the mall which is pleasantly not crowded, especially on a Monday. Muji, Uniqlo, Hankyu, and I think I bought something at the Joshin electronics store as well. For lunch we went to Tokyo Soup Stock where my sister had the keema curry and I think the Hokkaido soup. She ordered potage, but with 2.4% unemployment you get what you get.

I indecisively asked for suggestions and got the limited editions which included the Hokkaido soup and the mackarel and eggplant curry. It was a bit fishy but tasty.

We had a nice long chat with two of my cousins and then headed back to Umeda where we did some more shopping and had dinner at a soba shop. Both of us got the unlimited soba set and we only had what they brought us (those are stacks of soba). I had one of my sister’s soba plates. You’ll also notice that neither of us have shishito pepper tempura on our plates because we both ate it before either of us remembered to take a picture.

On our way back we went to check the gacha machines which led to us walking into the middle of a free idol concert. I would describe it as “pitchy”. The stairs we needed to use are to the right of the stage and I feel bad that I had my finger in my left ear as I walked by.

And that was about it for the day. Tomorrow we’re headed to Yamaguchi Prefecture where our family is from.

Not too many pictures today. There are some things that you really wouldn’t want pictures of.

We got a slow start and went to this old-school coffee shop for that’s underneath the Hankyu Umeda Station for breakfast. It’s half-smoking but it didn’t seem too smoky to me. It’s full of old guys looking at horse racing newspapers since there’s a giant OTB office right near the hotel.

Then it was off to do some shopping. The list of places Mariko wanted to go wasn’t too long, so I figured out how to get to an Autobacs Auto Supply to see the weird things she could get for her JDM car. It was near Namba, which is OK, but we came back through Shinsaibashi, or as I call it, China. For years it’s been full of Chinese shopping tourists. But back to Autobacs – it’s just a car parts store but it’s kind of fun. I saw at least three white guys come in to check it out and leave almost immediately. Yeah, fun but not all that much to see unless you’re looking for weird Japanese car gadget like cup holders or tiny garbage cans that fit into cup holders, Rain-X of multiple varieties, etc. You can also buy tires and have your car worked on if you live here.

So on the way back we went to “Strawberry Mania” and wanted to eat inside. Unfortunately they didn’t open and we both wanted to get the heck out of Shinsaibashi so we just got soft cream smoothies.

Some of you may recognize the weird tourist standing there. There’s another Strawberry Mania store near the Dotombori Bridge, but this one is much calmer. I took a poor excuse for an Instagram photo. The drink was very strawberry-y and I’d recommend it if you are cursed with having to be near this area.

On the way to the train station I saw a young blinged out SE Asian kid peeing on the wall behind the Louis Vuitton store but not only was he painting the wall, he was also walking along with his dick out peeing everywhere. Yeesh. It’s not like it’s a bad area. Right next to the Louis Vuitton store is a Bulgari store and the Apple Store is across the street.

Anyway, we got the heck out of there and went back to Umeda and had lunch. Souffle omurice!

Sadly, that’s the last picture of the day. We went to a couple of book stores to look for JDM kei car books for Mariko and also Loft where we bought some ridiculous stuff. Or at least I did. I got a ceramic coffee filter, the kind where you don’t need paper.

We weren’t that hungry at dinner time so we had combini dinner. I didn’t take a picture of the sando and Famichiki. Then Mariko was off for an expensive head massage and I went to Raffine for an hour-long massage. It was relaxing and not that intense and that’s it for the day!

 

We left Tokyo today and are in Osaka now but we started with breakfast at Hoshino Coffee. It’s a good thing I took a picture of my sister’s morning set because I failed to ake a picture of my own. Oh well, it had some more things on it but it was mostly the same.

Mariko wasn’t feeling 100% so I got us a taxi to Tokyo Station. Google was telling me I either had to take a taxi or the Yamanote line which weren’t great options. The subways require walking down a bunch of stairs which is awkward if you have suitcases and the Yamanote line would take about 40 minutes. The taxi didn’t cost THAT much so I’m glad I opted for it. The young driver zipped in and out of traffic without frightening us too much.

I bought my ekiben (more on that later) and we walked a long ways to find the ekitag. What a mess. Tokyo station is shaped like a horseshoe and of course I went to the wrong end. We had to rush a little to make it to our seats.

I got chicken namban since I like it, and the only issue is that it’s a little messy.

I see the Brit YouTuber complaining about ekiben but I think they’re wrong. It’s all personal preference, though.

I tried to take a picture of Mt Fuji but of course we’re going 186 mph and so you have to snap a lot of photos to try to get a good one. I was not too successful today.

We made it to Osaka without much trouble, checked into the hotel, and then wandered around. It’s warmer here than Tokyo and we went to see the new Green Front park. It’s not quite completed. We also went to Toki to get out usual snack of matcha shiratama (mochi balls in sweet matcha and bean paste).

We tried to go to Katsukura for a tonkatsu dinner but it wasn’t where it used to be! We stood in line at Grill Ron and had the mix fry set. It’s worth the wait and the line moves pretty fast.

And that’s it for today.

This isn’t the complete posting for the day. I’m getting dinner with an old co-worker so I thought I’d better get a head start. OK, I’ve added the last part of the day.

Usually Tokyo means I get breakfast at Hoshino Coffee (which we just came from but who needs a picture of just a coffee cup?) but the ones close by this hotel don’t open until 9am so we thought about getting breakfast downstairs. But downstairs is ¥1800 for what we usually pay ¥600-700 for. We went across the street to Pronto, where we both got this little set. The hard boiled egg was good but was the hardest to peel of any egg I can remember in recent history.

Mariko got us tickets to What Museum and it had two different parts. One was a collection of architectural models with no photos allowed. Some were even by Kengo Kuma! The other part was a modern art museum which I enjoy that also had Mariko in stitches at one point. There’s a giant inflated mylar enclosure with a water filled bag you’re supposed to roll around on. There’s a video of me rolling around on the bag but I don’t know how to upload videos here.

I didn’t take any other pictures inside the museum, but the museum café is about a block away and has a free gallery. The food and the coffee were pretty good.

We sat far away from the food window near an interesting display and an arty looking dude with a Ministry hoodie was getting photographed in front of it. Turns out the artist and from LA! Super nice guy, Gil Kuno, www.unsound.com. The dots flip and are from the old bus signs from 20 or so years ago. He had them switching and making sounds like a drum line. He’s also DJing on Sunday, though I won’t be here.

The What Museum is on Tennozu Isle and it was a nice walk to Shinagawa station.

Blah blah pedestrian bridge (I take these pictures quickly because I’m not selling them after all).

Blah blah bridge with train for those of you who like that sort of thing. There’s no driver because this is the back of the train.

We made it to Shinagawa station. Mariko’s friend Jen got me started on this EkiTag thing. Most stations have rubber stamps that you stamp in a “stamp book” but I’m guessing they’re hard to maintain so the EkiTag is a virtual stamp book using NFC technology. I walked around Shinjuku station for a while last night looking for the Shinjuku EkiTag but never found it. I decided just to ask the guy near the tickets at Shinagawa station and he said, “Um, they’re right in front of you.” But he helpfully pointed out that most of the stamps would be at the main ticketing window. When we got back to Shinjuku Station I found the tag right away! Two stamps down, a bazillion to go!

We got back to the hotel and my sister had a light dinner of corn tea, onigiri, and potato chips. I went to see my old co-worker and he bought me a fancy unagi dinner. The biggest problem is that he’s in the suburbs and the train was packed.

I got to Kichijoji Station early to look for the EkiTag and it wasn’t next to the rubber stamps. It was by the manned entrance. While looking for the tag I ended up walking into an automatic door and hit my head. I sure hope my headache wasn’t from that.

The eel place was great and he insisted I get the “special large” unagi. Same amount of rice but 1.5x the unagi. He got the normal size with extra rice.

After that we went to have some tea which really turned into both of us having mikan juice. He had a slice of rare cheesecake as well. The cafe on the 7th floor of the Kichijoji Department Store was a normal cafe but the uniforms were like maid costumes (though longer skirts than in a “maid cafe” and none of the cutesy stuff either).

And then we said goodbye until next year. We both got on “rapid” trains though mine only skipped 2 or 3 stations. I guess it’s the Special Rapid that skips most of them.