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.