Again, the sun woke be up – but this time it was 4.00!  So I went back to sleep.  We had breakfast at 8 (similar to yesterday’s), and a nice relaxing morning.  It was a beautiful day – sun was shining and definitely shorts and T shirt weather!  After some cleaning up, we left the house at 11ish and went for lunch. We ate at a Chinesey restaurant. Kaoru wanted ramen so we ended up at this place.  I had an assortment of gyoza and Xiao Long Bao, which was delicious!  We managed to pay for this meal with Okaasan and Ottosan.

After lunch we walked to the station – because of the roadworks near the station it would be difficult to drive through, and it was < 5 minutes away.  So we said goodbye and made our way.  We had about 10 minutes to wait, which gave us time to buy a beer and some chocolate, and then caught the train to Nasushiobora.  There we had about 6 minutes before the Shinkansen left, to change platforms.  We were still walking to the “non reserved seats” section as the train pulled in.  We had to go all the way up to car 2 in order to find 2 seats next to each other, but eventually we were seated and on the way.  I worked the whole way to Tokyo unfortunately so didn’t get to enjoy the trip.  Kaoru managed a bit of sleep.

We went to Daimaru, which was quite a mission.  We had to go to the 13th floor to get a 5% off coupon (for travellers).  Then back down to the 1st floor to buy some sweets as gifts for people.  The 5% doesn’t work on food though.  Once we had bought it all, we had to go back to the 13th floor to get the GST refund.  So a bit of stuffing around, but all worked out in the end and killed some time.

We then went to a cafe and had an iced macha while I tried to finish the work I had been doing on the train.  We realised we didn’t have time to go back to Mio’s before meeting up with Mikiko and Yoshi for dinner.  So we went to Shibuya to get some of our shopping out of the way.  Kaoru wanted to buy some cosmetics, and then we went to Don Quiote where I decided to buy a USB Type C => Ethernet adapter for my laptop, and a USB hub.  I also got Darren a micro SD card.

We met up with Mikiko and Yoshi just after 6, and had a fantastic dinner with them (and beer, and sake……).  They had moved to Japan in August.  So we had a great catch up with them.  We were told last drinks, so it must have been a sitting that we were there for.  So we paid the bill and said goodbye.  We decided we could have a few drinks in Shibuya and then pick Arisa up from Juku on our way home and give Mio and Yoichi a night where they don’t have to go out later.  So we called Mio, but Arisa was already at home and in bed!  So instead we caught the train back to Sakura Shinmachie, and met them at the Italian restaurant for a couple of drinks and some food.  We then went back to their house and had several whisky’s, and Youichi showed us a number of the watches in his collection.  There were some amazing watches in there, and hearing the prices he paid just blew my mind.  We went to bed way too late.