We met at 7.45 to get to the cafe by 8.00 for breakfast. Because it’s the only one in town, Kaoru thought it may be busy so we should get there early. We easily got a table, but again, 15 minutes later and we wouldn’t have. We could see people lining up outside as we ate. We could also see a line forming at the bakery next door – and that was before the place even opened! After breakfast we went back to the hotel, packed our suitcases and caught a taxi at 10.00 to Okasan and Otosan’s house in Nasu. Whilst Kaoru and I were going to be going back to Kuroiso for the night, we were moving to Nasu tomorrow – so to make things easier we brought our suit cases in the taxi, and we can catch a bus tomorrow. The traffic wasn’t bad at all, which was good as it was the start of Obon weekend. It took us about half an hour to get there. Kaoru’s parents were happy to see us. Everything was so green! And whilst it was warm, it was cooler than we had experienced the last week or so. We went straight inside, where we were greeted with a table of food – some fried chicken, and then Okasan cooked some “cheese in gyoza wrappers” (something Kaoru does for our parties sometimes). Mio had sent some beers to the house, so Michael, Leila and I went through them.

We had a walk around the garden. Okasan showed us the rose I gave Kaoru for valentines day some 11 years ago – she had planted it in the garden. Then took a cutting, so has a couple of rose bushes there. And also gave a cutting to another friend! So it was a good one! Then the 4 of us went for a walk. We only got as far as the Shito-san’s house on the corner. They were outside, so showed us around their garden. We had seen them on previuos trips – Mrs Shito-san played the flute for us. And she remembered us all (hard to forget the 4 aussies who keep coming back!). We spent probably 45 minutes there, before moving along for our walk, but as it was after 12.30 we made it a shorter walk. We then returned to the house for some lunch and more beer.

We posed outside for our usual photo out the front of the house. Then Otosan drove us to the safari park, and we walked about 5 minutes down the road to the bus stop. We got off a few stops down the road – at the cheese factory. After a walk around there, we ordered afternoon tea, and then walked back to the bus stop to catch the next bus to Kuroiso. We didn’t have to wait too long, which was lucky as there was quite a bit of traffic so everything will be running late. We went back to our rooms and I had a sleep, with the plan to meet at 6.45. Kaoru found that the ramen restaurant we were thinking of going to closed at 7, so we left at 6.30 instead as we were all ready. However they were sold out of ramen! Luckily we had seen a soba place closer to the station so we went to that. They close at 8, and were able to fit us in. So we had our last meal together, enjoying some beer and a sake tasting paddle each (Kaoru just had a yuzu sake). During dinner we had heard a hanabi (fireworks) and could see them above a building. As we left the restaurant we could hear music – so we followed the sound to see what was going on. It was a bonodori festival – at the primary school. The temporary structure they had put in was amazing – absolutely massive. They were playing live music, and kids dancing around in a (massive) circle. Kaoru explained to us that she used to do this, but the music was regional, so she didn’t know the songs they were playing and dancing to. We couldn’t eat anything as we were full, but I watched an enormous batch of hiroshimayaki being made.

We then went back to the hotel. We were all pretty tired so no dessert / drinks tonight. We watched some TV, had a shower, and went to bed.