Kaoru came in to wake me at 6.45. I was already awake but just laying in bed. So I got up, and was able to say goodbye to Minami before she left for school. I had a look at her school bag – it had soooo many books in it! Apparently she needs them all at home and also at school each day, so needs to carry them. I’m sure she could plan and leave some at school – she gets home so late there’s no way she could open them all in the evening. But there you go. So we said goodbye, and then I went back to bed for a bit.
I got up and Kozue made me breakfast – pizza toast, a banana, yoghurt with honey (from Beechworth) and a hard boiled egg. It got me charged for the day. Kaoru re-packed our bags, while I did my morning email tidy up. We said our goodbyes, and headed for the train station about 11.00, with 3 suitcases, my camelback, and Kaoru’s bag. It was sunny and hot, so we just took it easy. At the station we caught the elevator down, and got on the train for Setagaya-Daita (about 3 stops away).
We got off the train – there was some beautiful greenery in the station! We had a look at the view from one end of the station, which faces Mount Fuji. Unfortunately whilst it was blue skies, it was too hazy to see anything. So we went to the other side of the (small) station, and walked to our hotel. Kozue and Kenichi had paid for us for a night out, for Kaoru’s birthday. Kozue knew of this hotel because she works in this town. We dropped our bags at reception, and were able to do most of the check-in process, before going to explore the town, carrying just my camelback. Only problem – all we saw going to the hotel were gaijins!
We wandered down a beautiful path that made us feel like we were no where near Tokyo. At a little shop we did the touristy thing (as were lots of other non-Japanese people) and purchased shoe pastry from a little shop, which is famous for Totoro shaped figures.
Ultimately it was pretty average tasting. Kaoru had a custard filling, and I had the macha filling. We found a spot in the shade to eat them, and enjoy the little rest (not that we had done much since our last stop!).
We then continued down the path, before finding the “town” of Shimokita. This was a place Michael and Leila stayed at a few years ago, after we had finished our “festival crawl”. It was a “hip” town, gaijin EVERYWHERE…not really the sort of place I liked. It’s certainly better getting out of the city to see Japan. Because it was so touristy, everything was quite expensive.
The town was full of seconds clothes shops. We went in to one, only because it was what you were supposed to do. We stopped for some lunch at a curry restaurant. I had thought it was going to be Japanese curry (why would you want anything else in Japan, right?). It was disappointed to find that was not the case, and all of them were quite spicy. We ordered one each and had a slow lunch to help pass the time and stay out of the heat. Not really my ideal food, but it was done.
We continued exploring the town to pass some more time, before going to the 7-11 near our hotel, to withdraw some money – the exchange rate is still good, and we want to put some money in to Kaoru’s bank over here while we can. We then returned to our hotel – just after 3.00. The Yuen Bettei Daita.
After a briefing of the bath times (4.00 – damn, we were hoping to be able to use it straight away), we were taken up to our room, which already had our bags in it. WOW. This was an amazingly beautiful, Japanese style room.
It was absolutely massive, had a wet room with a shower (no bath), a separate toilet room….it everything was of the finest quality. What a present! We had some time to kill before 4.00, so we had a cup of tea, and I started to prepare our lounge invitations for the trip home. I have 2 that expire in July so it makes sense to use it on the Sydney->Melbourne journey. Unfortunately they are domestic only, as we would much rather use them at Haneda.
We went downstairs for our bath. It was a beautiful area. The water is sourced from Hakone! It was about 4.10, and there were a couple of guys washing, who then LEFT. So I don’t know how that worked. There was another Japanese person who was getting changed to go in as I entered the area. But the bath was generally empty. In the girls, there was somebody there in a bikini, apparently. She was sitting outside the bath, but Kaoru was hoping she wasn’t thinking of wearing it in there. There were signs up about proper washing etiquette, no tattoos, no clothing, etc.
After my bath, in the “waiting area” (between the ladies and mens bath areas), there were complimentary icy poles. So I grabbed a cookies and creme one, before returning to the room. I wasn’t expecting to see Kaoru for a while, but she came back about 10 minutes later, still eating her icy pole. We then organised our clothes for tomorrow, and Kaoru re-packed everything. This gave us an idea of how much space we had, which was actually more than we were expecting. There may be some shopping in our future…..
We headed out about 6.15 to find somewhere for dinner. We weren’t overly optimistic of a “special” last dinner in Japan, based on what we had seen earlier. But at least it was cooler so we could look at places and take our time. We ended up at a gyoza / ramen restaurant, so had 8 gyoza to share, and a ramen each. After dinner we went to a convenience store to buy some sake and dessert. But it didn’t have cold sake! So we went to another one – same thing! We ended up at a supermarket close to our hotel, and that didn’t have it either, so I just got room temperature sake, an ice cream, some chocolate to bring home, and Kaoru got a pudding.
We returned to our room to enjoy our dessert, and were then quite full, so had to let food settle for 20 minutes or so before going for another bath. This time both the ladies and the mens were empty. I had an icy pole on my way out and returned to the room. Kaoru took a while longer before coming back. We then ordered complimentary ochazuke. I ordered it in Japanese, but when they asked me a question I had to ask them to repeat it in English. They then went back to Japanese as they could tell I was trying to communicate in Japanese. They were very patient and helpful, which was appreciated. I also had the sake I purchased.
We watched a bit of TV and went to bed, sad about our last night in Japan, but in a beautiful place.
