Once again Kaoru was up with the sparrows and in the bath.  I got up about 7.00 and had a shower, and then decided a 5 minute soak wouldn’t go astray.  We met Michael and Leila for breakfast at 7.30, which was the usual feast.

We went to our room and packed up, and met again just before 9, to catch the free shuttle to Nikko town at 9.05.  In town we walked around the (open) shops for a bit, and then made our way down to the train station to catch a 9.40 train out of Nikko.  We had a 16 minute changeover en-route, and were then on our way back to Shinjuku. Had a call from Dave along the way – a problem with his DNS entries that I had changed on my way out the door on Friday to come to Japan.  So a lot of the trip was passed by me trying to fix that.

Once we arrived in Shinjuku we walked to Michael and Leila’s “house” for the next 10 (or so) days.  It was a nice little apartment in Shinjuku, and close to the station, as well as our hotel.  They got their bearings, and then we went for lunch.  Kaoru had found a “taco rice” place in Shinjuku, which was the other side of the Washington Hotel (where we were staying, and all our bags were, so gave Michael and Leila a good sense of direction).  Lunch was really nice – it was kind of like a taco, but with rice instead of a shell.  It looked large but went down very easily.

We walked back to the Washington Hotel, and Kaoru and I checked in, and got all our bags out of storage.  Michael and Leila then walked backto their house, and Kaoru and I went to our room.  I had some work to do (setting up email on a temporary computer for Brett, as his decided to shit itself), and the hour we had went very quickly.  We then had to leave to meet up with Michael and Leila for our next activity – massages!

Kaoru had found a place and booked us for a 4.00 massage, for an hour.  So we turned up and filled in the forms, and went with our masseuses.  I have had a few massages in Tokyo before but none quite like this!  There was a lot of manipulation, and moving me around throughout.  It wasn’t as relaxing as previous ones.  But after all the walking we had been doing the last couple of days, I was happy to see what it does.

After the massage Kaoru and Leila went to buy some items from the chemist.  I’m seeing things through new eyes having Michael and Leila there, as they are noticing things that used to surprise me – like how noisy the chemist is!  We then walked in to the Pachinko parlour “for the experience”.  As expected, it was extremely noisy, and smokey.  We walked around in awe for about 5 minutes, and then left.

It was only 5.45, but we started looking for an Izakaya for dinner.  We needed an early night as tomorrow will be an early start.  Eventually we found one, which had touch screen ordering from the tables.  The drinks were going down too well, and the food was nice and simple, in small serves.  So we stayed for a while, but eventually had to call it a night.

On the way home, we stopped at a convenience store and got dessert.  We said good night, and went our separate ways for the night.  Kaoru and I re-packed our bags, and called it a night about 9.30….with an alarm set for 2.45…