The day before…

Everybody was here – no more hoping there would be no flight delays, or working out times to meet and greet people.  But that doesn’t mean there’s time for rest – too many things to see and do!

Kaoru took Julia, Ella and James shopping for the day, to get some things for Ella.  Aunty Linda and Uncle Owen went out with some friends of theirs.  Brett and Naomi had a “recovery” day.  I took Mum and Dad, Julia and David, Aunty Lynette, Michael and Leila and Andrew on a Sake Brewery tour.  It took us about an hour by multiple trains to get there, and I was still under the weather, but we got there OK.  From the train station I followed my maps on my phone to get to the location, which was about a 15 minute walk, and we made it with about 10 minutes to spare, so perfect timing!  The “PA to the GM” (I think) spoke English, so she took us on a tour, pretty much reading completely from notes.  There were some beautiful gardens and buildings, and we learnt a bit about the process too.  At the end we were given 3 sake’s to taste.

We had lunch at a Japanese restaurant on the premises.  They did a set course menu so we didn’t have to think about what everything was.  A few beers and sake with it made for another enjoyable meal.  It was then a 15 minute walk to the station, and hour or so train trip back to Shinjuku.

We all (except Aunty Linda and Uncle Owen) met in the lobby and caught taxis to Gonpachi for our feast there.  We had been eating so much over the last week that we didn’t eat a lot.  Just worked our way through the Appetisers, and ordered seconds of the ones we liked.  We caught taxis back to the hotel and called it a night.