Kaoru woke up early this morning and went for a massage in the massage chair, and a bath. She came back to the room about 7, just as I was waking up. I had a shower and we went down for breakfast.

Breakfast was another buffet of all we could eat and more. I was able to have tamago kake gohan, as well as serve my own tofu through a tube similar to string cheese, and also reheat my own fish.

We went back to our room and packed our bags, in time to check out and catch the 9.00 transfer. We caught the train from Himi, made our 3 minute train change at takaoke and arrived at Namerikawa, where we were spending the night. Our hotel was next to the train station so we dropped our bags off and then went back to start the days activities.

We had about 10 minutes before or train was arriving and Kaoru had a question for the station attendant before we left. There were two people in front of us but it may as well have been 50 for how slow they were. She asked which platform the train would come on, just as it arrived… And we had no chance of getting to it. So we slowly made our way as the next one was about 20 minutes away.

Eventually a train came and we got on. There was nobody manning the platform and we worked out how to get a ticket on the train. About 30 seconds after we started moving I asked Kaoru if we were going the right way. The one platform did both directions! As we pulled in to the next station we could see what we were pretty sure was our train sitting there-the time was right. But it pulled out before our doors opened. So we were pretty annoyed.

The next train was about 45 minutes away so after some cursing we decided to try to find somewhere to get a hot chocolate. We walked for about 10 minutes without even a hint, but then saw a crepe shop. So we went there and Kaoru had a macha ice cream one, and I had pineapple and ice cream. We then made our way back to the train station, determined to get this one!

After about a 10 minute wait the train we needed arrived and we were on our way…albeit 2 hours behind. But we didn’t let that deter us. We were on a mission. We got off the train at Unazuki station and were sure we were at the wrong place. It was a beautiful village set in the hills but could it really have what we were looking for? Well, it didn’t take long to find a sign pointing us the right way…And we found what we were looking for.

In here we had lunch, and a tasting paddle of beer. The meal was a buffet, and we didn’t *need* a lot, but we got our money’s worth! The beer curry was what we really wanted to taste for the meal, which was quite nice. But the interesting part which got us to travel for an hour to taste was the beer flavored soft serve! Unfortunately this wasn’t included in the buffet so we had to buy it as we left. I couldn’t really taste it at first but Kaoru did right from the start.

We made our way back to the train station and continued on to Kurobe,  where we caught a train through the Kurobe gorge. The key thing here is how close it is to where we were a couple of nights ago. Just coming at it from another side. The round trip was about 90 minutes, and we were both quite tired, but as we had seen some of the bridges and scenery of where the train went, we had to do it. The journey was very picturesque  and enjoyable. It was just what we needed to relax for a while. We saw the winter access tunnel which for the most part ran alongside the train track. It’s hard to believe that when the snow is heavy people will walk through that. The train was originally for getting workers up the mountain but has become more public in recent times due to the beauty of the area.

At the bottom we killed some time and caught the next train back to Namerikawa and checked in. It was after 6.00. We got to our room and had a beautiful view as the sun was just about to set behind the mountains across the bay. Kaoru put a load of washing on while i got some work done. Then we went out for dinner. The recommendation from the hotel was a place owned by a relative of somebody who works at the hotel. But Kaoru had said she wanted sushi in this area as it was famous for it so i overruled the call.

It was only about 10 minute walk to find this small sushi bar with a couple in one corner and another guest at the other side. We sat at the bar and were asked for a drink order.  I felt like a sake but there were so many to choose from.  The person sitting by himself suggested one, so I thought why not?  So for the rest of the night the other people wanted to know more about us, but didn’t speak any English.  So Kaoru chatted to them, and I ate some amazing sushi!  It started with the firefly squid, which are local to this area, and the reason we had come.  These ones were cooked though, and served with some miso paste.  Then we had more served raw, and then the sushi master just kept serving us sushi until we asked him to stop.  The food was amazing, and apart from the guy smoking, it was an extremely enjoyable night.  Kaoru was enjoying chatting to locals and learning a bit about the area in the process.  When we came to paying the bill, the owner gave us a mug with the places name written on it to take home!  And it was considerably cheaper than Kaoru was expecting it to be, which was good.

We got back to the hotel not long after 9.00, and the dryer was still in use.  Whilst Kaoru had done a load of washing, the dryer wasn’t free.  We had seen a laundromat up the road on our walk to dinner, so we took the washing there to dry it, and then went home, set the alarm and went to bed.