No alarms.  Nothing to wake up for.  What bliss!!!  Just lots of traffic as this is the official start to golden week.  I woke up around 8.00 and Kaoru was already up and at it.  I was feeling sore in areas I hadn’t felt sore for a long time, after our travelling.  We had masuzushi sushi for breakfast, which we had bought back in Toyama.  Mazuzushi is done in the “Oshizushi”, or “pressed” style.  The packing was in true japanese style – just beautiful.  It was wrapped in bamboo leaves, then served in a thin wooden (almost balsa wood) dish, with cross pieces to hold it all together tightly.

After breakfast I spent some time catching up on work things.  A skype to Brett to deal with a problem back home – the usual stuff.  A bit more work, and then Kaoru and I went out to lunch.  It was quite warm outside so I wasn’t very hungry.  I was thinking cold noodles would be nice, but we couldn’t find anywhere that had them.  Apparently it was too early in the season for it to be the “norm” in Japan.  So we ended up at a western style shop and had a roll and a macha latte.  That should keep us going.

We then started to walk back to the house, chatting away, when somebody came up to us and asked Kaoru if she spoke English (obviously knowing she did as he could hear us talking).  He was Russian and just arrived.  He had dropped his bags off at his hotel but couldn’t check in yet, and had no money.  So we took him to a Western Union Credit Union to change money – good deed for the day done!

Back at home we packed our bags for the afternoon, and then went out to spoil ourselves after our week away – with a massage!  It was an hour of just relaxing and having all the sore muscles worked on – what more could you ask for?

We walked back to the house, grabbed our bags, had a quick beer, and then we were away again.  We walked to the train station, and on the way could see some Westerners talking to a Japanese person, who looked very confused.  Kaoru said to me “we are going to have to help these people now” – thinking maybe they were friends of the guy we helped earlier.  They were trying to find the hotel they were staying at, but hadn’t checked in yet.  We pointed them in the right direction and then went to the train station ourselves.

We caught the two trains we did last Saturday after I arrived, and Mio picked us up from the train station.  We went back to her house for a drink, and then caught a taxi to dinner.  Yoichi and Arisa were already there waiting for us.  This was a “deep fried” night – similar to what we had in Kyoto with Mum and Dad, and Aunty Linda and Uncle Owen last April, except it was cooked for us rather than us having to do it.  There was a collection of sauces, and every few minutes a new skewer, cooked and ready to go, was put on a plate.  We dipped it in a sauce, ate it, and put the empty skewer in a holder.  How easy was that????

After dinner we came back to Mio’s, had a drink and had a relaxing bath before going to bed, ready for tomorrow’s adventure…