Rainy, snowy, and cold.
We had a great trip to Niigata. Yesterday I made omelettes for us before we left and Fumihiko made a flask of coffee for us to take with us. It had snowed a bit overnight, so yesterday was the first morning that we woke up to find snow on the ground. It didn't stay long, but it was kind of nice!
We left around 12 and got to Niigata just after 4pm. Part of the drive there was scary. The road goes right by the coast and there were extremely high waves. At one point a wave came right over the barriers and the wall and hit us! Fumihiko laughed at me because I ducked. When we got to Niigata we checked into our hotel and then went shopping at the bookstore. I got some magazines and three paperbacks. Happy days! After that, we fulfilled a dream of Fumihiko's. We went to a steak restaurant in Niigata and he had a pound steak. Yup, one pound of meat. I did not have one pound, I had a half pound steak. They were good. Ever since Fumihiko found out that the restaurant offered a one pound steak, he's been talking about having it.
After the steak we did a bit more shopping. We checked out the movies, but sadly there wasn't anything playing, so we visited a Starbucks and then went back to our hotel. Unbelieveably, Fumihiko got hungry later on, so we went to an izakaya for more food! We went back to the hotel and after bathing, went to bed.
Today we got up early-ish and had breakfast in the hotel. It was rather nice. At 11 we checked out and went to the car. Fumihiko had parked it the night before after leaving me at the hotel with the bags. That was a little bit of a recipe for disaster as Fumihiko isn't too good at remembering how to get places. We did get to the car, but it wasn't a sure thing! We got in and drove to the La Foret building in the heart of Niigata. It's a nightmare of one ways around there, but Fumihiko did very well and we found a parking lot.
We went over to Mitsukoshi (the department store!) and I checked out their kitchenware section. They had a lot of great stuff, including....dum dum dum...a glass teapot that was almost the same as the one a certain person broke. He nicely bought it for me and we also got a hand coffee grinder and a corkscrew. He asked about getting free parking and the saleslady told him to talk to the person at the information desk. We were across the street again, making plans to put the shopping in the car when I realized that we hadn't got our parking stamps! We had to go back to Mitsukoshi for them. (Does that make it Mizukashi now?)
I went on a hunt for the HMV and found it, right where it always was, on the fifth floor. I looked around and waited for Fumihiko. He arrived after a while. He'd had trouble finding it too! It's really badly marked. Don't they want to be found? We looked around and bought a few dvds. I got an 80's pack of The Breakfast Club and St. Elmo's Fire, plus the first two seasons of The West Wing. Fumihiko got Porco Rossi and Kiki's Delivery Service....so he was on a real Miyazaki kick.
We had a decadent macciato in Starbucks. We also bought some chai tea for Fumihiko and some whole bean coffee for Fumihiko to use with his brand new coffee grinder.
After all this shopping it was time to go home. We were lucky and all of the shopping that we'd done covered the parking fee, so we didn't have to pay. We got on the road, and after one or two misdirections, headed on our way.
Leaving Niigata the road wasn't very nice. It was snowing then raining and then clear and back to rain again. It just couldn't make up it's mind what it wanted to do. I was alternatively nervous and sleepy. I had moments when I couldn't keep my eyes open. Luckily I wasn't driving. We had a quick and late lunch in Murakami at a Tsukiya and then got back on the road. The waves along the coast weren't quite as bad today, and we made it home just after 5.
We did computer stuff and unpacking for a while, then went out for dinner. It was at Gusto. Fumihiko said he wanted to go to the evil place, but when I said it was okay, said he was joking. Hmm. We came straight home after dinner.
We'd made plans over our meal to watch a video. (Sorry, that should be DVD) Fumihiko really wanted me to see Laputa, so that's what we watched. It was great. I enjoyed it very much. We originally planned to watch two movies tonight, but I begged off the second one as I was tired and hoped to get to bed early. Ha ha ha. Fumihiko turned on the telly and there was The Color Purple, a movie that I've never seen before. I didn't plan to watch it, it's been on my list of movies that I want to watch when I'm in the mood for it, but I never have been. Anyway, we watched it. It was good, but oh so sad in places. Whoopi Goldberg was great, as was Oprah. Why doesn't that woman act more?
It's now 3:30 am and I've just finished a glass of wine. If my typing is worse than usual, you can blame the wine rather than me! I'm now planning to get to bed soon. I rarely drink wine so it makes me very sleepy. Anyway, I'll bid all of you adieu. Good night!
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