Rainy and cloudy all day.
What a great weekend! Really, we had a very good time on our trip to Sendai. But, I'm ahead of myself again.
We overslept a bit yesterday and didn't get on the road as early as we wanted to, but we did well. We got into Sendai around 4 and went to the hotel. The slight problem was the hotel that Fumihiko thought we were going to was not the right one! There are two hotels with the same basic name but we were booked in at the other one! We'd stayed there before, so we found it quickly, but driving in Sendai is a bit tough as there are tons of one way streets. We booked in, and then went S-H-O-P-P-I-N-G. Yeah!
The first place we went was The Body Shop, where Fumihiko bought something for the very first time! He got some shaving cream. I didn't buy anything. Then we did a tour of Tower Records, (a couple of movies & the new Dixie Chicks cd), and then we made our pilgrimmage to the Apple Store. They were having a concert in the store with some really nice music. I wasn't too interested in the music though, I was there for the software! I got my new OS. I haven't tried to update it yet, I want to try saving some stuff first...I don't want to have to re-build my address book again! Then, we toured HMV where I got seasons 6 & 7 of Friends on DVD. I'm nuts! After a nice coffee, we dumped everything back in the hotel and went out again.
This time we went to the station area. I went to the import foods store first and picked up a few essentials. I got some taco mix, crispbreads, dill (can't find that in Tsuruoka) and a couple of cans of pop.
We headed over to the bookstore there. I was disappointed because there wasn't any Sue Grafton novels at all, not the right James Patterson, and not the Dean Koontz that I was really looking forward to, but I did get Forever Odd, so that mollified me a bit! I got a couple of magazines and a set of cards for school.
We had more coffee in Starbucks and then headed over to the station again for dinner. We went to our favourite Sendai restaurant, Aoba-Te or something like that. It's a gyu-tan restaurant and it's great. We had a lovely dinner and afterwards walked laden with bags back to our hotel. We vegged in the hotel for ages.
Fumihiko had just announced that he was going to take a bath when I asked if he'd like to go out first. I was thirsty and the hotel's vending machines didn't have much that I wanted. He got dressed to go out (bless him) and we went around the corner to a convenience store. Fumihiko suggested a new drink to me, non alcoholic, sort of a lemony fizzy tea. It didn't sound good, but it had no calories and no caffeine, so I said okay. I also got myself a tank top. I'd forgotten to take anything to sleep in, and while the hotel did provide a nightshirt, I didn't think it would fit. I got a Muji store black, sleeveless tank top. (Incredibly comfortable-men's of course!)
We went back to the hotel, read, drank, snacked a bit and then went to sleep.
This morning we got up around 9 and had breakfast in our hotel. They have quite a nice spread and it was included in our room. They even have an omelette wagon, so we had freshly made omelettes for breakfast. Too bad I forgot to ask them to leave off the ketchup! I just scraped it off.
We had gotten a late checkout so after breakfast we grabbed a Starbucks coffee (conveniently located in the hotel's lobby) and went back to our room for more R&R. We left just before 12.
We drove to the mall, did a tiny bit of shopping at the bookstore there and then left to find a fire station. Sadly, Fumihiko didn't pass the test last time so has to try and take it in Miyagi prefecture this time. So, we found a fire station quite quickly, but they were out of the forms. Huh??? We had to drive around and find another station. We (when I'm typing "we" I actually mean Fumihiko) had to ask at two police stations, and we even found a couple of fire fighters on a break to ask for directions. We got the forms, but it wasn't easy!
We had a late lunch at Steak Victoria and a quick romp through a hundred yen store before starting out home. We had a nice drive home. The weather was bad, and it was very misty in the mountains. We listened to great songs courtesy of my iPod and arrived back in Tsuruoka around 7.
This evening we did grocery shopping, visited my school to drop off some stuff and even went out for dinner. We came home and at 10 watched ER together. It was sweet, Neela and Michael (Dr.Gallant) got together. However, I did something really dumb after the show. I wanted to check what happened to Dr. Chen on the show, so I did some research on Wikipedia and discovered what happens. NO! NO! It's too sad. I'm not going to tell you. Oh, the news isn't about Dr. Chen. I think she just left after her father died, but I don't want to ruin the show for anyone else.
That was basically my weekend. It was good. Both Fumihiko and I are back at work tomorrow. Wish us luck! Night.
|
