Our final day there. My sil Kaori, asked if I could help her/be her guest for her English lesson. And I said, sure no problem. So anyway, our final morning. We woke up. We ran to the bakery, got some stuff for breakfast. That's Noboru there, eating a curry pan for breakfast. Oddly enough, I had one for breakfast, as well. Yummm! Ha ha ha. : ) I also had a blueberry danish. Noboru had some maple pan. Noah had melon pan, B had a donut. Kobby and J-chan had curry pan as well. My mil was at work already. We really didn't see my mil at all on this trip it seems. She was just really busy with the restaurants. After, we ate. Noboru went to walk down and visit with his dad for an hour. I stayed at the house with the kids. I wanted him to have private time with his dad. Meanwhile, the kids (all four of them) and I, watched Ice Age. Kobby also brought our his deck of animal cards. I flipped through them with him. Woolly Mammoth, "hey that's the same guy as on the Ice Age, right now" I told him! We flipped through more cards. A snake card. I told them. Oh this is really gross. They all gathered around. Of course I had to ham it up some, for the kids sake. I said, wow look at those *scary fangs*, oohhhhh, poison. So scary! Boy did I have their attention. My sister in- law just laughs and watches too. "And look at that snake skin kids! Don't you think he needs some lotion for all that dryness?" "Seriously kids", I said..."that snake needs some serious major hydration here!!!"Laughter came from all 4 kids. And 2 toothy grins from Branden and Kobby. Of course they knew, I was just kidding! : )
Branden eating his donut. After an hour, Noboru came back from his visit with his dad. And so, how did the English lesson thing go? Well, she started. Noboru went to the car, to get something and he told me, he heard the 2 students (married retired couple, studying like crazy with Kaori. He said they looked nervous. he teased me, saying "they are getting prepared to talk with you", ha ha ha. I said, yeah whatever, sorta brushed it off. Ha ha ha. Then, she went upstairs and told me, they were ready. They both introduced themselves to me. I introduced myself to them. They called me, Miss Gina-san. Actually, Gina is just fine. I didn't mind, whatever they wanna call me is fine. They asked me many questions. Where do I live in Japan. What is my favorite Japanese food. Do, I like Japanese food. Where, have I travelled in Japan. What part of the US, am I from. Then they asked me to ask them questions. I just basically asked them the same stuff they asked me. It was over with and done. I went upstairs and said goodbye. My sister inlaw was really happy, I did that for her. No problem, I said. It was really fun.
They have lot's of toys at grandma Mitsuko's house. I also played hide and seek with the kids one of the nights, I was there. I caught them all. Why? Because all of them were giggling so much, it was a dead give away each and every time. Ha ha ha! : )
We left my mil's house. Said goodbye to Kaori and the kids. It was a nice good bye. Nothing sad. Nothing like that at all. Just smiles and I reminded her to come to Chiba for Thanksgiving this year. Told the kids to be good, hugged them, great big ol' bear hugs and left. Next stop, saying good bye to Noboru's grandma. And again, they prayed a bit more and we hugged and went and finished doing the last of the things we had to do before leaving.
We stopped off at the old shopping arcade, near where his family lives. I used to ride my bike through there all the time, when I stayed in Osaka. I really like senbayashi a lot. I used to do a bunch of my shopping there. It was nice to be back there.
I like good bargains. I hate wasting money. I would buy my towels from there. Socks from there, blankets from there. Fruit from there. Meat from there. Laundry soap, toothpaste, shampoo, face wash, you name it, I bought it there and at discount. Ha ha ha! And cruise it home on the ol' bike, all tucked into my basket! All the good memories of that place, so nice to be able to go back and bring the kids there!
I saw school bag material. And yochien bags and yochien things, I had to go in. I asked the lady, are these homemade? I mean, I looked them over, they clearly were homemade. She said, yes they were. I flipped through them and found an Ultraman something or other. I said, right on Senbayashi for having that! With all the extra money the kids have gotten from grandma, great grandma, auntie and so on. Branden bought this for himself and it was really affordable actually. Surprising! Good buy! : )
Too many bikes in here, even though the sign said...no bikes! Ha ha ha. So, for safety, he held Noah through it. He didn't mind getting the lift from dad at all. : )
Being really pinched for time, we gave ourselves 30 minutes to browse Senbayashi. I wish I coulda stayed the whole day, just browsing store after store. I would have really loved that! The cool, things I bet I coulda found in there! : ) Shucks!
And the roofs have clear plastic, so even if it's a rainy day, you can still shop the arcades. Sigh, I wish I coulda stayed longer.
186 yen, for a pack of 4 of the big bars of Kao soap. Not the small size bars. And we use this brand exactly in the summer. I wanted to buy it, but I held back. But...I really wanted to though. Ha ha ha.
So, we left Senbayashi. And headed to the restaurant that Mitsuko was working/over looking that day. We crossed the bridge and were on our way.
This is the street, where one of her shops is on. Wow, what a busy street huh? She made our obento's for the trip back. We said our good byes. And we left. We got ourselves onto the highway and away we went.
We saw this sign. Kyoto City. I've been there before a few times. Beautiful city. I'd like to take the boys there one of these days. : )
Next sign after that. Kyoto minami.
As we passed Kyoto and really started getting farther from Osaka or Kyoto and started getting more into, the mountain areas, it started to look like rain. Big fluffy storm clouds all over. The sky actually looked really amazing. Gray, about to rain, sure but still gorgeous. Which is why I snapped this pic.
And after about an hour of driving, the clouds went away. Noboru had to go to the bathroom, so we all stopped and everyone took a bathroom break as well.
Lot's of tour buses. Limousine buses.
This is more so, for those of you not in Japan. I thought it might be interesting to see, our drink machines. We have loads of drinks in these machines. Iced coffee, in cans. Iced teas, green teas, sodas, sports drinks, yogurt drinks. Geeze lot's. And in the winter, they also have hot drinks as well. The going rate is about 120 yen. Sometimes you can find cheaper for like 100 yen. And the drinks outta the machines at USJ for example were 250 yen each. Yup that's about $2.50 US. But anyway these were the machines at one of the stops we made. : )
They even had Baskin Robbins, ha ha ha! : )
Again, this might be interesting for you, if you live outside Japan, who knows. Let's say, you get hungry on the road and you didn't pack your own meal. Not a problem, not one single dot. Many people don't. It's fine. Here's what you do. And if you can't read Japanese, it should be okay. Look at the pictures, see what looks good to you. And buy a ticket. Now many of these ticket machines have English and Japanese on each button. or #'s. But some don't. So, you can always point to the picture to the staff, put your money in the machine and ask them to push the correct button for you. That's worst case scenario, but yes totally possible to eat, while on the road. Most places, have the same sorts of stuff. Ramen, noodles, udon. curry, fried rice. and if you can speak Japanese, and say the machine was in Japanese, you could always say...curry, oneigaishimasu (sp?), or please help me, put your money in. and they would surely push a button for you, I would think/hope. A few years ago, I saw a western guy get assistance for the vending food machines, nothing to be embarrassed about at all, really. But even now, I see Mc D's, KFC, Baskin Robbin's, food choices are opening up at the service areas in Japan. : )
Lot's of breads to choose from as well, in case you get too shy to place an order. Also, they sell sandwiches too. Well, at the places I saw, they did. Bottom line, you will not starve while travelling in Japan. Ha ha ha. : )
The stop we made was at Yoro. Noboru said they were famous for mochi. So we got that for our neighbor lady next door. Our house, protector while we are away! : )
This is the mochi, Noboru bought for our neighbor. She loved it, by the way! : )
A blurry pic, of us watching Spiderman on our way back to Chiba. But we were still a long ways away still. : )
We seem to always stop for our meal at this same stop. Hmm, actually every time we have ever driven to Osaka and back, we have stopped exactly here and ate our meal. It's in Nagano. There's about 2 or so different service stops in Nagano. This big one, is where we like to eat. It was about 7:00 pm. Branden was watching the movie. Noah was getting a bit cranky, so we thought it would be a good time to just stop and eat. Take a break from the car for a bit. : )
The weather in Nagano in the evening, was 18 degrees Celsius. It felt so nice and good. The wind felt so great! Ahh, we were definitely coming upon the cooler-ish weather that I really like and prefer. Nice, sigh. Ha ha ha.
Feeling so happy to get our nice cool breezes back, we attempted to eat our meal outside. This is the meal, my mil made for him. An onigiri, a karaage and a wiener and some small bits of fish, ha ha ha. He loved it! But get this. So, as we were sitting there. Underneath this great big tree. Summer time bugs chirping in the tree. And all of a sudden a spider dropped down on our table. I didn't mean to, but I shrieked, like a typical girl. Noboru, brushed it off the table. We resumed eating. Then next thing you know, another spider dropped on our table. I said, forget that! Give me the creeps already! Let's just eat inside. They didn't mind. So we relocated ourselves and ate inside. Ha ha ha! Yup, we *almost* ate outside! Ha ha ha!
This was my meal. She keeps my meal plain. I ask it to be this way, ha ha ha. Just shrimp and karaage. And, funny but at my mil's restaurants, she only makes her karaage with white breast meat. So, I always can eat from any of her obento shops, no problem. Ha ha ha.
Noah got a refill in his sippy. He got some green tea or some sorta tea in there. Ha ha ha.
There's Branden eating his meal, there! : )
A slightly blurry pic, but, he carried the leftovers back to the car for us. Helpful kiddo, he is! : )
We stopped at the next SA/service area. Still in Nagano. Because that is a service area where there is actually a hot spring at the actual SA, where you can take a bath at. We wanted to take one, to relax. So we stopped. However, get this. We thought it would be 24 hours open, or at least open until 10:00 pm. By now it was exactly 9:06. He ran inside to see, how much it was. As he was walking in, they turned the lights off. They close at 9:00 pm. Man, that sucked! No natural hot spring for us, I guess, he he! : )
This is the name of the stop with the hot spring at the actual service area. In case any of you might want the name of it. : )
Feeling bummed, about the not being able to soak in the hot spring afterall. We decided some ice-cream would be a great idea. So, we looked at the menu, and ordered some soft serve! : )
Man, were they good! They really were! : )
For some of you, who are not in Japan, you might not have seen what an old style Japanese toilet looks like. This is it. It's on the floor. And yes this was in the ladies room. : ) You have a choice of these style or western style toilets. Your choice! : ) Personally, I cannot use the old Japanese style toilets, to save my life. But then again, I have trouble going to the bathroom in the woods while camping in the states too. The whole bending down, crouching down thing. I have almost peed on my own pants or shorts once. No thanks. So, I always have to take one pant leg off and use it that way! So, for my sake, I avoid using these toilets.
I prefer the western style toilets. But again toilets at the SA's are not so clean. Unless it's just the ones on the way to and from Chiba to Osaka, that are like this, I don't know. But these are dirty, imo. I take B in with me or Noboru does. And I tell him in the stall. "don't touch *anything*", ha ha ha. I lay TP all over the seat, and I sit on that. Ha ha ha. I saw many tiny ants or other various tiny crawling weird things on the floor. I eek, just looking down. Pee as fast as I can. And don't forget the smell. Again, I am sure they clean them, but they must not be given a thorough cleaning.
Again, I see gunk, caked on the floor around the toilet and I don't *even* wanna think about what that stuff is, down there on the floor. Yikes! : )
The sink area looks bright and clean, but after really looking, it looked sorta grimey too. Very nicely well lit though! And safe! So that's a plus! : )
There were also moth's and spider webs in the corners of the sink area of the same bathroom. Oh well, nothing too major, just thought you in other country's might find this interesting. Perhaps, public bathrooms at rest stops worldwide are all sorta yucky, maybe? Lol. Yes, some must be clean out there, somewhere. But at least it's not just limited to one country, ha haha. : ) And in defense of Japan though, I find, Japanese department store restrooms and the restrooms at the shopping malls here in Japan to be really nice and clean. And the toilets at Disneyland in Chiba are really clean too. They must clean them every 10 minutes, they even smell clean at Tokyo Disney! Ha ha ha! : )
Last pic of Noah awake. Because with full tummys, both the boys fell asleep, right away at the last Nagano stop and didn't wake back up even at home! Ha ha ha, : )
This was the last stop, Noboru made for the trip. It was hours passed Nagano. He stopped to pee. I stayed in the car. I got a pillow and went to the 3rd row of seats and laid down. I woke up about 5 minutes before we got home. Helped unload the car and helpd bring the kids into the house and I carried them to bed. It was 2:00 am, by the time we got home. We were so exhausted. It was Saturday at 2:00 am, still felt like Friday though, lol but it was Saturday. We all went straight to sleep. All Saturday, we all just lazed at home. We needed to rest and get our energy back. Also, on Saturday, where we live, the high temperature for that day was 78 degrees, F. Isn't that weird? Not sure why the weather was so cool that day, but I really enjoyd it. I actually saw a mom carry her child into the store near my house and she was wearing a baby carrying pouch, like Baby Bjorn sorta thing, anyway she had a towel covering her babies legs since it was a bit chilly for the baby. The weather differences from where we were just were in, in Osaka and where we live in our little area of Chiba way over here in the country side, was just really obvious to us on Saturday for some odd reason. It was just really noticeable. Oh well, the trip to Osaka, was amazing. Nice to be with family, fun was had at USJ. Many good food to be eaten in Osaka. But, man, it's really good to be home you guys. So, good to be home, and sleep in my own bed.: )
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