Day 8: a day of rest. Sento & party

So we woke up too early, and made our way to the sento to recuperate. We were still very wobbly riding our bikes down the street.

The sento was a really good one! Look at this map: there was a cold tub, hot tubs, saunas, hard bubbly jets of water, electricity, different contoured surfaces for your feet to stand on, and a peaceful dim grotto with eight berths and the sound of gentle running water echoing around. There was also an outdoors pool, and three giant ceramic 'teacups' for one person each, they were really nice to float in.



At one point, Taka came up to me, and asked me to go tell Cliff to cover up his tattoo. He was worried that Cliff thought he was joking ... Taka told Cliff about the rule on this sign, but Cliff hadn't actually seen the sign for himself, and thought Taka was winding him up, as he usually tries to do. Apparently people with tattoos are actually banned from attending sento's, as it scares people, who think it mean the person is a criminal, perhaps a Yakuza member.



So I went up to Cliff and told him ... as we've already been to two different ones without a problem, he thought I was just helping play a trick on him! So he walked around with his tat in full view, until another customer complained, and an attendent came up to him and must have tried to explain, and draped a towel over his arm. Taka and I didn't realize this had happened ... he was sitting outside for 20 minutes ... Cliff was mortified! Of course he was worried Taka would be guilty by association and banned or something, but we were reassured it would be fine - next time he'll just put a bandage over his arm to hide it.

Only 200 yen got me a fantastic 10 minute machine-massage in this chair; pummelling, compressing, kneading everything from my feet to my head.



See kids look, I found a playground, you would love it.



Then not much happened, we were still sick zombies (well me in particular ... when at a department store looking for a front bicycle drum brake and souvenirs, I had to dash off to the toilet in case I was sick again. Luckily nothing came up but wind eeewwwwerk ... oh well, once in a bluemoon is OK) Then I got to sleep for a few hours.

Until dinner time! I'm so happy I got my appetite back -- Chizuko is a great cook. This big bubbling pot of tofu gradually got filled up with big flat udon noodles, enoki and shittake mushrooms, several types of seaweed, and it turned out great.



more yum sashimi



sweet packets of rice - wrapped in tofu and deepfried maybe?



squid rings, meat (not for me of course) and little fish-paste blobs with a hunk of cheese inside, great



I think this pot of food is called 'oden'



And here we are, except for Takashi's dad Yukio, he's a bit reclusive, and after talking about how much he loved the stars in Australia (you can't really see them in many places here in Japan, the city lights are too bright) he went off to bed. Chizuko in yellow, Tyson and Tomoko on the bottom left, Tamura-san on the right (he is another Judoka from the club, nice guy, a driving instructor) and it was another late night, up until 1230 or so. Tonight I just stayed on the Cal-piss though. (Heh, sounds bad but its a very nice drink, sort of like very thinned-out yoghurt.)