So we had an awesome weekend. Took the bus up to jiji and baba's and spent the night, eating a traditional way-too-much meal of hand-rolled sushi, legs stuffed under the kotatsu to stay warm.
Next day got up not as early as we planned and piled into jiji's New Hotness for a leisurely drive up north. Along the way we made a few rest stops, one of which included an opportunity to clean Mookun's puke off of himself and mom. Well, Ton puked last year at Halloween in the states, so I guess we get one kid-puke per family trip?
Anyway made it up to the apple orchard in the afternoon, boxed up about 60 kilos of apples (damn good ones, too!) and headed to the onsen. Great bath, awesome food, lights out. Next day, more bathing and eating, then checked out the local waterfall before heading to the coast.
Monstrously killer sushi lunch at a place that looked super-sketch but was upstairs from the open-air fish market on the pier, so it was as cheap as it looked and the sushi was so. damn. fresh. We stuffed ourselves silly and still for four adults and two kids it was barely 10,000 yen. I love eating in the boonies!
After we ate all the lovely fishes, we went to the aquarium, perfectly timed to catch the 2pm dolphin show, then checked out the penguins, hurried through the sharks (dark halls, big tanks full of big fishes...Ton not a fan), snacked on some icecream, and headed home to jiji and baba's.
More eating, more sleeping, more eating, and then took the train home.
A weekend of good food and good times and good weather.