Sorry, this is a little late. It’s was a long day. I got up at 6:45AM, went to breakfast, packed, went to the airport, got on the plane at 5:30PM, got off the plane at 10:45AM the same morning, and went to bed around 10:30PM but that’s fuzzy. In one time zone, that means I got up at 2:45PM on Thursday and went to bed at 10:30PM Friday. Not real sure why they thought things like that were a good idea for doctors in training.

Lim was bummed about the Nepalese breakfast and she wanted to look for Eggslut (what she called Hoshino Coffee). And according to Google, Hoshino Coffee was all the way across Shinjuku. Two-thirds of the way there we noticed that Google also said they didn’t open until 11AM. What coffee place opens at 11AM? I accidentally found a Hoshino Coffee near the hotel last year and sure enough Google still didn’t know about it but it was there and open. Here we are, slutting it up (we all got the eggslut) morning set.

The coffee is pretty good too.

After that it was packing and then heading to the airport.

Everyone else got off at Terminal 2 to take a flight from NRT to LAX, and then LAX to PDX. I went to Terminal 1 for my more expensive but direct flight to PDX.

I had a lonely lunch in the traditional place. Even had the same thing I’ve had the last few years. The window to my right has a nice view to the runways. It doesn’t make a good picture because there’s a deck between the window and the edge of the building but it’s an OK view.

I also had dessert because I’M ON VACATION. Plus we were going to get parfait earlier and the restaurant in MyLord had closed. The ice cream was old (had ice crystals in it but it was still a parfait.

Oddly enough, outgoing customs was a pain in the ass with another long slow line of Chinese people. I’m not sure what they were doing but for me they just unstapled my forms and sent me on the way.

And then it was off to the flight were we had a familiar flight crew (my mom knows one of the flight attendants). Other than the woman next to me coughing the whole time, it was an uneventful flight where I watched Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, Barbershop: The Next Cut, and part of Central Intelligence.

Then it was an uneventful trip through Customs & Immigrations and then three tries to get Uber working and an uneventful Lyft ride home. HOME! Time to rake the leaves and go through my email to pay the bills.

Final full shopping day! We went down to Shibuya because why not? It was our final shopping day. Hachiko was looking good and not surrounded by smokers first thing in the morning.

We started out on this this Thursday holiday with fairy empty streets. Which was good because our plans were a little messed up and we wandered around for a lot of it. Lunch was at Uobe, the sushi bar with the track system. Oddly enough, we ran into my sister’s friend on our way out. Her daughter was taking classes in Shibuya and it was a school holiday today.

More wandering around and more coffee for the Oregonian. This was at the end of what I can only describe as a cart pod called Commune 246.

We were there because Melissa has been talking about getting her hair cut for much of the trip and we finally got a recommendation for a place called Dot+LIM. I knew it  was fate and got us on the subway over to Omotesando.

She has a really cute haircut now.

After that we went back to an old-school office supply store through incredible crowds in Omotesando and Shinjuku. Our final dinner was at Baqet with the all-you-can eat bread. We couldn’t eat all that much, in all honesty. It’s best when it’s right out of the oven and we got there too late for too many batches to make it out.

It’s time to go home tomorrow!

Oh boy what did we do today. Where are the pictures to remind me?

We started out with breakfast downstairs again. Today was the “club” sandwich as the daily sandwich. And the coffee actually tasted good today but it was lukewarm.

So it was off to Paul Bassett before we went to the Ghibli Museum! You can’t take pictures inside, so I have some from outside. It was crowded, but I remember it being much more crowded the last time I went. And the movie was different this time.

The coffee there was pretty good, too!

We headed back to Kichijoji through Inokashira park.

We had lunch at a giant Muji and then it was back to shopping in the boutiques northwest of Kichijoji station. We tried to go to a string store (not my jam, someone else’s) but I did see this odd combination of power wiring.

And then it was time for me to be completely disappointed by the closure of the Kinokuniya south of Shinjuku station. I made up for it by buying a bunch of stuff at Tokyu Hands.

We were all beat. It was a chilly day and we’d been outside much of the day. Everyone else got dinner at 7-11 but I walked across the street to the Mos Burger. I love Mos Burger!

Started out the day with another breakfast downstairs. The coffee Quality Assurance isn’t up to snuff and so we went off to try Verve Coffee from Santa Cruz. They wrap the coffee in a “hachimaki” headband. Honestly, it was awful but that’s probably just because I don’t like light & bright coffees. It was good for what it was, but I think sour coffee is awful.

The thing on the list was to take the young’un to Akihabara, but the ladies all wanted to go to the fabric store first. It’s not too far from the hotel I stayed at last year and there’s old Godzilla watching over the lobby.

We finally made it to Akihabara and met my sister’s friend Yumeko who always has insanely funny stories to tell us. She suggested a French toast restaurant where I had soufflé pancakes. They weren’t the production that Gram was and were also much cakier. I kind’ve liked them better, but the best were probably at Hoshino Coffee in Kyoto.

I had to ditch everyone to meet old co-worker Suzuki-san in Koenji. I just picked Koenji because, well, why not? There was a big sign for “Craft Beer Market” and they had Japanese craft beer and grilled meats. What could be better? They also seemed to know Tsutsui-san from Shonan Brewing and I found out that Tsutsui-san grew up very near there!

I got back late and had to mess with my computer for a while. You know how it is.