I ate too much last night. I generally am eating less and I figure it’s partly because I’m getting old, and partly because I don’t need to stress-eat any more. One of the “old guys” I have coffee with said something like every week at work is another year off your life. I haven’t seen any scientific basis for that but it sounds good.

Anyway, back to my overeating, I generally have been making bad life choices and now that I’m taking my meds with dinner with a lot of water, I have to get up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. It doesn’t help that my blood pressure meds contain a diuretic. Last night I actually had to get up to, well, take care of all the food I ate and my stomach felt kind of funny. I was hoping against hope that the breakfast wouldn’t be that large. I knew that wasn’t likely.

I knew I could probably force myself to finish that but then the kept bringing out more plates. Rice gruel and the miso soup I was expecting.

And then fish and eggs.

I finished most of it. Fortunately the Pepto Bismol I brought helped.

The lady who drove me to the train station told me she moved to Karatsu from Nagoya because she loves fishing. And Karatsu has everything she needs (supermarkets, doctors, etc) and if she needs to go to a big town then Fukuoka is only an hour away by train or car.

I left a little early and took two different trains to Hakata station. It was kind of an adventure, taking one rickety old train local train and then transferring to another when I got closer to Fukuoka. It was one of those weird train lines that converted into a subway. I asked the station attendant if I needed to pay extra and he said I could just go out the gate and the ticket would come back for the rest of my trip.

I forgot how crowded Fukuoka is and that’s even with no Chinese tourists. It didn’t help that it’s Sunday. The train platform itself wasn’t that bad. I made it to Tokuyama station where I had lunch with my cousin and her husband. Tokuyama is really a smaller town and even with a shinkansen station there’s not much to do. The first restaurant we tried to go to was missing but they had a backup. I got the lightest meal on the menu.

My cousin got chirashizushi.

My cousin’s husband got a slightly fancier sushi plate than I did but he ate a bunch of it before I could take a picture.

Then I got on a local train back to Shin-Yamaguchi station, backtracking a bit. From there I got on a bus to Hagi.

I’m not too sure about Hagi. I’m here for two nights and I’m at a “resort hotel”. I guess Hagi’s dropped in popularity and the taxi driver pointed out a big hotel that they converted into an assisted living facilty for the elderly.

I picked the resort hotel because the last time I was here when I was a teenager, most of the hotels were huge and set up for large groups to have raucous parties and we didn’t sleep very well. I’m guessing that it’s not like that any more. The web page said there was a Joyfull family restaurant nearby but it’s at least a 20 minute walk. On the way I saw a more local Italian-ish restaurant so I went there.

I would not recommend it. It was boiling hot, they played loud Beatles music (I’m not a fan), and the food was just OK. At least it was interesting. I got a tandoori chicken salad. The greens were still a little wet and the chicken was chilled.

I got a spaghetti doria. I think doria are a Japanese thing. They’re usually rice with cheesy cream sauce that’s baked in the oven. This one had meat sauce mixed in and spaghetti instead of rice. I guess the only minus is that it could’ve used more salt.

They were nice and I shouldn’t really complain. It was fine. I’ve just been getting great food so far.

Anyway, the resort hotel has weird things going on like people holding the door open and staff putting out my futon for me. Somehow I selected a Japanese room which I suppose is good since I sleep quite well with a futon on a tatami floor. It also has a very nice bathroom area and a separate toilet, just like a fancy ryokan. I guess this is like a fancy ryokan for large groups. The communal bath area was huge and I was the only one there. They also had the option for dinner and breakfast and I only got one breakfast and one dinner so I don’t know what the food is like yet. I’m sure it’ll be fine.

I only got the two meals because I knew the ryokan would have too much food and I was afraid this place might be the same. I do need to fit into a plane seat in a couple of weeks.