Not many pictures today. I packed and got a morning set at Doutor, where I should’ve gone the past two days.

Then we drove to the JA Store to look for some gummy candies my sister wanted. Last night we checked the intarwebs and Google said we can get them anywhere but we found them nowhere else. I think there’s one from every prefecture (there’s 47 prefectures) but they only had six so I bought one of each one they had.

Then we went to eat a ton of sushi. The first branch we went to had at least 100 people in line 30 minutes before opening. We went to another branch in the local shopping center and we only had to wait a half hour. They were quick serving the sushi so we were done in a half hour. And we ate a lot.

After that we drove to the eldest Kawasaki sibling’s house in Tsubame-Sanjo. Then it was on to Niigata city. I guess I ate a tasty soft ice cream cone at a rest area but I never took a picture. Oh well.

Anyway, I’m on my own in Niigata for a bit but it’s raining. On the recommendation of the elder Dr. Kawasaki I got tare katsu at Tonkatsu Tarou at the station. It was another thin (but not that thin) katsu but with tare rather than Worcestershire sauce like I had in Fukui. It was pretty good but I think I like the sauce version better. I’ll eat either. The Tonkatsu Tarou store was kind of a mess, though. It was tiny and the cash register was out in the mall hallway. No one knew where to line up and I stood in front of the cash register for a long time before they told me to line up to the side and made a guy pre-pay for his family’s food. By the time they were ready to take my money, a line had formed in front of the cash register (I was to the side.)

I made it back to the hotel, borrowed a weird cordless iron and realized there’s a big bath in the basement that they didn’t tell me about when I checked in. I took a bath and ate a strawberry dessert I bought at the convenience store that’s connected to the hotel. It was the best combini dessert I had on the trip but I forgot to take a picture.

It’s late-ish. Time to hit the hay.