{"id":11460,"date":"2026-04-19T04:51:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-19T11:51:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=11460"},"modified":"2026-04-19T04:51:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-19T11:51:21","slug":"japan-2026-day-4-hagi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=11460","title":{"rendered":"Japan 2026: Day 4 (Hagi)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I ate too much last night. I generally am eating less and I figure it\u2019s partly because I\u2019m getting old, and partly because I don\u2019t need to stress-eat any more. One of the \u201cold guys\u201d I have coffee with said something like every week at work is another year off your life. I haven\u2019t seen any scientific basis for that but it sounds good.<\/p>\n

Anyway, back to my overeating, I generally have been making bad life choices and now that I\u2019m 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\u2019t 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\u2019t be that large. I knew that wasn\u2019t likely.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And then fish and eggs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I finished most of it. Fortunately the Pepto Bismol I brought helped.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I forgot how crowded Fukuoka is and that\u2019s even with no Chinese tourists. It didn\u2019t help that it\u2019s Sunday. The train platform itself wasn\u2019t 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

My cousin got chirashizushi.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

My cousin\u2019s husband got a slightly fancier sushi plate than I did but he ate a bunch of it before I could take a picture.<\/p>\n

Then I got on a local train back to Shin-Yamaguchi station, backtracking a bit. From there I got on a bus to Hagi.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not too sure about Hagi. I\u2019m here for two nights and I\u2019m at a \u201cresort hotel\u201d. I guess Hagi\u2019s dropped in popularity and the taxi driver pointed out a big hotel that they converted into an assisted living facilty for the elderly.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t sleep very well. I\u2019m guessing that it\u2019s not like that any more. The web page said there was a Joyfull family restaurant nearby but it\u2019s at least a 20 minute walk. On the way I saw a more local Italian-ish restaurant so I went there.<\/p>\n

I would not recommend it. It was boiling hot, they played loud Beatles music (I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I got a spaghetti doria. I think doria are a Japanese thing. They\u2019re usually rice with cheesy cream sauce that\u2019s 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\u2019ve used more salt.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

They were nice and I shouldn\u2019t really complain. It was fine. I\u2019ve just been getting great food so far.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t know what the food is like yet. I\u2019m sure it\u2019ll be fine.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I ate too much last night. I generally am eating less and I figure it\u2019s partly because I\u2019m getting old, and partly because I don\u2019t need to stress-eat any more. One of the \u201cold guys\u201d I have coffee with said something like every week at work is another year off your life. I haven\u2019t 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\u2019m 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\u2019t help … Continue reading Japan 2026: Day 4 (Hagi)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11461,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11460\/revisions\/11461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}