{"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":"2026-05-21T08:47:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:47:39","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 am eating less in general 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 when I got up my stomach felt kind of funny and I was pretty sure it was because I ate too much. I was hoping against hope that the breakfast wouldn\u2019t be that large. I knew that it would likely be pretty large.<\/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

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

\"\"<\/p>\n

I finished most of it and declined any additional rice. 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. Now Karatsu is on the (fantasy) list of places I could move to.<\/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. The second train was one of those weird train lines that converted into a subway. It confused me enough that I asked the station attendant if I needed to pay extra (I didn\u2019t).<\/p>\n

I forgot how crowded Fukuoka is and that\u2019s with no Chinese tourists. It didn\u2019t help that it\u2019s Sunday. The train platform itself wasn\u2019t that bad. I took a shinkansen 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 (probably closed during the pandemic) but they had a backup restaurant we went to. 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. There aren\u2019t as many hotels here.<\/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 halls 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 hotel web page said there was a Joyfull family restaurant near the hotel but it\u2019s at least a 20 minute walk. On the way I saw a local Italian restaurant so I went there instead.<\/p>\n

It was fine. It was boiling hot inside, they played loud Beatles music (I\u2019m not a fan), and the food was 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 on the bottom with cheesy cream sauce on top and then baked in the oven. This one had meat sauce mixed in wit the cheese and spaghetti instead of rice. I guess the only minus is that it could\u2019ve used a little 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 is one of those giant onsen hotels. Somehow I selected a Japanese room which I suppose is good since I sleep quite well with a futon on a tatami floor. The room also has a very nice bathroom area and a separate toilet and there are two big baths, one that\u2019s outside. The inside 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 am eating less in general 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 … 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":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11716,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11460\/revisions\/11716"}],"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}]}}