Not The Turkey We Were Planning

This year was our turn to host Christmas dinner for both our families. So of course there was the usual stress around making the house presentable, ensuring we had all the food we would need and of course, planning cooking times to ensure that the food was ready to eat when we wanted it.

We currently have three fridges running at home and all of them were stuffed to the brim with food and drink to get us through Christmas and Boxing Day to avoid having ot return to the shops before we wanted to.

Late afternoon Christmas eve I went out to the fridge in the shed to grab a coke and the door was open because the fridge was so full that it hadn’t quite closed properly. Everything was still plenty cold so it obviously hadn’t been for too long. No biggie, I simply rearranged some stuff and made sure the door was closed.

Fast forward to Christmas morning and after a leisurely sleep in we decided we should start the process of prepping to make sure we’d have a successful dinner. I went out to the fridge to get the prawns out to thaw. While they were cold (and still frozen) they didn’t seem to be quite as cold as I’d expect. On opening the fridge, it too seemed less cold than it should be. I listened and the lack of any motor sounds wasn’t a great clue. The fridge in question had only been put in the shed for storage and so isn’t optimally placed for connection to power. It’s on the other side of the shed from the power point that we use, connected via extension cord. Following the cord back to the source, I quickly found the problem. The cord had been knocked out of the wall socket.

Both the supposed-to-be glorious turducken and the turkey that we’d bought to make sure we had enough food to feed a small third world nation the family had been stored in that fridge and therefore hadn’t been correctly refrigerated for the better part of 18 hours. Googling ensued. After all the birds were still cool, they certainly weren’t room temperature, but at the same time, they weren’t cold. The googling news wasn’t good. There wasn’t anything that suggested we should be cooking and serving them. Which was fine other than the fact that it was Christmas day and the of options to replace our carefully planned dinner were limited.

One thing in our favour was that we had no lunchtime commitment so we had time on our side. We jumped in the car and found that a couple of IGA’s (Small grocers for those that aren’t from here) were open but of course the chance that someone had a lonely turkey sitting around were slim.

The first one had a couple of chickens and a smoked turkey roll, the next one didn’t have anything. As we travelled around we received the message from the kids that our local KFC was open (at this point we were canvassing all options and had joked about having traditional Japanese Christmas fare!)

The last small supermarket we went to had a nice piece of double-smoked Barossa ham. It was decision time. We bought the ham, confirmed that KFC would be an option and locked it in.

I smoked and glazed the ham and we put buckets of KFC on the table with our vegetables. Christmas dinner done! It might not have been the most traditional version of Christmas we’d ever had but given the stress levels during the 'can we or can’t we cook the birds' debate, it was about as low-stress as we could have made it and of course, the true joy of the occasion was celebrating with the families not the food that was on the table (Though the ham was bloody good!)

Japan 2019 - Day 16 - The final Day

Caroline and I had planned on getting up early and going to see if we could watch some Sumo Wrestling training. Unfortunately a crap night’s sleep meant that we opted for a bit of a sleep in instead.

Other than getting to the airport on time, we had committed to a final trip to find the shoulder-riding Evie for Emily and then we wanted to head to the Senso-ji shrine and the markets around it for some final souvenirs and gifts.

 Emily, Caroline and I went Evie hunting and left the boys to finalise their packing and to meet us at the market. We navigated our way back to the Tokyo Skytree where the Pokémon centre is and found three Evies remaining on the shelf. We quickly snagged one and personally I think we deserve some sort of parental award for the effort! There was one very excited squeal of glee and two parental sighs of relief.

The last two times that we’ve been to Tokyo we’ve talked about dressing Emily up in a Kimono, but time has always seemed to get away from us and we haven’t managed to do so. The market adjacent Senso-ji is a prime place for such activity and as we entered we saw plenty of girls walking around in them. 

Seeing other people wearing kimonos was one thing, working out where to hire one was quite another, but we were actually successful. We may not have got full value out of it given Emily was only dressed in it for an hour or so when she could have had it to the end of the day, but I think by the time she was out of it, she was more than happy with how long she’d worn it. Apparently correct posture wasn’t optional, but enforced by the constraints of the clothing.

We found what we were looking for and then swung by the hotel before picking up our luggage and heading for the airport. Unlike our last trip when Jetstar cancelled our flight, things went a lot more smoothly. There was no smashed alcohol in our luggage, the plane left on time and other than the occasional bout of pain from my arm preventing me from sleeping, we transited home safely.

Now that we’re back I’m already missing the toilets. Especially given this one was off the lobby of the hotel we stayed in in Tokyo.

If that was one of the hotel’s highlights, the pillows were one of its low-lights. Because when I say pillow, I really mean more of a bag of soggy newspapers than an actual pillow. Caroline was good enough to snag a second one for me but between the ongoing pain from my crash and the lack of any comfort from those pillows, sleep was a precious commodity that wasn’t well distributed.

One last thing from our trip. About half way through, Sam mentioned Tinder and the matches that he was getting around Matsumoto. Talk about surprised. Of all the boys, Sam was the last one that I expected to have Tinder on his phone, let alone to be actively using it. Turns out he was using it to connect with girls that he could then practice conversing in Japanese with! Only Sam …

And then we were home ...

Japan 2019 - Day 15

We didn’t start early today (something about Tokyo time) . Michael didn’t get back to the hotel until about 3am after they’d missed the last train home (About 12:15am which is surprising given the late night activity. They were within walking distance so it wasn’t too bad – it just meant they stopped for a couple of extra drinks along the way). No-one else seemed to be in a rush and given Caroline, Thomas, Emily and I hadn’t reached the hotel until about 12:30am I wasn’t about to push too hard.

Having missed Itoya the day before, that became our first destination ahead of a visit to the Samurai Museum and a trip to Shibuya to have another look at the scramble crossing and finally, a trip back past one of the Pokémon centres so that Emily could pick up a shoulder-riding Evie that she’d seen in the first two that we’d visited but that hadn’t been in the third.

Along the way I stopped and picked up some Whiskey and saw this delightfully narrow building, its size standing out due to the absence of its neighbour to the right.

Itoya was as amazing the second time around as it was the first, though having seen it before we didn’t spend quite as much time sifting through the floors as we did last trip. We picked up some pens and paper and the like and then headed for the Samurai museum.

 When we got off the train and started navigating to the museum we started to wonder whether we’d managed to end up in completely the wrong area. More than any other part of Tokyo we’d been to, it screamed entertainment district, by which I mean pubs and clubs and the like. Sure enough though, the Museum was nestled within the district. We managed to walk in 10 minutes before a free guided tour and I have to say, having that tour presented in English helped make it one of the best cultural experiences we’ve had in Japan. We learned a lot about the Shogun era of Japan and saw a really cool collection of both authentic and replica Samurai armour and weapons. I have a lot of photos, but there's no way I will put them all here!

 

At the end of the tour there was a short katana wielding demonstration which while a bit on the try hard side of the scale, was still fun to watch.

Our next stop was Shibuya where Thomas wanted to get a time-lapse of the scramble crossing from the Starbucks that over-looks it. We ordered hot chocolates, watched the crossing for a bit and arranged to again catch up with the Telfords for dinner.

Dinner turned out to be a typically Temby Tokyo experience that we shared with the Telfords. Given it was our last night in the country there was a desire to find something authentically Japanese, but the options we were finding either were going to struggle to fit us all, or weren’t quite what we were looking for. In the end we split the party and ate at a more Chinese style restaurant than Japanese, but we had at least sated our hunger.

Michael and Thomas headed off with Max to drink, play Pachinko and try some claw games. Sam, Emily, Caroline and I had a stab at making it to the nearest Pokémon centre to acquire the elusive shoulder-riding Evie.

Google told us it was 20 minutes away when the store closed in 21 minutes. With an ever-increasingly nervous Emily, we rode the train to the stop and decided to send the two young ones ahead given they’re capable of running. Caroline and I walked as quickly as we could and made it to the store to find that it was barricaded off. We talked our way through by way of telling the girl that we thought our kids were inside. Turns out they weren’t, so we asked about the Evie only to be told that they’d sold out.

When we met up with Emily and Sam they’d taken a wrong turn and hadn’t even made it into the store. There was a little bit of devastation on Emily’s part as we rode the train back to our hotel.

There was but one thing left for the night. Emily wanted a go at a claw machine. In the times that we’d been previously she’d only had two turns at the controls and given the way her brothers had talked the whole thing up, she really wanted to win something herself. So being the sucker Dad that I am, I took her in to Akihabara to try and win something.

We toured two places before deciding to go to the first one where we’d been so nicely treated the day before. With a combination of cash, requests for assistance and perseverance, we extracted a Pokémon plushie from the machine and Emily was happy.

Caroline was super-amazing and packed ahead of our departure the following morning.

Michael’s dumpling count: 123

Japan 2019 - Day 14

There were three key activities on the agenda for today. Pokemon, shopping and Karaoke.

There’s four main Pokémon Centres in Tokyo and we’d been to three of them before, but the kids were of course keen to check them all, particularly as there’s generally something unique to each centre. We’d decided to head to Yokohama first, but a late start to the day and the distance to travel meant that we cut it from the agenda before we were committed to the long train ride to get there.

Opening the loot from the Random Pokeballs and boxes 

Instead we went to the Nihombashi centre, then the Skytree centre before finally making our way out to the Mega Centre at Ikebukuro. Purchases were generally held over to the last one other than anything unique that might have been sought. Unfortunately some of the things that were seen at the first two weren’t available at the third one which mostly disappointed Emily. Other than acquiring Pokémon related dust collecting souvenirs we at least managed to find new coats for both Thomas and Emily which was a great relief because it cut further retail hunts from our last couple of days in the country.

We hoped to squeeze Itoya into our schedule at the end of the day and decided to meet up with the Telfords again and share that wonder with them, but needed to eat first. We ended up having Mexican because why wouldn’t you?

Unfortunately time ran away and we were unable to get to Itoya, but we did head back to the hotel to drop off our shopping ahead of the impending karaoke session.

Those that opted for karaoke, which in the case of the Tembys was everyone except Sam trekked back to Akihabara and into one of the many places dedicated to the pursuit. We were assigned our own room (as is done here) and Michael and Max began the process of deciphering how to actually cue up a song and set it in motion.

The hour passed pretty quickly and with challenge associated with finding songs to sing meant that there was lots of Taylor Swift and at least three repetitions of some Disney song from Mulan. I certainly proved that my talent does not lie in signing, something my, sister has been telling me for a very long time.

When you finish a round of karaoke in Akihabara and you have Michael in tow (and one Telford who missed the prior night’s fun) there’s really only one likely outcome – more claw machines. So that’s where we headed. It may have been pressing 11pm, but the floors of claw machines were still taking money.

What we did find though, was help. Whether it was because of how late at night it was or some other unfathomable reason, the attendant on the floor we went to was very generous with helping and repositioning stuffed Pokémon for extraction from the machines. As a result, another one joined the horde of stuff we’ll need to squeeze into our luggage.

We were eventually escorted out of the place because they were closing, and I headed for the hotel, leaving some of the younger troops to carry on drinking.

Japan 2019 - Day 13

I’m a few days behind with this, which based on our last two trips to Japan isn’t unusual once we hit Tokyo. We move into  a different time space once we hit Tokyo.

While we’re skiing, time is dictated somewhat by the fact that the lifts don’t typically run at night (though there are times where there’s night skiing) and by the fact that the legs tend to be a bit worn out by the end of a day of skiing. As noted earlier on this trip, I usually push for us to be on the mountain as soon as the lifts are running and we typically ski until close to the last lifts operation. This year that wasn’t quite the case and the fact that I spent the second part of our ski adventure injured tempered my push for us to be up and out the door so early.

After a long day of travel to Tokyo the day before and a reasonably late night, no one was particularly bent on getting out of the door early. We hadn’t planned a lot for the day, but we did know that the Telford’s were arriving into Tokyo that morning and that they’d be staying at the same hotel (having planned it before our departure).

I’d pushed for us to go have a look at Takeshita Street and that ended up on the agenda for the day. We travelled in to Akihabara to pick up 72 hour Metro tickets only to find (and remember) that we needed all of our passports in order to be able to buy them. We’d only brought one with us just in case we happened to buy something duty free. That meant someone had to head back to the hotel to collect the rest of the passports. Caroline was the hero who agreed to go while the rest of us wandered around a couple of stores.

The delay meant that Caroline met up with the Telfords at the hotel and so they joined us in our trek to Takeshita Street. Reaching the top of Takeshita Street was one of those oh my God moments. The street itself has a reputation for being something of a get anything and everything kind of street, popular with the youth of Tokyo and something of a fashion centre.

Emily was after boots and a coat and Thomas was after a coat, so it seemed like a reasonable place to start the search even though it was so crowded that movement was an interesting proposition. We quickly decided that twelve of us trying to tour the street together wasn’t going to work and opted for splitting up and meeting later, then quickly abandoned thoughts of crossing the street and went down one side and up the other instead. By the time we’d toured up and down the street (a good 2 hour exercise) we’d seen all sorts. Crepes, Idol goods, food and a range of fashion from acid-tripping space cat t-shirts, to punk, Lolita and a range in between. There certainly didn’t seem to be any rules to how the whole place was arranged. In once case you had to walk through a lingerie store to get to the upstairs to a shop selling anime goods. Completely crazy.

Not only did we all survive, but all twelve of us actually managed to find one another at the end of the process and find Emily a pair of cheap boots! Talk about success.

By the time that we’d managed to complete the venture, dinner was looming which with twelve people in tow looked like being an interesting proposition. One thing that we did know was that the restaurant that we’d eaten at the day before had sufficient seating upstairs, the food was good and most importantly we knew exactly where it was. So we went back.

I can’t remember as I write this on the plane home whether I posted the image of the menu with the more interesting options … liver, diaphragm, guts … rectum. As we’d walked home the night before, we’d discussed the fact that the diaphragm was listed as skirt steak and was very tasty. We wondered whether rectum would actually be rump steak. There’s only one way you can find these things out. When we returned the second night I suggested that I was going to order the rectum to see whether our theory held true.

I did it. I ordered rectum for dinner. That’s something I thought I’d never say. Unfortunately our theory was incorrect; it clearly wasn’t rump steak. It didn’t look offensive, but I was left facing the fact that if it wasn’t rump steak, it probably truly was rectum, probably pork rectum from its appearance.

Having ordered it, there was only one thing left to do … taste it. Not many people were up for a taste of my rectum, but that’s kind of understandable really . I tasted it and it wasn’t offensive or anything. It was mostly a bit chewy, like gristle. It came served on a skewer with about five small pieces on each of the two skewers. In the end there was one piece left. As the person that ordered it, I figured I should be the one to finish it. Unfortunately it was quite a large piece and the more I chewed it the more I thought about what it was. In the end I quickly swallowed it down half chewed and put it behind me.

The rest of dinner was as good as the first night, though given we’d been separated into two tables we certainly managed to over-order. Again. At least we knew how big the serves of fries were going to be.

Having finished dinner, there was a call to try the PachinkoSlots by some of the younger members of the group. I opted to go along with them if for no other reason than curiosity. We’d been to Tokyo twice before, walked past them many times, but I still had no idea what they were.

Michael, Thomas, Max, Gigi, Sarah and I walked to Akihabara and into the first Pachinko Slot establishment we found. About twenty minutes later we walked out again with less money and yet no real improvement in our understanding of what these slots were.

I watched Michael play mostly. It involved putting money in, watching little ball-bearings fall down and lots of lights and crazy things happening. And then suddenly there was no money left. Even had they won, they couldn’t have converted the winnings to cash. You can trade the little ball bearings for prizes or preserve your balance on a card to play another time, but the only way to convert to cash apparently involves a grey market and some dubious exchanges. I think I was happier that the money just disappeared.

Of course being in Akihabara meant that we were right next door to the claw machines. Well, we couldn’t deprive the Telfords of the chance to experience that wonder! We made our way in and watched Michael suck Max into having a go. I think it was best summed up when upon committing additional funds to the machine one of his sisters stated, “You’re a dickhead Max.” But in his defence, he was having fun! And he won a prize, though won is possibly over-exaggerating how it came about. There was a machine on easy mode with a big fat fluffy hedgehog waiting to be claimed. Max had a couple of attempts before help was called for. Before too long the attendant had all but put the toy into the claim box to help him finally win it.

Probably the funniest item that was acquired was a sizeable plastic Bowser.

The game consisted of a toy balanced with a lever holding it in place. Around the outside was a ring of lights. They lit up one at a time so that the light spun around the toy. You had to press the button to stop it on the one with the lever which would then drop away and release the toy. It was also on easy mode.

Max had a go and missed by two lights. Before long Michael was being talked into have a turn just because Max had. Michael tells it that he had a go just to go one better than Max or at worst. To not miss by more than Max had. He nailed it first go. Unfortunately that meat even more crap for our luggage.

Michael’s Dumpling count: 107

Japan 2019 - Day 12

Sadly today was about leaving the snow. With our skiing done and the holiday drawing toward its end, it is time to head to Tokyo. Most of the morning was spent packing everything back into our bags and arranging for the ski equipment to be shipped to the airport to await our final departure. 

Then, with snow falling once again, we trekked to the bus-stop to make our way back to Iiyama where we could catch the Shinkansen to Tokyo where there’s little doubt that Michael will be seeking out every claw game in existence.

When we made it to Iiyama, Caroline went to secure seats for us on the Shinkansen only to be informed that all the reserved seats had been taken, which meant we’d have to try our luck in the non-reserved free for all (along with a horde of other tourists departing the snow with their luggage). Given the fun we’ve had squeezing all our luggage onto trains where we’ve had reserved seating, we weren’t really looking forward to that challenge, but were quite lucky. We managed to board the train, find spots for our reduced number of bags and find seats within spitting distance of each other (not that we tested that proximity measure!)

There was simply so much snow in Nozawa Onsen and as we wandered around, there was one activity that seemed to be continuing endlessly. The clearing of snow. In all the snow-laden places I’ve visited, Nozawa Onsen was different in one manner – the amount of running water. One of the reasons there’s lots of public onsens is because the village is built on or over a fault line or the like. There’s clearly plenty of water and it is used to help manage the snow, with it being piped or hosed out over parking lots to melt it away. Thomas tested it and it’s not hot water, but it’s clearly above freezing.

With the volumes of snow that the place gets at times, its clear that they also work to move the snow continuously so that it doesn’t build up too much. In the four days were around the place over a metre of snow fell, but you wouldn’t have guessed it from walking about town. You even see people walking about on the roof tops moving the snow off them! No sign of any safety equipment, because you know, what could possibly go wrong walking around and on snow-covered roofs three storeys off the ground?

We left the snow the way we arrived in a heavily laden pack through falling snow, though notably the one thing that changed was that Sam was in long pants. While we were in Matsumoto he acquired a pair of tracksuit pants, currently the only pair of casual long pants he owns (to add to the suit he owns).

We alighted from the train in Ueno and then simply had to navigate our way to the hotel. We could catch a number of different trains or walk for about half an hour. The boys opted to walk while Caroline, Emily and I opted to go by train. We took the scenic route and the boys beat us by a comfortable margin. We only got on one train going the wrong way, mostly because it arrived just as we got to the platform and hadn’t quite worked out which way we were supposed to be going yet. We worked it out quickly though and got off at the very next station. Then we went a bit out of the way while walking from the station, but hey, we got here and that’s the main thing.

Having checked into the hotel, there were only two things on Michael’s mind. Food and claw machines, so we headed for Akihabara. We avoided the first lunch option (at 3:30pm mind you) which was looking like being Burger King and instead found a little basement restaurant where we managed to have a good feed. Then we hit Akihabara with all its noise and lights. Along the way i spotted a group of locals all hanging out at a local shrine, every single one of them looking at their phone. There was only one thing that could be going on. A Pokemon raid! Sam confirmed it and joined ... just for a little while.

When we hit Akihabara, we spent a while trawling through Yodabashi Camera and then the Sega entertainment store where there was three floors of claw machines. Three floors. 

Commence the spending of money. Michael flirted with a couple of machines and Emily took me on a tour pointing out all the anime characters that she knew. We agreed that if we were to play a machine that there was one figure that we’d go for. We didn’t drop any money though. We toured the rest of the place. Then Emily asked me for a hundred Yen. Even though she knew it was impossible to win the game with one shot, she had a go. Then I decided to have a go as well.

One of the surprising things about the place was that when you were seen to have spent some money and were stuck, the attendants would either give you a clue about what you should be doing or even re-position it so that its moved from a position that’s unlikely to proceed. I don’t think I can claim claw master status anymore because though I did indeed extract the toy from the machine, I had help three times! And I certainly spent more than it was worth to do so. Call me sucker.

When we managed to extract everyone from that shop we went, you guessed it, into another one. This time I resisted all temptation, but Caroline and Michael found a machine set to ‘easy mode’. They both one a plush Pokemon toy on their second attempts. By that time though it was definitely time for some dinner so we began the wonderful game of find somewhere to eat in Tokyo.

We found a couple of likely looking spots where they couldn’t fit us in and so kept going. We passed one place where the guy out the front touting tried hard to lure us in. We were reluctant, but he claimed they had an English menu and given it was yakitori, we decided to give it a go. We were ushered upstairs and squished into a corner and Caroline took on the role of food orderer.

There were a couple of items that we didn't order from the menu.

It started coming out and was suitably delicious. Two Japanese businessmen were sitting at the table adjacent to us and had a ridiculously large plate of fries delivered. We’d missed those on the menu and decided that we needed to add them to our order. We tried to discuss with them whether they had ordered more than one serve given the size of the plate and were told it was three. Based on that and the fact that we’d already ordered a heap of food, we ordered two for our table.

When they arrived, they appeared as big as the supposedly three serves. We chowed down happily. We’d just managed to get through them all when the second serve arrived. We nearly died. But we still ate them all. It would have been rude not to.

Michael's dumpling count: 105

Japan 2019 - Day 11

We weren’t sure what we’d wake up to this morning. After the massive dump of snow the day before, the forecast said that we potentially faced the same again. Fortunately when we did wake up, it turned out to be a beautiful sunny day. Given it was likely to be our last day skiing (unless we opt for a half day of skiing on the day we travel out from Nozawa Onsen).

 With the weather being as good as it was, and with better knowledge of the options to get back down the mountain I was willing to head up the gondola almost to the top. We’ve found Nozawa Onsen and odd spot for us to ski, mainly because finding a combination of runs to ski to suit the varying degrees of ability/willingness from a single lift has proven almost impossible. It meant that we decided to once again split the party after a brief flirtation with the runs near the top, with Emily and I skiing simpler stuff at the bottom of the mountain while Caroline and the boys skied all over the place. One of Caroline’s favourite runs basically involved skiing all the way from near the top to the very bottom of the mountain. True leg-testers given the distance involved.

We met up again late in the day and took the gondola back up and skied that run on our way out. It was hard to call it a day given that we have no idea if or when we’ll ski again, but the boys had to return their hire equipment and there really wasn’t anything all that desirable to ski from the lifts just up from our lodge. So call it a day we did.

We sorted out the ski gear and decided on somewhere to have dinner and walked into the village. Unfortunately when we arrived at the restaurant, we ran into a not uncommon problem. It was full and there were six of us. The place only had space for a bout 25 people, so we moved on and started to play one of my favourite ever games. Find somewhere to eat in Japan.

It’s a challenging game because of aligning the combination of a restaurant with space and more importantly, a menu that all six family members are willing to eat from can be a difficult task. Between some people wanting authentic Japanese (especially after pizza the night before) while others are happy to opt for French fries or rice, there’s no guarantees that we’ll satisfy peoples wants and desires.

So after wandering around the village for a good 45 minutes, surveying and rejecting menus or confirming a lack of space within those that looked promising, we ended up back where we’d started. Fortunately the people that had been occupying it when we first went to eat there had moved on and we were able to get seats. Fortified with dinner, spirits were revived and crepes for dessert helped.

On the way back we discussed the fact that we hadn’t yet been to any of the public onsens for which Nozawa Onsen is known. As our hotel had a small private onsen, we’d bathed there rather than leave the hotel to walk about in the cold and return again. We decided that we couldn’t leave without doing so though, so Caroline, Emily, Thomas and I set out to experience the public onsen.

We parted at the door, the girls going left while Thomas and I went right. Unlike the private onsens we’d used, there was only a single open area with storage spaces along the outer wall and the onsen in the middle, a small wall that you could see over dividing the two. In the private onsens, there are shower heads where you wash with hot water before getting into the pool. In this onsen there were only taps. I turned one on and waited for the water to get hot. It didn’t. The thought of pouring cold water over myself before getting into what we’d been warned was very hot (44C+) wasn’t appealing. Thomas was of course no wiser than I was. We were saved from that fate when a Japanese gentleman came in, stripped off, sat beside the onsen and scooped the water out over himself with a small tub. With that revelation, we joined in, finding out that the water was in fact bloody hot. When I thought I was going to be able to stand it, I set the tub aside and slipped into the onsen itself. And good lord was it freaking hot! I found that if I sat very very still I could stand it, but that if I moved even just a fraction, disturbing the water seemed to expose me to the heat anew. I lasted about five minutes before clambering from the water and towelling off.

I waited outside for Thomas and Caroline and Emily emerged shortly before he did, also remarking on how hot the water was. When Thomas joined us and we talked about how hot it was to sit in the water, the girls didn’t believe it. Apparently they’d found it so hot that beyond dipping feet in that hadn’t managed to get in the water! They told us that a heavily pregnant woman and small girl had managed to do so in front of them and had found that just a little humiliating that they hadn’t managed to handle the heat.

Michael’s Dumpling count: 105