Monday morning Stephen and I said goodbye to Skye as she headed south to Tokyo, work and the new house. I puttered about, uploading pictures while Stephen got rid of his washer and dryer, refrigerator, sofa, dining room table and chairs (when you rent an apartment in Japan, it comes with NOTHING, and must be returned, equally empty to the owner when you leave).
Mid-day we took a break from all our hard labour and went for a bike ride around the lake. The sun was shining even though it was cold, and it was a perfect day to be outside. After about 15 or 20 minutes of cycling, we paused at a foot onsen (a public foot bath) which was, as usual, immaculately clean, and joined about a dozen locals in having a nice soak in local hot spring water. I rolled up my jeans and tried out the hot end, which Stephen had already gleefully sunk his tootsies into, but couldn’t take the heat. You can see for yourself the lobster-esque colour Stephen’s skin changed to after just two minutes in the water. It’s hot!
After a nice soak in the cooler end of the onsen, we put our socks and shoes back on and kept peddling. We stopped at Takashima Castle and had some fast-food lunch, which was not terrific (rice, fish, nattou, pickled plums and tonkatsu fried pork), but decided time was getting on, so skipped going inside in favour of a sake tasting at the local Masumi brewery.
We sampled 10 sakes, in the “dry”, “young” and “sweet” categories, as well as some delicious plum wine. I have an extreme palate that prefers either the very dry or the super-sugary sake. Hana-maru, a frozen sweet sake in a small bottle, tasted like a delectable alcoholic slushy. Yum!
The ride home was equally pretty, even though we veered away from the lake for a while to ride over train tracks and some side streets. The wrought-iron street lamps in Suwa were very attractive, and the quiet laneways reminded me of small-town Britain. When we got home, Stephen kindly put the kettle on and made a pot of tea, and then showed me how to use the singing digital control panel to get the bath to draw itself. Seriously that bathtub was from the future! It filled itself, turned itself off, told me in Japanese that my bath was ready, continually added heated water to keep the temperature steady, and sang to me. I must own one!