I woke up with more bites, believe it or not. One thing is treating floors and hiding places, but our futons and layers of pillows, blankets and more futons (seriously, I feel like Princess on the Pea, there’s almost 100 layers of thin things under me! Or at least five) also have to be treated. Treating these things mean lugging them to a laundromat and putting them through a dryer cycle. Heat kills fleas and their eggs, or at least so the inspector called. Our Airbnb host is very apologetic and is refunding us for the inconvenience and costs associated with this entire mess, so at least that is something.
Right after breakfast, we got dressed and packed up all our beds. Maylin’s futon is three layers, Téa’s is two layers, and like I said, ours are at least 5 layers. It tooks quite a few trips for poor Joe to carry all the heavy stuff to the laundromat, which luckily is only 4 minutes away on foot, and a full family adventure. At most we had three dryers (futons, pillows and duvets), one washer (clothes) and one combined washer dryer (linens) going.
When you need coins in this country, and your laundromat does not provide a coin exchange machine (like, seriously??), one finds the nearest convenience store and buys something cheap with a ¥1000 bill. I bought a cold drink (the laundromat was hotter than an oven), as did Téa, and so did Maylin, only to find that the washing machines would not accept the shiny new ¥500 coins, so back we went to get even smaller, all ¥100 coins.
The entire process took about 2.5 hours, it was hot, it was frustrating, and this had better work! The house has been sprayed, every piece of bedding has been through the dryer, everything is clean. Everyone claims to do a mountain of laundry every once in a while, but this is truly a room full of laundry! Joe carried the first batch, but took a taxi the 4 minute walk with the rest.
After that exercise, we were all hungry, hot and ready for lunch. We had the rest of our Thanksgiving chicken stew for lunch, and then rebuilt our beds. In the afternoon, Joe took the girls back to Cups, the sports club where the girls go bouldering on Thursdays. Because today was a holiday, the sports club had a “try everything we have to offer” event, a 75 minute window where everything was open, with instructors to guide the kids in whatever they wanted to try out. The girls had such a great time! They went on the trampolines, there were little zip lines set up with the gymnastic bars, they bouldered and much, much more!
After a hot, busy and stressful 24 hours, we were in no mood to cook, but we are always in the mood for some conveyor belt sushi! We got one of the very last tables, the place was just as packed when we left today as it was last night when we couldn’t get in. Considering we came here on our very first day in Osaka and were one of only a handful of tables in the place, today was PACKED! There’s a little jingle when a dish comes for your table, you just have to listen carefully if it’s your bell going off, or the one in front, behind, or on the other side of the glass.
It’s just so easy to have a delicious time at this restaurant. It is not a Michelin starred place, there is near zero service here (machine to tell you which table to go to, you order through a tablet, a conveyor belt brings you your food, a machine to pay through), but it is fresh, it’s fast, the girls love the $4.50 kids sets, they get a gacha toy with each meal, and Joe and I get to stuff our faces with raw fish at less than $1 per plate. It’s win win win win in all the areas!
It’s not all raw fish! Last time we went all out and picked the most expensive items, today we tried to go as cheap as we could. We tried a few of the fried dishes, the smoked duck of course, the pork rib that I loved last time, we had lotus root and okra for something different, and of course both tuna and salmon. It truly doesn’t matter, it is (mostly) all delicous!
It was dark and hectic at the restaurant by the time we walked home. Sunset is about 5.25pm, so it’s not like we’re out late tonight, it’s just Japan. Still 25 degrees and comfortable in t-shirts only. Haven’t needed a cardigan for restaurant visits since Canada!
At home, after the girls showered off their sports day activities, we could finally dig into the desserts meant for yesterday! The girls had picked some pressed croissants that we’d been wanting to try every time we went to the grocery store, and definitely and unfortunately go into the large category of “looks better than it tastes”. But not bad. Sweet, crunchy, flaky, just not very tasty.
The girls and Joe played some Mario Kart to end the night, while I was on the phone with my nephew in Norway, planning for his upcoming visit! Now I anxiously go to bed for the night, and hope to wake up with zero new bites… Wish me luck!
Omg good luck. Nothing worse than bugs in the night! So glad you had a nice dinner after all that work!!!
Your life is so exciting!
💕Susan
Thank you Susan! Yes, we totally deserved some sushi after all of that! Although I would maybe rather have avoided this particular excitement…