Ceiling light

Not a very Thanksgiving type of blog post today. 

In Japan there is a "Labor Day" type of Thanksgiving Day but not the family style, eat a feast, thank God for blessings type of Thanksgiving.  The day went by without too much acknowledgement in the Watanabe house.  This evening Tetsu and I will join some friends for small Thanksgiving dinner... just the four of us. 

Yesterday Tetsu and I were on a recycle shop quest for a new ceiling light for our living room.  Last week in a spurt of cleaning energy I removed the ceiling light and vacuumed up all the dead bugs and dust in the light bowl.  I replaced the bowl (plastic) and that was that.  But Friday, as I quietly sat knitting, the bowl came crashing down and broke up into pieces.  It is light and not dangerous but still, it meant I had a fluorescent light fixture in the center of my living room.  Rats.  I should have left the dead bugs.

So yesterday Tetsu and I went to three recycle shops and a furniture store and an electronics shop.  We priced and asked about just replacing the bowl or going for LED lighting, we compared fancy attachments and room sizes etc.

"Too bad we can't just replace that bowl...  It was only a few years old and it has a nice remote controller (that we never use). "

But we hadn't had the foresight to jot down the serial numbers and the electronics shop thought the price of the bowl would be about half of a new ceiling light anyway.

Tetsu and I finally settled on a light at recycle shop at a very minimal price.  And we made sure the light worked.  BUT...

Once we got home and Tetsu had installed it, one of the florescent bulbs didn't light.  RATS again!  So Tetsu called the shop; they told us to bring in the light and they would replace the bulb.  Is it worth another trip?  We could just buy a bulb.  Or return the whole thing and buy one at the electronics shop.  Or...

"I wonder if that light bowl will fit the old light fixture?"

"No, it won't Tanya, it is a different company entirely."

"We could TRY..."

Tetsu grudgingly put the old light fixture back up and tried attaching the bowl to the ceiling.  And it fit!  Tetsu has mixed feelings. He is happy he doesn't have to go through the rigamarole of taking the ceiling light back or buying an expensive new light, but he doesn't like to be proven wrong.

Our new light in the cluttered living room...  Kerosene stove, (cat warming itself), knitting, pictures all over the piano (that doesn't get used) and yes, that is a kerosene tank back there.  Not too pretty a decoration is it. 

There is a strange sticker on the ceiling light that I don't like.

"Let's take that off...  We don't need a sticker telling us how to replace the light."

"No.  That is necessary.  The people who owned the light before never took it off.  Leave it as is."

I don't like the sticker.  And since the light bowl doesn't belong to the light fixture anyway, I doubt the instructions for take the ceiling light apart are going to be helpful.  What do you think?  Maybe I'll just take the sticker off when Tetsu isn't around.  Then again, if I play around too much the light bowl might come crashing down again...

Pet pictures

Hmmm.  It seems like I'm busy but I'm not really getting much done...  Lots of errands to do today.

Let's see... how about some cat pictures.  Here is Toi on the veranda ledge.  Last week he fell off the roof and I found him in the forest.  I think Toi wasn't aware of how slippery the roof can get with the rain and frost and he just jumped onto the roof and slipped off.  None the worse for the experience.

Toi rarely gets featured on my blog just because he is kept away from everyone else.  He is such a bully and not much of a thinker.  Toi sees a cat and he attacks.  He seems to have a preference for Patora and so they live together either in the cat house outside or now in Takumi's old bedroom with cushions and climbing places.  I don't think Patora is too thrilled with the arrangements,

"He may like me, but I don't especially like HIM!"

but she has her own issues with Chip.  Ah the trials of trying to figure out cat psychology...

Here is Vel claiming a place on my quilting hoop.  I don't get much quilting done because I hate to disturb him.  Vel is very happy with Toi banned to other rooms.  When they were together Vel basically lived under the sofa.  Now in his old age he can get love and rule over the rest of the cats (and try out quilts).

And here is Choco looking cold.  Poor Choco's yard doesn't get much light and she is waiting for the sun to hit her area.  Look at all those collars she has around her neck.  The chain collar is for when we go walking.  The red collar keeps her attached to her wire lead... and the black collar keeps her from slipping the red one off.  If I make a mistake and attach the lead to the wrong collar then off she goes across the fields!

Knitting blues

My knitting is not going very successfully.  I definitely feel more confident about my quilting than I do about my knitting...

I bought 16 balls of assorted yarn colors.  I found the white I wanted at another store and had to buy another 5 balls of that (because the store was only selling the yarn in packages).  Okay... so maybe I'll have leftover yarn for something else.

NOT SO!

I followed a pattern for an large sweater...  Tetsu is really extra large but I've made the same sweater from the same pattern before.  I did take a gauge but I tend to look at a gauge and think'

"Oh good.  That's not far off."

I don't use my gauge to think,

"Oh, that is two stitches too small so I'll need to compute and add more stitches."  I'm very non-mathematical.

So I knitted up a good foot of the front of the sweater...  And realized that I didn't have nearly enough yarn!  Hmm.  This is going to be a heavy sweater.  And my knitting friend looked at what I'd done and suggested I reknit using a larger needle and check the gauge.  I ripped out all the work I'd done and started again!

And took a gauge and thought

"Oh good.  That's not far off either."

And I've been knitting.  I now have a bit more than half of a front of a sweater.  I added some extra white lines between the stripes (the first time around was just layers of stripes) but by my figuring I STILL won't have enough yarn.

That makes sense... because I didn't decrease the number of stitches from the gauge... I am just knitting up the pattern with larger needles and anyone will tell you that that doesn't lessen the amount of yarn used, it will only make the sweater bigger.  I figure these things out a little later than anyone else...

I've been thinking about ripping this all out again and using fewer stitches.

Or going out and buying more yarn and just making a big sweater.

Tetsu would probably be surprised to get a sweater too big for him as usually it is the other way around... 

I think I'll go back to the yarn store....  I really don't want to do the math...

Convalescent home bazaar

This weekend Tetsu's convalescent had a mini bazaar and I visited (wearing a mask to protect everyone from my cold germs).  There were a few events such as Fishing for Snacks (crackers and such attached to clothespins and fished for with a handmade fishing pole and wire hook) and dart throwing (plastic darts).  Tetsu nixed me taking pictures of the people in the home but here is a shot of HIM taking pictures of the wheelchair residents throwing darts. 

Can you see how happy he looks?  Tetsu always looks happy when he is talking with the residents at the convalescent home or when he is doing something with them (it's when he is sitting at his desk in his office that he looks like the grumpy office manager that everyone tiptoes around).

Oh, and here is Tetsu at his desk showing off his "tree".  He especially wanted me to take a picture of his tree as proof that it is growing.  This is a coffee "tree" that Takumi ordered and had sent to Tetsu for his birthday back in July (that's why it says "Takumi's tree" on the pot).  It tried to live in our house for a week and the cats started gnawing at the leaves.  Tetsu was horrified and rescued the tree and took it to work where it can thrive near a sunny window with no cats to bother it. 

TAKUMI, YOUR FATHER IS STILL ENJOYING HIS TREE!

 

At the bazaar, little items were being sold for pennies and it is fun for the residents to "purchase" tissue cases or detergent packets or cups or pencils etc....  Nothing too exciting.  My purchase for the day was one of the little red "piggy" banks.  I already had the pink one from somewhere...  These are little replicas of the old fashioned style of mail box in Japan.  Sort of cute.  Okay, I don't need a piggy bank but for the bazaar cause I'll buy it to sit alongside my pink one.  As I was leaving the convalescent home I noticed the yellow one still unsold so I went back and bought that one too.  I seem to have started a collection.  And Tetsu came home that night with another red one that turned up in the leftover's pile too.  That makes four.

And yesterday the post office gave me another little red one to thank me for buying New Year's postcards.  (Sorry I didn't take a picture of that one).  I really DO have a collection!
 

Yarn assortment

On Saturday I realized that I haven't thought about a Christmas present for Tetsu yet.  EVERY year for 35 years I've knitted Tetsu something for Christmas.  That's a lot of yarn and a lot of time!  Tetsu has four or five favorite sweaters and vests but the rest sit unused in his closet...  Does he NEED a Christmas sweater?  NO!  HE DOES NOT!  Does he WANT a Christmas sweater?

"I don't need one.. so if you don't want to knit one that's fine.  But it is sort of a tradition..."

So my answer was, yes, Tetsu expects a Christmas sweater.  I'd better get knitting.

I went off to a smallish craft shop and looked at yarn.  Since I don't even know what pattern I want to use just looking at yarn wasn't very helpful.  I found some very pretty white tweed yarn with a lot of speckles of color in it.  Well, it might be nice for me, but for Tetsu?  I looked at the other colors in the same yarn.  Hmmm.  The orange is striking, but would Tetsu wear an orange sweater?  I think not.  I gave up on the pretty speckled tweed yarn and came home with empty arms.

In the afternoon Tetsu and I went off to the mall, with the purpose of just looking in the yarn shop there.  I really wanted to be left alone with my ponderings but Tetsu doesn't much like the mall and he had nothing he wanted to shop for.  He stuck by me in the yarn shop.  Oh well.

"See any yarn you like?  Anything here you want to wear?"

Tetsu browsed the aisles and pointed to a pretty display of colored swatches in tweed with colorful speckles.  Hmmm.  Does that look similar to what I'd found earlier? 

"So.  What color do you like?"

"I like all of them.  They don't have the white though.  How about a little bit of all the rest of the colors?"

Great idea!  A simple straight striped sweater.  No fancy cables or color changes.  I just might be able to knit up a sweater in time for Christmas.  I bought a couple balls of each color and started planning.  Too bad there wasn't any of the white but it is too much to hope that the white yarn I'd seen earlier might be the same...  A close match?  I decided to go back to smallish craft shop and check out that white yarn. 

THE SAME YARN!  I bought a couple balls and now have a complete set! 

I am happy to have started knitting already.  I am happy to be able to play with pretty yarns.  And I am happy to think that Tetsu and I were on the same wavelength!

God Whispers

A couple of days ago I received an e-mail from an OLD friend! (From 36 years ago, now in her 90's) 

Here is part of what she wrote:

"The calligraphy you made for us so many years ago has always hung in a prominent place in our home.  Now it's in our 'butterfly room' where we go more often than the front door....our little bathroom theme is butterflies, a very pleasant environment for taking care of necessities. And ' Time out; I need to go to see the butterflies' brings more smiles than 'Do you need to pee?'"

At first I couldn't figure out what she was talking about.  Butterflies?  But I finally recollected that as a 22 year old just out of college, I had come to Japan with my calligraphy pens and had written out a poem I had copied during my dormitory years.  It was called God Whispers and  I think I attached a cloth butterfly to the corner of the poster board and gave it to my missionary mentors...my "old" friend.

Here is God Whispers with a bit of an added ending.

God Whispers

The man whispered,

“God speak to me”

And a Meadowlark sang.

But, the man did not hear.

So the man yelled,

“God, speak to me”

And the thunder rolled across the sky.

But, the man did not listen.

The man looked around and said,

“God let me see you.”

And the sun shined brightly.

But, the man did not see.

And the man shouted,

“God show me a miracle.”

And, a life was born.

But, the man did not notice.

 So, the man cried out in despair,

“Touch me God, and let me know you are here.”

Whereupon, God reached down and touched the man.

But, the man brushed the butterfly away and walked on.

I found this to be a great reminder that God is always around us in the little and simple things that we take for granted.  So I would like to add one more:

The man cried, “God I need your help!”

And an email arrived reaching out with good news and encouragement.

But, the man deleted it and continued crying.

Don’t miss out on a blessing because it isn’t packaged the way that you expect.

The poem can be also be seen with some beautiful photography and music on this YouTube video .  I have typed the old poem out again (no calligraphy pens anymore) and put it up in my "butterfly room".

Over 50

I missed the kindergarten bazaar last weekend because I was still battling my cold.  I didn't find out until Wednesday who had won our "Cake Walk" raffle quilt this year.

After one of my Wednesday English classes (playtime) at the kindergarten, a little boy came up to me and whispered shyly.

"Thank you...."

"What?  Say that again..."

"THANK YOU....  BED COVER."

Bed cover?  Oh!  The bed cover!  This was the little boy who won the raffle quilt this year and his mother, knowing that he would have English that day, had obviously tutored him in saying thank you...  And he remembered to!  I gave him a big hug and let him know how happy I was that he had won the quilt.  I think it is the first time a child has come to say thank you to me specially.  Many of the kindergarten mothers only know me as the English teacher and probably don't realize I am involved in the raffle quilt each year.

********************

Yesterday at our patchwork gathering one friend told us about a conversation she had overheard when buying her raffle tickets at the bazaar.  There were so many raffle prizes this year, all made by a craft group of kindergarten mothers.  But our Cake Walk quilt was given the honor of being the grand prize again this year.

"Ooh!  Look at that beautiful quilt the alumni mothers made this year!"

"Isn't it gorgeous!  The colors are so vibrant!  It really is a beauty!"

"Yes, that group does such beautiful work.  And I hear that they are all over 50!"

Oh, did our group laugh when we heard this report!  What ancients we must seem at "all over 50" to the young kindergarten mothers.  Hmm.  Some of us are closer to 60 (plus and minus a couple years) and to the kindergarten mothers we must be around their mothers' ages.

Come to think of it, the kindergarten mothers are looking younger and younger every year!

We "over 50s" have decided to attempt another quilt for next year's raffle.  I guess we'd better do it while we can!

Y-kun's quilt

On my sewing room floor are 10 blocks... a start at a Heartstrings quilt.  But I'm not making it!  Actually I am making half of it.

Y-kun comes weekly for English (and cooking and juicing).  I've given him permission to go upstairs to my sewing room and he finds "treasures" in my bead drawer, in my leaders/enders box and in my scrap bin.  He is constantly asking me if he can take home some scraps though they seem to just live in his English bag but he enjoys finding pretty colors and patterns.

"Y-kun, why don't you make a quilt?  I'll help you."

"A quilt will take years.  I can never make a quilt."

"You come early every week, you like to play with my fabrics.  You can make one block at a time and we'll see how many you can get made."

I cut up some sheeting fabric and made some center strips and since then have let Y-kun have the run of my strings bin.  I have taught him how to sew a straight seam (we still need to work on that a bit) and he has mastered using the pedal and the thread cutter.  Last night Y-kun got a lesson on winding a bobbin and rethreading the sewing machine. 

I don't know why Y-kun has trouble sewing that 1/4 inch seam allowance.  I think he is pulling the fabric as he sews... I have explained and explained that he needs to watch the sewing foot edge but by the end of the strip he has got only threads holding the fabric together.

"Do it again.  It is just taking you longer having to redo things you know."

A Heartstrings quilt is very forgiving.  Y-kun can go over and over the same two strips of fabric until he's got something close to a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

Ironing has been a lesson for Y-kun too!

"Don't push so hard that you get the whole block out of shape.  Just make sure the fabric lies flat and press on top."

Y-kun is an aggressive ironer.

Last night the other boy in our class watched Y-kun put in the last few stitches on the block he was working on.

"This is so easy.  You ought to try it.  We will have to know how to sew when we get to jr. high school you know."

A little boasting there...  The other boy wasn't the least interested in playing with fabric...
I have promised Y-kun that for each block he makes, I will make him one during the week.  That way he only has half the work to do and his quilt grows magically.  He loves laying out the blocks to see how many we have made...  12 more to go?  Hmmm... Maybe more... but we are sewing in baby steps  No hurry.

Last night Y-kun started eyeing my fabric stash, not my left over fabric.

"Sensei, I want to use some of THAT!"

Nothing may be safe in my sewing room while Y-kun is up there!
 

"When two or three gather..."

Hmmm...  Not a lot going on.  I did spend some time making a Prayer Quilt this week and that was finished and delivered to the recipient yesterday.

I haven't made a Prayer Quilt for some time but this friend eagerly accepted my offer and four of us had an impromptu prayer and tying gathering yesterday.  When making a Prayer Quilt, I don't do any quilting and instead bind the quilt and put in the tying threads.  I leave the threads uncut until the prayer gathering (to keep the short threads from pulling off).   Even after all the threads have been tied, I suggest that the ends be left long so that other prayers can be tied in over the first knots.  So what if it becomes a knotty quilt.  It is not supposed to be beautiful, it is supposed to represent the prayers.

It was wonderful to sit around the quilt and take turns praying aloud for our friend.  Her daughter joined us too and it really brought joy to my heart to hear how this young woman's faith had grown and bloomed probably from being exposed to her own mother's strong faith.  (I've known the girl since she was three!)  The quilt will be taken to my friend's church this Sunday for more prayers to be tied in and I will get a label made this week with this requested Bible verse.

"Take your everyday ordinary life

-- your sleeping, eating, going to work, and walking-around life --

and place it before God as an offering." 

 Romans 12:1 (Message Bible)

 

Doctor visit

My blogging has been sporadic again because of a lingering cold.  I go to the drugstore and buy cold medicine, I sleep all day, I laze around the house not doing a blessed thing.   I manage to complete my teaching and crosswalk duties but then it is drag around for the rest of the day. I even missed the kindergarten bazaar this weekend!  I still don't know who won the raffle quilt!  Tetsu cleans and does errands (he's not much of a cook) and asks me if I don't feel like doing some patchwork or some blogging.   I feel like I'm not earning my keep around here.

Finally on Friday I went to the doctor.  I have a cold.  I KNEW that!

I sometimes think I've lived too long in Japan, I've forgotten how things are done in the States.  Take this doctor's visit for example.  In Japan we don't have doctor's appointments.  I suppose we do if there is major surgery scheduled but otherwise it is just wait in line for your turn to see the doctor.  So I sat, and I sat and I sat.  I'll have you know it took two hours to have a doctor look in my throat and tell me I have a cold and write me a prescription.  I saw him a whole three minutes (if that!).  But when I think of all the patients sitting in his waiting room from morning to evening, then, yeah, three minutes is about all he can manage per patient.  (But I only paid $10 for the visit.)

So how is this done in the States?  There have been times when I have been California and my mother has needed immediate medical care; no time to make an appointment.  We are fairly regular visitors to the emergency room and the Urgent Care unit.  In most cases, because of my mother's age and her symptoms, she is swept into the examining room and nurses and a doctor will care for her within minutes.  I know there are some people out in the waiting room who have to sit for an hour or so as triaged patients are taken care of but everyone seems to realize that is the price they pay for not having an appointment.

In Japan we don't have appointments and we don't have a personal physician though I suppose if I go to the same doctor enough times he might begin to recognize me.  This week's doctor seemed to dredge up the recollection (after I reminded him) that I was allergic to some medication.  But if I get fed up with one doctor's system or his doctor/patient attitude then I'll move on to another doctor.  That's why my mother-in-law has run the gamut of doctors in the town and she doesn't have any more she can go to!  My mother in the States has a doctor who has treated her for 20 years or more, calls her by a nickname, sits on the counter as he explains things, he even knows MY name.  It is such a nice feeling to know he KNOWS how we feel about treatments or living wills etc.  I wonder how many patients the average American doctor sees in a day as compared to the average Japanese doctor.  I wouldn't be surprised if the Japanese doctor works through 50 or 60, maybe more during the flu season.

But I do know that if I am feeling sick in Japan then if I can manage to sit in a waiting room for two hours a doctor will eventually see me, whereas I wonder if in the States by the time the appointment rolls around the person is all better.  And I also wonder why I have more faith in the Japanese doctor's medication than the drugstore stuff whereas if I were in the States I'd probably just buy Tylenol and not even consider bothering a doctor for something so minor.  This is why I think I've been in Japan too long.

So I'm dragging along but on the upswing.  I've almost finished my three packets of medication (not given in childproof bottles by the way) and I sure don't want to go back to the doctor's office for another two hour wait. 

Mrs. N's quilts

Mrs. N came on Friday to my small patchwork class with a couple of her finishes.   I love teaching Mrs. N. because she is so gung-ho about trying new things and she is not afraid to "practice" on her pieces. She knows that by the time the quilt is finished she'll be that much better at whatever technique she's working on.

Here is Mrs. N. with one of her New Testament quilts.  Yes, one of them.  Mrs. N. is making two at the same time.  This one she wanted to get done in time for a friend's birthday and so she finished the hand quilting in just a couple of weeks.  She proudly boasted that her stitches got smaller and smaller the more she quilted!

Chip tried out Mrs. N's quilt and pronounced it an excellent napping quilt.  (The stitchery is from Red Brolly's blog.)

And another quilt that Mrs. N. finished was a table runner made of some of my cat fabrics.

Though you can't see well in the picture, Mrs. N. machine quilted around almost all those kitties in each block!  The big ones and the little ones!  And she also machine quilted the names of the kitties that have been in her life over the years.

Mrs. N. did an excellent job of quilting cat paws on the ends of quilt runner.  She made a paper templates and then quilted over each template in the open squares.

I'm proud to have Mrs. N. as a patchwork student!
 

Um... Well...

After the relaxing onsen stay, Tetsu and I spent the next couple of days visiting with old friends. 

These two 20 year old young men turned into...

...these two 60 year old "mature" men.

Tetsu's friend, N-san brought along old pictures from their college years and I took photos of their pictures.

Um... Is this proper blogging material?

This picture was taken when Tetsu's college judo group did some intensive training not far from Meiji Shrine in Tokyo. The guys are wearing fundoshi, a traditional type of men's undergarment.  As Tetsu explains it, the week long January training camp ended with a ceremony involving the fundoshi.  On the last day, the young men were given their hand made fundoshi, and they would run to the Meiji Shrine about 6 miles away.   At the shrine the athletes would then shed their sportswear (yes, they did wear their sportswear while running) and wearing just the fundoshi, douse themselves in the shine's ice cold purifying water.  People going to the shrine to pray for New Year's blessings would stare and take pictures and the girls in their beautiful kimonos would titter and giggle at the near naked young men.  I doubt very much that this college custom is allowed any more, at least not at Meiji Shrine...

Though fundoshi used to be traditional underclothing, it is rarely seen nowadays except at festivals.  It is really just a long piece of fabric that is twisted into a cord around the waist and then brought up from the back, opened in the front and tucked into the part encircling the waist.  The back is sort of a thong like arrangement which leaves the buttocks showing.

As an aside.  Though most young men didn't wear these normally, Tetsu, the manic athlete that he was, wore fundoshi under his clothing until I met him...  His mother suggested that if he was planning to marry this foreigner, I might be not like being confronted with fundoshi.  Tetsu retired his fundoshi before I married him, for which I'll forever be grateful to his mother...
 

Tsunagi Onsen

The inn that we stayed at was in the small hot spring town of Tsunagi.  Onsens are usually situated in towns or villages.  The inns and hotels have licences to bore to the hot spring source or else there is an organization that permits piping from one main source.  Some hotels are sparkly and glamorous with their baths up on the top floors looking down on the world, some inns are old with soft wooden bathtubs worn away by age.  Most hotels and inns boast an outdoor bathing area. 

Often the towns will have a vague sulfur aroma in the air and here and there steam can be seen rising from the hillsides and the outdoor bathing areas.

Early in the morning Tetsu and I bundled up and before anyone in the inn was awake we tiptoed out to the parking lot and took Choco for a long walk by the lake.  The air was crisp and the sun was still hidden behind the surrounding hills.  We could let Choco run by the lakeside without fear that she would go too far or meet up with anyone.

 In the distance is Mt. Iwate, the pride of Morioka.

"Just as beautiful as Mt. Fuji!" says Tetsu. He will always long for his home town scenery.

We were very happy that we had brought our down jackets and fur lined hoods!

Tetsu and Choco and I walked about thirty minutes to the other end of the bridge spanning the lake.  Still not many cars out so Tetsu could pose in the middle.

On the way back the sun finally came up over the hills and lit up the autumn trees on the far side of the lake.

A fallen tree lay in the misty lake.

The colors of the morning were just beautiful. 

After our icy walk Choco went back to her well-insulated car and Tetsu and I took another hot bath!
 

Onsen inn

After Tetsu and I arrived in Morioka and had finished our first business of the weekend we headed off to an onsen to relax in the hot spring.  Tetsu had found someplace through the Internet and though it wasn't glamorous, the rooms were traditional and the food was delicious!

Around the rooms at the inn were Morioka specialty knick-knacks such as the iron-ware kettle on a low hibachi.

 And there was a lovely obi that had been made into a room screen.

After checking in I was led to a Japanese cupboard and told to choose my yukata for the evening.

 A yukata is a cotton kimono that can be worn around the inn and also to sleep in.  There were drawers of yukatas and another drawer of obi (belts).

I chose a pink cherry blossom yukata and a maroon obi though I wondered if for my age I should have chosen a dark grey or brown.  (You think about these things in Japan.)  Oh well...

Tetsu was supplied with a regular inn men's yukata.  Here he is showing that one us had wine for dinner and the other had orangeade.  Which one of us had which do you think?  Yep.  I'm the one one who enjoyed the wine.  Tetsu is a complete non-drinker.

Dinner was served in our room and it kept coming and kept coming!  I don't know what all we had to eat!  Fish morsels, sushi, sashimi, grilled meat, simmered vegetables over individual candle burners.  I think Tetsu and I counted 20 different little dishes filled with all sorts of colorful and delicious delicacies.  Yum!  So good!  But way too much food! 

Guests of course stay at an onsen in order to enjoy the hot spring bath and Tetsu sure got his money's worth.  He relaxed in the hot bath 4 times while we were here, and enjoyed it immensely!  (I managed twice.)

Scenery pictures tomorrow.