I must have had more caffeine than I thought yesterday because last night I stayed up till after 2 and this morning I woke up with a sore throat and slight congestion...almost made it all the way through the trip without getting sick. The worst part is I can't hold or kiss Luke. Anyway, once I did get to sleep I was able to stay asleep till about 7:30 and then Christal, Luke and I went to the breakfast buffet and met up with Otousan. This morning's buffet seemed a little better to me, but maybe that was because of the types of fish they served. When we finished with breakfast Christal put Luke down for a nap and she told me to go to the onsen and alternate hot and cold pools at least three times for at least a couple of minutes in each. The onsen was completely empty, so that was nice, and after alternating the hot and cold pools I did feel a bit better.
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| Breakfast |
Luke ended up sleeping until about 1 pm so when he woke up we went and visited Hi-Obaachan one more time. Of course she was excited to see him but unfortunately Luke got a little bit fussy after just a few minutes. We still hung out there for a little while and I could tell it was difficult for Otousan to say goodbye.
From there we went to the Aeon Mall for lunch. We ended up choosing a tempura place called Hakata Tempura Takao. I ordered the anago tendon so that I could compare it to the one I had in Kichijoji. Overall the anago tendon in Kichijoji was better, but this one was still really good. Along with the anago it also came with chicken breast, kabocha, nasu (eggplant) and pii-man (green bell pepper). The chicken was really moist and tender, especially for being the breast and the batter on everything was a thin, delicate layer that shattered when you bit into it. The piece of anago might have been slightly larger here, but there was a little more of the narrow tail portion, so it kind of evened out. The variety of items was also pretty similar, but I felt the quantity at Kaneko-Ya in Kichijoji was a bit ore, which for an American is important. The tendon here also provided more tare (sauce) if you wanted as well as the normal tempura dashi with grated daikon if you got tired of the taste of the tare.
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| Anago Tendon |
When we finished lunch it was 3 so we headed up and got tickets to see Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I'm quite proud to say that Luke's first movie in a theater was Star Wars. He started out a little fussy so Christal had to stand up and go down on the side where the exit was, but she was able to watch the whole movie and she said Luke slept through most of it.
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| Luke About to Enjoy Star Wars |
After Star Wars ended we headed over to Uncle Hiro's mansion and ended up arriving about 5 minutes before he got home from work so we all drove over to Eichan Udon for dinner. This time I ordered takenoko tempura udon, which was udon with a side of mixed mushroom tempura. They gave me honshimeji, bunashimeji, eringi (king trumpet), shiitake and maitake mushrooms as well as a piece of carrot and shiso tempura. The tempura was almost as good as lunch, but the batter was just slightly thicker. All of it was still better than most tempura in the States though and my personal favorite of the night was the maitake mushroom. The udon was excellent as well and this time I got a better taste of the dashi. It was even more complex than I had originally though. It had smokiness as well as a really pleasant fishiness from what seemed like several different kinds of dried fish. When I finally finished I was stuffed. From Eichan Udon we headed to the Sun Live department store and bought some more omiyage gifts to take home and Christal and I got some soft serve for dessert. Once we finished shopping we dropped Uncle Hiro off at home and then headed back to the hotel and went to bed.
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| Takenoko Tempura Udon |
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