21st May 2019: an atmospheric walk, hanging out in Katsutadai, and a delicious last dinner

On this day, we packed up and went to the Narita area. We had plans to meet some friends in Katsutadai and sleep in an airport hotel.

The rain that had somewhat threatened us the day before fully manifested itself as we got into the taxi to the train station. It was as if it was releasing the rain of several weeks, all at once. Thick drops fell loudly onto the roof, the windows.

We somehow forgot about it as we went underground to take the train to the airport, then it was brought back to us as the train started moving and it finally emerged into the outdoors again. It felt quite strange—we had enjoyed such good weather during the trip, and now it was as if we were being forced to accept that it was coming to an end, abruptly!

At Narita, we took a bus to the airport hotel. I always find these in-between places somewhat strange—they really aren’t much spoken about when they talk of airports or travelling, so you don’t really have a lot of knowledge about how to operate or go around these. What to expect? How to behave? Etc.

Either way, we finally arrived at our last hotel of the trip (we had been in five already!), checked in, ate some lunch, and after resting for a bit, we met an old friend downstairs.

DIC museum

She wanted to show us a nice museum nearby, so we drove for a good while in the increasingly stronger pouring rain until we reached the DIC museum in Sakura.

Unfortunately it took us longer than expected to navigate the roads and the rain, and they were closing. We just had the chance to get a peek at a room and their gardens, but I can imagine it would be a really beautiful place to visit. I did enjoy the very atmospheric walk under the extreme downpour (thankfully our friend was better prepared than we were, and had lots of umbrellas in her car 😂)

You can even see the rain in the picture below!

We headed towards Katsutadai, Devvers’ old neck of the woods 😏

We still had some time before dinner so we visited a place called Takakura Machi Coffee, which seems to be a chain? They gave me a very sweet chai and it was quite soothing after all the rain.

Mysterious place we had dinner at (maybe Hikoichi?)

I’m not really sure of the name of the place we went to for dinner… all I know is that it was GREAT!

Devvers’ friends kept ordering delicious food and drinks and all we had to do was to enjoy those and the fun conversation! 😋

One of our favourite moments was when the chef was worried that Devvers and I would get too drunk with the sake… and so he arranged for a bottle of water and two big glasses to be sent to us. So we hydrated ourselves!

Bonus: our shoes that we took off before sitting down, a couple of shared pairs of shoes we could use if we wanted to go to the bathroom, and my feet with Cookie Monster socks! 🍪