DAY 44

A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP AND A RELAXING DAY

20.01,2025

Mami really needed sleep as my coughing is still there and it is preventing her from getting a good night’s sleep. So last night she slept in the lounge/family room on a heated rug, with cosy blankets and a horseshoe shaped pillow. I still haven’t completely shaken this cough but last night we both got a good night’s sleep and feel so much better for it.

I was the last to get up this morning and Mami must have slept really, really well, as she told me she was going to do Karaoke with Nana today. This is not a nice little sing-a-long time, this is a battle. They compete for points on every song they sing with every missed note meaning points are deducted from their score. Mami has just texted me to let me know, she is currently losing to Nana by 0.1 points!!

While Mami and Nana were battling it out in a Karaoke booth, I walked to You Me town in Kudamatsu (8000 steps). On arriving at my destination, feeling a bit hot and tired, I made a beeline to Hamamoto and started writing today’s blog. I still feel a bit hot and tired after the walk but it’s amazing what a coffee, with jazz playing quietly in the background, will do to uplift you.

Hamamoto is one of my favourite places to write, for all the reasons mentioned in the previous paragraph. It has a really good atmosphere and was one of the first places I went to when I came here 20 years ago. It was one of the only places in Shunan or Kudamatsu that had a genuine Italian coffee machine and more importantly, the guy running the place knew how to make good coffee. What is nice, he is still here running the show twenty years later.

SCORE UPDATE: Mami is ahead of Nana by 0.5 points and wants more time before they come and pick me up, so she can win by even more. One of them is going to be an unhappy chappy when they get here at 3.30pm. Perhaps the loser could be made to walk home from You Me town. I might mention that when they get here….. or not. They take this pretty seriously.
FINAL SCORE: Mami was very happy to report that the final score of Mami 95.795 to Nana 95.251. Those scores are out of 100 points, so they are pretty good scores.
I am sure Mami has shared before how karaoke works in Japan, and it’s quite a unique experience. When you go to karaoke here, instead of singing in front of a crowd, you rent a private room where you and your friends can sing freely. Today, the cost was 1200 yen per person, which includes up to 7 hours of room rental. Additionally, the price covers access to an all-you-can-drink non-alcoholic drink bar including corn soup, onion soup, hot drinks like hot chocolate and flavoured tea. You can enjoy as many soft drinks as you like throughout your karaoke session. Although they only sang for 3 and half hours, it was well worth the money, in their opinion.
After picking me up from Hamamoto, we stopped at ALZO, my favourite supermarket selling my ice cream for 99 yen. We also bought ingredients for Japanese curry as Youko is still not 100 % so we have decided to take over the dinner duty. Everyone enjoyed Traditional Japanese Curry-Rice. We looked at some photos from our Okinawa Trip, and enjoyed a chat after dinner. It was a good way to finish the evening.

Rob