After a surprisingly restful night sleep on our futons, we woke to intense thunderstorms over the water. This curtailed our plans to walk to the 7-11 for coffee. Another interesting thing about the Ryokan, it only had green tea available. We sipped green tea with each meal. We had to wait until after breakfast for our coffee. Breakfast was another interesting experience. Our dining time was 8 am. Again, when we arrived, the table was already set and the dishes were prepared for us. I counted five different dishes with fish. Including the one on the grill! Even the salad had fish on it!! Plus, rice and tofu.
At breakfast we were able to see the beautiful view of the water and islands from our dining table. Breakfast with an assortment of fish was very different. Surprisingly, the grilled fish was actually pretty good. It was a little tedious to pick out the bones, but it had great flavor. Needless to say, our chopstick skills were tested this weekend!
After breakfast, we went out for coffee and a walk. The rain had let up a little bit. We walked up the hill so we could see the hotel. Our hotel was the pink one. You walked into the lobby on the fifth floor. Our room was on the second floor. We had to take the elevator down to reach our room from the lobby. The restaurant where we ate was on the fourth floor. It made my head hurt each time we went to the elevator! I took a picture of the hotel map to help the layout make sense.
Before too long, it was raining again. We had planned to take a boat ride to explore the caves. However, the continuous rain showers deterred us. Instead we relaxed, ate sushi lunch, and soaked in the hotel onsen. The hotel provided yukata (summer weight kimonos) for guests to wear to the onsen and to dinner if you liked. We did wear them to the onsen, but picked our clothes to wear at dinner.
Before dinner, we went out to watch sunset. We were amazed with the spectacular sunset. I suppose the rain was worth it!
Before leaving for dinner, I took a couple more pictures of our room. Aren’t the leg-less chairs adorable?
Our dinner Sunday night was a little less intimidating than Saturday night. There was a lot of sushi, appetizers, crab legs, soft shelled crab, tempura vegetables, bone soup, rice, udon soup, cabbage, and more sushi!
About the only thing difficult to stomach was the sea whelk. Not my favorite. In fact, after Dave told me it was worse than sea urchin, I passed.
Before they brought over the three soups, they asked us if we wanted them. No, thank you. We were so full! Instead, dessert was served. Yum, fresh fruit! My favorite!
We returned to our room to find our futons setup for us.
We couldn’t help but laugh at the distance between them! We moved them closer and again added a few more futons, comforters, and our own pillows. Ahhhhh. Much better.
Monday morning, we had a chance to get out for coffee before breakfast. As we walked and talked, we both discussed how delicious an American breakfast sounded. Instead we had more fish. This time, only three fish dishes, a cold poached egg, tofu, squid, rice, pickles, a salad with tiny croutons, and seaweed soup. Plus, a great view!
We loaded up the car and checked out of our room. We made the trip back home safely and without issue. We also agreed to enjoy a few traditional American meals this week. It was a great weekend. We had fun relaxing and exploring when we could. The biggest adventure was definitely the meals!
