Had the day off to relax. Went to the park to do some exercise but most of the day I spent on reforming an IKEA table we have in the living room. It’s old and worn. We have been looking for a replacement but without success. Then Chie and I came up with the same idea separately, we not reform it.
We decided to go with white tile. So yesterday we went to Tokyu Hands to buy all that we needed to reform it from a dull, old and worn IKEA table to a totally different table 🙂
Once we got back home from our vacation in Yamaguchi we repacked our bags and went with Sachi-san and her two dogs to Ocean 6. We arrived late in the evening welcomed by a repellant smell from the fridge. Turned out the company that maintains the property had turned off the electricity a couple of weeks or so before and that does not make a good combination with food and heat. We had an hour or two of cleaning out the fridge before we could exhaustedly go to bed.
On Saturday morning we found out that not only the fridge get impacted without electricity. The pool too get impacted. It was green. So we had to pump out all the water and then scrub from top to bottom. A day’s worth of work. Luckily the weather was nice but not hot so we could do without the pool.
On Sunday we had an video chat with Toku-san from Bali and he pointed out that we should probably clean the pool filter too. So that was how we spent Sunday. Cleaning the pool filter. And once that was done it turned out the valve in the pool umping system had to be replaced so we continued doing that until later Sunday evening.
Just past 11 pm we were back in Naka-Meguro and just fell into bed 🙂
Final day of our vacation in Yamaguchi. I put in almost 1.5 km of swimming in the morning as well as some quality time in the hot tub. By 11 am we had checked out and were on our way to kill some time before our return flight to Tokyo.
First stop was a national treasure. A pagoda from 1452. Quite beautiful. Our second stop was a handicraft community building. Chie tried to be a colourful… Egg?
Our final stop was the anti-climax. We went to where Christmas tradition in Japan started. A quite modern white church with colourful somewhat kinky glass. Not so impressive compared to the massive, old cathedrals you find in Europe. And no Santa in sight!!!
After that we went as straight as we could (the car navigator was not the best) to the airport and by 16:30 we were back home.
There was not much to do at Kokian than spending time in our pool and hot tub. So that is what we were doing. Our room, or rather our own small villa, had a walled garden with enough greenery to keep it quiet and private from the few buildings around.
In the afternoon we had a look at the koi in the pond – we even had a chance to feed them 🙂 and then some more pooling and hot tubbing. I managed to do almost 1.9 km in the 7.5 meeter, 33 degrees hot pool.
After dinner we brought drinks and dessert out in the common garden, looked at stars and moon, and relaxed.
After having bathing several times both in the common onsen and in the hot tub at our balcony we checked out at 11 am. First stop on our way to Yamaguchi city was Mine and a 1 km long limestone cave, or rather an underground river. Beautiful and interesting. The “master” limestone in the cave was a 15 meters pillar that has taken more than 100000 years for mother earth to create.
After our hour and a half long stop in Mine we continued to Yamaguchi city for our stay at the Kokian ryokan. We had some trouble finding it but after some food at a McDonald’s we finally got the address and navigator right.
The afternoon and evening we spent in our own pool and hot tub. Well, we did some reading and eating too, but mostly our bodies were submerged in hot water.
