Yesterday I had my usual ethics classes during the day. I was also franticly updating the JR East website to see if I could buy tickets from Tokyo to Kawazu for our upcoming trip to Japan.
We’re planning to go to the Kawazu Cherry Blossom Festival, and the only day we can go is Monday 24 February. Which happens to be a public holiday in Japan. And over a million people go to this festival every year. And I’d previously checked about buying train tickets to get there from Tokyo, and seen that the JR East website only makes tickets available one month in advance. So on the 24th of January it was the first opportunity to buy tickets. I wanted to get them as quickly as possible to avoid missing out if the trains sold out.
But when I checked in the morning, I could still only buy tickets up to the 23rd of February. So I was intermittently refreshing the page, thinking it would probably tick over at some time during the day. 9am Japan time came and went, and still no change. I had to teach a couple of ethics classes, but sneaked in some updates. No change. But then after midday Japan time he site updated and I could book tickets!
I chose a train departing Tokyo just after 8am, arriving in Kawazu about 10:30, and a train returning at 15:44, getting back a bit after 18:00. I managed to book the tickets. But I noticed that the next two trains returning to Tokyo (about every half hour) had no seats available already by the time I’d finished! I suspect that given it’s a long weekend, a lot of people want to return to Tokyo that evening.
On Friday evening it was board games night at one of my friends’ place. I arrived while some of the others were playing a game of Landmarks, a new game for us. Since one person was giving clues and the rest of us were trying to solve them together, I could join in. In this game one player is trying to lead all the others across a hexagon map, by giving word clues. It starts with three hexes having words on them, and then the clue-giver attempts to direct the guessers where to place new hexes by writing related words on them. You should put them near hexes with related meanings and far from hexes with opposing meanings. It was tricky and we messed up several times, but ultimately managed to win by the skin of our teeth.
Our host made home made pork, fennel, and apple sausage rolls, which were delicious snacks.
Then we split into two groups since we had seven people. I played Root with two others, while the other four played Ticket to Ride: Europe. In the Root game, I played the Vagabond, with the others playing the Cats and Birds.
It was a very close game, with all of our points tracking one another closely throughout. But in the end the Cats prevailed. After this we rejoined groups for a big seven-player game of Apples to Apples to round out the night.
Today I went for a 5k run in the morning. I took it easy since I felt a bit tired, but was still pleased with my time. Then I cleaned the bathroom and shower while cooling off afterwards.
I’m making sourdough today and we didn’t have any bread left, so we walked up to the pie shop for lunch. Then later we went out again to do some shopping for lunch tomorrow, when my wife’s family are coming over. We’re just going to roast some chicken and make potato salad and a green salad.
On the way back we passed this brand new public art installation near the shops – it wasn’t there just a couple of days ago:
The bird in the statue’s hand looks like a tiny pelican. I’ll have to take a closer look another day to see if I can positively identify it.
New content yesterday:
New content today: