Yesterday morning was amazing in its own way at Shimofujia ryokan. The previous night they told us that we needed to check out at 9:30. I thought it was a little odd since typical hotel check out isn’t until 11am but I guess this isn’t a “typical hotel”.
I woke up a little early to have enough time to get one final onsen soak. If I could start every day, it would be like this.
At around 8:30 back in the room, I was packing things up to get ready to go. The front desk called saying breakfast was ready in the dining area downstairs. They led us through the lobby and opened a sliding door where a few of the couples that were staying in the ryokan were eating breakfast. We were presented with another beautiful display of food, no frozen Eggo waffles here. There was a neatly folded piece of paper that outlined which dish to start with first, I’m sure it would have been helpful if we could read it. I hope they weren’t offended that we totally ate things out of sequence.
We went back up to our room after the feast to change out of our comfy yukatas and back into our normal clothes again :(. Magically all the beds were put away in the room. Our car to take us to the bus terminal was waiting outside and they presented us with a really nice handkerchief as a gift for staying with them. The ryokan manager showed us out and kept bowing until we drove away.
The rest of the day was pretty uneventful after that. It took about 2 hours to get back into tokyo. Joanna got totally spoiled from the ryokan because the hostel we’re staying at is a shared 8 person dorm room. I kind of wish I stayed in the hostel I booked for Jack as I stayed there last time I was in Tokyo because it’s nicer than this one but I wanted to switch it up at least.
We went back to Shibuya to specifically go back to Yakitori Marukin for one last time. I don’t think a restaurant like this could survive in America where you get unlimited drinks for $6 an hour.
10 drinks and many grilled skewers of meat later it was time to pick up our glasses at Jins. Mine came out to be about $100 with a special yellow tint I added for an extra $40 to reduce eye strain from electronics. The staff there was awesome to work with and I would definitely recommend checking them out.
The trip is winding down now for us. Today is our last full day in Tokyo and then our flight out is Sunday night to LA. I went from taking +400 pictures a day on my big camera to a handful on my cell phone camera. We’ve got a full day of souvenir shopping, I’m just worried how I’m going to fit it all in my check in bag.
