Dec25 - Christmas moving day

We woke at 6am with the kids excited to do our present exchange. We set up our Christmas tree ( and image and carols on the ipad) and proceeded to exchange gifts. It was a fun way to have Christmas with a mix of gag gifts and practical things.

At 7:30 we went and got combini breakfast and we were checking out of the hotel at 8:40am. We walked to the station and we were there in time to jump on the limited express at 9:04am instead of the 9:52 local train.

After arrival it was raining enough to get wet. Our hotel was right at the station, but check-in wasn't till 3pm. So we stashed the bags at the hotel. Visited the tourist office and got a map. Then went to Mister Donut, where the boy and I had a donut while working out what to do given the weather. We decided to walk into town and escaped the cold and rain by visiting some shopping centres. By 12 we were done with that, so we went back to the station and sat there for a bit listening to random people play the piano.

At 1pm the troops were hungry, so we walked back to the shopping centre and hit up Saizeriya for some favourites - namely the corn pizzas and cheese doria.
After lunch we still had an hour or so to kill, it was still wet and cold outside, so we sort forget at a rest area in the shopping centre. Just before 3pm we high-tailed it to our hotel to check in.

We got room next to each other and enjoyed the brief separation for a rest. At 5pm we left and worked out which bus to catch to go to the illuminations near the castle. The tourist info centre helped out. So we caught the bus for the 10mins to outside the castle. Here it was snow, but very wet and we got very cold and wet on our walk around the castle grounds. At 6:15pm we made our way to a very Christmas dinner destination - Bikiri Donkey. It was the family's first time here. A Christmas meal was had - they have an allergy free meal too.

It had stopped raining by the time we exited and made our way to the closest bus stop, only to decide not to wait for a bus but to walk the 1.5km back to the hotel instead. Walking was brisk, but better than the castle trudge in the rain/snow we did before dinner. The obligatory evening ice-cream was purchased at Family Mart for a change. And thus ends our Christmas day as we retire to our rooms for some nice hot baths. Merry Christmas all.

Edit. At bedtime I checked the train service notices and saw that they had cancelled the Resort Shirakami (the train journeys this trip was planned around). So at 10pm we were scrambling to come up with our solution. We ended up scrapping the Akita/Niigata leg (as more bad weather could cancel our train for 27th) and booked 3 nights in Tokyo.Read more