Everyone woke up well enough to get to the train station. We packed up our disastrous hotel room and all met in the lobby at 10:30 to call two Ubers to take us to the train station. It is funny to travel as a pack of 5 and have to do things like get 2 taxis. How people travel with more than 1-2 kids, I do not know.

We picked up our tickets and got to our train. My dad promptly fell asleep and my mom spent the whole time taking videos out the window. Their vibes in a nutshell.

1.5 hours later, we arrived at the station. Nick and I broke off to go and rent our car / minivan / shaggin’ wagon. We opted for the family vehicle since we’re a Party of 5. We got all our stuff packed up and drove to a big grocery store. This store rocked – it was huge, clean, and had an incredible selection of anything you could ever want. The entire back wall was just different types of beautiful looking fish. It’s rare that we go to a grocery store that makes me think “I could live here” but this was one. We all had to exhibit a lot of self control to not buy too much.

The scenery in this area is stunning. The perfect fall leaves and blue sky helped. Even as we were in the grocery store parking lot we all stopped to admire the view.

We drove the short 20 minutes to our Airbnb. Nick had to readjust to driving on the left. Other than turning on the windshield wipers instead of the blinker 100% of the time, it feels natural to him now. We spent the whole ride looking out of the window remarking on how pretty it was. We drove past apple trees and persimmon trees that had so much fruit on them they looked fake.

We arrived at our Airbnb for the next few days and were greeted by the hosts. It is a beautiful traditional Japanese cabin. I will probably walk around taking detailed photos before we leave as inspiration for some sort of cabin if/when we recover financially from taking this trip.

As we were unpacking and getting situated, Millie went to her room alone and was quiet for a while. This is very unlike her so I went to check on her and she was in bed and fast asleep. I felt her forehead and she was burning up. I guess she wasn’t as recovered as we thought. We let her sleep as I prepared dinner. We woke her up to eat and she didn’t touch a thing, not even the hot cocoa she had been looking forward to all day.

I made a simple yet delicious meal for the adults. It has been so long since we’ve had a home cooked meal and we really needed something healthy. We had roasted Japanese sweet potatoes, greens, and thin sliced beef with a sesame sauce. I miss cooking.

Millie requested to brush her teeth so she could go back to sleep. It was so sweet and sad. We got her ready and snuggled up to her while reading her books. She requested my mom sleep with her in her bed, so her sweet granny did just that. My dad took that as his cue to also go to bed at 8:00. So now Nick and I are the last men standing, and it’s not even 9pm yet. I hope everyone is feeling better tomorrow, though I’m nervous about The Sickness hitting Nick next. Stay tuned.