Local Time: 12/29/2019 Tokyo

As you can read from the previous post, my day actually never really ended from yesterday. We did not arrive at our friends place until 3:30 AM or so and went pretty much straight to bed. We were told we were going to head out early in the morning around 6:00 so we thought to weak up around 5:30AM.

Around 4:30 AM, our friend woke us up and said that we are ready to go and we are heading first to the fish market. I was in a complete daze and I grab my backpack and we were on our way.

We stopped briefly at my favorite convenient store in Japan (7 Eleven) and grab some coffee and for me a Pocari Sweat.

Once we arrived at the market, we went straight for some breakfast. The market is located on the outskirts of Tokyo. There are many wholesalers, as well as some retailers. If we were here a bit earlier we would have caught the Tuna auction similar to the old Tsukiji market. Maybe next time. So the breakfast place, we ended up going to serves many of the workers there for some fast noodle breakfast in and out.

Vicky and I shared a bowl and it was delicious!!!

The market is pretty big with lots of sea food. We were a little bit late or else we would have caught them with lots of tunas have a bidding sale similar to the old Tsukiji market. But it was still pretty awesome buying some fantastic seafood for tonight and also some amazing fresh fruits!!

Once we got all our goods, we were on our way to Ito. Ito is a small town south of Tokyo. It took us around 3 hours of driving there. This was my first time riding on the Japan interstate in a personal vehicle. There were many part of our trip that we drove right next to the sea.

When we got hungry, out comes the delicious Kyushu strawberries!!

For lunch we stop by along the way at a local shopping center. And OH My gosh, there it was, a Mega Don Quijote or MEGA donki!!! It is a basically a super department store, almost like a Japanese super walmart! It has everything and super cheap too and we found more strawberries from Kyushu.

Right next to MEGA donki was HamaSushi. And that is where we went for lunch.

We were welcomed by a small welcome robot.

SushiHama is like a rotating sushi place, but everything is from an automated menu. You push buttons and sushi and fish appears. You eat and order until you are done.

During our costal drive toward our final destination, we saw a rock formation that looked like a resting lion. Do you see it?

Finally, we turned away from the coast and started to drive up the mountain. This little mountain village is famous for their oranges. There were orange groves everywhere.

When we arrived, the locals were welcoming us in the woods.

When we arrived the place was so nice and peaceful, I forgot to take a picture of the cabin. Our Japanese host welcome us in to his mountain cabin and started a fire in his fire place.

From our room window, we can see some wind generators on the mountain top, we can even see a little bit of the ocean.

Our dinner here was awesome. Since everything was super and super fresh. We had a Japanese seafood fest with scallops, otoro tuna, and uni. Our host even taught me how to properly open and clean a scallop and cut sashimi.

What a great way to end a night. Cheers!!!