Feb 16 – Niigata City

Today I went with Tamaki and Umi to Niigata City. It is the biggest city in Niigata prefecture and about an hour away from Muramatsu (The place where I am living). I got to spend some more quality time with Tamaki on the car ride there and back. It was then that I realized that I am now living in a place very close to home. Muramatsu is a really small town with almost nothing to do. The nearest big city is an hour away. On top of that, most of the people living there are of the same race. Very nostalgic.

So in the city I got to help take care of Umi by pushing the stroller, holding him, and giving him water. I got a lot of looks from people walking past us. First they looked at me, then at Umi, then back at me, with a puzzled look on their faces. It must have looked like I was the baby’s father and Tamaki was the mother. Another interesting thing to note is that I did not see another foreigner on our entire trip. It felt so weird to be the minority.

We first visited the Japan Sea which completes my trip across Japan. I came from one side near Tokyo, all the way to the other. The waves were huge today. They had to be at least 4 meters, possibly more. It was the biggest waves I have ever seen. Next Tamaki took me to a home-made ice cream shop. I had a double chocolate and caramel cone. Delicious. After desert we headed out to get some ramen for lunch. I found out that Nozomi and Hiro are currently living in Niigata City because we had lunch with them. It was the first time I had ramen with kimchi in it. Very interesting indeed. It made the ramen nice and spicy, which is exactly how I like my food. Nozomi and Hiro left Masa with Hiro’s parents to look after him, but wanted to head home right after we ate to look after him. Tamaki said that they were always like that, not wanting to leave Masa with anyone else to look after dim. Tamaki and I grabbed some coffee and then headed to the rainbow tower. The tower is like the sky ride at cedar point. A circular viewing platform rises into the air allowing you to see the entire city. The tower is colored all the colors of the rainbow, which gives it its name.

Before heading back we did some shopping for dinner. Tamaki made sukiyaki which was absolutely delicious. It was the first time I ate meat since I got here (besides yaki-niki for breakfast one day, talk about weird!) I got the pleasure of looking after Umi for a couple of hours while Tamaki was out and about.