Lars and I arranged to meet the parents at Shibukawa station at about 11 am. Lars and I stopped by Mister Donut for breakfast. So we came up from the south, and they took a bus and train down from Takaragawa. We headed off to Ikaho and I remembered where to park! A showed me a great spot last time. I wanted to try and met up with her, but she was going to Ikaho later in the day around when we left. We started at the bottom of the 365 stone steps. I pointed out the water running underneath the stairs, and we stopped by the footbath for Lars and Papa to try. We got some free tea there from ladies advertising the Tomioka Silk Mill. I actually managed to tell them that I lived there.

We had lunch at a cafe with a sweet interior design. I had cold salad udon and it was delicious! Something I could easily make myself. We finished climbing the stairs and visited the shrine. Then we headed over to Kajika bridge which looked quite different now in the spring! The family tried the gold onsen water and the silver regular stream water before Papa and Lars went to take their first proper onsen bath without towels. Mama and I hung out next to the water source bubbling up from the ground. Lars told us afterward that he ran into a guy with full body tattoos! All the other Japanese guys moved from one pool to the other. He didn’t know that they guy was a yakuza. How crazy!

On the way back down the stairs, we stopped by a shop that sells soft serve ice cream. I spent some time trying to deciphering mixed in katana, but had my orders all set when I went to the window. She then handed me an English menu, haha. After getting ice cream, we also stopped by my favorite store filled with cat themed things. I ended up getting a bag like the one I got my sister for Christmas. Either as a lunch bag or for makeup. It’s so cute! We got back to the car and set off for Takasaki station to drop my dad off so he could make the trip back to Osaka. Mama needed to get a Starbucks too so we waited for her while she had to pass through a gigantic line filled with high schoolers.

Lars desperately wanted to visit an anime/manga store so I took them over to Mandai Shoten. Both were promptly impressed. I managed to buy some nice things and Lars was happy with his pokemon card purchases. We drove back to Tomioka and stopped by the grocery store by my house. Mama bought a lot of alcohol ha. We just ate bread and salad at home.