biwako circle tour

I took the train from Nabari to Kyoto, then i took the Biwako line to Yasu. This is somewhere between Moriyama and Ohmihachiman on the map to your right. Tomomi met me at the station a little after noon. She has a pink car!!

We got in this pink car rather filled with Hello Kitty and Marie, and she started driving, saying that she didn't really know where she was going. We were supposed to be going to Hikone, but we ended up in Moriyama, and then in Otsu... And (despite a fancy car navigation system), we kept going this way, with the lake to our right, all the way around up through Imazu, Nagahama, and finally to Hikone.

But, it was a nice day for driving with Tomo in a pink car along the shore of pretty Lake Biwa, drinking coffee and eating Toppo and Tiramisu Pocky. She reminded me of everything we did when she visited two years ago, and told me about her Hawaii dream. She made me talk to her boyfriend on the phone. She recited the names of my JCMU classmates (many of which i had forgotten!) and regularly said the phrase "koko wa doko?" (basically "where are we?") We saw the lake from every angle, and eventually we came to some familiar sights to me: a temple on the left, a familiar mountain, the Hikone Prince Hotel on my right, the green roof of JCMU and then my very own dorm room window; Coco's, Lawson's on the left. Some shabby tennis courts i'd forgotten about. Natsukashii!

We drove through town (the bridge! Hikone Castle! The government building we had to go to! Al Plaza!!) and eventually to a rotating sushi bar Tomo likes. Oh it was so good! We had to not eat too much because her mom was making dinner and it was already 5:00, but that was very difficult! I am dreaming of it now.

From there we went into a nearby pharmacy for a minute till Tomo suddenly remembered she had to pick up some omiyage for her "hen na kareshi" from the fancy cake shop in town. So we went there, and then to another (new!) supermarket (much closer to JCMU then Al Plaza, too!) for cakes for dessert. It was a Fujiya bakery, so i bought a few Peko-chan goods, including some cute coffee cups with pudding in them which we ate for breakfast the next day.

We stopped at her house with the cakes then ran out again to Viva City to do purikura. I'm glad she thought of this, because i really wanted to and had forgotten. I also bought a Hikonya (Hikone's new cat mascot, in time for the 400th anniversary of the city) hand towel.

Tomo's mom made tempura and what she called inaka ryouri, "country food," which was delicious although we were both pretty full. Tomo gave me some more purikura and showed me her album. We ate fruit and our cakes with black tea and took some pictures. Tomo's mom laid out our futons while Tomo showed me all the various crafts around the house her mom had made; then we put our PJs on and laid in our futons until the bath was ready, taking pictures and showing each other what pictures were in our phones. Tomo called her boyfriend and made me talk to him. I complemented Tomo's pajamas and then her mom gave me a similar pair.

I took a bath and when i came back Tomo was sound asleep and i couldn't get her to get up and take a bath, but her mom finally did. I was very tired too and fell asleep right away.