​When we parted ways, Matt and I took the train back into town, where we had a shopping day. First stop was a washi store. Washi is the traditional paper made in Japan, and it has a wonderful texture. Matt was in love, and I had to drag him out of there eventually.

As we wandered through the streets, we managed to find the Nishiki market, a very pleasant food market. At that time in the late afternoon, it wasn’t very crowded anymore, and we enjoyed looking at most everything.

The market exited out onto a small Shinto shrine within the shopping mall where our hotel was located. I received another omikuji, this time from a robot monster puppet.

And then we went back to the hotel for a rest and refresh before dinner out. 

Dinner that night was an excellent sushi place, preceded by a specialty whisky bar and followed by a specialty sake bar.

It was a long day, and we all had various plans for the next day, so we stopped after 1 round and made our way back to the hotel.