Going for the Gold -- Chasing the Olympic Dream in Nagano, Day 5 in Japan

Today's food adventure started at breakfast; the poor waitress at the breakfast buffet wanted the meal coupons we didn't have. Eventually we figured out we could charge it to our room. Checking out of the hotel was easy as the desk clerk spoke great English. As usual with Japanese hotels, they were happy to watch our luggage while we went out.

Back at the train station we were directed to the correct bus stop to wait for bus number 8 which would take us to M Wave, originally the speedskating venue at the Nagano Olympics. It's now used as a skating rink during the winter and as a general purpose arena the rest of the year. It does, however, have an Olympic museum and gift shop. Kate loves the Olympics, winter more than summer as she is an ice skater. She has been visiting Olympic cities/sites around the world and this would be another one for her list.

It's a very impressive building, as you'll see in the photos. The museum has photos and various things from the Olympics (uniforms, medals, bobsled, etc.) as well as things from the Paraolympics. And the gift shop not only had things from the Nagano Olympics (pins, shirts, towels) but also stuff from the more recent Olympics and the current World Cup. Kate did leave a few things for other people to buy.

After retrieving our luggage, it was back to the train station where we were able to change our reservations to an earlier train. We took the Nagano Shinkansen back to Tokyo Station and then found the Shinkansen that would take us to Mishima.

About an hour later we were in Mishima where our friend Jeff and his younger son, Jonah (3-1/2 years old) met us. We walked to their apartment. A little later Yuko (Jeff's wife) and their older son, Hewitt (almost 6 years old) came back from the dentist. [For those who haven't heard this story before, Kate went to college with Jeff who then met Yuko in grad school. They lived in the US for a few years, went back to Japan for two years (where Hewitt was born), and Kate visited them twice. Then they came back to the US for about 2-1/2 years, where Jonah was born. Then they moved back to Japan.]

Dinner was at a cook you own restaurant -- we grilled beef, chicken, and veggies on a grill in the center of the table. Back at the apartment, our futons were set up (photos of those later).

Here are the photos from Day 5. We're getting ready to go see some sights around Mishima.