After a long, but only semi successful sleep, I went again to the onsen in the early morning, before laying down for a while to rest. It was raining and was forecast to rain nonstop throughout the day. This turned out to be a correct prediction, since it never let up. Luckily, it was only a drizzle.
We headed down the main street. Although it is Monday today, there were still a decent amount of tourists. The umbrellas made it look like there were slightly more people than there actually was.
We stopped early on for ice cream because of a sign that advertised a honey flavored soft serve ice cream. What I didn't realize, was that it was mixed with "matcha," a green flavor. I still do not know what matcha is, but the ice cream was only semi tolerable. Miles went with a safe vanilla.
After walking for quite a while and maybe looking in some stores, we decided to have lunch at the Snoopy Cafe. Snoopy cartoons were played behind me, which allowed Miles to watch. It was then that I realized that we kind of went out of order by going for ice cream first. I ordered pasta carbonara, which came with consomme soup and a side salad. My food was excellent. Miles had a kids dish that featured shrimp tempura, a piece of fried chicken, a sausage, some broccoli, and a big egg draped over fried rice, with some ketchup along the side. Stephanie had pancakes, sweet red beans, a chestnut, matcha ice cream, and whipped cream. Everything was themed for Snoopy.
Our next stop was by Miles' request. The other day we walked past a fish pedicure place. Miles was interested in trying it, so I figured we'd allow him to give that a go. He had fifteen minutes with fish of different sizes, that feasted on his dry skin. It tickled him quite a bit at first, and we had to make sure that he wasn't twisting his feet in a way that would kill any fish, but he got used to it soon enough.
A little farther down the road was a turnoff into Floral Village, a small recreation of a old looking European village. Each house was themed differently, selling items ranging from all sorts of popcorn to Peter Rabbit to Shaun the Sheep.
In the heart of Floral Village was a cat cafe. As it was raining, and Miles was excited to go in, we decided to stop here for a while. The place was themed for Alice in Wonderland. The cats were extremely friendly and playful.
We looked in a few more shops including a shop that had tons of music boxes. There was a small museum that recreated Showa era(specifically 1955-1965) streetscapes and rooms. I had seen a similar museum back in Takayama, so Stephanie went in by herself, as Miles wasn't interested. After a few minutes, I decided that Miles would probably enjoy it despite his objections, so I sent him in after her. Apparently, he kept asking for pictures of himself in the different rooms.
As we were headed back, Miles wanted me to take a picture of the clouds and fog covering the mountains.
As we were approaching the turnoff to our hotel, we passed a place advertising a small pastry that was said to have won an award. We couldn't figure out exactly what it was, but as it was only a dollar or so, I decided to try one out. Inside, it was translated as a cheesecake, but it was more like a cake cream sauce under a light crust. It was very good.
Tonight, we will be headed back for more Miso soup and going back to the onsen. Tomorrow, we leave early in the morning for Unzen Hell.
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