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Wednesday, September 27.  After breakfast, we had to store our belongings again, but this was the last time because our next reservation was for two nights. We followed the usual routine for much of the morning. About mid morning, though, we went out to explore Otsu's waterfront. We had the Hotel call us a taxi to drive us around the area for about 30 minutes.

The lake front was very attractive in this area. There is a large point of land jutting into the lake here, much of it devoted to a large park, beautiful modern buildings, and beach resorts. A little further south was the luxurious Lake Biwa Otsu Prince Hotel. That was about the limit of our brief excursion. The taxi took us back to our hotel.

 Thursday, September 28. We followed the same routine except for dinner. Kyoko told us at the hospital that a neighbor of hers had invited us to her home for dinner that evening. When he went out at noon, Darrell went to a liquor store he had seen near the post office and bought a bottle of French red wine to take as a gift. 

We all left the hospital around 4:00, and Kyoko led us to the train she regularly used to get to Sakamoto. When we arrived there, she took us to her apartment just a couple of blocks from the station. We had not seen it before because she and Tom had moved since we last visited them in 2002. 

After a brief tour of the apartment, we all walked a couple of blocks to the house of her friend, Yoshie Okunishi. Another woman had also been invited, so there were five of us. Only Kyoko was bilingual, so she had to do a lot of translating, although the other women were quite good with gestures. 

Yoshie-san was a charming hostess, very lively and outgoing. She displayed a curiosity that made our conversation very interesting. The meal was outstanding, too. It included several courses, one of them delicious chunks of beef tenderloin. Of course, we ate with chop sticks. To our surprise, red wine was served with the meal (but not the wine we brought). Altogether it was a delightful evening. 

It was dark when we left. Kyoko walked us to a different Sakamoto train station so we would not have to change trains.to get to the Otsu station nearest our hotel. We were at the hotel before 10:00.

Friday, September 29. We followed the same routine.in the morning, including packing up all our belongings. But this time we packed for the return trip to the U.S. After lunch at the hospital, we said good-bye to Tom before we returned to our hotel to pay the bill and pick up our luggage. Kyoko came with us and we bid her good-bye, too. All the good-byes were rather sad because we did not expect to see each other again. We took a taxi to the train station and caught a local train to Kyoto, then the 1:00 p.m.direct train to Osaka Airport, where we arrived at 2:20. Our United flight left at 5:00, We had dinner aboard. 

Saturday, September 30. We had a light breakfast before we landed in San Francisco about 10:30 a.m., still Friday because of the International Date Line. We tried to sleep on that flight but, as usual, got very little rest. We went though customs and rechecked our luggage in San Francisco. Our next flight left at 12:15 p.m. and arrived at Dulles Airport at 8:30 p.m. We picked up our car and drove home to Massanutten, arriving just before midnight. That would have been 1:00 a.m. Sunday in Japan. That was a total of about 42 hours since we had arisen Friday morning in Japan. That was very hard on a couple of 86 year olds.