A long drive for lunch...

Ahhh, weekend! It has been a strange and hectic week, so it was really nice to wake up this morning and realize we didn't "have" to be anywhere today. Not that any other day is a burden (and the variation on what we do and where we go makes the day to day an adventure), but it was nice to have a day that we could set aside solely for our family after our crazy week of new everything.

So, after pondering what to do today, Dan and I decided we *needed* to have the World's Best Japanese Katsu Curry. And this is found at our very favorite restaurant on the planet, Kitchen House Akai Ito in Misato. Never mind that it was a 2 hour drive to get there. Or that we accidentally missed a turn and instead of turning around and correcting the mistake, we attempted to jog back to the highway (forgetting that Japanese roads are inconsistently marked and NEVER lead to where you anticipate!) We bundled the kids up into their car seats, grabbed our very generalized map of the area, and headed south for the day. TOTALLY worth it.

Dan was the happiest man on the planet at that very moment... 

It was a great trip "home."  The owners, Iku and Yuko had no idea we were coming today, so it was really fun to walk in the door an see their surprised but extremely happy faces. In our four years in Misato, they became our Japanese parents of sorts. Iku became one of my closest friends and encouragers during our stay there, and went with me to all my prenatal visits when I was pregnant with Kai and we have him call her Iku-baa-chan (the equivalent of "Granny Iku" in Japanese). We introduced them to Niko, ate amazing food, had coffee made with a siphon, and just relaxed.  It was FANTASTIC. 

For me, it was so comforting to see a face I love so much after such a horrible disaster to the region. While our town is far enough inland that the tsunami didn't really affect them, the evidence of the earthquake was still definitely there. There were huge rips in the wall paper (and presumably sizable cracks underneath them). The glasses were new (I noticed because they were bigger than the old ones... I always teased Iku that I needed at least 3 of them because I drank it too fast, so she would pour my water into a beer mug because they were bigger!) The top of the toilet tank was cracked (and 3/11 was written in marker over the crack, a reminder of that day) and a light fixture was missing. All these little reminders that even here, so far from the seashore, they had not been unscathed that day, but life had gone on and they truly were OK. We got the opportunity to talk on the phone with Iku about a week and a half after the earthquake, but there is nothing better than physically hugging them and seeing with your own eyes that they are alive and well.

So maybe a crazy-long drive (including a bout of getting a little lost on the way home as well) was a silly thing to do, but honestly, I don't think you could have talked us out of it. Our bellies were happy, our hearts were happy, and our family was happy. You can't ask for much more than that! おいしかった!