Today was a grey and drizzly day but we didn’t let that stop
us walking our legs off.
We started off with a trip back to the Airport to exchange
our vouchers for JR Passes and catch the train in to Tennoji Station. The main purpose of going to Tennoji was to
visit John’s favourite bakery where we had our breakfast, but we had the bonus
experience of seeing a man walking by with a very stylish cat on his
shoulder. He was kind enough to hold it up
for us to take a few photos.
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| Peeping Tom! |
After Tennoji, we made our way to tonight’s hotel to drop
off our bags. Being ‘discount night’ at
the Toyoko Inns, we got one double room, one single room and a Toyoko Inn
membership card for Erin, all for 12168 yen, which converts to about $130. Try doing that in any other major city!
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| Feasting at the Egg Man's Noodle Bar |
Next stop was to visit our old friend the Egg Man, who runs
a little noodle bar near our hotel (and provides free boiled eggs to his
customers). The minute we walked in, he
immediately recognised John from our visits in 2010 and 2011 and said ‘long
time, no see’. He said it in Japanese of
course, but John could tell by the look on his face that he knew who we
were. We were treated to an amazing
feast.
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| The Egg Man (and my iPhone) |
We only ordered one dish each, but
Egg Man just kept bringing it on. We ate
until we were ready to burst and then he charged us only roughly $21 for the
lot! What a delightful guy he is.
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| Battling the crowds at Osaka Station |
We followed this with a visit to the Food Hall of the
Hanshin Department Store which we had seen before, but just had to show to
Erin. It’s so enormous and has aisle
after aisle of the most amazing food products, so beautifully presented. Never mind that we didn’t always know what we
were looking at, we were amazed and delighted anyway. We had a few little samples along the
way. One thing I tried was a pinch of
little things which looked like toenails with eyes. They were actually teeny weeny little fish
and were very nice. |
| Some Hanshin Food Hall delights |
Next stop was Yodabashi Camera to look for some
headphones. Yodabashi Camera is an 8
storey shop full of every gadget imaginable.
With so many things to choose from, we were there for longer than our
legs could stand, but we all came away with a new set of headphones or
earphones.
During our ambling around, we went into many other shops for
a browse, including a shop that sold the most adorable merchandise from Studio
Ghibli. We’re not buying too much at
this end of the trip as we’ll have to cart it around, but I think we might be going
back to that shop before we head for home.
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| I wish Kate was 35% off! |
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| A cool dude! |
Our feet and legs finally protested, so we made our way back
to the hotel. Due to the huge lunch
provided by Egg Man, none of wanted a ‘proper’ dinner, so we bought some light
things from the Family Mart around the corner.
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| Erin's Convenience Store dinner |
As we have an early start to catch the Shinkansen to Himeji
tomorrow, we got the washing done had a Skype chat with John's parents and hit the sack. We’re hoping for some good autumn colour
photo opportunities tomorrow in Himeji.
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