A rainy day and shopping at Donki – Day 68 – Nov 9, 2025

Oh my, rainy day! Waking up to that steady drumming does something to energy levels in this house. I wish I had a large comfy couch to curl up on, pull a blanket around my shoulders, dig my toes into the cushions… But no. What did we do instead? We made breakfast and set up for some school work for the girls, while Joe and I got some work done.

After lunch, the girls were playing and I headed downtown. I wanted to go browse Don Quijote for some of the viral products I’d been hearing so much about, but know that if I have the girls and Joe in tow, I never actually get to look, read the back of products, translate and compare… And they would get bored out of their minds (all three of them!) if I tried to do this while they were with me.

I set out shortly before 1pm, it was raining so I donned my rain jacket and grabbed my backpack, and headed for the subway. I was pretty drippy by the time I got on the subway, but I really dislike umbrellas, so just stood and dripped on the floor, away from those cushy seats.

Getting off at Namba, I walked up to the Mega Donki a couple of blocks north. It’s at least 8 floors, and each floor has a theme. Donki stores are wild, with everything from pharmaceutical to character cuteness to cosmetics and electronics and luggage and food. I spent some time on the first three floors, and then skipped the rest.

After my Donki shopping, which was what I came for, I headed out and on the hunt for a washroom and a snack. Thankfully, all subway stations, trainstations and malls have clean and well managed washrooms. Even Maylin knows how to navigate by the blue man and red lady signs everywhere we go! She’s an expert toilet finder, and a real good scout to have on our crew.

Today, even without Maylin, I was able to find what I was looking for. The first one had a line for the women’s bathroom out of the facilities and all the way back up the staircase! I turned around and found another one, this one practically deserted. Back up into Namba Walk, the underground mall that houses any store you could ever imagine needing (maybe except for an Ikea?), I found a small café run by Cookhouse. I smile every time I see this brand name now! They have a great selection of baked goods, even though today I skipped all the sweet stuff and went for a bun with smoked salmon and cream cheese. Paired with a hot (but too sweet) matcha latte, it was the perfect afternoon pick-me-up! Because I sometimes forget that I am a blogger, sadly I have no photo of said snack…

I then headed to the subway to make my way home. Even coming off the subway, there was no rain, only clouds. I realized on my way home that we’d need a couple of things from the store, so I hopped into the store halfway home. When I came back out, it was raining cats, dogs, elephants and giraffes! I speed walked home and was only a little bit drenched. (Thanks to my Vessi shoes, a Vancouver brand of rain shoes, my socks were still dry. YAY!)

Joe chopped all the veggies for tonight’s dinner with his brand new knife, and even I got to try it today. It just glides through the hard veggies like an actual hot knife through butter, it’s a dream to work with! The girls were supposed to help dad make dinner, but at this age, “helping make dinner” would add a lot of frustration and demand a bunch of extra patience, so it didn’t quite happen that way… But together-ish, the three of them made a delicious pasta sauce, and dinner was a treat, as always.

After dinner, the girls went back to playing (they made it to the credits on one of their games, and then discovered even more levels after!), and I finally got to try washing my new and thinner hair. AND apply the hair mask! I don’t know if I followed all the steps (wrap your hair in plastic wrap and wait 10 minutes? yeah no), but as a deep conditioner, this mask works very well!

Later, I was sitting in the kitchen with Joe trying to plan our next few steps, flights and changing some accommodation plans after recent reviews speak of bugs (goodness knows we don’t need any more of THAT!), when I suddenly remembered I hadn’t taken a picture of my new and very well moisturized hair! So please excuse that this was taken way beyond my bedtime, and behold – my new hair!