Our last full day… How is it here already?? Téa helps Maylin with Norwegian school while I pack. Joe is at the post office, trying to send the boxes to Canada. If this doesn’t work, we’ll have to bring everything to Thailand.
Joe’s finally back, sans boxes. They’re on route to Canada, finally! The girls are done, and we feel about 80% packed, which is ok for 24 hours left in this AirBnb. Téa and Maylin eat a Pokémon curry that Maylin insisted on getting at the grocery store a while back, I have cereal, and Joe picked up a sandwich at the grocery store. Then, we head downtown for our last Osaka outing.
Our first stop once we get to Namba walk is another one of those fantastic matcha tiramisus we had recently. We’d been wanting to try them for the longest time, and we stumbled upon the best in the city on our first try. This time, Maylin insisted on her very own masu (matcha + tiramisu = masu in Japanese).
We need to go to H&M on Dotonbori, and take a different route up from Namba Walk. We walk by a restaurant that serves tempura, sushi and chicken karaage, and consider it for dinner. We find H&M, and climb to the best kept secret of all, the amazing, unobstructed, non-fighting zone view of the Glico Running Man. There’s not a soul up here taking pictures today, so the girls strike a pose with the famous backdrop.
There’s a Gigo nearby, and we go there for another few tries of a claw machine, until we realize this place is twice as expensive as all the ones we’ve played before. Location location location! But the third floor, the loudest one of all, has video games, and the girls play a round of Luigi’s Haunted Mansion instead of aimlessly trying to catch stuffies with loose claws. We also find a great view of the famous Uncle Carl sign across the street, I wouldn’t have been able to get this picture from ground level.
So we give the girls the option: either head back to the tempura, fried chicken, sushi place we saw, or return to the hot pot restaurant we went to once before. They unanimously vote for hot pot, now that we know how to order the meat! We arrive to a restaurant that is obviously just recovering from the lunch rush which ends at 4pm, or severely understaffed, or both. But, with a robot cat that delivers meats to your table, and a noodle, rice, curry and veggie buffet, we’re alright.
}We leave the restaurant after our 100 minutes of hotpotting are up, and get to walk through the amazing Shinsaibashi-suji back towards Namba. We have never been here this late in the evening, and I comment on how much calmer it seems today. Maybe it’s the weekday, maybe it’s the late hour? We’re usually here mid afternoon. But it looks very pretty with all the lights!
Joe and I are contemplating one more purchase before we leave the country, so we’re back at Bic Camera after our walk to Namba. The girls are playing with video game computers this time, and we also allow them some time on the Nintendo floor. As usual, we’re all about the browsing and the contemplating, and less so about the shopping, so we return home empty handed. We spend the rest of Joe’s transportation card on the subway ride home, and consider the remaining 27 yen ok to wait until next time we’re in Japan.
Sadness is almost over and excitement for Thailand is taking hold!
Oh, and I forgot to mention, the hotel in Bangkok emailed us and told us they were unable to honour our reservation, and now we’re having to stay at a hotel that’s twice as much (the original hotel having been booked months ago, and last minute reservations are generally not cheap). Oh the joys of travel complications! But just wait until you see the hotel we “have to” stay at!