Uh oh… That was NOT a comfortable sleep. We investigate the three different mattresses in the house, and discover that luckily the girls both seem to have brand new and fluffy mattresses (keeping in mind it’s essentially just a denser duvet on the floor, not box spring, no springs, just supposed to be soft and fluffy), whereas ours is FLAT. Deflated. Punctured? Worn down for sure. I kept dreaming of going out to buy an inflatable mattress all night long. We have to find a solution to this…
Started this morning by cooking some breakfast and then the girls did their Norwegian homework. They are both just starting their semesters with their respective Norwegian teachers online, and their deadlines are Sunday. We have scheduled their language days to Fridays, and so that’s what they studied today. Once done their online Norwegian, they moved on to a bit more Norwegian and some French on Duolingo. Thank goodness for Duolingo, making learning languages seem like a fun game on a phone!
Instead of unpacking the rest of all our stuff, we decided we’d done enough work for the morning, and set out to explore. We walked through some charming streets over to a subway station and headed for Namba. On our way there, Joe says “oh, my cousin is in Osaka and leaves tomorrow”! His cousin Tiffany is from Toronto but moved out west with her husband three years ago. We had been looking forward to a Vancouver reunion next summer, but they beat us to Osaka for a quick week’s vacation. They were in Nara (more about this place later) for the day, so we agreed to meet up closer to dinner time.
Namba station we remember from yesterday, and it’s a fast paced place with an exit in all directions. We were technically aiming for a mall called Namba Parks, however didn’t really have a strict schedule for the day. It was another very warm day, so we took a pastry and air conditioning break early, and let me tell you! When they say Japanese croissants are a cut above – oh boy! Joe went to secure our table, and told me to get him “a croissant of some sort”. I picked a baguette-like thing with bacon and cheese, the girls got a chocolate croissant and a cheese boule, but Joe scored the BEST pastry I’ve tasted in a long time! Salt, truffle and fermented butter croissant – mind blowing! Not simply a truffle salt, not a drop of truffle oil, a real truffle butter mixed into the dough! Punchy and amazing truffle in a salty croissant – I don’t even LIKE croissants, unless they are heavy with almond paste, chocolate or better yet – both!
We finally arrive at our goal mall, the Parks building. What a beautiful mall! Indoor/outdoor melded into a beautiful piece of architecture, with a museum on the 7th floor, restaurants throughout, and some very expensive shopping on the main floor. I visited the most exclusive chocolate and gelato shop, enjoyed my bitter chocolate sample and dreamt of spending $20 per chocolate bar.
We window shopped for a while, the girls played Mario Kart again, and then it was time for lunch. We picked a soba restaurant, for some cold noodles on a hot day. I picked warm sliced duck in sauce for the cold noodles, whereas Joe went all cold with a selection of vegetable tempura with his cold dish. The girls both got kids sets again, which automatically meant the server brought over another basket full of toys they got to choose from. Restaurants both here and at home really know how to appeal to kids!
After lunch, we hunt for a Daiso (best dollarstore in Japan) to pick up some suction cup hooks, a multiplug extention cord and a butter knife, all essentials we are missing in our AirBnb. This exhausted us to the extent that we had to sit down in the only café we found with seating for four… Starbucks. Joe couldn’t see my order (sweet potato iced latte) on the board (it’s a seasonal special), so I ended up with a refreshing Frappuccino.
We decided to go sightsee Dotonburi, the famous food street of Namba. There is the opposite of bouncers outside every vendor and every restaurant, where they try to convince you their restaurant is your best choice for your next meal. This is where we met up with Tiffany on her way back from Nara, as her husband had gotten stuck in a high quality Japanese chef’s knife shop (it’s easily done, those are some impressive blades)! We walked around together, and she told us about her vacation this time around, their third visit to Japan. We walked along the river, and took our obligatory pictures with the Glico running man.
Tiffany left to go have a last dinner in Osaka for this year’s holiday with her husband, and I steered my crew towards Fugetsu, one of Osaka’s longest standing okonomiyaki restaurant chains. My colleague from my Tallinn days, Tomomi, is from Osaka, and told my mom and I that this was the place to try our first okonomiyaki, and we did. This time around, Joe and the girls had their first okonomiyaki here as well. I love it just as much as I always have, and Fugetsu delivered again. Unfortunately, they have streamlined their operations, and the food is no longer fully prepared in front of us on the hot plate built into the table, rather fully cooked and topped in the kitchen, then kept warm on our hotplates. One okonomiyaki with shrimp and one mondan-yaki (okonomiyaki with noodles) with pork and squid, and we were all full. It’s fun to hack away at your dinner in the middle of your table, in case you didn’t know!
At this time, it’s after 6pm, and my night vision goggles are at home in the backpack I chose not to bring today. We did not know until Tiffany messaged that we would be out all day, and were planning on returning home between exploring and meeting them at dinner time. Also, our plans to hit the grocery store for some necessities on our way home is out the window, it’s too dark, everyone is too tired, and we just all want to get home.
We finally get home at 7.45pm, we all change into our PJs, I sit down to do some Norwex and my blog post, and that fills the rest of the evening. Tomorrow promises rain, so hopefully we finally get a day to properly unpack and move in for real.