Joe’s cushion trick worked! My back and hips are much happier with a little extra padding in the mattress! It was torrential downpour overnight, which woke me up just because it sounded different, and of course with our current heatwave, most of it dried up by morning.
I was out on our front balcony (yes, there’s a front balcony and a back balcony, both with clotheslines) hanging up clothes this morning, when our new shelf was delivered. I quickly unboxed it, realizing we don’t have a screwdriver, so of course after breakfast we had to go shopping!
We set off with a different goal in mind, we were heading for our closest community centre, in the hopes that they would be offering any programs we could sign the girls up for. We walked about 15 minutes to get there, and after a very disappointing conversation (“you can look up information in the internet, there is nothing here for you, good luck”), we checked out the library with the best view on the 8th floor of the community centre. It made us miss our wonderful library in Tecumseh, and all the other Windsor/Essex libraries we have visited, in fact also the Ottawa, Montreal and Toronto branches that we stumbled into, because of the wonderful excitement and sense of community they create. This, our first Japanese library, was very sterile, identical short bookshelves in all directions, and of course not a sound. Not a giggle, no scavenger hunts, no colourful decorations, no friendly staff welcoming us. Of course all the books were in Japanese, so we didn’t exactly come there to read, but there was also no gathering place.
Emerging back into the heat, knowing we needed to pick up that screwdriver still, we had two options. Stay local and explore our smaller stores and restaurants, or head back towards the excitement of Namba. We chose the latter, because we are not done exploring Dotonbori yet.
The first thing that met our senses when we got off the subway, was the strawberry mochi stand. This is a treat we’ve been drooling at from afar, a giant mochi with a strawberry in the middle. Both girls chose the chocolate version, not realizing it had a chocolate pudding-like filling which Téa didn’t enjoy. I picked a Strawberry Warabi Mochi for Joe and I to share, thinking it was going to be the popular soft and stretchy mochi, however this particular store’s version was hard and not enjoyable at all.
Once we had stifled the desperate hunger that would have seen us just enter the first and not necessarily best option for lunch, we could hunt a bit longer for the right restaurant. We ended up spotting a sign saying “ramen, 9th floor”, and entered. At first all we could see was an electronics store and a Starbucks, could not find the elevators at all. 9 floors by escalator was not tempting, so I stuck it out. At the third entrance to the store, I struck gold! The elevator was full, but we patiently exited for people to get out at each floor until we reached ramen heaven. This floor in this mall was all ramen restaurants!
Of the 8 ramen restaurants, we took our pick, ordered at the kiosk at the entrance, and were shown to a table. (Tables for 4 people are sometimes hard to come by, especially around lunchtime.) Téa’s kids set arrived first, then Joe and my ramen bowls. Joe ordered the large portion so he could share with Maylin. In the end, he ended up finishing mine, and I ended up finishing Téa’s! Once again, we were too excited about our meal to remember to take pictures. The bonus with their order kiosk is that it’s a fast paced way to eat out. Your meal is paid before you start (and no, there is no tipping in Japan), but also you don’t really get to linger after you are done. There’ll always be a line up at the door waiting for your table, so when you are done eating, you get up and leave.
After lunch we took aaaallll the escalators all the way down, and explored the stores on each floor. The video games and the toy section got some extra attention…
Next, we ducked undergrown to find Daiso again, still looking for that screwdriver to build my shelf. We are also on the hunt for some sort of contraption in place of a full sized dish rack. On one hand, everything in Japan is small and efficient. On the other hand, so is this Daiso, and one of the products they had to cut to fit into an undergrown station mall, was a dish rack.
We hopped on the subway to head home, and half way there we decided that Maylin and I would travel to a larger Daiso closer to our house, but on the other side compared to Namba. Joe and Téa got off at our regular stop and walked home, while Maylin and I stayed on for another few stops, and had our own little adventure.
The Daiso store was on the 4th floor of a small department store, right by where we arrived with our luggage on Thursday afternoon. First, not knowing where the Daiso was, I walked through the homeware section of the department store, and found large options for around $30 each. They were all too big, so we kept climbing up the escalators in search of the actual Daiso. Once we found the right store, I found a “plate rack” for $2. Much better!
After all that hard work, we had to take a quick break. Luckily, the 4th floor also held a Holly’s Café, which we first tried in Kyoto, and we had a soft serve ice cream each. I can’t believe how many smoking rooms I’ve seen today alone! (The smoking room of the ramen floor from lunch today was right next to the bathrooms, and the smell was overpowering. Téa held her breath until she was far enough away so she couldn’t smell it anymore.) Holly’s café had ashtrays at the front counter, right next to napkins and cutlery and other things I expected to find there, so I knew something was different about this Holly’s compared to the other one. It didn’t smell like the ramen floor from earlier, but maybe just because nobody entered or exited the smoking room while we were there. Luckily.
The ground floor of our new found local department store had a great grocery store! We had to stop in for coffee for Joe, as he found a drip coffee strainer and filters at Daiso in Namba, and all he needed now was coffee to brew. We picked up a couple of cold drinks for our 20 minute walk home, and set off. Walked home along new to us roads, and found a Jolly Pasta, a Uniqlo store and suddenly I smelled amazing meat! I had to google it and send the listing to Joe, it smelled so good. So now we have a restaurant to try only about 15 minutes away from our house!
Got home and built my new shelf while Joe watched his new favourite sport on tv – sumo wrestling! Fascinating when you don’t know the rules and try to guess how it works! We spent the rest of the day relaxing, writing and playing. The girls had pasta leftovers from yesterday, and Joe made a miso soup with chicken, mushrooms and noodles for the two of us.
Every night now we’ve been cheering on the amazing athletes at the World Championship from Tokyo. Today they ran in torrential downpour, and neither Canada, Norway nor Japan won the races we watched.