Wednesdays are for English! We did have a plan outside our normal “classroom” experience for English class today, but we didn’t get started early enough, so we’ll plan that for next week instead… Stay tuned!
After school work and another tofu miso noodle soup, we set out around 1pm, aiming for something called Kids Plaza Osaka. It was further than our normal explorations, so we were more than ready for a snack by the time we got there. We found a cute café/bakery in an exciting alleyway/covered market street, that we will be back to explore more in detail some other time. I for once took a seat while Joe and the girls went to buy the snacks, and so we ended up with plain croissant and mango juice (Maylin), pain au chocolat and mango juice (Téa), coffee and buttered toast set (Joe) and tea cream bun and iced milk tea (me). Pretty solid choices! Joe and I shared our snacks, as the tea cream bun was wayyyy to sweet for my preference. Then, on the way out of the bakery, I spied this thing:
All charged up, we headed across the street to the museum/play and explore centre. Apparently, kids between 3 and 5 are called “infants” and so Maylin’s ticket was CA$3. Téa’s was CA$5. We got there after 2pm, so these were afternoon discounted tickets, with only 3 hours left until closing time.
On the ground floor, there was an entire wall of a ball maze, with characters receiving, sending, utilizing the balls in all corners of the maze. The crow below used the ball to feed the crow babies, for example. Very useful balls.
The ground floor is only just tickets, entrance and ball maze, plus elevators to levels 3, 4 and 5. We started on 5, thinking we would make our way down. We could have spent the entire afternoon on floor 5, but tried to see it all. There was so much to do in all directions! The girls played with water science, and in the below picture, with soap bubbles.
After a while, Téa spotted a sign saying “studio”, so she got super excited. Maylin was hesitant and didn’t want to join at first, but then also wants to do everything her big sister does, so ended up joining her in the end. It was so cool watching the girls go into a “tv studio”, with a producer behind the monitors, and a coach working with the girls. They had a script in English, and instructions of what to do. Téa came right to life and was in her element, whereas Maylin froze completely and looked like a statue throughout.
The resulting 30 second video clip is displayed (only once) on a tv right outside the studio, so parents line up to film the video. The volume was so low, and with others speaking in the background, it’s hard to hear any of the dialogue, unfortunately. But so much fun for both girls!
This place was so huge, with a white building in the middle of the 4th and 5th floor, stairs, rope ladders, slides and walkways in all directions. There were climbing walls on this structure, and multiple areas of child size businesses where play was encouraged. The employees were mostly all older people, having a great time making kids faces light up in joy and play. It was a great afternoon for all involved!
Oh, and the library. First time we’ve had new English reading materials in a month, so I pointed out the book The Gas We Pass to Maylin, and she spent a while reading it to Téa. We do what we must to encourage reading, right? Today is English day, after all!
We finally tore ourselves away from this amazing kids plaza, and were on the hunt for real omurice. If you read my post from Day 2, you know our first omurice was terribly disappointing. We had a good 20 minute walk to get there, and we saw lots of fun things along the way. Like for example this BBQ restaurant.
Omurice is supposed to be a succulent, partly set, large omelette on top of rice, topped with sauce and cut open at the table, spilling out to cover the rice. This restaurant specializes in cheese omurice, so Joe and I ordered one each. The kids, however…
Joe picked an omurice with “thick cheese”, which meant a thick cheese sauce, an egg yolk and extra parmesan added once the omelette was cut open. It was so creamy, rich and delicious!
My omurice was with truffle cheese sauce. Check out the sprinkle of truffle on my plate, it was so aromatic and tasted heavenly. My cheese sauce was lighter than Joe’s, to fully let the flavours shine. All four plates were licked clean, and we left with plans to return.
After dinner, I realized we were very close to a bookstore with a large selection of English books. Téa just finished her one and only book that she’d brought, and was in need of another. Maylin has gotten bored with our Robert Munsch book, and was also craving new. It was a hectic trek through city centre Osaka, which we haven’t really explored much of yet. To think some tourists only ever see this side? We are truly fortunate to stay in the suburbs and get to know the city in a different way.
Téa got so lucky, the only Kelly Yang book to be found was book number 2 in the series she just started! Maylin chose a book about a famous dog, we look forward to laughing our way through this one. The Japanese book stores wrap all books in protective papers.
It was late by the time we got off the subway, but there’s always time for ice cream!
Oh, and here is today’s random vending machine, we found one on the way to, and another TWO side by side inside Kids Plaza.
