The first thing I did this morning, was roll over and check my phone for my nephew Kristian’s flight status. He still has another hour until landing, then at least an hour of airport and transfer to city centre, and then another 2.5 hours on the train from Tokyo to Osaka. I figure he’ll be here sometime after lunch.
Last school day of our weekly calendar is today, so Norwegian class it is! Both girls attend a program offered by the Norwegian government to teach citizens abroad the language, so they have homework each week, and a teacher in Norway to guide and encourage them along the way.
After school and a quick lunch, Téa and I headed to Shin-Osaka station to meet my nephew when he gets off the train. This station is big and busy, so I sent photos to him of where to meet us. I said “Aim for the Central Entrance(/Exit)”:
And then come meet us at this pillar (it was the brightest and most recognizable ad on the pillars right by the entrance):
It worked! As soon as he came out of the gates, we found each other, and started the journey down towards his hostel. His location is close to the Osaka Loop Line, which Téa and I have never taken, so we got to see new stations today as well! The closest station to his hostel has so much convenience food! We have nothing like this between our subway or train station and our Airbnb, I’m almost getting jealous at this point!
We introduce Kristian to 7Eleven egg sandos and bottled green tea, and find his hostel in a network of tiny streets, reminding me of very clean, neat and orderly spiderwebs. He has been travelling for over 24 hours at this point, so we leave him to settle in and get some rest, and make our way home through new to us streets.
On our mild and pleasant walk, Téa and I had lot of time to chat and take in our surroundings. We also got to meet a cute little puppy, just like the plush ones Téa has been holding up in plenty of pictures so far! I have no pictures of the pretty puppy, but I finally remembered to show you the sewer lids!! I’m such a bad blogger, how could I not have shown you this before?
The girls and I had an early dinner of leftover curry, while Joe was waiting for Kristian to join him for ramen somewhere out and about. The girls and I had to get to bouldering! We usually take the train to the community centre, but today I aimed for the subway instead, thinking it didn’t make much of a difference. It only cost us an extra five minutes of walking under and over ground, so we won’t be doing that again…
The bouldering instructor on Thurdays teaches the class in English, and there’s only another three kids in the class, so it’s a perfect friendly environment for an hour each week. He manages to make a bouldering class different every time, and has so many games up his sleave! Today was a game of bean bag monkey, where he would try to get the student’s bean bag off their head and the student would try to get his bean bag off his head. His arms are so much longer, and even with giving them many chances, they rarely won. Everyone laughed and had fun with it, and that’s all that counts!
After bouldering, the instructor told us we were supposed to get a gacha ball every time we came in! They got one each on Monday for Sports Day, as it was a special event, but because we didn’t sign up for a membership and instead pay as we go each week, we get a gacha every week. So today, they each got three balls, with promotional buttons and candy and sometimes a slip of paper saying they get an extra prize! We got so many extra prizes, we had to get a shopping bag out to carry it all!
After that, we went for ice cream at Baskin Robbins. The staff gave us sweet potato ice cream samples right away when we arrived, and yet the girls still chose their old reliable caramel and cookies and cream! I however, chose sweet potato. Surprised? Yeah, me neither… It’s delicious!!
Because we were feeling adventurous (I mean, who takes the SUBWAY to get to bouldering class??), we opted for the bus on the way home! It gets us closer to home than both subway and train, and we got to see some new streets. Always more entertaining to be above ground than underneath and in tunnels! And we got new views when we got off again, because we’ve never crossed this river after dark, and it was so pretty!
There’s a grocery store along this street that we’ve never set foot in, but tonight we needed bread for breakfast, so we stopped in for that. Then the girls felt extra goofy on the walk home, so I managed to catch this picture:
We got home late, so it was practically straight to bed. Joe got home five minutes after we did, telling us that he and Kristian had had a delicious ramen dinner. Pretty good first day for Kristian, I hope!
All your traveling around on the train, subway, and bus, yet you never seem to get lost! Amazing! The same with walking on streets you have never been on before at night. Some of your street pics look like back alleys, yet seem so safe. And yes, the sewer lids are very interesting. Are they all the same?
Those sewer covers are beautiful. What a creative ideas to decorate them. Loving reading all of your updates.
There are more and different ones! I’m trying as hard as I can to remember to take pictures along the way… Thanks for following along, Lisa!
Japan is one of the safest countries in the world. At one of the busiest and most popular ramen spots in Asakusa in Tokyo, when we were walking out, we passed a table where both diners had stepped away to fetch their ramen from the window, and both cell phones were right there on the table. If you leave something behind, it’ll show up at lost and found. If you lose your wallet, it will come back to you.
Most sewer lids are decorated in some way, and they are not all the same. Some are painted, others are not.
And Google Maps keep us sane! But we’ve also lived in our current AirBnb for over a month, we should be able to navigate SOME stuff by now!
Så hyggelig at Kristian kunne besöke dere!
Vi har hatt det så koselig! Jeg tror han har hatt det fint også, nå er han på flyplassen på vei hjem. En uke går så utrolig fort når man har det gøy!