Yesterday Mr. Hayashi helped me pick up my packages – one of them was a carton of egg nog concentrate from the Cellini family (excellent!). Afterwards we stopped in for a coffee and then he dropped me off.
A couple of hours later I met Antoine in the monstrous Osaka rail station, and then we walked across the street to the Yodabashi store. This store is a lot like Fry’s in California – a gigantic all things electronic superstore. The store has five floors that are each about the size of a U.S. supermarket.
Antoine was looking for a digital camera, but the one he wanted wasn’t imported to Japan – they had a newer one there, but it was out of his price range. I was able to find lots of cool things – but I only bought a couple. I bought a new shaver, an indoor/outdoor thermometer, and a case for my electronic Japanese dictionary.
I looked at MP3 music players, but they didn’t have the one I fell in love with a while back. The prices seemed high on the players, too – I’ll have to keep looking.
After shopping we went over to a noodle shop and had some noodles and beer. The employees glared at us as we ate, and so we got out of there pretty quick. We walked around exploring that part of Osaka for an hour or so, and finally stopped in to have some fried rice and more beer at a little sushi/ramen bar.
There we met a salaryman who spoke a fair amount of English. He lives in Kobe, and invited us to visit him there. He wants to practice his English with us, and he said help us with our Japanese. We exchanged phone numbers, and so maybe we’ll get together in a couple of weeks.
Finally we went back to the station, and made our way back. By the time I got to Akashi the last train was just pulling in, and I almost missed it. They are running an abbreviated schedule just before the New Year’s festivities. I was tired when I got home – I plugged in my new shaver and thermometer, and went right to bed.
