It was a grey, cloudy morning when I finally left ate my breakfast and left my hotel. The lights and energy of last night were gone, and it made the glitz and life of the streets of namba feel rather asleep. Which was odd because it was 7:00 in the morning. A warm and slightly wet morning. 19 degrees celcius according to the building sign.

My hotel was near the Namba station, and near that was the insta- famous Namba Yasaka Jinja (Jinja is shrine). I walked the 10 mins to the shrine and was reminded again of my knowledge from living in Japan. Japan doesn’t wake up till like 10 am. I had a tourist/person free view of the shrine, so I got lots of empty, grey photos. Not exactly bright and sunny weather.

It started spitting as I made my way back to the station. I realised two things. I had 100% overpacked winter gear and under packed wet weather gear. I packed my big coat with the solid belief I will not need it this trip. Took out my hoodie and still didn’t use that. It’s actually like a cool, pleasant winter day at home. I found the subway I needed and was cruising down the escalator when I checked my phone for train times and let go of my bag and it went ass over tits down the escalator almost taking out an unsuspecting business man. This was but the first of my clusmys today.

Took the Midosuji subway line to Shin-Osaka to change to my shinkansen (bullet train). Brought back the days of going to work on the train, except it was busier. Not rush hour but not suburbs midday commute either.

I navigated through the subway and into the shinkansen station. Now my big problem. What Ekiben to buy? (Ekiben are train bento, and bento are lunchboxes) So many choices and yet surprisingly few.

The shops seem to be divided into Ekiben or Souvenir food shops. They are all colourful and full of plastic display models. I bought a cute coin purse with Mameshiba and Dr. Yellow because I had been having trouble with my cash handling. Also, having trouble recognising notes. Keep thinking it’s 10, but it’s 100.

During this trip, I started using a phone wallet, and the dynamics are all new to me. Plus, it’s so stiff that getting anything out of the coin pocket is hard, and there are so many coins. I forgot how Japan is a cash based society with no notes less than $10 (yen equivalent).

“Coins, coins everywhere, weighing you down, man. 😎”

I was putting my change away, and phone was getting pretty heavy with all my coins when “NO!” The unthinkable happens. Wham! the phone case flips over, and all the coins spill free from my purse in the middle of the station. Luckily, a nice passerby helped me to gather them all into one spot. I decided then and there that it was time to use my new coin purse

Things have been working more smoothly now, and the bag is flexible, so I can fish coins out easier. It has the added benefit of being cute, too.

After that, I prepared snacks for the 2 and half hour trip. Found the platform and waited for my 9:02am train. It arrived at 8.59am, and like I said, it left EXACTLY at 9:02am.

I photographed my snacks and ekiben as I eat them, so I’ll post that later. But I took photos of a lot of extra things, more great vending machines, a manhole cover, the real life phone I got from my gacha last night, miniture lassies, breakfast, some views from the train etc. so I’ll put them down here.