I started off the day with a pretty good breakfast at the hotel. I like Wakayama. It’s sort of like a suburb of Osaka but it’s a country suburb. The water (for fishing) is much cleaner and Moriwaki said it has the cheapest gas prices in Japan. Good thing, since you kind of need a car here.

I also got some more because, well, why not. I told myself the yogurt was good for me. The coffee was just OK.

The view at breakfast wasn’t bad either. No more miscreants over by the Lawson.

I discovered something else odd about the hotel. The sixth floor lobby looked much newer and when I left if I found out it’s a capsule hotel. The beds in the photos looked really nice but capsule hotels are capsule hotels.

The fastest train takes less than an hour to Osaka Station and every seat is reserved. I’ve found that the slow trains really aren’t that much slower but then you have to stop at every station and maybe even sit sideways like in a subway. This is much easier.

After dropping my bags off I decided to head out and explore Nakatsu, which someone on the intarwebs said was interesting. The first thing I saw was a long line at Diamond Biriyani. Then I asked one of the locals who was cleaning his store if there was a shopping street. He actually stopped and walked me around the corner to point out where to go.

It kind of looked like an abandoned building. I saw one bread shop, a used record store that was just cardboard boxes at the side of the alley, and I think one coffee shop. I did meet some nice guys from Utah on the other end of the street. They rented some bicycles and were just stopping to buy some drinks.

I decided to go to Juso, which is either one stop on the Hankyu line, or a long walk across a bridge.

I couldn’t figure out how to get to the station (I had to cross all those lanes of traffic and then find the entranceway) so I just walked.

The first shopping street I found was the wrong one. You probably can’t zoom in and see it but it was seedy. All girls bars and “virgin” this and “sexy” that. When I worked in the suburbs of Osaka, the one thing people went to Juso for was the only topless bar we knew of. I never went.

Anyway, the next street over was the normal shopping street.

The TabiEats guys came here (you should watch their YouTube videos if you haven’t been watching them already) and I ate some of the things they did. First a custard malasada. One of the best doughnuts I’ve had in Japan..

Then some nice big pieces of karaage chicken from a stand that just sold chicken.

And then melon pan, one of my favorites. (That’s pan like the Portuguese word for bread.) They said the popular ones were the plain and the almond but they were out of the almond. They had some of the plain straight out of the oven! I think this compares to the melon pan I got in Tokyo from the store next to Sensoji where they say they invented melon pan.

Then I asked Google where to buy coffee. I thought it was odd that there were so many Southeast Asian customers but when I saw the menu I realized it was a Vietnamese coffee shop! Their new drink was a French Lemon Coffee and it was great.

I headed back to Umeda and killed a bit of time looking at Grand Seiko watches and cheap pens before checking into the hotel.

I didn’t realize Marriott had purchased the Sheraton chain. This place creeps me out a little because of that. I remember reading all the complaints about how the Bonvoy points were going to be useless too. When I checked for an Ethernet cable in the room, I found a New Testament and a Book of Mormon. When I went to the bathroom the door is so close to the toilet that I hit my head on the handle. Other than that it’s clean and maybe quieter than the older Hankyu Annex we usually stay in. It just kinda gives me weird vibes. Oh, and many hotels in Japan have cardkey access to reach the floors with rooms. Here the card key selects your floor for you. No visiting friends on other floors or going to the ice machine, vending machine, or laundry room on other floors. They probably don’t even have those things. Like I said, weird vibes.

I headed off to find dinner and went to the Hankyu underground right nearby. I picked an older kushiyaki/yakitori restaurant and got the kushiyaki teishoku. Other than the chicken liver (which I ate) it was great. I’m not a big liver fan.

Then it was across the street to the Uniqlo. On the way I saw an idol group. Or a bunch of dudes dressed up like an idol group. I have no idea. Earlier I saw “train idols” signing train things at the bookstore. Japan is weird sometimes.

Anyway, after buying a couple of pairs of stretchy slacks and spending ¥15,000 in various stores, I was given four tokens to try to win a keychain. This is why I don’t gamble. I ended up with one hard candy. I can’t even find it to take a picture.

So the final picture is of the obligatory Wilkinson/Pocari Sweat combo. 

Oh and my sister sent me on a quest for a FamilyMart striped shirt. I went to a dozen FamilyMarts before I finally found one! And the FamilyMart by the hotel has them too! (As well as several different flavors of Wilkinson, Grape, Grapefruit, Lemon, and plain.)