Today was the day I was meeting my cousins and it wasn’t going to be until 3pm so I just wandered around Nishinomiya. But first I went to a coffee shop my sister recommended for breakfast.

Ham and egg toast with ketchup. I dunno, it was good.

The view was fine as well.

I guess they expect people to set up shop because there’s a two hour time limit. Japanese houses are small so people often use coffee shops to sit around and read or work.

I hung out in the hotel for a bit and then headed to Nishinomiya. My first stop was Nishinomiya Jinja, the main shrine for Ebisu, one of the seven gods of fortune. Actually, I think I really wanted to go to Hirota Jinja but its hard to get to. They’re both important Nishinomiya jinjas. Next time maybe.

The grounds were pretty impressive.

And lots of sub-shrines as well.

From there I walked towards a home improvement store but before I got there I ran into a shopping center near JR Nishinomiya station called “Frente”. I saw a Mr Donut and that’s my usual safe spot to sit for a bit but next door there was a small restaurant with people waiting outside and a sign that said they had handmade tartar sauce for their Chicken Nanban. I had to go in and try it. It was a lot of food.

I also had a cup of coffee. It looks light tan but that’s the crema.

I kept going to the home improvement store because it contained an Astro which seemed like the Japanese version of Harbor Freight. I didn’t really see anything I wanted so went back to the “regular” section and asked about Mitsutoyo calipers. I’ve been looking for them for a couple of years since I heard the ones on Amazon US can be fakes. I guess it’s a specialty item and they only suggested I go to SE Osaka (an hour away) to look for them.

I still had time to kill so I headed towards Hankyu Nishinomiya-kitaguchi station and the Nishinomiya Gardens shopping mall. This time a Hankyu train station was right in front of me so I just got on for one stop.

After shopping around “Gardens” and finding a Zento Signature pen(!) I headed towards my cousin’s. Or so I thought. I was going in the wrong direction and found a Hard-Off/Hobby-Off. I was still early so I checked out the used stuff. I like older computers so it was fun poking around. They have lots of other stuff too: cameras, musical instruments, anime figurines, etc. I also used their bathroom and it had a Washlet that was better than most of the hotels I’ve stayed in.

I finally made it to my cousin’s and saw three of the four who live in the area. One is slightly further away so he wasn’t there. I had dinner with my eldest cousin and she made lots of veggie-based dishes, knowing that I’m mostly eating out and not getting enough veggies. Sorry, no pictures.

I finally made it back to Osaka station and bought a couple things at Yodobashi Camera. Pretty boring, mostly a nicer USB cable than the ¥200 one I bought a few years ago at CanDo. I bought several that year and they’re pretty iffy.

I also bought a double cream puff because you are what you eat. No drinks picture today.

I should’ve known better. The cream puff custard was fine but the pastry was soggy. Oh well. What do you expect from a combini dessert?