I passed out and slept all night. I had so many emails that I didn’t finish going through them all. Why am I reading all the NYT emails?

Anyway, I got out of my room and wanted to spend time at the “new” Kitte Osaka building. It’s been here for at couple of years and I just haven’t made it over there. It’s in the west end of Umeda, near the hotel my mom liked but recently we’ve been staying in the northern part of Umeda. I’m staying at the west end right now, in the hotel next door to my mom’s old favorite old hotel, and they’re both close to Kitte Osaka. Even better: this hotel is connected to the underground so I never saw the rain.

The Kitte building wasn’t quite open when I first went, but they did have a few restaurants open for breakfast. I went to a place called Absinthe. The staff was minimal and it wasn’t until I bothered the staff three times that I realized you could (should?) order with a QR code.

I thought I forgot my pill case and a case for my glasses, but it turns out I forgot the pill case and my deodorant.  Stores don’t open until 10 or 11am so I went across Umeda to the 24-hour Don Quixote because they sell western stuff and basicallly a little of everything. Japanese people don’t use much deodorant and they had a very small selection. Then it was off to buy a pill case and Muji didn’t have what I needed so it was time for the ¥100 store (plus tax). That 69 cents. I wandered around a bit more and started getting a headache. It also ended up being over 87°F and very humid!

I went back to the Kitte building for lunch and the headache wasn’t helping me any. I got some comfort food, omurice and Napolitan (ketchup) spaghetti. I also had some Ringl (ibuprofen). No picture of the coffee I had at the end.

I wandered around the five floors of the Kitte building and found lots of places to eat as well as “antenna shops” for prefectures around Japan.

I tried to go back to the room but it wasn’t ready. Luckily the Ringl started to kick in and I finally felt good enough to keep wandering. I went to a bunch of shops where I wasn’t planning on buying anything. There’s a new Apple store in Grand Front, and the Grand Seiko store turned into a Seiko store. I looked for a new iPhone case but they didn’t have anything for the iPhone 17 Pro or iPhone 18 Pro.

I wasn’t hungry but I stopped mid-afternoon for a snack at Toki.

I finally got back to my room around 4pm and sat for a bit before I went back to the Kitte building for dinner. I let a coin flip decide and I ended up getting Niigata tare katsu. I think it was better than the tare katsu I got in Niigata. It was cheap, too.

I made arrangements to see my buddy Moriwaki on Thursday and bought a ticket online. The English version of the web page said I had to print out the reservation so it took me several trips to the convenience store to get that done. And it’s two or three blocks away. Turns out my USB stick was formatted for the Mac, and the print station didn’t recognize it. I have to figure out how to do this without a printer.

Anyway, just stayed around the station and I got in 20,058 steps according to my phone. And I still have 70+ emails.