Thank goodness I’m a country boy… Back in our little home on the outskirts of a under-appreciated provincial capital after a few days in the “big city”… All the skyscrapers, swirling highways, and hectic people… Well it’s just not for me. Here we have flowers, trees, fresh air and importantly, quiet.

The good news is, got the official paperwork underway, picked up custom rings and utilized at least a dozen different means of conveyance.

Totally wiped me out but 藤田良子 (Ryoko) kept our pace slow and I didn’t try to do “too much” by rushing around to do everything in one day as a normal human would likely do. I’m hardly “normal” in all sorts of ways 🙂

After affidavit at Honorary Consulate of Canada located in the Tsuda lumber yard in an industrial port area of Osaka requiring creative transport route planning including various non-JR trains and the “New Tram” (which is no longer new but i suppose “tram” by itself isn’t much of a name), we hit up a hot spring spa next to a sports complex featuring a boat racing stadium – rather thunder-dome-esque – for several hours soak – indoors & out, then found an appropriate surface street bus (my preferred mode as involves less going up and down stairs/escalator/elevators to elevated rail or subways plus less general “hecticness” as I get very sensory overloaded easily) to Namba station area loaded with shopping streets, covered arcades where we bought some lovely blue hemp cloth for a tablecovering at goat farm party, as well as importantly devouring two mighty bowls of menya (noodles), along with boiled gyoza, at an impossibly tiny restaurant before heading back to hotel (where my request for extra pillow was denied) to watch an episode of Great Teacher Onizaki.

Today is picking up rings, buying various small items at Bic, Tokyu Hands, Shinseibashi then back to calm provincial town via speedy train.

End of Dispatch.

Noodles pictured.