We got up at 7am this morning and ate a nice breakfast at home of tamago-yaki (scrambled egg), sausage, and more maki-zushi. Then we were out the door at 7:50am and headed for Tsukamoto station, which would take us five stops thru Osaka to Suita, to meet Mariko’s friend and her son. Bay and Koa would be spending the next few hours attending a Japanese kindergarten. A quick cab ride to the campus, and the boys were busy in class. The only think I knew about Japanese kindergarten was what I saw in the dorama “At Home Dad”. This kindergarten was exactly like that show. The teachers all wore the same kind of aprons, and they played songs on the piano during songtime. The boys did really good in their new class! Bay’s class took a little walking trip to the post-box about a half-mile away. When we got there, the postman was there, picking up the mail in his mail-truck. I thought that it was pretty cool that they arranged to have him there. After the kids sent their postcards, they marched off back to class and finished up the day at around noon.
We were all pretty hungry by then, so we went to Kobeya, which is a restaurant famous for their fresh bread. You order a meal off the regular menu, but they also come by every few minutes with baskets of assorted breads to choose from. It’s all-you-can-eat bread, so we went a little crazy. I don’t really care for raisin bread, but Kobeya’s is really oishi. We also had milk-bread, orange bread, walnut bread, but the best was the cheese bread. My entree was a combo set of hamburger steak, whitefish, ebi-furai (fried shrimp, and potatoes. It was yummy. The kids got their kid’s meals, which was like mine, but no whitefish. Instead they had omuraisu (egg omelette and rice), fries, spaghetti, and hot dog. Plus a little Japanese flag, which was neat. The ladies ate some pasta, which was also delicious.
While we were eating, Mariko’s friend showed me her keitai, which had a tv on it. It was pretty cool and amazing! I am hoping to see a bunch of cool electronics while here, and this was a great start.
After lunch, Mariko’s friend suggested we visit the Pokémon center, and of course the kids were in agreement that we should go. The center was pretty cool. It was basically a big store filled with anything pokémon related you can imagine. There were these big video games where you put tokens on a gameboard, and the pokémon on the screen would battle. I had no idea what was going on, but the kids certainly enjoyed it. Also, Bay and Mariko learned how the proper way to play the pokémon card game, from an official pokémon trainer. It was pretty neat, I only wish I could understand!
When we left the Pokémon center, we were getting tired, so we decided to just head home via train. But on the way, Koa said he wanted ice-cream and Bay said he was a little hungry, so we stopped at a little cafe in the underground mall below Osaka station. Bay had some spaghetti and Koa had some chocolate chip ice cream on corn flakes. Mariko enjoyed an ice coffee, and I just had a few glasses of water. I was so thirsty! It must have been all that bread I ate at lunch.
We arrived home after that and Bay and I took a hot bath together. It was so relaxing! I love Japanese ofuro (baths)! It was the perfect way to end a long day.