Nara exists now only on the postcards winging their way to you. I left early this morning for Osaka, where I’ll stay for a few nights.

My room here is big and comfy and has a wonderful thirtieth-floor view. It also has these in the cupboard:

These are large boxes containing food, water, medicine and toiletries. This is in case of an earthquake, and reminds me when we stayed in Osaka a few years ago and KLS was ‘stuck’ on the 36th floor (of a different hotel) for several hours after the Noto earthquake shut down the elevators. Interestingly, we stayed in this very hotel five months ago and our room had no such supplies!

After checking in I headed to Den Den town to look in the game shops since I’m hunting for something. I had no luck today with that particular item, but did see many other interesting things in the few hours I browsed. I’ll get to games in a blog before this trip ends.

I then went jewelry shopping for KLS (which was a long process!) before taking a ride on the Hep Five Ferris Wheel:

I like this wheel and have ridden it a few times before. I may even do it again this trip at night because the views – it’s on top of a mall right in the center of the city – are great:

On the way down, at a Sanrio store, I spied this:

It’s a rubber stamp maker! You design your own stamp and the machine makes it in the spot. The mechanism is fascinating and the stamp is self-inking. I made two: one for a student of mine and one you’ll see on a postcard 😉

It was another long and tiring day and even isekai anime on the room TV much larger than the one we have at home can’t keep me awake much longer…