Yaa! Our colds and jet lag seems to be gone! Yaa! We did have another visit to our chemist in the little shop with (secret?) shopfront. And she gave me tablets to stop my cough. She remembered us from theee days earlier which is nice. We seem to be settling into the community. She has a little dog but asking his name was beyond our capabilities. Now we think she lives above or behind the shop because when we walk in she’s never there but a bell rings and she comes out one of the doors behind the counter.

Right now I’m sitting in a cafe called Seattle’s Best Coffee… probably not original Japanese then? We chose it because they also sell Cinnabon buns… I thought that was a make up thing? Before we left for Japan we had been watching Better Call Saul, a Netflix series and really good spinoff of Breaking Bad. At one low point in the main character, Saul’s life he was working in a bun shop called Cinnabon. I didn’t know it was a real thing. It is and it’s here in Osaka! And they have scones. And they call them scones! When we travel to Portugal the one thing I miss is scones, you can’t get them in Spain or France either… but you can get them in Japan!

This is actually our second coffee today. We have a routine now when we wake up (which is getting later and later, thankfully) Denis looks for a Japanese cafe for breakfast and off we go. The scene is the same each time. There’s a counter with seats on the customer side. On the other side the owner (they all seem to be family run places) makes the coffee and the breakfast orders. His wife welcomes you in the door and brings you in iced water and a warm face towel – to use like a napkin (we think…) Then she takes the order with minimal words, pointing at photos in the menu and plenty of smiles. The coffee comes in china cups on matching saucers.

There’s always a choice of breakfast orders. Today we had toast and beside it a boiled egg sliced with cucumber and chopped cabbage topped with a delicious sauce. For two of us it cost approximately €5. There’s no tipping. I tried it the first day and the lady handed it back to me thinking I got the amount wrong. Generally the little cafes don’t take credit cards so we always have to have cash too.

The notes we’ve seen most of are the 1,000 ¥ (Yen) and then there’s coins for 500¥ and 100¥ and smaller. When working out what something costs in € (euro) I have a quick calculation. If it’s something Denis wants I knock off the last two zeros and divide the rest by three and double the result. So for example, if something was 3,500¥, take off the last two zeros, it becomes 35, divide by 3, it becomes 11.66, double it, it becomes €23.32. On the other hand if it’s something I want I keep it simple. First, take off the last two zeros, it becomes 35 and the divide that in half, it becomes €17.50. My method means Denis has been spending far more than me so I’m in credit and can get more things… like stationery.

We are nearly at the end of our visit to Osaka and it’s been a very easy city to get around. The transport system is extensive in that it seems to cover every corner. Which makes it a little overwhelming to me but as the days go by I realise it’s easier when I slow down and take a minute.

Did I mention that on new year’s day when we went to visit the shrine that we each paid the equivalent about €1 (well of course Denis paid €2) to get our fortune for the year? Mine told me to slow down. It also said there’d be no great things and no very bad things happening this year – sounds like my kind of year. And I’m practicing the slow down already.