Sorry these entries are a little late. This site was under maintenance for a few days and wouldn't let me update, if I was sensible I would have written my thoughts down then and put them up later but being lazy I waited. So these next couple of entries will have to be from memory, granted it was only a couple of days ago.

I had taken a day off for my 5th day and did very little. This was due to the number of blisters I had from 4 days of walking in crappy shoes. So this day i stayed in bed till midday, had a long shower and took a stroll around the immediate area. I went to the local supermarket, which for the most part was pretty much identical to any western supermarket although slightly more expensive and everything was labelled in Japanese. The deli counter was an array of fishyness and I managed to find real bread in the form of baguettes. I found it funny to come across brands I knew labelled in Japanese and spent some time just trying to spot those brands I new and check out the packaging…like I said it was a lazy day.I left with some sushi a small baguette and a coke and headed back to the room. I spend the remainder of the evening watching a couple of films on my laptop and got an early night.

The following day my feet felt much better and I decided to go explore some more. I wanted to check out the Pokémon centre I had seen on my first day. I remembered that it did not open until 11 and decided to stay in bed a little longer. By now I knew my way to Osaka station quite well and the area around it and decided to walk again to save money, it took about 25 minutes to get there and by then it was gone 11 and the place was lit up. It was smaller than I though it would be but was rammed with every Pokémon bit of merchandise you could imagine, music from the games and series constantly played out of some hidden speakers and TVs around the store advertised Pokémon games or played episodes of the series. The shop was also quite full of Japanese filling up baskets. There were racks of the cards and the games and hundreds of action figure. One wall was all baby clothes and items covered in Pokémon and another t-shirts and caps and shoes. In the corner was a machine for stamping coins. You feed in 100 yen and watched through a little window as the coin is crushed and embossed with a logo of the Pokémon centre. I chose to get one of these.

I spent about 45 minutes in the shop and must have seen everything in there. I resisted the urge to by anything though was tempted by a pair of Pokémon chopsticks and a poke ball bento box (lunch box).

Not having planned any further than the Pokémon centre I was unsure what to do next and picked a random direction to walk in. I wandered many a side street and proceeded south in to the centre of Osaka shopping area. I went into many shops and stores and came across the equivalent of a Japanese WHsmith. There was nothing in the shop I could understand and only browsed the aisles I was amused to see Paul McKenna on a Japanese book and wandered what it could be about. Most likely a quit smoking book as everyone seems to smoke around here. Upstairs was the Japanese block busters I recognised many of the films despite the Japanese covers and a few series. Its easier for me to resist spending in Japan as anything I bought I would not be able to understand. So I browsed the aisles some more and left. This was to be my day wandering in and out of random shops as I made my way through Osaka. I had taken an umbrella from the hostel as is was raining slightly when I left. But by mid afternoon it was pouring and I was glad for the umbrella. I found my self back on streets I knew from my previous expeditions and continued south my feet starting to ache again. By the time it was dark a had walked almost from one end to the other of the map I used to get by on. I was now in a restaurant area and giant fugu balloons were hung on several of the buildings around me. I walked past and on towards a sign stating "festival gate" The gate led to a large staircase and at the top was "Spa world" Spa world is a 6 floor spa centre. The first floor is the lobby and some shops the second is a food court and the 4 remaining floors are all spas. Two floors are segregated by sex. They are the Asian spas and the Mediterranean spas. Basically for between 7 and 15 pounds you get a day on one of the spas floors. Which floor depends on the month. The floor consists of 6 to 8 themed spas like Japanese onsen or a roman bath, a Greek cave etc one is even a glass spa suspended above fish so you can see them swim while you soak. And you just spend the day chilling moving from spa to spa. Sounded cool so I'm gonna go next week and I'm sure there will be a blog about it. Around the corner from spa world I found a train station. I grabbed some food from the nearby store and got on the train back to the hostel.