Nishinomiya – Would You Like Me To Sing For You?

On Thursday we decided to take another day trip from Osaka to the town of Nishinomiya where we were recommended to go and visit Nishiomiya Gardens, a massive 5 storey high shopping mall which includes a 3 storey supermarket, a gallery, a doggie day spa with dog hotel and a cinema (the cinema was for people, not dogs, although I wouldn't put it past the place to have a cinema for dogs too...). We hadn’t checked what the weather would be like and didn’t take our umbrellas, but we were lucky that the rain decided to hold off and let us walk from the main train station about 15 minutes to the shopping mall.


After looking like a couple of idiots trying to put our backpacks in a coin locker meant for cold foods, we set out to browse through the shops.

Shopping in Nishinomiya Gardens was much more enjoyable than Shibuya 109 (the shopping centre that I went to in Tokyo which was packed with teenage girls), mainly because it wasn't so packed, but also because they actually had proper sizes. In Tokyo heaps of the clothes that I saw were one size only, and the girls in the shop would give you a look which clearly said "but it's not your size". Given, the sizes are sometimes a bit off, like Michael's polo shirt which he had to ask for in EXTRA LARGE, however I managed to find a few shops where I didn't have to ask for the largest size in the shop just to be able to try something on.

I was also really impressed with the food court. I had a delicious creamy pasta with potatoes, corn and bacon which would not have been out of place in a good restaurant. However, the entertainment of the day was saved up for later, when we decided to get a sundae from the Cold Stone Creamery. I got a banana, chocolate, whipped cream and sponge cake creation in a choc-dipped waffle basket, and Michael got something similar except with mixed berries. One of the girls asked him if they could sing him a song about his ice-cream, but he shook his head and said "daijobu" (translation - that's ok you don't have to). But they decided that they would anyway, and proceeded to serenade him with a song about the berry ice-cream, accompanied by percussion (ice-cream scoops being banged on the counter). While we sat and ate our ice-cream we could hear them singing to nearly every other customer with every sign of enjoyment.

The prices were pretty much on par with Perth, so I couldn't really go too crazy with the shopping. Especially once we got to the top couple of floors, where I was starting to recognise brands like Nine West, Stussy, Diesel and Lacoste. But I did manage to find a nice hoody and top (LL Bean - my new favourite brand since I was back to being an XS woohoo!) as well as a nice belt and Michael got aforementioned polo shirt. It's a good thing that they did not have his size for the polo shirt that he originally wanted, since it had a nice big American flag on it and I'm not sure how well that would have gone down in Vietnam...