Parcly Taxel: Since it was winter and the air around me was very dry, sleeping au naturel under such a thick blanket gave me a very smooth coat upon waking up. Little by little I emerged from said blanket, feeling it slide down my torso and hind legs. Finally, with a head weighed down to a similar degree as if I had emerged from my genie bottle, I was leaning against the back wall, a newly emerged butterfly ready to see the world.
 
Rarity: There were still three doughnuts left in her purchase from yesterday – in such dry climates these items can persist for a while. Parcly ate two of them for breakfast alongside cereal and a banana. Lip balm may have been required to speak with ease in the harsher conditions outside, but she had no need to do so and drank water instead.
 
Parcly: Since it was my last full day in Japan, I devoted some time to pre-packing my luggage for the return flights home. This included new things I had bought in my travels.
 
Silverstream: But when she walked to the super-convenient lift directly serving her room, she found it closed for routine maintenance. The front door was also locked from outside, so she panicked and banged around for a while until the host came up with those lift inspectors. She could now descend stairs to the first floor.
 
Spindle: One stop away lay Tenmabashi and the Keihan Mall, which houses Muji among other stores. Muji is known for not using television to advertise itself, only word-of-mouth; this has led to higher customer satisfaction overall than other clothing or lifestyle retailers, as well as almost complete independence from outside financial support.
 
Essentially, this was our “free day” – we had visited all important landmarks on our list, so others could be visited at our heart’s content. At Higashi-Umeda we had omelette curry and rice for lunch, something we had for one reason or another avoided eating in previous days. As part of a set it came with salad and soup.
 
Parcly: I had booked another Asahi brewery tour the previous day, for while the beer was a no-go the coffee and other drinks were nice by me. This factory was larger than the one in Fukuoka, but to reach it I had to travel on a Hankyu Railway extension of the Osaka Metro from Tenroku (天六／天神橋筋六丁目).
 
Autumn Blaze: Even from outside, the cylindrical ridged fermentation tanks are a sight to behold. The views of the bottling/canning and packaging facilities are also closer, hence more attractive, and there is a view down into the taste-testing laboratories. Light filters into the public tasting room from a lush green courtyard, mimicking an Oktoberfest environment. And I’ve probably overstated that last point because I’m… drunk…
 
Spindle: Let her be, we’ve got more to recount.
 
Parcly: So, after taking a can of Calpis instead, we continued to the Daiso shop in this suburb of Suita (吹田). Despite being cited as the prototypical 100-yen shop, it now sells some items for multiples of 100 yen, but overall it’s still very cheap. I bought a couple of ice packs needed for transporting wagyu beef back home.
 
Suita lay just outside the Osaka Metro’s reach, so we needed a JR ride to return to Osaka Station, where an adjacent pedestrian crossing pulsated between crowded edges and raptured centre like a capacitor charging and discharging. On its other side lay the great Hankyu department store, now buzzing with last-minute Hearth’s Warming offers and anxious ponies.
 
Spindle: It was relaxing to watch all stripes of species pass by from benches beside an escalator: ponies, changelings, gryphons, dragons, even other windigos. That is, until we got bored, and so we moved to Links (a shopping centre just outside Yodobashi) and then Yodobashi itself, each time doing the same thing.
 
Autumn: At last, Parcly peered down at her bare hoof. “Hmm, I need a new watch.” So she bought a new one, not to open until after Hearth’s Warming. Later she also got bottles of sake for her friends who did love alcohol, like Octavia.
 
Parcly: The question of dinner had still not been settled. My day pass still active, I travelled to Americamura for the Camel Diner located there, but found it was closed, so I went back to Umeda and simply ate at Subway, which itself took a long time to find (swimming through the late-night crowd, going up and down stairs and across exposed overhead walkways). I had the same meal as the last time I ate there.
 
Spindle: We only came back at 22:25, the latest return time of any day of our Japan holiday. On the Tanimachi Line passenger density was only slightly lower than peak, in no small part due to ponies returning from Hearth’s Warming Eve drinking parties. Once outside I looked around the night landscape, pausing for a brief moment at the Toyoko (東横) Inn’s sign, then wisped forward. Hearth’s Warming itself was going to be our long ride home.