On the other side of the inlet from Meriken Park there's a complex proudly labelled Mosaic, which features a number of eating options and we ended upstairs at an Italian place, deceived by the weather conditions into taking a window side position which meant that by the time the meals arrived the cloud cover had seen fit to relocate and we were sitting in fairly strong sunlight. That's a bit of an issue when you've rugged up for early winter, but there was nothing that could be done about it.
A Primitivo Novello mightn't have been the optimum match for a pasta dish with salmon and mushrooms, but each of them worked in their own way without actually managing to converge. The pasta dish had its share of interest in the shape and variety of mushrooms in the sauce, and the wine was easy to drink and flavours one in a style that was obviously meant to be food friendly though not necessarily with this particular dish.
It probably didn't work that well with Madam 's fish based pasta sauce either, but there were other issues at play in that department and a couple of things, starting with a position away from direct sunlight, would have improved matters on the other side of the table considerably.
The sauce, in terms of aroma, reminded me of my favorite anchovy, tomato and garlic sauce, though the chunks of aromatic fish were visible, rather than dissolved into the rest of the sauce.
From there the next step involved picking up Hughesy's tailor made with a focal length of 85 centimeters computer glasses, which worked quite brilliantly, and then setting out on the process of acquiring stuff Madam needs to take back with her, either as presents for friends and acquaintances or for her own consumption back at base.
Heading back to Meriken Park to check in broke up that process, and we had a couple of hours' break between installments, largely spent catching up on email and travelogue tapping once certain connectivity issues had been ironed out.
By six it was time to head out on Stage Two of the Shopping Odyssey, which took us back to Sannomiya and into the nearby shopping arcades and department stores in Erich of Japanese language magazines, green tea and other comestibles.
In the age of the internet English might, in effect, be the world language, but there's no sign of that phenomenon in your average Japanese book shop. Sure, there's a section of titles in English in places like Kinokuniya, but in the places we visited in search of magazines that aren't exactly easy to find there might have been the odd semi-familiar title but everything under the English masthead was solidly Japanese.
And I couldn't help thinking there wouldn't have been much correlation of content between the seemingly girl-oriented Oz magazine and the underground magazine of the same title that attracted more than its share of attention in the early seventies.
From there it was on to the very impressive food section at Daimaru, where Madam, as we entered, jokingly remarked that they'd be conducting a wine tasting downstairs.
At least I thought she was joking.
We were in the green tea section with what appeared to be the wine section barricaded off behind a temporary facade, so that, I thought, was it for the tasting department, but after a visit to the cookie counter I was steered towards another discrete wine display where, yes, there were tasting options available.