| 22.Apr.2023 | Record Store Day! None of the local spots were opening early so we waited until the initial crush died down before heading into any record stores. Instead, we hit up a couple of bookstores – I was looking for sewing patterns and they’re frequently sold in “collections” in a book format. We found bookstore nirvana for all us book geeks: MARUZEN & JUNKUDO Umeda. Floors of paper-y goodness – books, magazines, maps (!), gaming stuff, and stationary. I must admit, I’m particularly excited about the book of bag patterns. Thanks to a lot of general construction knowledge, good illustrations, and Google Translate, I’m confident I’ll find some joy here.

For record store day we visited Tower Records again. Jeff was looking for the Japan-only re-release of Nirvana’s “Bleach” which was acquired, but at Vox, another retailer in the same building. The section of record store day selections was pretty small, but Tower is still a CD-based seller.  They did have an impressive schedule of in-store music sessions and signings.

The other highlight of the day was tempura! I found Tempura Tarajino recommended on a blog and we decided to wade into the chaos of Dotonbori on a Saturday afternoon to check it out. The restaurant had four high-top tables and about 10 counter seats.  One of the staff helped us navigate the ordering situation and we had some excellent tempura – sweet potato, lotus root, onion, green beans, shrimp, tuna, and scallops.