After this, I went back to my apartment to drop off my precious CD and the loose goshuin, before I started out again. I walked east again this time, but was aiming much further east than the Gamers store and the temple. My aim was the Aeon Town Chikusa, a shopping center owned by the Aeon retail store company that was located about half an hour east (and slightly northeast) of my abode.

The reason for this was an interesting one — one of the items on my shopping list that I had been unable to acquire so far was a box of Twinings-brand Strawberry and Vanilla Rooibos Tea (local), I had scoured quite a few supermarkets for it but the closest I had gotten was a supermarket on the outskirts of Hanno back on Day 6, the one that I “visited just for fun after getting my stamp” back then, if I recall correctly. That one had a variety pack of 20 teas that contained 5 strawberry/vanilla tea bags, and 5 bags of three other flavours. I wasn’t that desperate to complete my quest, though.

But anyway, I would occasionally find the Twinings brand tea on sale in a supermarket, but it was strange that I never found this exact flavour. Maybe it was phased out or something. I asked Kel at one point where she got it from though, and she said not to worry about it but that it was a supermarket in Nagoya. This sounded like a pilgrimage to me though, so I went to Nagoya and then asked her again which specific supermarket it was, and it was this Aeon Town Chikusa one that happened to be fairly close to my hotel to boot. The stars probably weren’t going to align much better than that, so I had earmarked this afternoon to try to finally complete this quest and see some interesting things on the way. And away I went!

My first stop was a restaurant to get some supplies for my quest. I first stopped off in a “tax-free” supermarket-like shop named Sugi Yakkyoku and bought a soft chiffon cream sandwich from there for 98 yen.

I handed the cashier a 100 yen coin and she said that it was actually 105 yen, so I gave her a 5 yen coin without thinking too much about it. It was only after I left the shop that I realized that increase in price was due to tax — to qualify for the tax-free thing, one must present a passport showing that one was a foreigner/tourist. I still don’t seem to flag as a foreigner very often in locals’ eyes, I think, since our skin colours and facial features are very similar to each other. At least as long as I don’t open my mouth and spew out broken Japanese, and even then sometimes I still pass. This was probably one of the cases like that, where I just passed without either party in the transaction really thinking about it.

I stopped by an eatery/restaurant soon after that though, and had a proper meal, Moyashi Soba from a store named Koranen. The bowl was immense and the price was light on the wallet, 930 yen or so, and I appreciated that.

I then continued walking east. A problem with my quest was that I got waylaid by virtual bandits in the form of what apparently was Nagoya’s Akihabara district — Akamon Street, or at least the east side of it. There were anime stores, second-hand CD stores and bookstores, and even a second-hand Goodwill store for whatever reason. The street had loudspeakers which were busy playing anime and idol and other interesting musics to entice people in like a siren call, and I ended up burning something like two hours here due to being distracted before finally pulling myself away and moving on.