During my time living and working in Japan (oh, not this again!-ed.) I often journeyed into Osaka to buy text books from Books Kinokuniya in the Hankyu Railway Station in Umeda. I could have ordered through our school secretary and sometimes did, but when we were choosing new texts or were tired of the old, there was nothing beating thumbing through an actual copy in your hand. I would probably have dispensed with textbooks altogether, but our Japanese students insisted on them. So be it. I tended to build lessons out from them, using them as a starting point.

Yesterday I went into town with Ann and JJ, hobbling as I do from place to place, when a sentimental notion struck me and I and popped into the The Galleries Kinokuniya, adjacent the QVB. I had almost forgotten what a magnificent book shop it is, the kind where you wander slightly gobsmacked around the massively stocked shelves. It was chockers with eager shoppers too.

I was in the ESL section (force of habit) when I took this picture through a glass pane. Lovely! What an autumn day is was.