Situated about 11.6 km (by rail) to the South West of Nagaokakyo lies the city of Takatsuki (pop. 353,619 from Wikipedia). Normally when we want to go somewhere bigger (for better shopping) than Nagaokakyo (pop. 79,306 from Wikipedia) we end up heading for Osaka or Kyoto. Wanting to go somewhere with a little more choice in shops, without putting up with huge crowds, Ritsuko and I decided to head for Takatsuki. We weren't disappointed, within one minutes walk of Takatsuki train station there are three shopping centres (one of them is in this photo) each bigger than anything we have in Nagaokakyo. The strange thing was these shopping centres were almost devoid of people. It turns out that unlike Nagaokakyo where many people live and work, Takatsuki is more of a "dormitory city" for people working in Osaka. However later on, as peak hour trains from Osaka arrived at Takatsuki, the place suddenly got a lot busier. All together it was pretty fruitful little trip, I found some socks in my size (29cm, very rare in Japan), we got a new coffee pot, and we had dinner at a tempura restaurant. I hope to go back there in the near future and explore a bit more.