14 November 2026
Beyond the station
Noritake garden mall
Last time I was here I stumbled across a huge new Aeon mall just past the station completely by accident. Now that I know where it is, I might as well go there on purpose.
There are many features of the mall, 3 food streets, a food court, a cat cafe, illuminations, ancient ruins, bus tour groups, small men running in front of buses and falling over and almost getting run over, just to name a few.
Before getting to the mall, I walked past the station, with its forecourt under complete re development (refer previous rant) and found myself in the middle of an anti war protest, complete with furry animals dancing while really angry college students screamed into megaphones. I am not sure if they were protesting a specific war, or Japan's threat to reclaim all the land they lost at the end of world war 2 which has seen them massively increasing military spending, developing nuclear submarines, and suggesting they need nuclear weapons. Cool.
Now I will show photos of all the things I mentioned above, here is the station forecourt, under full re development, like every single train station in Japan.
War protest, with cuddly bunny and glow sticks. Also a lot of drums and megaphones, there were not many people but it was very loud.
Now for the Aeon mall at Noritake garden, with ancient concrete pillars.
I diverted into the garden itself to observe the illumination.
The inside of this mall, now 2 years older, still appears brand new, and very western in its design.
This is where I ate last time, I was late and not much was open, and it was not a weekend. Tonight I am earlier, everything is open and it being a weekend there are people everywhere.
There is a cat cafe in the mall. The gold lettering reads 'Travel the cat world. Fill your suitcase with treasures. They all have a story that becomes a treasure for life.'
There are at least 10 cats in this photo.
Oh hello, it is a food court. I do not think I have eaten at a food court yet on this trip.
Pepper lunch it is. With kimchi of course. That's too much meat.
If the food court is not your thing, there are 3 different themed 'food streets', one on each level.
And finally, due to lack of photos, a bonus shot of the outside.
Tomorrow I go back to Tokyo. I will stretch that into an all day journey as I do.