Running Bear's November 2025 Coffee Shop

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Louis - You did a nice job coloring the turkey. You stayed in the lines all of the way around.
Thank you! But I can't take credit for that. I would not have done so well.

My grandson Ayden did that when he was in kindergarten. It hangs in a frame above my desk, alongside another of Christmas Bells he also did in kindergarten.

I don't usually collect art, but when I do it is only the best!
 


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I wonder how many Turkeys are left to go shopping.
 
We went to Costco today in Kobe. Mostly to buy snacks and some other food items to take home. I went to then food court. I had a slice of pizza. They sued to still have combo and pepperoni but now they just have pepperoni and margherita pizza. I had a slice of margherita pizza and a beef bulgogi bake (like the chicken bake but Korean bbq beef and cheese) and the Hokkaido Soft Cream cup (basically a milk or vanilla flavored soft ice cream). Costco has also switched to Coke in Japan. They had Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero, Sprite, some sort of non carbonated orange drink and a mon carbonated peach drink. I ended up with Peach Coke Zero.

We then went home and my son and I eventually walked to the subway station and went to the JR train and took a local to the Rokko part of Kobe. There is a short 10-15 minute walk to a really nice
Model train shop. The guy who runs it was upstairs when we got there and there was a woman at the door. We went looking around and the proprietor came down. I think she told him two foreigners were here and I heard him say something like “Chado-San”. So I peaked around the corner and he saw me and greeted me by name. That was nice. It’s my second visit this year but only my third in person visit ever though I have emailed with him occasionally about stuff. I did email him a few weeks ago asking when his closed days are (he closes one or two days a week during the week so he can keep the store open weekends). I talked with him and introduced my son. They spoke a little since my son speaks the language.

He has a lot of European and some American N scale but of course it’s mainly Japanese. He has a nice discount on some of it. Not being employed I’m not buying a lot but I did buy the KATO Christmas Train. It was like $33 or $35 when done. KATO lists it in the US for like $75 or something. It’s part of their little micro line. The motor car is actually the passenger car. There is also a gondola type car and a small steam engine. Since we have a place for a tree now I thought I’d put the train around it. I may put docked track and run a Swiss RhB train on the other track. I also bought two container packs. One has a single container that has a picture of ramen on it. The other has two containers that were different than what I have. I also bought a Tomix bus. That was a last minute one as my son was looking at the busses and there was one from Otaru on Hokkaido where he had lived for about 4-5 months. He had ridden the same basic bus many times so I decided we needed that bus on the future layout.

I’ll post some pics when we get back to my SisIL house. It’s all packed in my backpack and we’re at a used video game store my son wanted to go to he found near the train store.
 
Oh and @KriegslokBR52 I thought we’d pass but a small container freight yard on the way to the train store. But I didn’t see it. I did look up once and see what may have been a freight station but it was empty. Usually I see a bunch of freight on the line we were on but didn’t see one thing today.

I did want to post the “safety railing” on the platform on this line. Not all stations have safety railing / gates along the track. But it’s becoming more and more prevalent. Usually they have a solid wall with sliding gates at the points where the rain doors are. This line has what I call ghetto gates. Long cable stacked that lift up when opening.

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Made it to RGR, aka RG Rokko, aka Rail Gallery Rokko. It’s a model railway shop that a lot of us outside Japan use. The guy gives good deals and impeccable service. He’s a super nice guy. I didn’t buy a lot due to the circumstance but I did get the KATO Christmas Train. In the U.S. it’s like $75 or $80 but here it’s the equivalent of about $34-40 usually. I paid about $33-34. I’ll post a pic later. I also got a bus that runs in Otaru Hokkaido as my son lived there about 6 months and two packages of containers. One that had three containers for some transport company I don’t already have. And one for some ramen or noodle brand. I’ll post pics later.

Also. Other mission accomplished. After the train shop we were walking around the Rokko area and my son wanted to find a used video game store. Afterwards walking back to the station I saw a Mister Donut store.

Walking around we also saw this Torii or gate. Behind it was an old stone road with a park on one side and the road was lined with old style street lights like you’d have seen in the old days. At the end of the street across a small plaza was a temple of some sort.

Japan is the land of vending machines. There are drink machines everywhere. Sometimes 2 or 3 and then across the street another 3 and then down the road another one. But there are vending machines for other things as well.


At the train store.

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The Torii and temple and road.
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A pizza vending machine and a vending machine for Pokémon cards.

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And the haul from Mister Donut
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I’ll see if I can fix the rotated photos later. When I’m not in my phone.
 
25°F with snow expected tomorrow morning early, then changing to rain, then possibly freezing rain. Of course, there's nothing definite yet, and won't be until it's over. Not going to warm up much today.

I've been up since 0430 listening to my neighbor's truck run until he left 20 minutes later. Then I hear the wife loading the Suburban up for a Black Friday outing I can only guess. She doesn't normally go to work until 0700 and I'm usually up by then.

There is a law in Illinois that you are not allowed to run a vehicle to warm it unattended. There are also strict noise ordinances in this town. I may have to push the issue if this doesn't stop soon. He starts this truck anywhere from 0245 to 0430 and now lets it run since temperatures are dropping. A lovely, loud, unmuffled, turbo Diesel. It also has a full size, full volume, tractor-trailer air horn installed that lets me know when he has alarmed the truck.

I'll be running trains today and eating left-overs. I think I have a few Bitburgers left as well. I didn't have any yesterday, I was saving it for today.

Have a great Friday! Servus!
 
Well, howdy there internet peeps, and those with snow in the forecast

It's Troy again.

Just back from a 5th run to the grocery store this week. Five out of five days in a row I've made it there.

Wife said she wanted pizza at home this week. So I made sure we had enough of the two cheeses I use...

OH, she wanted pizza last night AND on Snow Day Saturday. I don't have enough Mozz or Mont Jack for TWO pizzas....

OK, head back again this morning....

The secondary roads weren't bad, but getting out of our neighborhood was icy. As was the tertiary road we use. The traction control on the camry didn't like the icy climb up the hill right outside of out neighborhood, but it kept me going straight enough... Need the sun to come up and start melting all the crap that fell on us overnight.

Judging by the snow on my grills out on the patio, we got about 1/2 an inch of Jack Frost yuck (AKA snow) overnight. And it made the pavement icy.

In other news, I've been on a roll writing. This morning I pounded out the last 1200ish words and was able to do this celebratory pic with coffee and an oatmeal-raisin cookie

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Yes , there is a typo. I'll fix it later. Sometimes "The End" is more important than a stray capital letter.
 
Your storm is slated to arrive here sometime Tuesday. No real predictions on snow yet.

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving here was a little stressful here. Went downstairs this morning to feed Sir Fluffybutt and found half the basement in water. Traced the offender to the upper element on the hot water heater leaking. I shut off the water and spent the next 2 hours with the shop vac removing water. Since everything is closed today our Thanksgiving was very much like the 1st Thanksgiving as like the Pilgrims,, we had no hot water either!!! We survived! Sons 1,2,3,&4 were here , DILs 1&2 also with me and wifey. Daughter and fam checked in from the outer banks, was a good time for everyone!

Tomorrow I have to open the shop, #3 son is coming back with parts for the heater. Hopefully he will get it fixed before I get home, If not we will work on it together.

Welcome back Gary !
Thank you my friend
 


Good morning all!

Happy Black Friday to those who braved the crowds for deals. I was not one of them.

A cold but sunny Northern Illinois day. Current temps are 20F with a high of only 30F today. Still not sure of what the snow storm
is going to bring. Every forecast seems to be different. They all agree we will get 6+ inches of the white stuff. My sister and BIL drove
up from Texas for Thanksgiving and were not supposed to leave till Saturday but have decided to get out of Dodge and left early
this morning to head back. Probably a smart move.

Busy day today. I will do the weekly grocery trip today instead of the usual Saturday with this snow that's coming milk and bread are
probably already raided. I want to get out and run over the yard one more time to get the last of the leaves, and get the mower put
away for the year. I also need to dig out shovels and get the snow blower running.

Better get busy!

Have a safe day everyone!
 
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