MFWI

Nishinomiya, a small town located between Kobe and Osaka, where I spent most of my 4 months stay in Japan. and it’s only natural if you’ve never heard about this city before, I didn’t know about this city at all until I got my acceptance letter from the university and found out that my university is actually located in Nishinomiya, not Osaka. not even Kobe, but between them.

Now I’m going to take you around this small yet friendly city. If you’ve been watching J-Drama or movies lately, then the first thing you need to know is, Ashida Mana an amazing child actress was born in Nishinomiya. or perhaps you’ve watched her recent movie in 2011; Hankyu Densha (or Hankyu Railways in English)? that movie takes place in Nishinomiya, and focuses more on Imazu line. now let’s put Hankyu Railways aside and talk more about this city.

if you read manga with sports genre, say baseball? then you might’ve heard of Koshien before. it’s the name of a baseball stadium where all high school baseball players nationwide would want to go and play baseball there. and no, Koshien isn’t located in Osaka. it’s located in Nishinomiya and is part of Hyogo prefecture.

anyway, baseball season starts in spring and summer so the stadium is mostly crowded during that time, if I remember correctly spring season is for high school players and summer is for pro players but please correct me if I’m wrong.

unfortunately, by the the time I went there the final match of high school season had just finished. but look at the bright side, I managed to take a picture with a hot player from the winning time

so I took a stroll around the stadium instead, there’s also a park at the back of the stadium and a souvenir shop where you can get yourself your favorite baseball player’s cookies or megaphone-shaped cellphone straps. It also has a special souvenir shop for all Hanshin Tigers’ fan next to the stadium.

Nishinomiya Gardens practically has everything you have, from supermarket, foodcourt, Uniqlo (you know you love Uniqlo when you love cheap clothes!), Hankyu department stores (see if you can afford the expensive stuffs), cinema, bookstores, restaurants, cute cafes etc.

I usually went to Book 1st to buy magazines or to buy bento side-dishes at Izumiya supermarket the snacks at Hankyu department stores are pretty nice too. and since this is the nearest Uniqlo store I can find, I bought a few clothes there after reading the bargain brochures in the morning.

can’t find what you’re looking for? then ACTA might have it. take the connecting bridge from Gardens and walk a few minutes north and you’ll arrive at ACTA.

I usually went to ACTA to meet-up with my friends since ACTA has an open roof garden that connects the north & south tower of ACTA. you might need to look at the map outside to see which is your destination, as I often mistook going to north tower when I wanted to go to south tower. ACTA also has a big library, Baskin & Robbin, McDonalds, cheaper foodcourt and several multifunction halls. I went to see Ikebana expo at the 6th floor before.