We have a lot of shopping ahead of us today. There's the grocery store, cell phones, and what I think might be the Japanese Target (that would be a KEY discovery). Since I'm writing this at the end of the day, here's a spoiler alert: that was too long of a list. Who knew?
First we were delayed by the light bulb guy. We had no idea he was coming this morning. When we did the apartment inspection yesterday, we pointed out a few light bulbs that needed changing (seemed reasonable to have all working light bulbs at move-in time). When he came this morning, we had a few others to point out to him that we had since noticed. Unfortunately, he and Drew were unable to communicate. He didn't speak any English, and Drew's list of Japanese words is smaller, I think, than the list of our words of the day to this point. They ended up calling the apartment management company to interpret. By the time we were ready to head out, it was lunchtime, yet another delay. If we only didn't have to eat.
Finally, the grocery store. THIS IS GOING TO BE A CHALLENGE. The produce section I could handle. I knew what most of the stuff was. Even if I didn't know what it was (and there were a lot of vegetables I didn't know - but that's true at a U.S. store for me, too), I AT LEAST knew it was a vegetable. For the rest of the store, I didn't know what a lot of stuff was OR what I was supposed to do with it. Greer brought me a packet of something she wanted to make. I told her that was great, but I couldn't read the directions. I have a little cheat sheet from TGA with the Japanese characters for some grocery shopping words, which helped some. I needed some detergent for washing dishes and for the dishwasher. I had the characters for "washing dishes" and "for the dishwasher," but there were lots of other characters in the string on the packaging. So I THINK I bought the two detergents I needed, but maybe it said "this detergent is for anything BUT the dishwasher." I know what milk I'm buying. This is a picture of my brand:
Maybe it's the worst milk in the store, but at least I can see that I bought lowfat milk and nonfat milk. I think Cooper's out of luck on lactose-free milk. Maybe he's outgrown his lactose intolerance. We're going to be testing that. Otherwise, I guess it's soy milk for him. If I can figure out which one the soy milk is. I asked Whitney, the Exxon wife I met last week, what she cooked for dinner. She said she cooked all the same stuff she cooked in the U.S. Maybe she does a lot of shopping at the international market? Or maybe she's better at figuring out things that are close in the grocery store? It's not just a question of figuring out the packaging so I can buy similar stuff to what I bought in the U.S. The similar stuff, as far as I can tell, just isn't there. I have no idea what I'm going to cook for dinner. I suppose it would help if I were more of a cook. Finally, we were ready to check out. As the cashier rang up our items, I loaded them into our backpacks and other shopping bags. We paid her the total, 16, 202 yen, which is fewer groceries than you might think. She was getting ready to finalize the sale when she realized she was about to overcharge us. She was VERY apologetic as she handed us back 2 yen, which, as near as we could tell, was a rebate for using our own bags. Hmm, 2 yen. Several more trips to the grocery store using my own bags and I could buy....nothing. :) Then it was time for the hike home. Here's a picture of us in front of our apartment door:
Unloaded the groceries, and it was time to head back out, this time for cell phones. The kids have been asking, pretty much since we arrived in Tokyo, when they were getting their cell phones. Also, what kind of phone were they getting? Asking non-stop, the way kids do (at least, the way my two persistent children do, ALL THE TIME). From the time we arrived at the store to the time we left with our phones was a total of over 4 hours! I KNEW we didn't want new cell phones. :) First, we had to wait for an English-speaking staff person (we had gone to a branch of SoftBank that we knew had English-speaking staff people). While we waited, Drew, Greer, and Cooper played with the iPhones on display:
I read my book and started mourning my old phone. Greer asked if I checked to see if a museum would want it. Then we met with the staff person and decided what phones we were getting, etc. Greer wants me to be sure to point out that the phones are iPhone 4S's. He said he would try to get another person to assist him, but that he would try to work very quickly and have the phones ready in an hour and a half (!). Exactly how good were my kids capable of being? I made sure Drew had the papers he needed and the kids and I headed out the door and down Omotesandō street. Most of the stores on this street were not for us (Chanel, Dior, etc, though there was also a GAP), but there was a souvenir shop with its building in the shape of a pagoda that was perfect for us. Finally, the kids were allowed to spend some money. Cooper picked a letter opener that was a mini ninja sword and Greer picked a fan with a tiger on it. After spending considerable time in the store, we headed back to check on Drew. Still waiting..... So then the four of us went to dinner, and finally got an email during dessert that the phones were ready. Headed back, but "ready" didn't mean "really ready." It was still another 20-30 minutes before we were out the door. After four hours shopping for cell phones, that was it for us. Time to head home, though we did get some nice parting gifts (including four sets of chopsticks with their logo and four noodle soup bowls, which dramatically increased the number of our eating utensils and our store of food) from Softbank.
Japanese word of the day: hashi (click to hear pronunciation) means "chopsticks"
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