This morning I woke up early to skype my family who were all sitting around the dinner table on their Tuesday night while I sat eating my breakfast Wednesday morning. It was a blissful, time-traveling morning. :)
After signing off at 9:00am, the three of us (Pastor Shelley, another Japan missionary named Catherine, and I) piled into Shelley's car and headed off to COSTCO, which is an hour drive from Komagome. Once up there, we divided into 3 carts (I had the responsibility of gathering items for the short-term team coming next Tuesday) and headed into the chaos. I'm sure most of you are familiar with COSTCO or SAM'S CLUB which are basically a large warehouse filled with items sold in large quantities. Well, in Japan, the same is true - with one modification. It is also filled with Japanese. I by filled, I mean traveling from one end of the store to the other might take you 15 minutes, given foot and cart traffic. After two hours of shopping, we managed to pay for our 3 carts (full of stuff), travel up the *escalator* (the carts locked on the the escalator track and we rode up to the parking garage above the store!), load it all into the back of the car (a challenge in and of itself), and head off for some lunch.
We walked from the parking garage to the mall right next to COSTCO called LaLaPort. This was a mall that was partially outside and partially inside, creating an interesting mix of aesthetics among the shops and restaurants. Lunch was at a natural foods buffet which served various healthy Japanese foods and drinks. I had fun at lunch. :) Things I now know I like: manjuu buns (small rice cakes filled with an - bean paste), chidashi zushi (a tossed sushi salad served cold), and cold soba noodles (buckwheat noodles eaten with a dark sauce and veggies on top). Things I now know I don't like: grapefruit juice (always knew, but had that fact reinforced today), hijiki (a black seaweed salad served cold that tastes like the bottom of a lake), and pickled radish (it's just a weird consistency... like the pickled cauliflower in Israel). Today was certainly an adventure in food, both buying and eating. I hope I get the chance to have more food adventures soon!
Now... off to put away all of this food from COSTCO.
