Monday, April 12, 2010

The glory and splendor of Japan with old friends!

I have had a quite busy weekend with a couple of old friends, "Double D" as I call the two of them collectively, came to visit me in Japan from the old country and I played the tour guide. I haven't really socialized with them in over 15 years, but it was a nice surprise to see that we could still have fun together and that they were basically the same as before.

Throughout the weekend I took them around Tokyo and showed them the sleaze of the deepest parts of Shinjuku (beware of homosexualities), the cool modern hipness of Shibuya at night, the wonders of the Japanese cuisine and alcoholic beverages,the deep cultural heritage of the Kaminarimon at Asakusa and the hyper-modern Odaiba. Basically I took them on a roller coaster of all that is Tokyo today. Through it all they kept politely impressed and seemed to enjoy seeing the sights asking questions and so as we went along.

But... the thing that got them most excited was the excursion to a Japanese supermarket... Although I intellectually can understand that it is fun and interesting to visit a Japanese supermarket as a visitor to Japan, I was still extremely impressed by their enthusiasm for something which to me is a very mundane part of life here in Tokyo... In total, we probably spent the biggest concentrated amount of time in the supermarket as they ran around among the shelves, picking up and looking at everything and forcing me to translate labels for them. When checking out, they probably were the cashier's nightmare, with tons of different purchases, all in the smallest packages available so they could buy different stuff... Oh, and yeah, let's not even mention the time spent in the liquor section...

So now I've basically realized that next time I have friends coming over; I can just put down the serious planning of researching amazing events in Tokyo and just let people loose in a local supermarket and that will probably be a huge hit. What puzzles me though is how they expect to fit all the stuff they bought in their bags for the trip home; I'm not sure they fully realized this when they went shopping...

6 comments:

William said...

This doesn't surprise me at all, really. I have been -wishing- we had a decent Japanese supermarket here in Orlando.

In fact, when I went to Boston the first time, I heard there was an amazing Japanese supermarket there. So I went... It was smaller than almost every convenience store I've ever been in. The selection was horrible. If they had what you were looking for, they only had 1 brand of it, and only 1 size. The magazine rack was garbage. They even had a rental area... 100% VHS tapes.

That's when I realized that if THAT is considered amazing, I should just give up on finding a decent one here in the US.

The only thing I could think that would be better than a supermarket would be a Japanese fleamarket! Tons of really cheap authentic Japanese goods (as opposed to things aimed at tourists)... Oh man, your friends would love you.

jlpt2kyu said...

When is the buying a house in japan series coming?

Michelle | Catalog Printing said...

Always wanted to visit japan. It's my dream country to see with such a rich culture and everything. I see it only in pics.

Climate Morio said...

I relate completely to the Double Ds. Having just moved here for the first time to live on myself for a REAL LONG PERIOD OF TIME, i find myself wondering how the hell i am going to make a stew. On the other, what the hell is all the... other stuff for?!

I shudder with horror at the occasion when my mom is going to come for a visit in a year's time. She's gonna want to know *everything*. How to even begin to explain that, well, i myself do not have a clue?!

Mr. Salaryman said...

William - Well, it kinda has to be a real supermarket in Japan, doesn'T it? Otherwise the selection, the deli section etc. won't be the same thing. But yeah, I live here so neither a supermarket nor a flea market can excite me much

Jkpt - When I get around to it, soon perhaphs

Michelle - Maybe you can print a catalog of pictures of it?

CM - Yeah, it gets kinda tiresome to explain EVERYTHING, but DD were reasonable enough, but I've had "worse" people to show around...

lina said...

I can plan my itinerary revolving on just visiting the supermarkets. I've been guilty of bringing back a box full of stuff from Max-Valu.

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