Settling In

Hello all -

Today I had the day off (because of yesterdays illness) so I got time to settle into my place. I unpacked all my suitcases and then decided to find the local grocery store.

I went down this back alley behind my house and stumbled across a shrine to several ancestors. There were several stone figures all in a cluster wearing what looked like bibs with Japanese writing on them. I then kept wandering down the alley and past what looked like a temple. I didn't want to enter it as I saw a large group of individuals on a tour and didn't want to disturb them. So, I kept walking. I came to a long row of vending machines with all differnt japanese teas, canned coffee, and, oddly enough, flip flops in them.

Finally I came across the grocery store and grabbed a basket. Its kind of like a guessing game when you don't know how to read Japanese. I wanted to get stuff for a stir fry. The vegis were fairly straight forward. But I couldn't identify whether a jar of dark liquid was sake, fish oil, or cooking alcohol. I took the risk and bought it anyway. I then looked for bread. It is IMPOSSIBLE to find brown bread in Japan. The only bread you can really find is very thickly sliced white bread, so I got some. (I have to mention that beside the bread was a big display of bottled water that went by the brand name "Sweat"!) Then I was looking for eggs. I didn't want to get the kind with little baby chicks in them. I found a clear package of what appeared to be chicken eggs, but I wasn't sure (included with the eggs were little packages of oil and what appeared to be bread crumbs). I couldn't just ask for clarification because I didn't remotely know how. So pretty much my shopping trip was a big leap of faith :)

Now I plan to head back to my place and give it a thorough cleaning. Altho I'm not really sure what each of the bottles of cleaning fluid do, as, yes once again, they all just have Japanese writing on them. Oh dear.

wish me luck
grace