Photos from Japan are up: www.flickr.com/photos/jhscottio
I hope everybody’s April Fool’s Day went off without a hitch…Japan is crazy enough, it doesn’t need to set a day aside for it. Today marks my first full weekday in Japan. I’ll be meeting up with my friend Yuki later today, and I can’t wait to see her, and have her explain to me some of the insanity that goes on here.
I went to the Takashimaya Department Store yesterday, in downtown Kyoto. It was huge…eight floors, plus a basement level totally devoted to food. This basement had basically the same function as Reading Terminal Market, but it was 1.5 times as big. The department store proper was everything you ever imagined capitalism could be…it was a paradigm of wish fulfillment. I didn’t exactly feel comfortable there, but I was able to find a good deal on lunch in the basement, so it was all good. After that, I hit up a 100 Yen store to buy some basic goods, such as a laundry basket, bowl, chopsticks (reusable), cup, handkerchief (there are no paper towels or air dryers in the bathrooms here), pot (to boil water for my instant noodles), and some more clothes hangers (there are no drying machines here, everything must be hung out to dry!).
I also went to a video game store…but video games here are priced kind of outrageously, as far as I can tell. For example, I imported a game from Japan, a Japanese-English dictionary for my Nintendo DS. After paying shipping and everything, the final price was $48.50. That was rough, but worth it for the value of the product. I found the same thing in the video game store, priced at 4800 yen. That puts the game at about $40 by itself! Without needing to cross the Pacific Ocean! Ridiculous! However, not everything in Japan is ridiculously overvalued…
I want to talk about convenience stores for a little bit. I was told to expect this, but you can’t really appreciate it until you’ve experienced it — Japanese convenience stores are INSANE. The major convenience stores here are Lawson, Circle K, and 7-Eleven, although there is some fierce competition from Family Mart and a plethora of 100 Yen Stores. As I described before, the convenience stores suffer from an overabundance of helpfulness during they day, with as many as four employees in the store at a time, although this means you usually don’t have to wait to check out. They have tons of fresh fish, sandwiches, rice concoctions, onigiri, wraps, salads, more fish, cold drinks, heated drinks (on shelves, an amazing concept), snacks, candy, dumplings, more rice creations, even more fish, tons of magazines and books, fresh produce, ice cream, frozen foods, lots of alcohol, and MORE. All this in a space about the size of your average gas station food place in America. Also, the prices are better than America (although not on beverages). Heck, they even have gourmet Pringles. It is a heaven of snacks and deliciousness.
In fact, I can only find two complaints about Japanese convenience stores, and one of them only applies in small towns. My first problem is that, in small towns, there’s not really anywhere to sit down to eat whatever you just bought. You just kind of have to carry it home. Really, there aren’t benches or anything. This isn’t so much a fault of the convenience store as of the society, and the problem is alleviated in cities, where there are these little squares to sit on all over the place. My second problem is something amazing, considering the cleanliness of Japan. There aren’t really public trash cans anywhere. Most stores provide trash cans, and convenience stores especially, but considering that there is are at least two vending machines every 25 feet, you’d think it would be easier to find a place to get rid of the trash when you’re done. But in a smaller town, it can’t be done. You have to stumble across another convenience store or hope you get rushed by a town beautification squad.
Tomorrow, my orientation begins. I’ll let you know how it goes.