Going Shopping

We are not sure if it is just us getting old or the experience of living abroad, or some combination of the two, but sometimes it seems that simply going shopping can be a fun family activity. The other day, Mike and Ilena were discussing how much fun we had going shopping at Price Club, one of the handful of local foreign buyer's markets. (Reminds us of that scene in Old School where Will Ferrell is talking about having "a big day" of trips to Home Depot and Bed Bath and Beyond!) That place is actually great - awesome beer and wine selection. And its fun to get those items you miss from home. We had chili and corn bread on Sunday night. This is one of our Football Sunday standard meals from home. (Of course there was no football, but it was damned good.)

(Speak of cooking items from home, we have a funny side-story from the weekend. Ilena decided to bake a banana bread. But it did not come out right. At all. Oh, it tasted super-sweet and delicious, but it was more like banana creamy pudding than banana bread. It did not breadify. As to why, it was a mystery. It was only later that she realized that she had used powdered sugar instead of flour. Ah the difficulties when you cannot read the Japanese labels very well and you confuse your white powdered substances.)

This past weekend, a rainy one, we went exploring with some friend near Hanshin Mikage to a mall that we had seen, which had some great stores, including a book store with a tiny but nice English book selection, a Build a Bear, and a very cool specialty coffee store that kept giving us free iced coffee. What?! We're from New Jersey!

Afterwards, we went to Midori, which is sort of like a combination of Home Depot and Best Buy. Home appliances, outdoor stuff, electronics. You name it. And they also sell electronic bulls, apparently for home use. Which is strange. But anyway, we had a good time.