The Grocery Store Saga

Japanese grocery stores are tricky...mostly cuz they're Japanese. I like how the one I go to has samples. Kind of like Costco. But instead of tasting samples of the latest pizza or mocachino mix, I get to try things like deep fried tofu and squid baked so that it looks like an onion ring.

I think I'm one of the most indecisive people I know (I think it runs in the family) and grocery stores are where I shine my indecisiveness the best.
I hate spending money, so I price check everything. That takes exorbant amounts of time because I don't read Japanese as fast as your typical asian. So I stand there in the aisle staring at these things, trying to decide which one to purchase. Then I remember something I saw on the other side of the store, change my mind, and wander back over there. I can only wonder what the other people in the store are thinking as they see me wander back and forth from one side to the other with my empty green basket.

Especially today when I was shopping for my supper. They were baking fresh cakes in the cake shop conveniently located in the middle of the store, and that threw me off. I'd walk one way, set on getting something on the one side, then I'd get a whiff of the fresh cakes and I'd get hungry for something else and forget where I was going. So I'd wander back where I came from, still proudly carrying my empty green basket.

And then after all my indecisiveness and all my pacing, I end up leaving the store with maybe one or two things. And always just weird combinations. Like butter and soup mixes; carrots, mini Cappacino Aero bars, and seaweed; tofu and cherry blossom flavored KitKats (just to try); supper from the asian deli and enough ice cream to last a week...just to name a few.

Last week I discovered the bakery. That was a mistake. I went to the grocery store at the time when they just happened to be stocking the bakery and it smelled amazing. I wandered over with my empty green basket and to my delight discovered they had samples of just about everything. So I stood there and sampled maple bread, melon bread, chocolate bread, fruit danish, melon bread with cream, a piece of pizza (I didn't steal it, it was a sample). After about my fourth sample I started feeling guilty. I don't exactly blend in. People could look over and see that I was eating my free lunch in the bakery. They wouldn't just look over and say, "oh, there's just another hungry asian."

All in all, just another adventure of living in Japan. I'm glad I'm in a place where I can look so confused and out of place 90% of the time and not feel stupid - I can just blame it on being a gaijin (basically, white). So I hold my head up high and walk with confidence in my step...I just may be walking by again in 10 or 15 minutes because I'm lost.