Saturday April 9, 2005 - Japanese Shopping Day

I woke up at 9 am this morning and took a nice shower. I had to use the shower stall that had no lights and with the lights not working, since there was someone else in the "nicer" stall. The water temperature was very unstable. Sometimes it was hot and sometimes it was cold. We were both fighting for the hot water.

I went downstairs and bought canned coffee from a vending machine. Only Japanese vending machines serve HOT drinks. The coffee tasted disgusting (NOTHING compares to Tim Horton's coffee). Nevertheless, the fact that a vending machine can serve hot drinks is cool

Vending machine HOT canned coffee

I made some calls and then we were planning to leave to go grocery shopping. We were stopped by other international students and we sat and chat for an hour. The students from northern China marvelled at my English. They thought was god with the American accent. So I agreed to teach them English if they teach me Mandarin. I'm excited, like Ana, about making connections throughout the world.

So we finally left for the grocery store. It was the most EXCITING experience. We had a blast. The types of food you purchase is similar yet SOOO different. I didnt even know what to buy considering I dont have a fridge in my room :-(. So I tried to limit myself to non-perishable foods. We walked back home and had a nice chat. We had lunch, then we headed back to Tottori University at 4:30 to use the internet to clear our inboxes and to respond to some e-mails. The library closed at 5, so we couldnt do much.

Me shopping (still looking drained from the plane ride)

Really expensive apples (228 yen approx $ 2.28 US)

Famous Tottori crabs


Oreo !!!!!!


Ana shopping with me


My shopping receit

The people here in Japan are so much nicer than Canadians. I stop random people on the streets to ask them for directions and they gladly told me where it was. There were even some people who offered to walk us to the destination. The cars in Japan are completely different than those in America. Honda, Toyota, Mazda, and Nissan have makes that we havent even heard of in Canada. For example, there's the Audi A3. Most of the cars are tiny. There are also TONS of bikes.

There's a bicycle lotterly next week at the Tottori City International Exchange Plaza. There are 15 bikes for 25 of the exchange students. I really hope I get one. It will make getting around so much more convenient.

Tottori Street Signs

So later that night, Ana, myself, and Henry, a Kenyan Masters student, went to a billiards club to play pool. Like every other night, the streets were completely dead. Unlike Toronto where the night ends at around 3 am in the morning, here in Japan, the ends at around 5 pm. Only a handful of people: Japanese businessmen coming home from work, "hoodlum" teenagers and youth, and international students or "gai-jins" are ever seen on the streets.

Something else I have observed is that nobody in Japan j-walks. In Toronto and Waterloo we are so accustomed to across the street when there are no cars in sight.