The problem with an international company

When we first got here, Chrys was telling me that Wal-Mart was trying to get into the Japanese market. He had learned that apparently they had to buy an existing company to move in. The government had blocked them from moving themselves in as Wal-Mart and putting up mega stores.

After a couple of trips to the local Seiyu, I started wondering if what he had heard/read was older. I recognized the Great Value brand on a few things there and they had lots of signs with smileys and "Rollback". We reasoned that it wasn't just Wal-Mart that did that, but I was very suspicious. Chrys asked around at work, I guess, and found out that Wal-Mart did, indeed, own Seiyu.

The rest of the background - Easter isn't a huge holiday in Japan. It translates simply as resurrection day and is a major religious holiday, but no celebration takes over the stores. There are no egg hunts, no bunny candies, no special displays at any of my regular haunts.

Today I dropped by Seiyu. Apparently Wal-Mart hasn't fully researched the Japanese culture. They had Easter stuff. Granted, it wasn't the overwhelming aisles that greeted me in the US, but they had more than anyone else. Bunny dolls, cheap Easter themed toys, baskets, stuffed animals (ducks, lambs, etc) - some said Happy Easter; some said Welcome Spring. The Welcome Spring are appropriate here as Spring Day (3/21) was a national holiday. All of this stuff is now 50% off. They have TONS of it. It left me hoping that I would find Cadbury eggs when I went down to the grocery store, but I was disappointed. Alas, we will get no Easter candy this year. Oh well...better for our waists, I'm sure.

So much for stability

Another quake. Still in Fukuoka (about 100km from here). Barely felt this one and the trembling only lasted for a few seconds (instead of the almost 30 the last one did). I figured it was just a more intense aftershock since we've felt a couple of those, but the weather agency says it was a quake.

Aftershocks, quakes, watching the walls shake. Yeah...I'm ready to be done with this now.

EARTHQUAKE!!!!

So, we came back at a great time, apparently. There we were, standing around in the apartment. Owl was getting ready to go get lunch. Chrys was playing with Roo. I was standing in the hallway trying to get Owl to get going.

All of a sudden, the whole apartment starts shaking. Chrys and Owl say "Could you stop doing that?" to each other as I say to both of them, "Stop whatever that is." Then, Chrys looks at me and says "earthquake," but I think I was already on my way to a doorway. It passed quickly, but shook us up quite a bit.

Chrys keeps talking about how cool it was. I'm still shaking like a leaf. Owl is en route to lunch. The cats are all hiding and a bit freaked. We lost a bowl, but we're all fine.

So...those of you that always write me and ask, "Were you affected by...", the answer to this one is "yes".

Packaging

Packaging here is something of an enigma to me. It seems to come in two forms - that which is extremely easy to open and that which requires something just short of an act of a higher power to open.

The easy open stuff is usually a plastic baggie object that has a self-seal flap that can be opened and sealed multiple times. Sometimes, it's a paper wrapper (usually around a bread object of some sort) that is very easy to tear.

*Side note: the bread objects in paper wrappers seem to always come packaged with their own dessicant. They usually have expiration dates that aren't too far off, but they still need dessicant. I will give them that they stay soft, but it's still a little weird. Imagine buying a pack of Little Debbie and dessicant falling out...weird.* The plastic baggies are around paper goods, pens, most any little item you buy that comes wrapped in paper board with a blister pack in the US. Things I'm used to having a hard time getting open are easy here.

The 'going to have to blow it up to open it' packaging is mostly foil something. It's shiny...that's really as far as I get. Sometimes it's plastic. However, unlike foil bags in the US, you cannot just get a good grip and pull the bag open. No, for those, I was VERY happy that B gave us a pair of scissors when we first moved it. Eating would have been very difficult without them. Foods packaged like this - cereal, chips - pretty much anything that you're either too tired or too hungry to want to futz with. Yeah, I'm a bit confused.

Whatever happened with the snow

After waking up to a dusting today and quite a few flurries, only to have it disappear by noon, I realized that I never talked about what happened after the snowfall.

It snowed for about 48 hours. It stuck for a morning and we got, maybe, a centimeter of accumulation and it was gone just after lunch.

There wasn't enough to play in, really. I did manage to make a rather feeble snowball with which to assault my daughter. She thought that was pretty funny, albeit cold. Beyond that, though, there wasn't even enough to make a meager snowman.

They got more in the hills, but we're not in the hills.

We've gotten 2 more snowfalls since then (counting this morning), but it's just made it cold and nasty like the rain. It's not "fun" snow like I remember from school in upstate New York. No snowmen, no snow angels, no snowball fights. Roo needs a serious snow.

So, hey New England...we're coming! Save some of that stuff for us!

Headed "home"

We're having a really hard time defining "home" these days. It's not Isahaya and our apartment here. Sadly, it's not really our house in Texas as we haven't spent a considerable amount of time there in the last year. It's not my hometown as there's no future for us there right now. I guess, "home" is just America.

This week, we're going "home". We're going to Boston for a wedding, but when we tell people we're leaving we say we're going home. I think that pretty accurately describes our situation for now.

Anyway, we started planning for our trip. At this point, any planning includes what we are going to eat and do. We have a lot of cravings that have to be satiated in a very short period of time.

These days, there are 3 must-haves - Mountain Dew Code Red, Taco Bell Chili Cheese Burrito (they don't sell these in Phoenix...we were SO jipped at Christmas) and Cinnabon Mochalatta Chill.

Getting that list led me to think about what else I'm looking forward to going home to. There are quite a few things that I've managed to do without, but it will be nice to have access to again

• Decaf anything - All of the flavor, none of the tummy ache
  
• 98% lean ground beef - All of the flavor, none of the grease to drain from the pan *yuck*
  
• Pam - All of the non-stick goodness without the fat of butter
  
• My oven - not that my microwave isn't great, but I'm not exactly sure how to bake a lasagne or cheesecake in there just yet
  
• Tortillas - I tried making my own and it wasn't so great (couldn't find shortening too easily). When I have some time again, we'll see if take 2 gets it off my list.
  
• Pizza - the kind without corn or mayonnaise on it
  
• Mexican food - enough said
  
• Friends and loved ones - I'm making a few new ones in Japan, but it doesn't make me miss the ones at home any less.
  

I'm sure there are more, but those are the ones that come to mind pretty easily. Don't get me wrong, there are things I will miss about being here. When it comes time to say sayonara, I'll make sure I note what they are. For now, though, there's no place like "home".

Arcades

Not the kind where you blow your mind (and all of your quarters), though. I'll cover stuff like that someday, I'm sure.

I have worked on various posts about the different arcades that we visit, but I never end up finishing. I'm just going to jump in a with a general post about arcades and try to get some specifics about the various ones we've been to before I run out of time.

Arcades seem to be Japan's 'mall' environment. They come in all different sizes, ages, decor and upkeep. It's amazing how much deviation there can be in an open air market environment, but I suppose few malls look alike. Most of the lengths are covered from facade to facade so that patrons can walk regardless of the weather. The cross streets usually aren't covered so you are exposed when you get there. They are closed to vehicle traffic usually from 10am to 7:30pm (bigger ones run later). There are also shops on many of the cross streets that one can wander to. I have found everything from department stores to small produce stands to yarn stores in the arcades. Most of the places are small shops that specialize in one thing - fish, honorariums (we were marvelling at the beautiful little cabinets and vases when I saw one with a lid and realized they were urns and memorial displays), produce, yarn, gifts (these are even sometimes sub-specialties, with china, kitchen gifts, clothes, etc in different shops). Some are void of people, some are packed regardless of the day. Pretty much every town has one, but some are easy to find and others are buried away from the main roads.

Omura's is one that's not easily visible from the main street. We stumbled across it after a forced left trying to explore the rest of the town. Theirs is probably the most run down that we've visited. They have many vacant stores and what is there isn't all that interesting. They do have a really nice yarn store that I'd love to blow a few thousand yen at.

I've talked about Isahaya's and Sasebo's at length so I'll spare you more details.

Nagasaki's arcade is enormous. It's called Hama-no-machi. There are side streets, large and small, multiple T's where the arcade goes off in all directions, it crosses main streets - it's madness. I still don't think we've explored most of it, but I've seen many of the same things multiple times and come at them from different directions. Turns out it's right next to the Holiday Inn we stayed at when we first got here. I've been told that there are yarn stores and fabric stores on the sides streets, but I haven't stumbled across them, yet. It will require much more exploration, I'm sure, before we get bored with it. It is nicely decorated and well kept. We've been there with no crowd and with so many people you can't walk.

Shimabara's was another small one without much in it. Like Omura, it's pretty sparse and many stores were shuttered. They did have a large department store and a HUGE Daiso (100 yen store), though. I don't think we visited much else there.