Shopping in Nagoya. In the Rain. Again.

 Japan, Travel  Comments Off on Shopping in Nagoya. In the Rain. Again.
Nov 052011
 

It’s never a good idea to go to Nagoya without a plan. At least it’s not a good idea for me. But I went anyway, because the idea of sitting around all day on a weekend just gnawed at me. And yes, once again, this weekend it’s raining. Argh!

Every week I’ve been in Okazaki, it seems like the weather pattern has been the same. It’s sunny and beautiful all week when I’m in class, it turns cloudy on Friday, and then it rains all day Saturday and Sunday. Expletive expletive weather. This has been going on for about 5 weeks now, and everybody is sick of it.

By everybody I mean me. Although I’m sure I’m not the only person who hates this pattern.

I slept in a bit this morning, and lazed around a little bit while trying to form a plan. What to do in the rain… what to do…

At around 2 p.m., I decided to just go out and do something in Nagoya, so I grabbed the 2:30 train out of Okazaki, and got to Nagoya around 3 p.m. Part of the plan was to get some of the money I spent on my new electronic dictionary back from Bic Camera, because the day I bought it, I found it for 10,000 yen cheaper, and it turns out that Bic slashed the price by 10,000 yen as well. So I decided to follow V-san’s advice and get that 10,000 yen back!

Flick My Bic

I headed over, and sure enough, after a bit of waiting and some shuffling of papers, I got my 10,000 yen back. They had to “sell” me a new one, and I “returned” my old one, and I lost a few points in the process, but I don’t really care. Cash is cash, and with the yen as hideously expensive as it is these days, I’ll take cash any day over points. 10,000 yen is about $120 these days!

Thanks, V-san! You saved me a ton of money!

And Bic, that was awesome.

In Japan, Skippy is in the Imported Food Store, Next to the Caviar

I did some strolling, and found a 5-story drugstore nearby… it looked impressive on the outside, but it was really cramped on the inside. I kind of got wrapped up in a quest to find Pepto Bismol, just in case… yeah, that was a total failure. Not gonna find that outside of Tokyo, I think. Maybe not at all.

Then I wandered around some more, and went to the back of the station, back around, and found a neat International grocery store, called Seijoishii. It’s kind of wedged in back behind the station, behind the Marriott. If you’re craving some goodies from home (i.e. not Japan), they may have what you want. I picked up some Ricola lemon-mint cough drops, because my throat has been killing me on-and-off since I had that cold a month ago.

This is Now a Blog About Me Buying Books… Or Trying to, Anyway.

Then I headed off to see if I could find Sanseido. It shows up in Google Maps, but after walking around the target building and not seeing anything, I gave up and went to Junkudou instead. I found some nice manly-looking cloth book covers there. I’ve been looking for some of those. When you buy books here, they always offer you the paper book covers, but I don’t like them. I wanted the cloth ones for a long time. Sort of like cloth vs. paper grocery bags.

After that, it was off to Sakae, to look around at the Book-Off there, because it’s big. Book-Off sells not just books, but all kinds of second-hand stuff, like jewelry, clothes, sporting goods, electronics… but mostly used books.

I found a bunch of used books on sale for cheap, so I nabbed them.

Then I headed up a stop to Hisayaodori to pick up a few more books. There’s this sci-fi novel series I want to read, and all of the books are about as big a phone books, density-wise. The nice thing about buying them at the store there is that I get freebies for buying them there, but they weigh a freakin’ ton.

Bagging It

I crossed the street to the Tokyu Hands in Hisayaodori to get a cloth shopping bag. I’ve been meaning to do this for a couple of weeks, anyway. The 25 pounds of books that are making my hands go numb have absolutely nothing to do with it.

Okay, it has everything to do with it.

I went up about 5 flights to the floor marked “bags.” No luck. Wrong bags. Up 2 more flights, to “kitchenwares.” All I see are bags that are very much not for me. Then I saw a Trader Joe’s bag.”Well, at least it’s a brand I know…” Then I look over and saw a Whole Foods Market bag, and just laughed, because I shop there in the US. The Whole Foods in Chapel Hill is one of the oldest stores in the chain. It’s been there forever, and before that, it was an independent store called Wellspring, and it was pretty popular even then.

The laugh was on me, though. 1200 yen for a $4 bag. Yeah, I felt like an idiot, but the Trader Joe’s bag was 1600 yen. And all of the other bags had stuff written on it in French, and were too small. No thanks. Give me that American size bag that I can stuff a car or a whole cow into!

It’s Even Carolina Blue!

I’m hungry. On my way to the bookstore in Hisayaodori, I had spotted a nice little restaurant called The Sun Room, in the underground passageway called Cenrtal Park at the Hisayaodori subway station. They serve a lot of organic food there, and some vegetables, I think. Turns out it’s a chain, but it’s fine by me. The spaghetti with mozzarella and asparagus in pesto was good, and cheap.

One thing about restaurants here that’s different from restaurants in the US, and that’s ordering. In Japan, you order everything through dessert up front, then your server never comes back. In the US, the server keeps coming back to make sure you don’t want to order another cow, or another giant tub of ice cream, or whatever. (Now I’m getting hungry again.) It’s something small that I need to remember to adjust to every now and then.

Now it’s 7:30, and I had to rush to Takashimaya at Nagoya Station in a hurry, before it closed, to buy a decent blanket. It’s getting cold, and I can’t run the heater at night without wrecking my throat. So I caught the subway, got to the station, hustled up 9 flights of escalators, and made it to bedding by 7:50. (Hey, I was impressed.) The store clerks helped me find a blanket on sale that would fit my bed that I could wash and hang up to dry without having to wait a month. (Woot.) It’s even Carolina Blue.

And it’s warm and fluffy.

And I did it all in Japanese. Pardon me while I hurt myself patting myself on the back.

Ow.

After that, the store started closing, so the “Get Out!” music started gently playing, to gently tell us to “Get the hell out so we can clean up after you, then get a beer and go home before the trains stop running!”

But in a gentle way.

My Fellow Americans Make Me Want to Facepalm Sometimes. Okay, Frequently.

I decided to go get some Krispy Kremes on the way out. Hey, I had seen them in Sakae already, and I know there’s a Krispy Kreme at Takashimaya here in the station. Sure enough, there it is, and there’s the line. And there was an obnoxious American guy behind me, convinced that this line was just for Japanese people, and didn’t apply to him. He even got out of the line, walked to the counter, and tried to order.

Please dear God, when you go to Japan, don’t be that guy. The lines apply to you, too. You are not special because you’re an American. Get in line with everyone else and have some manners. I really wanted to give him a dope slap with my menu, not that it would make a difference. This is the same kind of guy who goes to a restaurant, orders off the menu, then gives them a bad review online when they can’t get it the way he wants it.

I hate that kind of guy.

Of course, by the time I got to the front of the line, they were out of the good doughnuts, so I got 2 chocolate crullers. I’ll take what I can get.

Then I went back to the international grocery to pick up the last few things. By now, I resemble a pack mule, carrying tons and tons of crap. But I managed to get some peanut butter (Skippy: sadly no JIF available), some more Ricolas, and some chocolate… the good stuff.

I just managed to make the 8:26 train back to Okazaki. The train ride was uneventful, but the bike ride home was… interesting. Juggling all that stuff was not an exercise I wish to repeat. The blanket was very big.

I have to keep unlearning shopping habits learned behind the wheel. If I want it, that means I have to schlep it home; there’s no trunk except my backpack.

Oh well. I have a big bag to carry it all in now!

Nagoya Again!

 Photos, Travel  Comments Off on Nagoya Again!
Oct 042011
 

I decided to head to Nagoya one more time today, to pick up some odds and ends.

Before leaving town, I stopped by the Post Office to take out some money. The postal ATMs are a great deal. There are no fees, other than whatever your bank charges, and there’s English support if you need it. I don’t usually need the English help, but it’s nice to have for those “not-so-proficient” days.

When I parked my bike at the massive bicycle parking lot at the station, I had a brilliant idea:
Remembering where I parked it.

I would photograph where I parked it, so I wouldn’t forget!
D3. Yep. It's in D3.

Ok, that’s kind of sad.

Anyway, I headed to the platform, and waited. While I was waiting for the train at JR Okazaki, I took a few photos:
Nagoya-Bound Platform at JR Okazaki

Nagoya-Bound Platform at JR Okazaki

Yes, I like train-related stuff. I’m not obsessive about it, but I like it. I think I like the industrial charm of it.

Around here is where you wait if you want to get in the first car.

I’m in the Front Row!

Lately, I’ve been riding in the front of the train, because I can look out through the front window. The downside is that I can’t sit down, but I do enough sitting as it is.

This time, I took some photos from the front of the train:
Train ride to Nagoya from Okazaki

Train ride to Nagoya from Okazaki

It’s a little loud when trains pass each other. It’s also startling when I’m just dozing off in a seat like everyone else. When I see them coming, it’s not quite as surprising, but it’s still impressive, when you start thinking about the sheer mass of these things.

Train ride to Nagoya from Okazaki

Train ride to Nagoya from Okazaki

Train ride to Nagoya from Okazaki

Train ride to Nagoya from Okazaki

Aichi Prefecture, from the special limited express to Nagoya!

Wait, You Can Read This Stuff?

When I got to JR Nagoya, I decided to go to Junkudo, a book store chain a few blocks away.

But on my way out the station, I took a little detour  and wandered a bit, and found this building:

Mode Hal Isen Building in Nagoya

It had this really cool vent thing:

Mode Hal Isen Building in Nagoya-- Vent

Then I headed back towards the station:

JR Nagoya. Still Big.

And saw this:

Prada sign

Which almost made me dizzy, then I went back towards Junkudo.

I spent a good hour or so in there, looking for JLPT books, but didn’t have much luck. They have some grammar books, but nothing really overwhelming.

While I was prowling, a woman asked me in halting English, “You can read these books? They’re all in Japanese, you know.” I explained that I knew that, and could read them just fine. (Okay, I can read them just fine as long as I have a dictionary with me for the odd word. Still, I don’t see the problem  here. )

I tried very hard to be distant, but polite.

But really, if I pulled that on you in the US, you’d probably sue me. And with good reason. The question implies: 1) I’m too stupid to know where I am, 2) I’m too stupid to know the difference between Japanese and English, and 3) I’m too stupid to read Japanese.

Any way you slice it, I come out looking stupid in that woman’s eyes, and I hate that sort of thing.

After being insulted based on ill-informed stereotypes, I went back to shopping.

I bought a couple of Nagoya city guides and an Aichi Prefecture guide, so I can maybe find some fun places to go in my spare time.

It depends on how much of that I’m going to have, though.

And since they’re filled with pretty pictures, I won’t need to decipher the strange symbols plastered all over them in some mysterious language. (Here’s where I roll my eyes.)

That XL Isn’t As X Or L As You Think

I headed back to JR Nagoya, by way of the underground mall that stretches out all over the place. It’s pretty neat. I found the North Face store there, which was one of my targets for the day.

I have discovered that I’m short on shirts. I packed too little, and probably too lightly. For now, I can alternate between short and long sleeves, but the nights are already getting cooler. I want something with long sleeves now, so I don’t suffer later.

Also I just need another T-shirt, because I’m doing laundry all the time.

The guy at the store was really nice, and explained to me that unfortunately, Japan’s XL isn’t close to America’s XL. But I decided to take a chance on it anyway, because I really need an extra shirt.

What I really needed was a Japanese XXL or something like that, I guess. It’s a bit tight in the chest. I suppose I have a goal, huh?

What Do You Call a Coin Purse In Japanese?

My last objective for the day was to find a coin purse. Most red-blooded American Men would not be caught dead with such a thing. We just let coins accumulate in our pockets, then dump them in the cupholders in our cars. Generally, we don’t carry change, because it slows up the line. All that counting and counting… and then the clerk has to recount it. Agh! Just hand the clerk a twenty and be done with it!

I digress.

Unfortunately for my manly American self-image, I need a coin purse, because 100 yen and 500 yen coins exist. I can’t really shove them in my wallet, and I hate having a pound of change just floating loose in my pocket.

Most importantly, I don’t have a car, let alone a cupholder to dump it all in.

So I need a coin purse.

I started looking around Takashimaya… okay, that was a mistake. The cheapest ones were 4000 yen. That’s a lot of money for something to hold my change with. And I didn’t even like the way they felt.

So I went to Tokyu Hands.

It took me a while to find them, but I found them. I picked one in a nasty orange-yellow color, so I can find it easily, and it won’t be mistaken as someone else’s. 777 yen. Much better.

I suppose I could have used a Ziploc bag, but even for me, that would be a bit much. Also, Ziploc bags eventually tear. I wouldn’t want that to happen to my bag o’change.

One last shopping trip to the kitchen section, to purchase something to make coffee with, and a mug with the Japanese names of vegetables on it. I wanted the one with the fish kanji, but I couldn’t find it. Oh well.

Then it was back home to Okazaki for some conbini dinner before going to bed.

We have orientation tomorrow, so maybe I’ll learn how to do trash?

It’s Saturday, So It Must Be Nagoya.

 Food, Japan, Japanese Language, Travel  Comments Off on It’s Saturday, So It Must Be Nagoya.
Oct 012011
 

It’s Saturday. No classes, and it’s beautiful outside. So I went to Nagoya to do some shopping for some much-needed necessities.

No photos on this trip, because I didn’t take my SLR with me. It was too heavy to carry around while I went shopping.

I needed to buy sheets, a wireless router, and after lugging my big digital SLR camera around Tokyo, I decided to find something small and cheap to take pictures with. My Nexus One is a good smartphone, but it’s a terrible camera.

I hopped on my bike and headed to JR Okazaki, and grabbed a train to Nagoya. That’s about 680 yen each way. Ouch. So I’ll be down ~$18 just on train fare each time I want to go to Nagoya. I wish the yen wasn’t so strong these days.

It’s Saturday, so everything was crowded.

JR Nagoya is one of my favorite places, because it’s full of all kinds of neat stores, and there are a ton of restaurants here, mostly on the 11th and 12th floors.

But I didn’t come here to eat, I came to get a router, sheets, and some kitchen supplies.

Sensory Overload

First, I got my bearings. For some reason, I always get turned around at JR Nagoya. After I figured out where I was, and where I wanted to go, I went out through the West Exit, crossed the street, and went into Bic Camera, one of my favorite electronic chain stores. (I’ve mentioned this before.)

The thing about Bic Camera is that for someone not used to it, you can experience sensory overload. There’s a crush of people trying to get in and out at the same time, there’s a guy yelling indecipherable stuff into a megaphone trying to sell you something you don’t need, there’s music playing the store’s jingle at repeated intervals, and of course, there’s electronics piled high and in your face with strange writing all over them. (Well, the level of strangeness is proportionate to how much you study, I guess.)

I love it.

Bic Camera is one of my favorite places to shop for electronics. I don’t always buy there, but I love to shop there.

The first trip is always a bit stunning, in the “hit in a head with a heavy blunt object” kind of way, but once I got over the initial shock, I was okay.

First off, I looked for a router. The salesperson steered me to the cheapest one, since I’m only going to need it for 3 months. I also grabbed a power strip, because I have so many electronics vying for limited outlet space that I thought I’ll need it.

Then I headed down into the basement, where there are row up on row of cameras to try out.

If it’s currently made in Japan and takes pictures, you’ll find it in Bic Camera’s basement. I spent a good hour or so checking them all out and agonizing over each one. I got some help (in Japanese) from the sales staff, but in the end, it was my decision.

I wound up with a cheap but not dirt-cheap Canon IXY, which is the same as the ELPH in the US. It cost around 13,000 yen. I wanted to spend a little less, but I think the IXY was a good trade-off for price/performance.

I need something I can stuff in my pocket and pull out for those “Oh, that’s unexpected. I want a shot of that!” moments, and I don’t want to have to worry about having a giant SLR to deal with for those kinds of things. The IXY isn’t the smallest or thinnest, but it’s cheap and takes pretty good pictures, and that’s all I need.

I headed back to JR Nagoya for part two of my excursion.

Oh Sheet

Now it was time to get some housewares, and the best place for that is… huh. I don’t know. So I went to Takeshimaya, a big department store chain in Japan, which has a store in JR Nagoya, and I started looking around for sheets and blankets.

I went up about eight or nine floors on the escalator to the linens department.

Yeah, it’s a big store.

Unfortunately, I found out that although I’d measured my bed, the measurements didn’t mean anything, because the numbers I kept repeating to her just didn’t seem to match anything she had in stock. She said I probably had a single, but she wasn’t sure. (Of course, I didn’t use the best measuring stick in the world. I used a sheet of paper and a calculator.)

Frankly, the other problem I was having with Takashimaya was the price. I just wanted the Japanese equivalent of a $10 Wal-Mart/Target bottom sheet, and she was pulling out some fancy stuff. I don’t mind getting it wrong on a $10 sheet, but I mind if it’s a $50 sheet. Yikes.

Knives and Forks and Spoons, Oh My!

Having failed at bedding, I took a look at the kitchen section at Takashimaya, and it was nice, but a bit ritzy for my taste as well. Since Tokyu Hands was sharing floor space with part of Takashimaya, I started nosing around there a bit.

They had the kitchen knife I wanted, but I couldn’t get any help. It was in a case, and nobody was coming by. Not even close.

I decided to come back and went up to look for sheets– oh, hey, stationery and calligraphy supplies! No, must go look for sheets.

After a bit of digging, I found a sheet that was cheap and “good enough,” then went back to the kitchen section to try again. This time, I got someone to help with a nice ceramic santoku for all-purpose cutting, and a pair of kitchen shears. When all else fails, kitchen shears can probably handle it. A true multi-tasker.

I also grabbed some stuff like a small cutting board (with happy vegetables on it), a decent pan, some chopsticks, one setting of cheap silverware– you know, the stuff you don’t really know you need until you don’t have it handy.

After all of that, I headed back home, because I was carrying a ton of stuff.

Getting it back on the train wasn’t too great, but once I got to my bike, the last bit wasn’t so bad.

Now I’m going to enjoy some Japanese TV with my conbini dinner.

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