This is to bore any G4 teenager from reading my personal blog. If whincing about having to shop at new supermarkets honestly gets your blood going, you are a friend so read on.
Thank you friends for sharing your reluctance about shopping at new venues. Yes, I too still go all the way across town to shop. Even to buy school shoes for my kids. Of course, the irony is that I now live in Toyosu, home of Lalaport Toyosu, a shopping mall people drive in to on the weekends. It is so wonderful that I had written about it before living here, but I did not trust it would have the kind of indoor shoes my kids needed.
We almost bought an apartment across the street from it but I told my husband we couldn't because: "Reina would get busted for shoplifting when she's a teenager. I told if I lived across Lalaport as a teen, I would have shoplifted."
This blog doesn't have any photos yet because my camera is a little busted and I can't bring myself to Bic Camera in Yurakucho and get it looked at. I have a professional Canon digital camera with a superlense (and I still take crappy photos...) Yurakucho is four stops away from home which is exactly the same distance as the Bic Camera in Ikebukuro that I used to frequent. But I am too paralyzed to leave home so I'm blogging about it instead. I even miss the geeky clerk who stalked me.
I look Japanese and my Japanese is basically fluent, EXCEPT when I say English words. I pronounce English words like English and can't get around to figure out the katakana equivalent.
My more linguistically blessed son is so astute. When he was three, he spent a summer near Seattle where everyone chanted Ichi-row at him but came home and still knew it was Ichi-lo in Japanese. Most Japanese find the way I speak quite charming.
Anyways, I hadn't realized it myself until one day this one camera clerk started to talk to me that way. "Ko no camera lense wa..." You get the picture. I didn't find it that charming and soon figured out he was imitating me. Not amused. But he was so nice. Gave me a whole load of freebies. Finally, he got the courage to ask me where I was from. "Canada." Then he had kittens (Arsenette, love that term.) He was on the floor, giggling in glee, pointing his index finger at me. "Oh I KNEW you were from an English-speaking country because of your pronunciation! Oh I knew it!"
He then goes on with his life story about not fitting into Japanese society and went to New Zealand for three months and just got back so he's having reverse cultural shock. Okay, I would have been more compassionate if he had been loading my bag with more freebies, but he completely stopped working. "Oh I see." "Umm. Where are the camera bags?" Anyways, he escorts me to another section of the store and actually introduces me to the clerk in charge, concierge service at an electronics store! I went in another time to get a tripod and got another clerk, but the New Zealand guy recognized me and kind of stalked me around until he got to show me the filter lenses, and the lecture he provided... Get on with life, dude. From then on, I dart in and out of the camera department and only relax when he's not around. Then who am I to call anyone neurotic because if I'm having a bad hair day, I avoid going in because I don't want him to think he has a crush on someone so frumpy. But now I miss him.
Ikebukuro is not the most glamorous entertainment district in Tokyo but it's where I spent my summers as a teenager staying with my grandma. I's an annoyingly huge train station but I know where every escalator is. We've always lived close by until now. Ginza is for old rich ladies from the countryside. They are not going to have the selection of kids indoor shoes I need... Boo-hoo. Tomorrow, I meet Kimi for lunch at Lalaport. Thursday is my big day in Yurakucho. (Yurakucho and Ginza are parts of the same district, different train stations though.) Wish me luck!
