Saturday, May 21, 2011

Day Off at the Mall

Whee! After four days of intense English teaching and preparation, it's time to let off some steam!  Sarah (the other intern in Osaka aside from Taylor and myself) came to the Sato house in the morning to take care of some business she had on the web (apparently her home-stay doesn't have as good of internet as I do here).  Afterward we left with Sister Sato to a mall not too far from the airport.

The ride there was pretty cool in and of itself; we drove right past a huge Ferris Wheel,


and over a big bridge, from which I could see Osaka bay glistening in the warm afternoon.


First we hit the food court, which had so many choices for food I didn't know what to do with myself.  We all eventually settled on an udon shop, which was an excellent choice.

I had some Tenpura Udon, and it was Heaven! (haha!)

After we filled our bellies we went to the bookstore, where I purchased a couple of the books I need for my studies.  They're teeny little things!

They fit in the palm of my hand!
 
Then we perused the mall, gawking like foreigners and going into various shops.  As always, some stores had funny names,
 
 No females allowed!
 
but by and large it was a lot like an American mall.  It even had a movie theater.  Here are a few Japanese movie posters that I'm sure everyone will recognize.


This one's not out yet in Japan, and it's been titled "Maiti So (Mighty Thor)"
 
I'm REALLY looking forward to this one. I might not wait until I get home to watch it.
 
We stopped by Uniqlo, the clothing store where most of my Japanese shirts were purchased.  I added another one to the collection.

Instant Soba, the Green Tanuki
 
We also went grocery shopping (as tomorrow is the Sabbath).  Sister Sato tricked me into letting her buy my snacks; I thought she was just letting me put them down in the cart so I wouldn't have to carry them, but she off and bought them before I could get them back at the register.  Sneaky sneaky....
 
Oh, and they had yellow watermelon.
 
  They were enigmatically labeled "Cream Watermelon." Hmmm...
 
All and all, it was a wonderful trip.  Maybe it's just the "Honeymoon Effect," where everything is so fresh and new and amazing for the first couple weeks, but even so I had a blast doing something as mundane as shopping.  I look forward to next time.
 
 
P.S. I'm sure you always wanted to know what Bella looked like if she were Japanese, right?  I sure didn't.  But I know now.  
 
 

3 comments:

  1. You DEFINITELY should watch Harry Potter in Japan. :D If you go to an English-dub, Japanese-sub showing, you can see the awesome fonts they use for the characters. Oooh, and good luck with those books! I keep one in my purse, always. Mostly because I forget it's there.

    So glad you're lovin' Japanese life!

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  2. It seems that your instruction methodology is doing something to suppress the reflex-coding embedded in the Japanese genome that requires a peace sign to be flashed whenever a picture is taken. Is that part of the test? It seems to be more pronounced in your advanced class.

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  3. It does appear to be a welcome fringe benefit of the faux-American culture with which I try, as much as possible, to inundate them. I wonder how much research into this phenomenon I can do; the rewards could perhaps be quite substantial....

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