Costco!
I know, real attention-grabbing title, right? Well, I was excited, not having been to a Japanese Costco before, and not having been to any Costco in a long while. I was interested in comparing Seattle to Yokohama. Takakosan seemed excited to take me.
A lot was the same, but there were enough differences to make it interesting to me. First of all, the parking lot was empty. For anyone who has gone to Costco in Seattle, or probably anywhere else in the US, at any time of day, this is odd. I'm used to driving around for a good ten minutes and waiting for someone to pull out of a coveted spot.
Next, the first thing that you do when you enter the store is to head to the refreshment table, which is mobbed by women (where did they all come from? they aren't parked in the lot) fighting to get their free cold tea and bite of Costco muffin.
I noticed, after a bit, that this Costco is bigger than the ones I'm used to, which is surprising in the land of small-and-efficient. (Takakosan informed me that there is an even bigger one nearby that has two floors!). I saw a lot of the familiar sights, like the McCormick spice jugs, but in addition to the lemon-pepper and oregano, there were things like shichimi:
The frozen food aisles were interesting in their selection of rice dishes instead of burritos
and the fish section had a lot more than slabs of tuna and salmon. Like octopus, for example. Don't see that in Seattle.
and colored toilet paper! I almost bought some in black, for Halloween, but I was concerned what the dye would do, so I didn't.
Of course, this being Japan, alcohol was much better represented. A whole sake aisle!
And what home would be complete without a light-up Xian terracotta warrior?
I really noticed how our diets have changed on the past year by surveying the kids' lunch goods I picked up: a gross of nori sheets, rice cracker-n-peanut snack sacks, seafood pizza (OK, that's for me), giant sack of rice, Kiri cream cheese-n-sticks. I also got talked into getting an expensive carton of Sicilian 100% blood orange juice, which Takakosan assured me is great mixed with Campari (she's right), a soft blanket, beef jerky, half dozen cans of black olives (usually only available in tasteless little sachets at the local supaa), plus lots of odd snacks.
I also noticed that they deliver. Brilliant for those people who take public transportation there.
Finally, to end this really boring tale, I really enjoyed the moving sidewalk between the store and the parking lot. Despite the incline, the magic cart did not move a centimeter. Magnets or something.
On Sunday, we had scary movie day. See, I let M & D watch Aliens last weekend (D had some trouble gettng to sleep that night), and M had been telling his friends about it. Now they all wanted to see it, too, so it turned into a bit of a party. I felt a little weird about it: would a bunch of parents now hate me for causing their kids to have nightmares? I gave in though, because I had seen Aliens around there age, and yeah, it gave me a couple bad nights, but I never regretted seeing it. It still remains one of my favorite sci-fi movies.
It was very international: the two American boys, a Japanese boy and girl, a Turkish boy, and a half-Japanese half-African boy. I made popcorn, and Yura (the last mentioned) brought sweet sticks (pastry and cheesecakes cut into fingers of yumminess). Hamza was supposed to be fasting for Ramadan, but he cheated and had a little juice and popcorn. I think the fasting thing is not so strict for kids. Anyway, I hope that's the case, because I don't want to get in trouble for that as well as the nightmares. (Did you know that during Ramadan, Muslims aren't even supposed to have water between sunrise and sunset. That seems a bit extreme to me, and kinda dangerous in such places where Islam is popular, like deserty areas.)
Anyway, they all seemed to enjoy it. But that was only yesterday, and no reports of sleepless nights have gotten back to me yet. Kumi said it wasn't scary, but I was watching her face during some of the good parts, and if that wasn't horror, I don't know what it was.
A lot was the same, but there were enough differences to make it interesting to me. First of all, the parking lot was empty. For anyone who has gone to Costco in Seattle, or probably anywhere else in the US, at any time of day, this is odd. I'm used to driving around for a good ten minutes and waiting for someone to pull out of a coveted spot.
Next, the first thing that you do when you enter the store is to head to the refreshment table, which is mobbed by women (where did they all come from? they aren't parked in the lot) fighting to get their free cold tea and bite of Costco muffin.
I noticed, after a bit, that this Costco is bigger than the ones I'm used to, which is surprising in the land of small-and-efficient. (Takakosan informed me that there is an even bigger one nearby that has two floors!). I saw a lot of the familiar sights, like the McCormick spice jugs, but in addition to the lemon-pepper and oregano, there were things like shichimi:
The frozen food aisles were interesting in their selection of rice dishes instead of burritos
and the fish section had a lot more than slabs of tuna and salmon. Like octopus, for example. Don't see that in Seattle.
and colored toilet paper! I almost bought some in black, for Halloween, but I was concerned what the dye would do, so I didn't.
Of course, this being Japan, alcohol was much better represented. A whole sake aisle!
And what home would be complete without a light-up Xian terracotta warrior?
I really noticed how our diets have changed on the past year by surveying the kids' lunch goods I picked up: a gross of nori sheets, rice cracker-n-peanut snack sacks, seafood pizza (OK, that's for me), giant sack of rice, Kiri cream cheese-n-sticks. I also got talked into getting an expensive carton of Sicilian 100% blood orange juice, which Takakosan assured me is great mixed with Campari (she's right), a soft blanket, beef jerky, half dozen cans of black olives (usually only available in tasteless little sachets at the local supaa), plus lots of odd snacks.
I also noticed that they deliver. Brilliant for those people who take public transportation there.
Finally, to end this really boring tale, I really enjoyed the moving sidewalk between the store and the parking lot. Despite the incline, the magic cart did not move a centimeter. Magnets or something.
On Sunday, we had scary movie day. See, I let M & D watch Aliens last weekend (D had some trouble gettng to sleep that night), and M had been telling his friends about it. Now they all wanted to see it, too, so it turned into a bit of a party. I felt a little weird about it: would a bunch of parents now hate me for causing their kids to have nightmares? I gave in though, because I had seen Aliens around there age, and yeah, it gave me a couple bad nights, but I never regretted seeing it. It still remains one of my favorite sci-fi movies.
It was very international: the two American boys, a Japanese boy and girl, a Turkish boy, and a half-Japanese half-African boy. I made popcorn, and Yura (the last mentioned) brought sweet sticks (pastry and cheesecakes cut into fingers of yumminess). Hamza was supposed to be fasting for Ramadan, but he cheated and had a little juice and popcorn. I think the fasting thing is not so strict for kids. Anyway, I hope that's the case, because I don't want to get in trouble for that as well as the nightmares. (Did you know that during Ramadan, Muslims aren't even supposed to have water between sunrise and sunset. That seems a bit extreme to me, and kinda dangerous in such places where Islam is popular, like deserty areas.)
Anyway, they all seemed to enjoy it. But that was only yesterday, and no reports of sleepless nights have gotten back to me yet. Kumi said it wasn't scary, but I was watching her face during some of the good parts, and if that wasn't horror, I don't know what it was.
posted by Sandi at 12:00 PM
1 Comments:
I was doing research on the Coscto in Yokahoma, knowing that in 3 months we will be living near by again. We just can't wait to get back to Japan! I loved your article. I really was insightful & we can't wait to get there ourselves to get our own octopus & colored toilet paper...which we had grown accustomed to last time we lived there. Thank you so much for sharing & with photos. By the way...you do know that they all got there by train...right? LOL! Sure you do! Again, thanks!
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