My first day off and going shopping
So I had my first day off all on my own. Right now its pretty lonely since I dont know anyone and I have no cell phone to contact people. All my new friends from training got shipped out to their schools. I am sitting here in my room staring at the wall since I can't understand tv. I probably should study Japanese since I told like 8 people today that I dont know Japanese when they tried to talk to me.
It took me 4 hours today to buy the following 3 items:
Alarm Clock
Soap
Groceries
I already knew where to find the grocery store so that was pretty easy but the other two took some time. First of all think about the way you would buy something at home. If I wanted an alarm clock I would probably go to Target, Best Buy or any home or electronic store. Now image there is no Target, Best Buy and you dont know any electronic or home stores. What would you do? Well how about try the newspapaer, oh wait I cant read, what about the internet, uhm yeah that reading thing again. Being illiterate sucks....I need to start studying.
So I went to plan B, randomly walk around town and see if I could find a store. Since I couldnt read anything or ask anyone for help, I pretty much just wandered into every store I saw and tried to find it. Okayama has a crapload of camera shops, clothing stores, cell phone shops and places to eat. The soap wasn't too hard to find but once I got to a walgreens type shop I had to spend like 10 minutes trying to read the box and make sure it really was soap. And no, they dont have dove or any of my normal brands and what is the Japanese word for soap? I didn't know this morning but I just looked it up and its called sekken.
Now the alarm clock took forever, I walked for hours trying to find an electronic store. I walked into every department store and every floor looking for one, but I couldn't find anything. Finally I lucked out and walked into the right store and they had 3 alarm clocks. I bought the one that was in english of course.
Then I found a suit store and decided to buy some work clothes. All the measurements are in cm and I didnt know my size. I used my broken Japanese to get someone to help me and measure me. I am a 43cm neck and 86cm arm length. All together my trip cost me 10,000 yen or a $100 for two shirts, soap, alarm clock and grocercies.
Then walked back to my house and decided to write about my small victory. Away mission successful captain....make is so...haha
It took me 4 hours today to buy the following 3 items:
Alarm Clock
Soap
Groceries
I already knew where to find the grocery store so that was pretty easy but the other two took some time. First of all think about the way you would buy something at home. If I wanted an alarm clock I would probably go to Target, Best Buy or any home or electronic store. Now image there is no Target, Best Buy and you dont know any electronic or home stores. What would you do? Well how about try the newspapaer, oh wait I cant read, what about the internet, uhm yeah that reading thing again. Being illiterate sucks....I need to start studying.
So I went to plan B, randomly walk around town and see if I could find a store. Since I couldnt read anything or ask anyone for help, I pretty much just wandered into every store I saw and tried to find it. Okayama has a crapload of camera shops, clothing stores, cell phone shops and places to eat. The soap wasn't too hard to find but once I got to a walgreens type shop I had to spend like 10 minutes trying to read the box and make sure it really was soap. And no, they dont have dove or any of my normal brands and what is the Japanese word for soap? I didn't know this morning but I just looked it up and its called sekken.
Now the alarm clock took forever, I walked for hours trying to find an electronic store. I walked into every department store and every floor looking for one, but I couldn't find anything. Finally I lucked out and walked into the right store and they had 3 alarm clocks. I bought the one that was in english of course.
Then I found a suit store and decided to buy some work clothes. All the measurements are in cm and I didnt know my size. I used my broken Japanese to get someone to help me and measure me. I am a 43cm neck and 86cm arm length. All together my trip cost me 10,000 yen or a $100 for two shirts, soap, alarm clock and grocercies.
Then walked back to my house and decided to write about my small victory. Away mission successful captain....make is so...haha
posted by ksokada at 1:53 AM
3 Comments:
No worries, in a few months you'll know your way around, speak conversational japanese.
Don't you have a translator book or device? I've heard of some electronic devices that will translated english text you type into Japanese Audio words.
Here's a though I just had a few mintues after posting this previous comment
Why not take pics of all the major shopping stores, come back home and then translate them out.
you could upload them to flickr so we can also check out your environment...dunno just a thought.
What's so hard about buying soap? If it's a big block with a nice smell, it's soap! Haha Kevin, I would just get drunk all by myself instead of staring at the walls.
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