Kuniko got home late last night from a fairly eventful party with some friends, and had some interesting stories to tell afterwards. I ended meeting her at the station after she fell asleep and missed her stop, and then had to take a taxi back to Okubo. We did a little drunken shopping, (and scored a few freebies from the Lawson clerk) and then headed home to recap our evenings.

Mine wasn’t nearly as fun as hers – I spent the evening watching TV, listening to music, and eating leftover salad and some instant ramen. Dinner on the cheap – that was my Saturday night.

That evening we decided to go to Costco the next day (today) in order to stock our supplies for a group of teachers that will come over on Friday. Kuniko’s coworkers are always a good party, and so we’re going to grill some steaks and have a Friday evening house party next week.

So having made the decision to drive to Costco at 1:30 a.m. on Sunday morning, it was a little difficult to get up and ready at 8 a.m. Somehow we managed, and got out on the road.

Costco was pretty packed, but we managed to get in and get out reasonably quickly, despite all the people. Going to Costco in Japan is just like if you went to Costco in America and everyone else had never been there before. People stopping in the middle of the aisles, staring at all the merchandise and generally overwhelmed with the situation. Luckily, we know exactly where to go and how to get out of there fast, so it wasn’t so bad.

We also made a quick trip to Carrefour, which will soon turn into a normal Japanese supermarket. All the Carrefour brand merchandise was on sale, so I scored some pasta and some sauces.

Also on the way home we stopped at Nishinomiya Gardens, a big shopping mall modeled after a modern American shopping mall. There are few similarities inside however, with a few notable exceptions. They did have a movie theater inside, a food court with a Cold Stone creamery, and a Hawaiian goods shop, but other than that it was just normal Japanese clothes shops.

Now we are back and unpacked, and looking forward to a relaxing evening. We’ll probably skip dinner – the big Costco lunch is still with us, so it will definitely be a slow paced evening.