Kuniko is off at work today, so after I nursed my hangover I spent the day watching downloaded TV shows, doing laundry and doing some shopping over at Saty.
At Saty I bought a new bento lunch box. I’ve been putting it off for a long time. The old one has lots of hard to clean areas, and it doesn’t seal correctly – especially if there is a lot of food in there. If it doesn’t seal it starts to give off aromas, and the furoshiki that I wrap it with had absorbed all those smells. While it didn’t smell bad, it didn’t smell clean, no matter how often I washed it.
So, it’s a new bento box for me. The new one looks like a traditional old-fashioned Japanese bento box, but the inside is all modern and airtight. I like it, and I can’t wait to put it into service on Monday.
On the way back from Saty I did some grocery shopping for dinner at Vivre, which is one of the supermarkets in that shopping area. They have more upscale items. It’s fun to shop there, but usually we do our shopping at Jusco near our house.
Since it is the weekend there were lots of shoppers out. The store had people giving away samples of food and products around the inside of the store. In Japan there seems to be a strong feeling that if you take a free sample, you should really buy whatever you took. I’m not sure why, but I’ve gotten some funny reactions whenever I take samples and try them. Some people don’t care if you buy it or not, and some people give me a strange look but keep smiling.
There is a really pushy older lady that occasionally works the sample areas. Last time I took a sample from her she got into this big deal about trying to get me take the product – I think it was chicken breasts. Today I saw her again and thought it would be a great time to rile her up a little bit. Today she was serving hot dog pieces. I walked by and took one, and before I even had it in my mouth, she was pointing at the product on the shelf. I smiled at her and chewed up the hot dog. It was pretty good, but the price was too high – I could buy it cheaper at Jusco across the street from my house.
I told her thanks, and said it was delicious. I put the toothpick in the trash (you aren’t allowed to keep the toothpick) and started to walk away. She was having none of that, though. “If it’s delicious, why don’t you buy one?” she asked. I smiled again and said “no thanks”, and that just pissed her off even more. She kept telling me to buy a package, but I politely refused and moved on with my shopping. She shook her head and started looking around at the other customers in the store to see if anyone had seen it. Nobody really had been paying attention, so muttered loudly to herself and walked away.
Here I am, on the front line exploring Japanese culture. Maybe I’ll go again tomorrow and ask her first how much the hot dogs cost before I take one.
Kuniko will be getting home around seven or eight tonight, so I’m going to get dinner ready for when she arrives. I’m sipping Tecate beer and I’m tucked into the kotatsu right now – which is an odd cultural combination. Tonight it’s Chinese food – mabodofu and gyoza.
