A while back I mentioned that a new shopping center is going in literally right next door to my apartment complex. The other night while knocking back non-alcoholic beverages at the yakitori the master mentioned that a new complex was opening this weekend in north Futami. Today I decided to go check it out.
It was easy enough to find – it’s only a ten minute walk from my doorstep to theirs. The shopping center is pretty big – the best way I could describe it is that it was “American sized”. Kind of like the big shopping centers that might have a Target, Home Depot, and Best Buy.
The big attraction here was Midori, an electronics store kind of like Fry’s, but bigger. Next week the rest of the shopping center opens, with a supermarket, and a mall/shopping center type thing with lots of clothes stores.
I went and explored Midori for a while. The first floor was all electronics, and it was pretty busy, since this was the grand opening weekend. Upstairs was a furniture and housewares area – lots of interesting things. Everything on the furniture floor was pretty expensive – the electronics were priced pretty competitively.
Afterwards, I walked over to the nearby Maxx-Valu and did some grocery shopping. I got some great stuff for this week – it’ll be a good mix of Japanese and California cooking.
Miss Kageyama dropped by to pick me up for a movie in the evening, and so we went out to the nearby family restaurant for a set dinner. The food was OK, but not mind-blowing. It was a good opportunity to do some research and also to chat with Miss Kageyama. She was recovering from a hangover – she was hanging out with a friend last night and drank a little too much beer.
We ran over to the movie theater, and to kill a little time before the show, we went into the arcade and played that game where little monsters pop out of the holes and you have to beat them with a big mallet. They had a head-to-head machine and I got my butt kicked. Miss Kageyama swings a mean mallet.
The movie was pretty good – Bruce Almighty. There was a small crowd in there, and everybody seemed to laugh at the right times. There were a couple of jokes that only I got, but for the most part, people enjoyed it.
After the movie Miss Kageyama dropped me off at my place and I had time for a bowl of cereal before bed. The Frosted Flakes here are not nearly as frosted as the ones at home – I found out the hard way. Finally I did a few stretches and went to bed.
