A Bit of Shopping 1

After our lunch at kaiten sushi on July 11th, we stopped by a shopping mall for a little shopping. In one electronics store I was struck (not for the first time) with the fact that in many Japanese stores there are a lot of advertisements, to the point of the extreme, vying for costumers' attentions.

 

It would be very easy for Western people to be overwhelmed; everything seems to beckon the eyes, making it hard to focus on any one thing. Everything is bright and calling from banners displaying various colors, fonts, and images.

 

However, I dare to speculate, for Eastern people this plethora of information is less daunting considering the fact that reading kanji (Chinese characters) requires quick visual recognition and processing of information. For example, when my wife (who is Japanese) reads books in Japanese, she seems to skim the lines at a speed that far surpasses my fastest level of reading (and I can do pretty good speed reading). According to her, she doesn't do any speed reading at all. I have to believe her because when I try to read kanji I look at them as pictures - conversely, when reading in English or Russian I have to first recognize individual letters to make each word. In Japanese, I often do not even need to remember how to say the word to know its meaning.

 

 

Once done with the electronics store (where we bought a new fan for our room) we stopped by the grocery department to pick up some food and drink. Passing by the ice-ream section we saw ice-cream sandwiches from Haagen-Dazs with new flavors. Alas, I highly doubt that you will find in America either these new or old Haagen-Dazs ice-cream sandwiches - I'm especially doubtful of seeing green tea and chocolate flavored ice-cream sandwiches. So far, green tea flavor is my favorite, but I'm planning to try the mango flavor in a near future.

On the way home from our little shopping, we stopped by a FamilyMart convenience store for some caffeine. This store has a nice little machine that can provide you with various lattes, espressos, cappuccinos, and etc. with but a few button presses. I have never been a coffee drinker, but my wife and mother-in-law were impressed by the taste and convenience. Still, I doubt that Starbucks has to close its shops just yet.