A Day at the Mall with Pip

Pip's girlfriend wanted to share some Japanese products, notebooks and such, with her friends when she headed back to college last weekend. Pip offered to handle the shopping while she spent quality time with her family. He gets his altruism from his father.

He gets his shopping focus, make that "lack thereof," from his mother which is probably one reason why he invited me to accompany him to the Daiei mall just outside the back entrance to the Navy base.  The other reason being he inherited my Never Shop Alone gene.

Neither Pip nor I has spent much time at the Daiei Mall.  We pooled our combined knowledge which in my case meant leaping quickly from the concrete verge outside the base gate to the nearest mall staircase.  "Why are we cutting through the parking lot?"  "Because I think the wooden boardwalk leading around the mall to the main entrance is going to collapse sometime in the next few weeks and I don't want to go crashing into Truman Bay when that happens."  (Pip and I think the American name for that bay is in incredibly poor taste.  Remind me to ask Ishii-san what the Japanese call it.)

Pip's contribution to our knowledge base was a cartoon entitled "The Tragedy of Soft Ice Cream".  The cartoon was playing on a small television in a corner of the shop where we went to buy notebooks.  (Expect to hear more about that cartoon in the days ahead.)  We spent twenty minutes giggling at the cartoon and another fifteen minutes pondering Smurf products before we got around to choosing notebooks.  Then we spent another ten minutes admiring a Luffy-san steering wheel cover and considering its Father's Day potential.  "Didn't we already get him an electric teakettle and one of those Ice Gel sleeping pads?  And it's not like he ever drives the car."  "You're right.  See if you can find an Anpanman steering wheel cover before my birthday."

A live insect-like thing as big as my hand

Japanese malls confuse me. I can't really tell where one store ends and the next begins so I invariably wander from one cash register to another when it's time to fork over my yen. This isn't all bad because it gives me the chance to interact with two or three times as many excruciatingly polite cashiers than would a more situationally aware shopper. They never roll their eyes, sneer, or holler at me. Would stealing a customer service training manual before I leave Japan be considered industrial theft? I might be willing to risk it.

"There's a 100 Yen Store here somewhere.  It's on the third or fourth floor.  Weather Explorer just took me there yesterday."  We went up and down that escalator at least four times before we found it tucked behind a department store.  It's not like there are walls between the stores.  And that unicycle display was pretty darn distracting.  I wonder if I'm too old to learn how to ride a unicycle.  Hmmm.  Another potential Father's Day gift?

We decide to cap off our adventure with lunch.  We carefully check out the plethora of dining options.  About six or seven restaurants appeal to me but Pip nixes each one for vague reasons until he succeeds in ushering me into . . . Big Boy.  The menu had about as much in common with an American Big Boy menu as a bowl of rice has with an onion ring.  The only items I recognized were the desserts and french fries. 

And that's not a bad thing.

Honto Comical

Gundam is a Japanese anime (cartoon show) that premiered in 1979. This summer a life-size replica was erected on the Tokyo waterfront to celebrate Gundam's 30th anniversary. According to Matt, our resident expert on contemporary Japanese culture, the month long display was so successful plans are now in the works to replicate Gigantor.

Most of our American friends here have been underwhelmed with a giant robot that just stands there and belches smoke every half hour. We are easier to please. There wasn't an admission fee, the park was lined with booths hawking festival food (the Japanese equivalent of county fair food), and, since Matt wanted a rare photo of all three of us, Mike and I had the chance to see our kid bow politely and engage an older Japanese man in conversation. In Japanese no less. Their exchange distracted me from my mission to try a potatornado - a spiral-cut potato fried on a skewer and available with and without powdered sugar - so I'll be frequenting festivals until I track down that booth.

The company that created Gundam, Bandai Entertainment, is also responsible for Super Sentai, the concept behind Power Rangers. Matt and I, also known as Billy and Kimberly, both have fond memories of the Power Rangers. While "researching" this post, we learned that there is a Bandai Museum in Mibu, Tochigi, about three hours northwest of Yokosuka by train. This has all the earmarks of another great mother-son adventure.

But first things first. Our Unaccompanied Baggage shipment has reached Japan and will be delivered to our house next Monday. Just thinking about being reunited with my computer is making me giddy. Matt and Mike feel the same way about a guitar and bicycle.