Tucked securely into the shiny red mini SUV of my friend Hitomi, I finally went to Costco.
And I am not ashamed to say that it was GOOD. Weird. But good.
We drove through busy, narrow city streets that became gradually wider as we moved out of the city center. We chatted about our kids and teaching and Montessori and the gloriousness of seeing a musical live on stage.
Eventually we wound up on an expressway that sped our progress considerably, and led us into the kind of rice fields and spread apart clusters of houses that greatly reminded me of our former Japan home of Kozoji.
Soon we turned onto newer streets with shiny freshly built houses and sprawling new shopping complexes (complete with massive parking lots) that would put a California strip mall to shame.
Suddenly there it was. Costco. We twirled up into a multi level parking building and trudged through the stifling car exhaust heat to a row of downward tilted moving walkways. And at the top of the huge moving walkways were rows and rows of Costco shopping carts--and yes, they were the same size as the Costco carts back at home.
With one difference.
When Hitomi and I wheeled the carts onto the moving walkway, I expected to have to brace the cart with my feet to keep it from rolling downward and crashing into Hitomi.
But It needed no such help.
The walkway was magnetized, built to stick to thick metal plugs that sat near each wheel of the shopping carts. I shoved a bit at the cart but could not budge it.
Glorious.
Once safely carded and inside the store we split up. I looked around for a bit.
Totally, completely familiar. And while I've come to accept and quickly adapt to the many surprises inherent in living abroad in Japan, I wasn't quite ready for Costco to be so much like....well....Costco.
The main difference I noted between this Costco and the one at home is that the many, many kids accompanying their parents were totally, mind-blowingly and delightfully jazzed by the size of the shopping carts (primarily because in a regular Japanese grocery store, "shopping carts" are actually little contraptions designed to wheel around the plastic shopping hand baskets, and are approximately the size of a small portable folding baby stroller. What's the fun in that?).
Throughout the store collections of children of all ages would take turns sitting in the massive cart while other kids zipped them gleefully around corners and down straightaways, interestingly careful to steer meticulously away from other shoppers. No one seemed to find this amiss or distracting or unpleasant, and quite frankly I couldn't blame the kids. Costco carts ARE huge, even by overblown American standards, and I would bet good money that more than one adult Costco shopper back at home in California has wished for the chance to collapse into a cart and be wheeled around. I know I have.
Of course, this is NOT an American Costco store, so what it offered did differ somewhat from what is sold back in California. For one thing, this one was chock full of lovely (and immense) Japanese seasonings and ingredients: a variety of kinds of soy sauce, mirin, rice vinegar and seaweed. The clothing section catered specifically to Japanese sizes (somewhat smaller than American sizes). And, much to my dismay but not to my surprise, the book section was much smaller, and contained a limited selection of children's board books and educational materials in English. Sigh.
I was delighted to find everything I wanted: 40 count packages of frozen flour tortillas, massive jars of Skippy peanut butter, huge Costco muffins, bagels, Frosted Flake cereal (in a 3 pack), a huge brick of mild cheddar cheese (cheddar being difficult to find outside of Costco in Japan) and 2 very large jars of salsa.
I quickly realized that I had either (a) not brought nearly enough cash with me or (b) was being sucked into the Costco richness of offerings far too easily.
Hitomi and I stashed our carts in a corner (a common strategy as it turned out...carts were tucked away everywhere as people took a break from shopping to eat or take a rest).
And of course, we went to get a hot dog and a soda.
And it was good.
After that it was more shopping and more gut wrenching balancing of what I wanted versus what I needed vs what I could actually afford.
Soon enough we paid for our groceries, had our receipts checked and headed back to the moving walkway, tilting up this time.
And we headed back on the expressway, past the rice fields and houses, back into the embrace of narrow streets, temples, shrines and pink faced overheated people, all the way back to our neighborhood in the shadow of Daitokuji.
Hitomi pulled up to the mouth of our tiny street and slid open her car doors while I called Patrick on my cell phone to come help carry groceries.
Once all my things were unloaded and I had thanked Hitomi profusely for this rare and wonderful treat, Patrick and I carried everything inside the house.
And it was just a little like a birthday or Christmas. Aya squealed over the six cans of black olives I had bought for her and wasted no time in opening one can, digging her carefully in to spear one olive on her fingertip before popping it into her mouth. Bob dug into the tray of muffins. Patrick made quick work getting into the Frosted Flakes.
Hitomi has suggested we make plans to make regular trips together to Costco.
It didn't take much for me to say yes.
Until next time.
