Friday Sept 11, 2009
Back Home in America this is a special day to remember. It was very strange here on this day. No one really gave this a lot significance. Well we still remembered. When we first got here Obata-san gave me a Veterans of Foreign Wars Calendar (for the US). So I've been watching how to display my flag. Today we would be flying at half mast. We started the day off around the house and worked on the office and blogs. Closer to dinner time we decided to head towards 
Takasaki to find dinner and maybe Yamada Denki. We found a paper map in the car that was a big help! We stopped at Yoshinoya for dinner. They have a really good Gyudon. We went inside and ordered. They really only had Gyudon, with different sides. We got salad and miso soup. The salad was a little different than back home, but miso soup is about the same. Ooo, they gave us salad dressing on the side. The waiter gave us two different kinds to try. I shook up my first little packet, and took a closer look at the instructions as i squeezed it a little and... POP, right in my face and over my head goes the salad dressing. As I look a little closer I see the clear picture that shows the packet facing downward toward the 
salad. Oops. Well Paul had a good laugh. The waiter hurried over to give me a wet towel to clean my face and hair. I looked around and was surprised that no one was looking or laughing at the silly blonde haired girl that just opened salad dressing into her face. Needless to say we were just about finished with our meal. Paul paid the man and we went on our way. On our way out I saw the huge amount of dressing that splattered on the floor behind me. It must have flew over my head and onto the floor. I might have to change my hair color to eat there again. Ok on to Yamada Denki. We asked for some directions and with our trusty map we were on our way. With Paul's superior driving skills and my savvy map reading (all of it in kanji)...
Takasaki to find dinner and maybe Yamada Denki. We found a paper map in the car that was a big help! We stopped at Yoshinoya for dinner. They have a really good Gyudon. We went inside and ordered. They really only had Gyudon, with different sides. We got salad and miso soup. The salad was a little different than back home, but miso soup is about the same. Ooo, they gave us salad dressing on the side. The waiter gave us two different kinds to try. I shook up my first little packet, and took a closer look at the instructions as i squeezed it a little and... POP, right in my face and over my head goes the salad dressing. As I look a little closer I see the clear picture that shows the packet facing downward toward the 
salad. Oops. Well Paul had a good laugh. The waiter hurried over to give me a wet towel to clean my face and hair. I looked around and was surprised that no one was looking or laughing at the silly blonde haired girl that just opened salad dressing into her face. Needless to say we were just about finished with our meal. Paul paid the man and we went on our way. On our way out I saw the huge amount of dressing that splattered on the floor behind me. It must have flew over my head and onto the floor. I might have to change my hair color to eat there again. Ok on to Yamada Denki. We asked for some directions and with our trusty map we were on our way. With Paul's superior driving skills and my savvy map reading (all of it in kanji)... 
we found Yamada Denki with no problem. And we even made it 2 hours before closing time. So we could actually go in and look around. It was attached to the Takasaki station. The shopping center was 5 stories tall. We parked in the parking garage, very cool, and ended up on the 5th floor where all the classy restaurants were. So we wandered around and looked at each floor. Paul signed up for a point card (it has digital paper to keep track of the points). His first point card! It seems like almost all businesses here in Japan have these point cards. It's kind of like punch cards back home. If you spend so much here you get 5% or 10% of your purchase as points on your card that can be used later at that store. 1 point = 1 yen. We looked around some more and Paul found the cell phones. 
They had all the carriers lined up to help you, and all the different phones on display with a working model to play with. Paul loved it. He 
even carried on a lengthy conversation with a young man that worked with AU (our cell phone provider here in Japan). We found a few things small things we needed, but we had to leave because they were closing soon, so we made our way to the parking gargae.
It was the cleanest parking garage I'd ever seen, and we found a few cool cars to look at. Paul paid our parking fee and we made our way back home. No problem. 
On our way back home we decided to stop off at Mister Donut. We tried a few Japanese donuts. Pretty good, a little chewy, but really good. We got a big glass of milk to wash it down, but I couldn't drink it. I think it was more of their drinkable yogurt than milk, so I ate my donuts and Paul drank both glasses of milk. Paul really liked the big glasses there, so he went up the counter and asked the young lady working (in japanese) "Excuse me, May I buy this glass?" She very promptly said “No, No!” We were kind of taken a back by this, not the usual response, but we thought ,“well I guess you can't buy the glasses here.” Oh well Paul had an excuse to use his Japanese. We went home and were tired from all the adventures we had today.
On our way back home we decided to stop off at Mister Donut. We tried a few Japanese donuts. Pretty good, a little chewy, but really good. We got a big glass of milk to wash it down, but I couldn't drink it. I think it was more of their drinkable yogurt than milk, so I ate my donuts and Paul drank both glasses of milk. Paul really liked the big glasses there, so he went up the counter and asked the young lady working (in japanese) "Excuse me, May I buy this glass?" She very promptly said “No, No!” We were kind of taken a back by this, not the usual response, but we thought ,“well I guess you can't buy the glasses here.” Oh well Paul had an excuse to use his Japanese. We went home and were tired from all the adventures we had today.
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