Thursday, September 11--To the left, to the left

To get to our house from the base, you turn right out of the main gate. We have never, in the six weeks we’ve been here, turned left out of the gate. To the left lies an unexplored world, full of mysteries, and if the rumor is true, shopping! Today I vowed to venture forth into the Left, to conquer my fear of the unknown, and to return with a recycling bin that will accommodate as many different types of trash as possible.

Armed with a full tank of gas (the journey is supposed to be around 5 km—less than 3 miles), some vague directions, and emergency rations of water and granola bars, I bravely headed out. The drive, short as it was, was actually through a very pretty area. The road runs along the coast, and there are large palm trees along the median. There was a feeling of more space, even though stores were still closely packed and high rises towered alongside the road. Not sure what the difference was—maybe being able to see the ocean and an actual horizon to my left?

The two stores I went to were adventures in themselves. It seems that most stores of any size around here are divided into multiple floors, and it is difficult to locate specific items, or remember where it was you found something. The stores today were on one level (I don’t know how this happened—it must seem like a colossal waste of space to many Japanese), and reminded me of the big-box stores from home. Ave was kind of like a Walmart, having a little bit of everything. A lot of the products are American (Dove soap, Pantene shampoo, Hanes t-shirts), but packaged for Japanese tastes. There is also a supermarket within the store, but I did not explore that today. Home’s (I know that is not the correct use of an apostrophe, but that’s the name of the store) is a Target meets Lowes superstore. Lots of familiar hardware, lumber, and gardening supplies here. The most noticeable difference between Home’s and Lowes—there were not half a dozen aisles devoted to paint. There was a single section filled with paint cans (I don’t remember seeing any color swatches), brushes, and rollers that took up only one side of one aisle. Guess if everything is wall-papered, there isn’t much demand for paint. (I can understand with the humidity here, paint must take weeks to dry, but by the same token, I do not understand how the wallpaper stays on the wall. I’d think the paste would stay gummy, and the paper would just slide down the wall to puddle on the floor.)

Overall, the voyage into the Left went quite well, and I’m very pleased with myself (Rocky theme playing in the background here). I was even able to get out of the parking garage by reading the exit signs which were only written in Japanese! (Yeah, okay, it’s true. If you showed me those signs in a different context, there’s a really good chance I wouldn’t have a clue what they were. Just let me pretend for a minute I’m making progress with this new language!) By the way, I did find a recycle bin, that when combined with our regular trash can (if it ever arrives), will handle most of our sorting needs.