August 12, 2002 - 8:30PM
Wes Ehrlichman

Today the only cool thing that happened was an interview that I gave for a newspaper. Tomorrow I'll get a copy of the article, so I'll tell you about it then. Since nothing cool happened today I'll tell you a little more about my town. But first, some updates.

This is a shot of Sakura from that Drama that I told you about. She's crying as usual.

This is my friend Yumi. We went to the city last weekend and I met some of her friends and some Brittish ALT from one town over. Yumi sounds like she's done a whole lot of things in her life. She went to New York and sung on the streets in a rockabilly band for a while, and her husband rides a Harley. This weekend we're going to a punk rock show in Kagoshima City. It should be fun, keep an eye out for pictures!

I took this picture on the way to the city. The mountain in the background is Kagoshima's claim to fame, the Sakurashima island Volcano. I'm pretty sure it's an active volcano, and I've heard that ash ocassionally falls on the Kagoshima City residents.

Today I took my camera to the town grocery stores to take a few pictures and show you what some of my food choices are. First I went to the smaller of the two grocery stores. To get there I have to go down the main street of Kedouin, shown here.

Pretty small, huh? The store is somewhere near the end. All of the stores lining this street have a small store in front and a full house in the back. Most people literally live in their stores, much like they do in the asian areas of large cities. It's much more obvious here though, and sometimes a restaurant will have no wall between the restaurant room and the family watching TV together in the next room.

The smaller store's name is "Store Tokiyoshi." Every time I go I am amazed by the shrine right in front of the parking lot. If you click on the above picture you can kind of see it on the left hand side. It really gives the store a Japanese feeling, and when I ride up in my bike I feel like I'm going to a shinto shrine instead of a grocery store.

Inside it looks like an Asian Grocery store from home, but without the english labels slapped on. There are four small aisles with a refriderated section running around the store and a fish butcher in the back. I like this store a little better because there are always the same three people working there, and they have a comic book/magazine rack up front where I can get the weekly Jump Comic. It's 220 yen (Around $2) for one 450 page comic each week. If you're not familiar with the comics scene in America that's half the price of a 32 page comic at home. I buy it and flip through it even though I can't read it, hoping to learn by osmosis. So far it hasn't worked.

I took this picture to show you just some of the literally hundreds of different drinks available in Japan. There are at least three different options no matter what kind of drink you like, and if you like cold coffee in a can I'm convinced that you could try a different brand every day for a year and still not try them all! I can't tell the difference between any of them, but I'm trying to find a mocha one.

After I left the small grocery store I was walking to Kedouin's Biggest Store in order to show you the differences between the two when I noticed a store I hadn't seen before. It looked a bit like a pastery shop. I went inside I noticed a bunch of boxed candy along the left hand wall. In the middle of the store was a glass case running from one side of the store to the other. Inside was assorted pies and Japanese Sweets (Okashi). The first things I noticed were little 200 yen pies (around $2) that looked pretty good.

The shopkeeper started talking to me. I told her that I was the new ALT, that my name was Wes, and that I was from America. She asked how old I was and I told her 23. Immediately she told me that her daughter was 22. I asked if she was away at college and she said, "No she bakes things here."

She asked me another question and I didn't know what she was asking so she called her husband out to translate. Her husband couldn't speak any english either, but through the hand gestures I figured out that they were asking me where I lived. I told them that I live near the middle school, and she updated him on the rest of my stats. When she said that I was 23 the husband asked if I had a girlfriend. I said that I did and she was going to be in Nagoya next month. They looked a little sad.

I looked around at the different foods in the case. The small pie was really the best looking thing there. I wanted to try something different though, so I asked what was good. She said that the "Umen" was good. It was only 100 yen ($1) so I told her I'd talk one. She started to pack it up and then she threw in a few other things as well. When I tried to pay but she said, "present." Nice! I need to start hitting all the stores in Kedouin. Gotta get to that car store next... I thanked her of course and asked for a picture of her and her husband. Here it is.

She asked me to help her learn English so I started to throw out a few words. I'm going to come back and invite her to the English Conversation classes that I'm going to do as part of my job when school begins.

After receiving my gift I got back on my bike and headed to Kedouin's biggest store, the A Koopu (Pronounced "A Coop" I think). I parked my bike and heard my name being yelled. One of my middle school students opened up the doors of a van and came out to see me. I asked her if I could take her picture, but she kept saying "No, bad. No, bad," in Japanese so I didn't take it. She said that she was studying Math that night in the town just one away. I think she's one of the better students because she's always at the school and she's very friendly. Not to mention the fact that she's studying on summer vacation. I had her teach me how to say I'm going to the store in Japanese (Itte ni Kimasu) and then I went into the store.

This is the A Koopu. It's got maybe 6 aisles, much easier to find fruit, and a much larger perishable foods section, but no Magazine Rack and no Shinto Shrine. I bought a bunch of drinks and some Yakisoba and tried to take a picture of the checkout girl. She denied me as well! For a country that is always taking pictures some of the people sure are camera shy!

When I got home I opened my present. Here is what was inside.

First I tried the "Umen," the thing in front. It was wierd. It was basically a plum covered in pastry. There was still a pit inside though! That's not candy!

Next I tried the custard on the right. This stuff was so good. I've never had custard this good in my life. It had some kind of liquor on the bottom too though, so that may have had something to do with it.

Take a look at the little white bottle sitting on top of the brown substance on the left. What do you think it is? Ok. Now what do you think the brown stuff is? Don't read on until you've got an answer in mind.

You ready? The little white bottle is full of coffee creamer, and the brown substance is coffee Jello. Yes that's right. Coffee Jello. You put the creamer on top of the jello and eat it just like you would any other jello. The thing is though, it's amazing! Someone should really market this concept in America because I think it could really catch on. I just ask for 5% of the profits. It tastes pretty much exactly like it sounds, but more sugary than bitter. If you ever go to japan I highly recommend that you try it.

Ok, I think I've babbled on enough. Next time I'll talk about the newspaper article about me so surf on in!