Shopping for Necessities

So much has already happened that I'm starting to feel lazy. But I took a lot of pictures, so they can speak 1000 words for me. Anyway, I'll continue where I left off.

H-san, T-san, and I headed down the street to the bus stop, where we took the bus to Rokko Station so that I could go to the bank and get money to buy a futon and pay T-san back the 30,000 yen (~$370) I owed her.

Note for Japanese learners: If you haven't noticed yet, numbers are very important, so any Japanese students weak in numbers, I suggest you practice a lot, because Japanese don't say them slowly. As for classifiers, people might say you only need to learn the "hitotsu, futatsu,..." set, the general "ichi, ni, ..." set, and the time classifiers (-nen (year), -gatu (month), -ji (hour), -hun (minute))  to get by, but conversations are definitely easier to understand if you've familiarized yourself to at least recognize the others ("-hon" for long cylindrical objects, "-satsu" for books, "-mai" for sheets of paper, etc). The Japanese will understand if you only use a few sets, but for the "ichi, ni,..." one, learn the numbers up to "man" (10,000), and learn time too. They know the English names of the months and days, so you could get by without knowing the Japanese for that. If you'll be going to places other than Tokyo and filling out forms, I suggest you also learn the kanji for dates (year 年、month 月、day 日、birth 生）, names (full name 氏名、katakana/furigana ふりがな), address (address 住所、zip code 〒, metropolis 都、road 道、city 市, ward  区, number　番号）. If you plan to live in Japan, memorize your address and a phone number you can use as soon as possible, and bring it with you when you go to fill out forms like for your Alien Registration, bank account, etc.

Anyway, I went to the bank at Rokko, called Sumitomo Mitsui Bank, like on this envelope here.

 

I was able to withdraw 50,000 yen (五万円）(~$610) using my debit card, although it took a long time. Maybe an hour? I unfortunately hadn't brought the papers I needed to open a bank account, so after I got the money, we went to the nearby department store to eat at one of the restaurants. According to my receipt, which has fancy font and is therefore hard to read, it's called しゃぽーるーじゅ ｸﾞﾙﾒ which sounds like "Shapou Rouge, Gourmet."

I ordered ketchup omrice. Finally, I got to taste what I'd read about in manga, and it was good.

H-san ordered this one.

T-san ordered this one. It has meat sauce and hashbrowns that are called something else. My memory fails me.

All restaurants have display plates of the food they serve.

After eating, we walked through blustery wind to a grocery store called ディリーカナート (Daily Kanart (I don't know what the second word is supposed to be; figuring out katakana is a guessing game.). H-san and T-san helped me choose toilet paper, food (onigiri and chicken donburi) hair shampoo and conditioner, sponges, laundry detergent, and dish soap. Since shampoo and condition were cheaper in squeeze packs than bottles, I bought those, and then went to the 100 yen store called "meets" that was in the front of the grocery store to buy bottles.

I was surprised that instead of shopping carts, there were shopping baskets with wheeled frames to make them into carts.

Left to right: dish soap, bottles x2, sponge, laundry detergent.

Yummy tuna-mayo onigiri.

Chicken donburi.

meets inside of Daily Kanart.

After meets we went to ニトリ (Nitori) to buy bedding. I bought a futon set for 5980 yen (~$63), which includes a futon mattress, a kakefuton (comforter), a pillow, and covers for all of those. To carry the futon home, T-san and H-san tied handles onto the box using supplies provided at the front of the store.

A box of handles for customers to use to carry their items.

T-san and H-san working hard while I stand by doing nothing and interrupting them with pictures.

I lugged the futon set back to the station, then switched bags with T-san because that box was heavy. At the station, I realized we had forgotten to buy garbage bags. Fortunately, there was a convenience store right in front of us. T-san waited outside with the futon and bags while H-san and I went to shop. It turned out the crowded (because it was about 6pm) convenience store was out of bags, so we went to Kokumin （コクミン）on the floor below. I was able to buy garbage bags there.

The slogan under the name says, "More Beautiful, More Healthy and More Clean, with all our Heart."

Kokumin also gave me some random papers in the bag:

Now that I had all the necessities, we took a bus home, where T-san and H-san helped me make my futon. I was glad they helped me, because the futon design is different from Western beds. My bed already had a mattress, but we put a sheet over the futon mattress and put that on top. Then we tied the kakefuton's corners and the middles of its sides to its cover and zipped it in. The kakefuton was laid on top of the mattress futon. The pillow was zipped into its cover and tucked under the kakefuton to complete the bed.

Since we'd finished everything I needed help with for the day, H-san and T-san went home. I started unpacking and settling into my room. I took a moment to enjoy the view from my window.

To be continued...