Our visit first to a Japanese mall

So we ventured out for the first time to a Japanese mall. We walked into what we would call the anchoring store first. It was like a Walmart, which kind of surprised us since we were expecting a store like Macy's. As we exited, we realized that some kind of a show was about to begin. Above was Kira's reaction to the beginning! It was a kids' show with some hip-hop dancing something or another (see below photo) And it was loud! The funniest thing was many kids were sitting in front, and no one was really reacting. In the States, we would have seen kids either singing or dancing. Here, nothing. They just politely clapped at the end.

And below, was just really cute. It is their pet store, so we think.

And this photo was taken in front of their "arcade/game center." The kids are posed in front of a claw machine to "win" some ice cream. There were a ton of other similiar machines for a variety of other toys or food. We didn't see anyone "win" anything, and lots of people were playing.

It was really, really loud in there. Actually, it was really, really loud in the entire mall. Not really the people talking loudly, but the music in the game area and the annoucements, or whatever they were, continuously over the speaker. And US goods...really expensive. We saw bags of chips, the 4 or 5 oz ones, for 380 yen, or about $3.60. Yankee candles (mid-sized) 3685 yen! Big cantaloupes...980 yen! No wonder we why we see all these Japanese in the Yokota base commissary and BX shopping!

I've decided that I need to learn Japanese, as no one outside of base really seems to speak English. Even when I have told them I don't speak Japanese, they continue to do so...I just continue to nod. And I also need to learn to read, as I have no idea of recipe instructions or what I am buying at the Japanese grocery store.

So today we are going to try the other mall. Supposedly there is a sport store nearby. We need to get the boys soccer socks. There were none left at the BX. Probably all the Japanes nationals snatched them up... And there's supposed to be a Toys R Us near there too.