After a few days of puttering around, we made a few trips into town. We made trips to Joyful Honda (which had nothing to do with cars or motorcycles), but is a large shopping center which is similar to a Super Wal*Mart, having groceries, hardware and the like. They also had a large food court upstairs where they served all types of Japanese Fastfood, including Taco Balls, which has absolutely nothing to do with mexican food, it resembles Hush Puppies, but is actually rounded balls of batter covered octopus. I stayed away from these...didn't sound very appetizing. Crepes were extremely popular and were very good. One restaurant specialized in many different types of crepes. I noticed that there was community water dispensers in many places.
Most shopping malls have an officer directing traffic through the parking lots, and charged for shoppers to park there, unless you get your ticket validated by spending a predetermined amount at the store. Probably because parking is at a premium, and people might tend to park there just so that they could go to work at nearby businesses.
About this time, Abigail got accepted into International school outside the Airbase. The Kunitachi International School was staffed with very polite folks who made sure to give a well rounded experience to the children attending there. From what I understand, school starts at four years old, and while Abigail was merely three, they accepted her for fall enrollment. The International school enables the Japanese children to be exposed to the American children and vice versa. A very smart idea, and a great experience.
We also buzzed over to the Toys R Us store in Fussa, Japan which was pretty interesting. They had Toy Story 3 toys of Buzz Lightyear and Woody Pride that would talk when you pulled their string, but of course the spoke in Japanese! On the floor below Toys R Us was the Sports Store, which had the typical things a sports store would have, but it caught my attention that they had hats and large posters of the Seattle Mariners, more spercifically Ichiro Suzuki who is a star player on the team.
As we drove around I saw a Denny's Restaurant (didn't stop there, just drove by), but I absolutely had to stop when I saw a Big Boy restaurant complete with the large statue of the Boy holding the plate. We sat down to order and luckily the menu had pictures that I could point at. I looked for quite a while at the pictures finally determining that I didn't recognize anything on the menu. So I pointed at something and we had our lunch. Not exactly what I expected when we pulled in, but good nonetheless, On the way out I looked at the Big Boy statue again and realized that he didn't have a hamburger on the plate he was holding...I wasn't sure what it was that was on his plate.
We stopped at the Moritown mall, which was a large multi-floored mall, very beautiful inside, with a shop specializing in tea of every kind, and even a Disney Store further into the mall. We spent some time in the Disney Store as Abigail was with us, and low a behold, Miley Cyrus was on the television there! I couldn't evade Miley Cyrus even in Japan! We then headed further into the mall and discovered a children's play area. Padded floors, things they could climb on, and nearby hundreds of cardboard boxes connected to one another. It was a maze that the kids could crawl through, popping up occasionally to see where they were at, and then crawling some more. It was really cool!
On the way back to the apartment I asked what the tall multi-colored building was that I had been seeing since I arrived. "Oh. That's the Love Hotel". My eyebrows raised..."Oh really?" "Yes. It sounds really seedy, but from what I hear it is a nice place, and can be rented out for conferences and other get togethers". "Uh-huh" I said, not thoroughly convinced.
That night we went to Coco's Curry House for dinner. Wonderful little place with addictive meals of Curried pork, chicken and the like, and a cheese type bread called Naan. They allow you to order the "hotness" of your curry and it was all very good.
Tomorrow, we finally get to go to the Ball Game at the Tokyo Dome!
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