Monday, August 10, 2009

Excitement plus!

Today we finally made a visit to a few stores I had been intending to check out one of these days, and they were better than I expected.

One was called Full House. I knew it sold second hand furniture but inspection of its insides today revealed that it's also a big op shop. Woohoo! An op shop in Numazu... my life is complete.

Another one was Hard Off and Off House combined. (There's an "Off" franchise for second-hand goods in Japan, including Book Off and some other kind of Off that I forget now.) It's a more upmarket "recycle superstore". This is the kind of place that has air conditioning, jingly music playing, wide aisles, bright lights and well-organised rows of merchandise. The quality of the items for sale is generally better, and occasionally the prices are not much lower than you'd get brand new. Still an exciting find, and a place I expect to check out again some time before we leave here.

The other very exciting place was a discount supermarket. Think Aldi. Here I can get cans of coconut milk for 88 yen (at Ito Yokado they cost about four times that), 10kg bags of rice for 2400 yen (about 25% cheaper than I've seen anywhere else), and... and... and baking soda. Now all I have to do is figure out how to use our oven and I can make banana muffins again. Woohoo!

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Location of the discount supermarket and Hard Off/Off House: You know the road that runs parallel to the Gotemba train line between Ooka and Numazu, and how it curves around to run directly east-west through Numazu? (Sports Depo is on that road.) Well, they're all right near the curve in the road. The supermarket is a green building on the road, Hard Off and Off House are set back a little further.

Location of Full House: Oh man. It's too hard to explain. It's right up near the main highway through the northern part of Numazu, but I know that's not enough information to find it. Post me a comment and I'll show it to you on a map.

4 comments:

Dana said...

Do not tell me you have been there a year and don't know how to use your oven. How is that possible???

Nat said...

Pah! You wanna come over and check out the buttons and try to figure out what they say? Actually, if the truth be told, I *have* used the oven, once. It was very early on and I have no idea how I did it now. As a general rule, Japanese people Don't Do Ovens. Many apartments don't even have one. We're living in luxury here!

Dana said...

I don't understand. You live without an oven how? You make bread how? You bake cakes how? You broil chicken how? I can't imagine not using an oven. I don't use mine often but I do use it!!! In fact. This makes me want to bake cookies.

Nat said...

I don't make bread. :( I don't eat cakes, let alone bake them, so that's OK. :) What's broiling? And I haven't made biscuits (cookies) since, hmmmm.... a very long time ago -- just not a big cookie eater. Yep, life without an oven. It's possible. I realise that's a little more than your southern-raised mind can cope with right now, so I won't say anything else radical for ten minutes, OK? :D