Day 1: Jusco Department Store

Jusco is a Japanese department store close to Mike & Meika's house (see the "links" sidebar for Meika's blog). It sells everything. It's roughly similar to a Meijer, Target, or Wal-Mart, but much more upscale, especially in the clothing department. The clothing for sale more closely resembles a Marshall Fields or JC Penny. You can buy refrigerators, electronics, groceries, toys, school supplies, kimonos, and go out to eat all in the same place.

The first picture is Sam scaring small Japanese children by taking a ride in the kid's section. Meika also had us try out a very fancy photo booth. It's similar to the coin operated ones here that might be in the mall, but here you got to choose different backgrounds and themes, and once the pictures were taken, you could go around to a video screen and digitally add in flowers to your hair, borders, funny Japanese cartoon people, or all sorts of other things. It was a great use of 400円.

Meika needed to pick up a few things from the grocery store in Jusco, so we went with her for the Japanese grocery experience. For the most part it was similar to an American store, though cultural differences were plainly evident, especially in the seafood section. The picture to the left are prawns, which can be bought in the U.S., but not usually raw with the heads still on. I bet if you took these home & threw them in an aquarium you'd have a new pet.

To the left is something I've never seen in a non-Asian grocery store: Octopus tentacle. Yummy! While they may not look too delicious, later on in the trip I tried takonaki (sp?) or octopus tentacle fried in some sort of doughy ball. It was pretty tasty...


Meika told us that dogs and cats are very expensive in Japan, which maybe is why these beetles are so popular as pets. The Japanese seem to love their Japanese Rhinoceros and Japanese Stag beetles. Not only were they for sale as pets at Jusco, but video games in the kids section featured fighting rhinoceros & stag beetles, and you could even buy folders, pencils, lunchboxes, and backpacks with the beetles on them. At least they don't cough up hairballs...