As I found myself making the trip to AL Plaza once again today, I came to the realization that as well as acclimatizing myself to Japanese sleeping patterns, so have I done in regards to Japanese shopping habits. My first few times, I tried to stick to my old standards as much as possible, i.e. buying a couple weeks worth of vittles at a time. The downside to this was that inside the grocery I was walking around with only one basket (for those big consumers out there, they could grab a cart that let them carry _two_), and to carry them home I have one basket on the front of my bike. There's a reason why I don't buy bulk size Doritos snack packs anymore (and its not because there are no Doritos here either).

Intellectually, I knew that people tend to do their grocery shopping on a daily basis here, but it hadn't really been driven home until I tried to perpetuate my old shopping habits in a new setting. Now back home, people are actively discouraged from going to the grocery on a daily basis, citing that it tends to inspire uneconomical impulse buying. Partly I also blame Mom for years of subconscious reinforcement, for always dragging me along grocery shopping, where'd I'd watch her buy a month's supply of groceries, throw then in the back of the station wagon, and then put them away in the pantry back home. You just can't do that here, 1) Because of space constrictions, it's very rare for families to have two cars, and the one they do have is what the primary breadwinners use to get themselves to work, so no readily available automobile for food acquisition. 2)Again because of space restrictions, no place to put the aforementioned food. Very few families have nice large pantries such are common back in the states. 3)Further compounding this is the fact of refrigerator size; the one I have back in my dorm is only a little smaller than the family average here. So even should the hypothetical compulsive grocery getter buy all that food, and somehow get it home, there would be absolutely no place to put it.

Umm… I had a point around here somewhere, but it seems to have gotten away. Oh yes, that was it, why I've resorted to such frequent grocery trips. And so, partly because it got irritating trying to bike back from the store with a bag in my basket, and another one or two hanging off my wrists, I've altered my habits accordingly. Of course that in no way means I'm going to regret returning to shopping stateside, where among other things, I won't be hampered by my inability to read what exactly it is I'm buying. (Yesterday I thought I was getting a pack of freshly fried pork cutlets. What I actually got was a pack of freshly fried sweet potato cakes… well, side by side they _looked_ the same… At least it still tasted pretty good, even though I got a big surprise when I bit into it).