After a relaxing start, and much shore excursion research, the order of the day was a five hour trip to COSTCO! Very exciting! We headed out to Chiba, which is basically as far out as the airport (nearly an hour drive), with the car empty, and lots of jumbo sized boxes dancing in our heads... (k, that was kind of corny!). We had the MetPodcast to distract us which was great - It got us all the way there, and half of the way back.

Costco here is a lot like any other Costco I've been to, right down to the rather large north Americans and the hot dogs and pop for 2.65. Pete and I managed to cram an insane amount of stuff into our cart and then into the car, which retaliated by eating a sweater I bought - We realised it hadn't come in with everything else, so I went to look for it, and all I found was about 2.5 inches of sleeve hanging out of the roof storage area. Somehow, when the roof was being opened and closed so we could get the flats of food out, it sucked my sweater in and didn't want to give it up!

Anyway, we (or I, anyway), had a great time stocking up on yummy stuff at Costco - many of the things are exactly the same brands, packaging, etc. as home, but some things are a little bit different, the fresh sushi and sashimi platters being something you maybe wouldn't find at home! We saw the tiniest backyard trampoline I've ever seen, and some other shrunken appliance, though I can't remember what it was... One of the most popular items, causing quite the traffic jam was the heated toilet seat, 4500Y (45$) off.

Pete tried to tell me that they don't do cereal very well here, but I just didn't believe him until today! Its ridiculous - you can get domestic versions of Special K, Frosted Flakes, Bran Flakes, banana nut granola, and a multi pack of chocolate-imitation cheerio type kiddy cereal. Not a toasted O to be found! I commiserated with a fellow ex-pat who lamented having four kids who all wanted different kinds of cereal, none of which, I surmised are available in Japan. She told me she's single handedly starting a letter writing crusade to convince COSTCO to import fruit loops and lucky charms.

We finished our shop about an hour after they were supposedly closed, but there were still tons of people in the store, so we stopped on our way out for the requisite COSTCO cafe snack, and then shoehorned in all of our food - it was basically at a complete max in there! Its very handy being able to get the roof out of the way to load stuff in the backseats!

Headed home and unpacked the food, shoving here, there, and everywhere, and then pulled out our favourite purchase of the day - whomever says that you don't need an eight foot blowup Santa Claus this holiday season is lying to you!!!
We're going to put this handsome devil up on the roof outside my bedroom window - as soon as we get some rope from the office to tie me up to as I scurry around out there - I might be quite happy to stand around on a cantering horse, but I'm not stupid! :)

After we got ol St. Nick installed in his temporary location, we settled in to start eating our way through six months of food, and watched Zoolander, which was some good, stupid fun :)

Anyway, there's not so much to say about a trip to Costco (this one was multi storeyed instead of absolutely sprawling!), but that about sums up the day...

D.