FEEL NEWS

This waking up before 6 a.m. thing is something it’s going to take time to get used to. Since my classes don’t start until 12:30 p.m., I have a lot of time to kill in the mornings.

So this morning I decided to head to the local supermarket, named FEEL NEWS… I’m not sure how one “feels” the news, or what it has to do with groceries, and I probably never will. Then again, I shop at a grocery store called Harris-Teeter, and sometimes I shop at Whole Foods. (But I don’t usually eat my foods whole.) So odd naming isn’t just a Japanese thing.

Anyway, it was around 9:30 or so, and I was thinking, “It should be open by now. It’s a supermarket, right?” I mean come on, the local Harris-Teeter is open 24/7. I can’t think of any respectable American grocery store that hasn’t gotten out of bed by 8 a.m.

So I walked in. The doors opened, I went up some stairs, and started walking around. Nobody said a word to me. Then after about 5 minutes, someone finally came and explained to me that the store was still closed.

*Sigh*

I guess that explains all the weird looks I was getting from the employees. It was just weird that nobody said anything to me for a while. Maybe it has something to do with being averse to telling a customer that he has made a rather large mistake? (A rather large mistake like not realizing that the store was still closed?)

I just have one question: if your store is closed, why do the doors open?

So I decided to go to the bookstore down the road. It was 9:45 a.m. by now. The sign on the door said that it opened at 9:30… but all of the windows were shuttered, and the staff was doing inventory on the floor. I didn’t even bother trying to find out if it’s open, because more than likely, it wasn’t.

I gave up and started to head back towards my dorm. On the way to the closed supermarket, I passed what looked like a small office supplies store that I thought was open. But when I came back to it on the way back, it was closed too, with a note scrawled on the door.

I’m sensing a trend.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and by the time classes are over at 3:30, I’ll make it just in time for everything to close.

Or at least for that memo about me to get around to everyone else.

Phone Stuff

I have the Internet, and my Estonian cell phone works.

I’m using the Softbank SIM card more often, because it’s cheaper for US people to call me in Japan than in Estonia… by about 2 orders of magnitude. In a pinch I can call out on the Estonian phone, because I read the fine manual and figured out how to use it. It’s online on the travelsimshop website. It’s a bit pricey to call out, but I can do it if I need to.

Another odd thing I saw during my morning walk– American-style houses sprouting up in new construction. Most of the houses I’ve seen here are very Japanese, very traditional. Not these. They look like something out of a Charlotte suburb.

Oh, I think I’ve almost figured out how to sort my trash. I’ll save that for later.