Japanese Baseball, Costco, and City!

Well we certainly had an adventurous weekend! On Saturday we went to a local minor league baseball game in the afternoon. Parking was in a gravel field run by an older Japanese man and woman trying to pack in as many little boxy Japanese cars as possible. First the man told us we could park in one place and the woman came over frantically telling him we can't park there (I'm assuming because it was all in Japanese). So they had us move over by a hill that led down into another lot below the top lot we were initially in. They basically told Chris to park on the hill and though we were unsure, they walked away and never returned! Chris tried backing up the hill to go back out but the van kept slipping on the wet grass and couldn't gain enough traction. So we ended up eventually going down, very carefully as there was a drop off on the left side toward the bottom. Yikes! Then we went back around and found the man and woman who let us back in (since we had already paid) and they pointed us to a spot...not sure why they didn't point us there in the first place! We walked a ways to the field where we joined a group of Marines from Chris's squadron. Chris and I were mostly chasing and managing the kids. Somehow the rain ditch drains were way more interesting to them than the game. Finley was a nightmare and we actually had to just leave eventually because his tantrums got something fierce. 

From where we were, we could still drive just over an hour to Hiroshima to finally go to Costco. Directions and traffic, especially in a bigger city, are stressful enough without a language barrier and shady directions. We did make it though! They have a parking garage and you take your cart down this moving sidewalk. The cart has magnets that stick to the walking sidewalk as you descend to the entrance. There were a fair amount of standard items, though not as many as I had hoped, and of course a whole bunch of Japanese options. For some reason they didn't have frozen chicken breasts this time. Our friends that were there at the same time told us that's unusual because that's always where they've bought their chicken. I was pretty bummed they didn't have some of the Kirkland items I usually purchase like diapers and my shampoo. The Japanese don't really eat bread like we do and the bread you do get is a big square loaf, sometimes cut the width of Texas toast or not cut at all. Almost every shopping basket we saw there had those dinner rolls though! They had interesting choices like cow tongue and octopus among a large variety of seafood and strange Japanese foods I've never heard of. There's also a ton of pork selection too as that is more common than beef here. The only place we've seen a gallon of milk is the commissary because they don't consume a whole lot of dairy either. When we got to the register we learned they only accept Yen, not our debit card. Let's stand out some more as we hold up the line! Thank God our friend had enough Yen to spot us so we could get through the line and not make an even bigger spectacle of ourselves. 

When you exit Costco, they have an enclosed food court off to the side where we were graced with the familiar pizza, hot dogs, and churros. They also had a new citrus smoothie that was delicious. They had salad in a cup and clam chowder--no ciabatta sandwich or chicken caesar salad. Because they only take Yen, I had to walk a block to the 7-11 to use their ATM. Not all ATMs in town accept American cards and thankfully 7-11 does and there are plenty of them everywhere. The big baseball stadium in Hiroshima, which is right next to Costco, had a game that evening so the city was quite populated and boy did I stick out and get stared down on my way to 7-11. Not only that, but our two American families sitting in the food court together were quite the sight. Finley is certainly a main attraction everywhere we go and such a ham about it! 

As we were trying to leave Hiroshima to head back home, I was driving and our map app was giving us some squirrely directions down alleys that were somehow two-way, plus it was dusk and then dark making it harder to get a sense of direction. Talk about overwhelmed! Long story short, we made it home in about 2.5 hours (about an hour and a half longer than it should have taken) and I was on the verge of tears in frustration. Culture shock day #1 down in the books, or blog as it would be!