Aladdin

Today I spent the day preparing and trying to sort out essentials for my room. I'm almost finished now but I needed to buy a hoover and I wanted to get a rice cooker.

My rationale being that I can make rice and stir fry most nights for an easy meal! Having been shopping for a few essentials already, my friend suggested going to a second hand shop to see about getting a rice cooker and hoover. Electronics second hand here in Japan are usually in very good shape so I decided to follow her advice. As it seemed like fun, we decided to meet up to have a look round the store.

There were two suggestions she'd sent me, but the first one grabbed my attention and it had to with a name like 'Aladdin'! So, we headed down there and when we arrived, I found to my delight that it was also a vintage store.

There were loads of interesting oddities inside - I realise now, disappointingly, that I never got any pictures! I was just staring at everything. There was a drinks caddy which was a small car, it had two shot glasses on the back and held a decanter inside and could be moved. It seemed that it originally had a wind up motor to propel it too but that wasn't working anymore - how badly I wanted it!

I managed to stick to the essentials though, and if you know me, that is no mean feat itself! I got my rice cooker and hoover and we wandered off to find a cafe for a quick drink to quench our thirst after exploring the shop.

After that, we both went to the supermarket as we both needed to shop. I was bemused by the sheer amount of choice for each product - whole aisles were dedicated just for iced tea alone! Luckily, I had my guide with me, Amy has lived in Japan for a few years now and can navigate the store without being bowled over by the sheer vastness and novelty of it all!

Having successfully completed our shopping, we parted ways and I returned to try and tidy up my flat which by now was a veritable hovel. At the time of writing this blog, it is still a work in progress!