Friday Fragments

Yesterday I did more than just ride to the park and take photos. I rode home via a large road that has lots of shops along it. I'm looking for a case for my camera, and stopped at a couple of secondhand stores along the way, which is always fun. I didn't find any reasonably priced camera cases that I liked, but I did see these:

Very fun. I find myself wondering if I could find a use for one of them, because they're so cute! I'd go back in a flash if I could just think of a good reason...

This next photo is from the park. What do you think these are? (I'm waiting to see your answer in comments below or on Facebook, if you're a FB friend.)

One of the other stores I went to is a discount store. Not one of my favourites because it induces visual and auditory overload. The idea, I think, is that they stuff the store with goods and people get a thrill looking for "just the thing". But there is so much stuff! I took a short video to give you the idea of not just the visual, but the auditory (turn the volume up to get the true effect). There was at minimum two different sound tracks playing, often more, depending on where you were standing (lots of shops in Japan have motion-sensored audio recordings that play when you walk past them plus the general shop songs as well as other seemingly random tracks urging you to buy various products you might be located near).

They also had these for sale! Um, no thanks.

I guess the below goes with the above? I showed the boys and they wanted to know what a "girdle" was.

Now this is the ladies rest room. I guess this is where stressed customers and staff go when they are feeling overwhelmed by the store. REALLY a rest room. Pity there were no sofas!

The beautiful tiles even extended to the toilet cubicles!

So this IS titled Friday Fragments. My Friday contribution is a random happening at a coffee shop. I'd planned to do three things this morning: go to an hour-long prayer meeting  at school, the doctor to get more asthma meds, and groceries. 

I ended up staying longer after the prayer meeting to help a new mum figure out how to apply for base clearance to come to track and field meets at the US base in April/May. Time well spent!

Then I spent two hours waiting at the doctor and pharmacy for my meds. Thankfully I had my phone and internet access, so I got some little jobs done while sitting there (like a meeting rescheduled, a couple of small emails sent etc., even the bare bones of a couple of blog posts).

By then I was feeling a bit flaky, so I decided to stop for a coffee at my favourite local coffee shop before going on for groceries. It brought back a special memory of doing the same thing with my mum on occasion, when doing errands with her on a Friday morning.

While I was there, I was again on FB when I saw a message from a great friend (my matron of honour). There was a spare seat across from me and I thought it would have been fantastic if she'd been able to join me for coffee (she lives in Wagga Wagga in Australia). Well, we managed to connect up, via Video call on Facebook! What a sweet surprise for us both. It's been months since we've actually chatted. Precious blessings.

"I will send down showers in season; there will be showers of blessing." (Ezekiel 31:26 NIV)