Shopping can be scary

One thing commonly mentioned by missionaries about shopping when they return to their home country is the cereal aisle. Unless a missionary has been working in a Western country, usually their access to cereals has been minimal and the variety available in their passport country is bewildering. 

But honestly I find most aisles overwhelming. The average grocery store in Australia feels at least 10 times larger than the usual stores I shop at in Japan. I'm terrible at estimating area, so I could be wrong, but that's what it feels like. In Japan over the last four years I've shopped at two main shops each week, both of which I can get through in between 10 to 15 minutes, for a usual shopping trip (which fits onto my bike, about three big bags).

Because I usually shop in small stores, there usually isn't much choice between products, which makes shopping very easy and fast, and with minimal brain power needed. Here the choice on most things is much larger, so for many items on my list, I'm comparing prices, quality, size, etc. It's exhausting for a "newbie". 

My Australian pantry is gradually
taking shape through my slow
persistence at the grocery store.

Avoiding multiple grocery stores

I know some of you will also tell me that shopping at Aldi is cheaper, but I have a problem with that too. At least if I go to one of the larger grocery chains, I can get all my groceries in one fell swoop, which is about all I've got the energy for at this stage. In Japan I get my fill of shopping around to find products (not even the cheapest product, but just the product). 

Cereal in Tokyo is the classic example of having to shop around. So much so, that David's been taking care of cereal shopping in recent years, because none of the usual things we consume are in the two stores I frequent. And often it requires more than one store to find all that we desire to buy, which can extend a grocery shop quite a good deal, even on a bike between relatively close shops. And then every now and then what's on the shelf changes, and we have to go hunting around other stores to find what we want. 

Meat is another example. One shop in our city has good mince (ground beef), but it's not a shop I usually frequent, so it means a special trip on top of the usual shops I visit (because a bike can only fit so much food and when you're feeding young men, the volume of food we go through isn't small).

Other service-providers can be challenging too

And then there's other shops in Australia, that should be fine...after all we're speaking in English, aren't we? We're used to paying in cash in Japan, so it's different paying by card all the time, and a tad scary. At least if you're paying in cash you know how much you have. I did have some extra cash to use (exchanged from yen we had leftover in Japan and came in our wallets), and I wasn't sure how easily most shops would accept cash, so that made me feel a bit nervous.

Because I look and sound Australian, I can't play the "card" I sometimes need in Japan: the foreigner who doesn't know everything she needs to. In Japan people expect me to sometimes slip up, here I don't get that excuse. Strangely, it's sometimes uncomfortable to be considered a local (hence expert) but not really be one.

I don't think anyone noticed, but the other day I slipped up at the doctors. In Japan, after your consultation, you sit down and wait until the receptionist calls you with the bill. Apparently you don't do that in Australia—you queue at the reception desk until they serve you. But a couple of weeks ago it took a while of my observing others to pick up the cue!

Good experience this week

But let’s end on a positive note. On Tuesday we all went to the Dept. of Main Roads. One of us was getting a learner’s permit, one was getting adult photo ID, and the other two were getting the photo Main Roads had of us updated (for a Child Safety permit application). I was blown away by how efficient it was (and I have been before). Japan is lots of great things, but efficiency when it comes to driver’s licences isn’t one of them.