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This country is ridiculously expensive. I know, I know, of course Japan is expensive; everyone knows Japan is expensive. But yesterday I saw another side to it. I went grocery shopping yesterday (not for the first time in this country mind you), and they don't have those big carts that you could put a months worth of groceries in. First of all no one could afford to buy that many groceries at one time. And second of all, no one has the space to store all of those groceries in their house. They have the little baskets that you carry and special little carts designed to hold one of the little baskets.

So I grabbed a basket and a little cart and set off. Grocery shopping is interesting, because I never know exactly what I am getting. I just look at the picture and decide if I think its pretty and buy it based on that. Because nothing has much English on the package. The only English I can ever find is something unimportant like the expiration date, or where it was made. So unhelpful.

And another difficulty with grocery shopping is that I don't always know what to do with whatever I buy. Therefore, I ended up buying a lot of pre-packaged food, which adds to my cost. I don't know how to cook this food without directions and without knowing what it is. I am going to have to go ahead and buy it one day and take it to school and ask my Japanese co-workers, what to do with it.

So I filled up my little basket and proceeded to the checkout. I was watching the woman in front of me and she had one full basket as well. I saw her total . . . 5400 yen, about $54, and I thought, "mine can't possibly be that much." Well the cashier started to ring up my purchases and the total was a whopping 4500yen. I thought, to myself, "What in the world $45 on that!!!" Well, what could I do, but pay and carry my heavy groceries the half-mile back home. On the way back to the apartment, I promised myself that this was going to last me for two weeks. And last it will.