100 Yen Store!

First, let me apologize for not updating as often as I would like!  As much as I would love to run around Japan seeing all the sights the United States Air Force has other plans for me most of the time.  The work schedule at my new unit is quite erratic and we're fairly short-manned so I have been working a lot of long days and weekends.  There does seem to be a light at the end of the tunnel in a few months, so hopefully I'll have a lot more fun things to write about then!  For today though, I want to post some pictures of a Japanese 100￥ store!

The Japanese 100 yen shop is the same thing as an American dollar store and they have them in just about every mall or shopping area.  This hundred yen shop is in the Miss Veedol plaza.  Misawa was famous back in the 30's because it was the western end of the first non-stop trans-pacific flight.   The Miss Veedol took off from Misawa and landed in Washington State.  Hence, a lot of things around Misawa are named after this historic plane.

They have all sorts of sections like books and stationary, household goods, cleaning stuff, just about everything you would find in an American dollar store.  I want to get some of the bowls and dishes for around the house when I actually start getting my overseas allowances.

I bought my niece a bunch of coloring books and random stuff from here.  I even bought her a little Hello Kitty bank that I put some yen coins in and then realized the only way to get the coins out is to cut it open!  She is even getting some Hello Kitty surgical masks in case she gets a late spring cold!

There is an arcade in the Miss Veedol plaza. There are arcades everywhere in Japan.  The arcades are HUGE, way bigger than an American arcade, and way more seizure/migraine inducing. 

This is just a fun sign I saw at the mall.  A lot of the English in advertisements is pretty poor or just totally random!  I'm betting this one is false advertising.

It's been snowing a lot again, these pics are from my drive to work this past Saturday when we got about 5 inches.  It all melted off that weekend but we've gotten about another 6 so far today and it's supposed to snow all night.  You can see what I was talking about when I said they don't plow off base.  The drive to work at 0430 in the morning should be a lot of fun!