The Grocery Store

So far I have made two independent excursions (excluding bike rides): one to the grocery store and one to the 100 Yen shop.  It may sound like a small feat, but not being able to communicate really has its downfalls.  For example, at the grocery store the cashier may ask you if you would like a bag or if you have a loyalty card or a number of other things.  I can tell that they have asked a question, because the sentence ends in “ka”, but that is all I can tell.  Drew just goes with the flow and will answer with the equivalent of “I’m okay”, “It’s okay”, etc.   I can’t help it but it really bothers me that I may be answering a yes or no question without a yes or no answer.  While I’m with Drew, I find myself scoping out the stores that ask the least amount of questions so that I can go there comfortably on my own.  Hopefully I'll develop a more nonchalant attitude and get over the fact that I'm going to be the stupid foreigner.   

We had a realization the other day while shopping.  Apparently, during our last time in Japan, we had been eating pork the whole time we thought we were eating beef.  You are probably wondering how someone could not notice the difference, but most recipes call for small, thin strips of meat, not a huge hunk where the texture and taste of the meat would be more obvious.  Drew discovered this, as I grabbed the sliced meat that I was planning to use for my upcoming beef recipes, when he noticed that the package said pork on it instead of beef.  Who knows what else we've actually been eating.  During our two years back home, Drew was studying up on his kanji (the alphabet where each character stands for a word) which has made him a helpful asset in the grocery store.  No more sugar/salt fiascoes in my future!