Now, why would an enormous globally present supermarket warrant a blog post of its own?
Because it was a trip away from home and because I’ve never been to one. Ever!
My lovely friend Tere, was kind enough to offer to drive me to Costco so I could to stock up on essentials such as toilet roll and Western food. Toilet roll is very thin here, and is only sold in packets of two. We have three toilets in our house so it runs out rapidly. Half a roll equals the same, erm... absorbency as a few sheets of Andrex.
OK, too much information there! On with the trip...
After we’d dropped our children off at school, I got into Tere’s car for an interesting drive. Tere is from Costa Rica and drives like a true Latino. Which means that when she found herself in the wrong lane, she thought nothing of driving over the zebra crossing in order to get into the correct lane. Numerous times she stopped to jab the GPS as it was giving conflicting information – allegedly. I must admit to closing my eyes a couple of times, but we reached Costco intact.
Then she said, “Of course, Costco only take American Express or cash, do you have AmEx?”
Uhhh, NO! And I don’t have much cash either!! Oh dear. It looks like I won’t be bulk buying after all.
Costco was as large as an aircraft hanger and spanned two floors. What an experience! Huge trays of meat, sacks of fruit and veg and a staggering number of, mostly American, foodstuffs. Crates of wine and many other enticing articles were out of my reach having no means of paying for them.
Luckily, all the items were labelled in English as well as Japanese but I nearly made a terrible mistake. Boxes of sugar were displayed alongside other white granules. I grabbed what I thought was granulated sugar, then, as an afterthought, read the label... it was Monosodium Glutamate! Eeeew!!
But I did stock up on cat food and cat litter, plus some lovely bread and a few other bits and pieces.
And I bought a giant pack of toilet paper.
