At the electronics store. Mission: Lighting.

While shopping this weekend, I also checked out the electronics store. The one closest to me is a chain store called Eiden. There is also one called Yamada Denki a little further off, which has better prices, I didn't want to drive out to it. To, to Eiden it was, and wading through the crowds and blaring theme song music, I finally got to the aisles of shiney goodies.

The mission: Get a lamp to replace he one that went out in the kitchen. Difficulty level: Relatively easy, since it was a matter of writing down the letters and numbers on the existing lamp and playing a matching game at the store. The trouble was, there were a few that matched! Did I want the green one, the red one, or the brown one? Natural light, blue light, or bright lighting? What company? Gaaaah!

In the end, I went with the one on sale. :) 2 for 880 yen, not bad! (The others were selling for 1400 yen for a set.)

Ta-daaaa!

It helps when buying electronic-ish items in Japan like lights, wires, etc. to have the previous one in hand so you can just hand it to a nice floor salesman and ask him (or her) for the same thing. If you're feeling really confident about your Japanese skills, you can ask them to explain the differences between the products and what their recommendation is. But only if you understand what they're saying or have enough time to sort it out with a mix of the two languages and gestures. Most of the electronic stuff has English terms, so if you have an ear for Katakana English, then you should be set!

Or you could sit down with a dictionary and try to guess what the pictures mean.

On the way out, they had a gachapon machine with one of my favorite series (Natsume Yuujinchou). I couldn't resist. Ended up getting a weird meld of the cat mascot character and a fish. Hmm.....

They're everywhere.

Nyan-ko Sensei!! <3