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Why a trip to the garden centre takes me too long.

Although I've been studying japanese for 7 years and living here for two, shopping can get exhausting.

So there's 3 different alphabets used here..
The first two are relatively easy phonetics, however it's sometimes confusing cause of the pronunciation.
For example - vermiculite is spelled γƒγƒΌγƒŸγ‚­γƒ₯γƒ©γ‚€γƒˆ - pronounced baa mi kyu rai to.
It sometimes takes a while to understand what it's trying to pronounce, even though this alphabet almost always is foreign words.

The other alphabet is from Chinese. Thank god for smart phones with dictionaries! so I can find out η ‚ means sand. And I already knew 川 means river. But then you actually have to try recognise it out of the hundreds of products available.

Eventually, I managed to get what I need.

Dtfwa.jpg


川 η ‚ - kawasuna - river sand.
Left to right ::
γƒγƒΌγ‚―γŸγ„θ‚₯ - baakutaihi - bark compost
γƒ‘γƒΌγƒ©γ‚€γƒˆ - paaraito - perlite
γƒ”γƒΌγƒˆγƒ’γ‚Ή - piitomosu - peat moss
γƒγƒΌγƒŸγ‚­γƒ₯γƒ©γ‚€γƒˆ - baamikyuraito - vermiculite.

Luckily, magnesium lime was written in English. Job done!
 
Smallest bag of sand they had was ten litres.. Sadly the train was packed and I had to travel clutching a sand bag through tokyo.
 
Smallest bag of sand they had was ten litres.. Sadly the train was packed and I had to travel clutching a sand bag through tokyo.

Hmmm. I guess you can't really toss everything in the back of a pickup in Tokyo, can you? That would take some getting used to.
 
I don't have a car.. It costs more than its worth when the transport network is so good.
Unless there's an earthquake. Having a car is great. But people argue and bargain over gasoline rations. Been there, seen that.
 
Sadly I spent the evening with vermiculite stuck in my sinuses cause I set a plant for overwintering. Mask next time!
 
You think shopping's bad? Try conjugating a verb when you're half crapfaced and the rest of the group are nationals. Ha!

Something you rarely see in Japan is middle aged women. Most of the females out in public are young or very old. Beautiful people, beautiful culture. I would love to go back and spend some time there. Riding the trains wasn't a problem for me, I'm huge compared to them and it wasn't that difficult to find a spot to stand. I've seen it so packed that small kids could actually lift their feet up without falling.
 
Normal conversation isn't a problem. I lived in the countryside last year, barely anyone speaks English so I had to constantly use what I had learned. I relax more after drinking and making a sentence becomes much easier.

I know a lot of middle aged women, but they are either working hard or don't hit the town after work.
 
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