Okaasan and Me - Girls' Shopping Trip.......

I did it!!!!!
She did it!!!
A supermarket in south Sapporo is Y8,000 better for it......
Yujiro will have kittens when he sees what she bought. Oh, he already HAS kittens.

The box of Osechi ingredients.....Y8,000 worth of stuff!

Here it is is. What Okaasan managed to snaffle up in the 40 minutes I let her roam almost at will around the posh supermarket in the southern suburbs. Like a magician who subtly directs the audience-assistant, I actually managed to stop her wandering down all the aisle in the middle of the shop and steered her round the edges - from vegetables, to fish paste, to fish, to noodles, and out via cheap ramen and sweet sake...with a brief detour to organic garlic...oh...and spinach!

Almost thought we weren't going 20 minutes before scheduled Lift-Off when Okaasan said she thought December 28 was a bit early to be New Year food shopping...and suggested going on December 31st instead. With about 1.9 million other Sapporo residents on the last minute panic before Year End.

I strongly said: No way....it's today!!

And so we went. Just 20 minutes from the house. The big Tokou Store at Jeitai-mae, which has mounds of food from all over the world and nice helpful salespeople who apparently know the difference between this seaweed and that.

Okaasan LOVED it. As she took charge of the shopping trolley at the entrance her face lit up in a big smile and she switched into Super Housewife mode round the store. I followed carrying the box and dissuading her from a few purchases...and mentally calculating what it was all going to cost.

So we have: TWO packs of fish paste, pink and white (each costing over Y1,000 alone), then taro yams, radish, water lily tuber, carrots, herring roe, octopus, water chestnuts, soba, mushrooms, burdock root, ginkgo nuts, seaweed, sweet bean paste.....etc

Managed to stop her at lily bulbs and salmon and more fish paste.

She examined every single thing carefully, whether it was from Japan or not. Whether it was from Hokkaido or not. Whether the farmer had washed behind his ears or not...

And so. We are VERY set for the next week eating.

Mind you: I spent about Y10,000 on Christmas food and drink for me, so it's only fair that Okaasan's end of year festival is a celebration of food.

WHO is going to cook it all? Me and her tomorrow????

Anyway. Big success. We drove home and Okaasan chose ramen for lunch so I slid into a parking space at a branch of a local popular place and we sat companionably at the counter slurping noodles and pork slices together.

You don't have to talk much while eating ramen, and there are people behind you waiting - so it isn't a place to linger.

Okaasan...get THIS....even grabbed my arm twice to point out signed name boards by some famous person who'd been to the restaurant - a gesture which very surprised me, because it's the kind of thing you do to a girlfriend really...Japan isn't a touching society at all and Okaasan has never grabbed my arm before.

Amazing what a little shopping therapy will do!

Now I just have to face Yujiro will over Y8,000 worth of food. He is home tonight.....