Shop 'til you droooooooooop.

Happy Mother's Day - in Japan.
We went.....SHOPPPPPING.


And how.
Shoes, a bag, trousers and yet another pink scarf.
And sushi dinner.


Quite a day out. Okaasan loved it. She adores department stores, she comes alive with all that musac, and displays and people and light.
Yujiro and I? Fishes out of water. Neither of us ever go near a department store.


We hit the store late afternoon to give Okaasan a Mother's Day outing.
Two hours of solid shopping, actually easier than we'd feared because she wanted new versions of what she already had: same black, laces shoes; same little, black nylon shoulder bag, same black trousers...and another pink scarf.
So, once we'd realized she wanted "the same" it made it (slightly) easier for us and the sales assistants to hunt it down and show Okaasan her options. She was actually pretty definite about what she wanted and liked.

My idea of hell: a department store packed with shoppers...

But.


We had to keep Okaasan on the right path: dementia in a shopping experience makes you do strange things, I bet many, many shoplifters are actually dementia sufferers.


She held onto something, or wore something and wander off and focused on something else...while sales assistants got stressy ;she picked up and looked at the same thing, with the same comments all over again; she forgot that the sales woman had gone off to get a different size/color and started to to choose other things or leave that section of the shop; and she didn't  know which displays we'd already looked at or not....


And of course: at 82 - shopping is exhausting. By the time we got to the black trousers and the changing room without a chair poor Okaasan was exhausted.
The final sales assistant and I actually put the trousers selection on AND off Okaasan slipping it under her skirt as she was standing out in the shop, because I don't think she could have managed alone in a changing room.


But she loved it all. That was the most important thing. She was mainly animated and laughing and happy.
And she got new clothes to replace the slightly tatty stuff she has, the shoes with holes in them, the scuffed old bag, the shiny nylon trousers.


I wonder if she will use the new things? Or keep them for "a special occasion"? I think the trousers are too tight in fact, because she is a bit fat now with all our cooking , her constant snacking and less exercise.,


We rounded it all off at a popular revolving sushi place in the station complex, where Okaasan sat next to Yujiro and did her usual complaining about "XXX hasn't come yet, has it?", minutes after eating XXXX. It's a giggle...she really doesn't remember that she just ate XXXX. Does it every time.


And we came home to collapse. 

All shopped out. One happy Okaasan. Yes, she IS in this picture!!!!

Prizes of aloe yogurts and Taiwan bananas to the first people to spot her.

My next duty: to get the Daimaru bags and boxes, and the old shoes/bag/pants OUT of there.

Somehow.