I wish you could have seen us. Well, maybe it's better you didn't.
On our way home from our bi-yearly OMF International prayer day we decided to stop at Ikea. With it's bright, bold colors and Papa-Bear-sized furniture and affordable household items, Ikea is my favorite shop. It's about as close as we can get to an American Wal-Mart or Target. Since traveling around Tokyo is money and time consuming we often consolidate trips. From home, a trip to Ikea costs about $10 round trip with an hour commute by train and foot each way. It made sense to stop by on our way home from visiting OMF's office on the other side of Tokyo.
Let me remind you that we have to carry what we buy; which is good, because you can only carry so much. Although today, we seemed to forget that. Somehow I seemed to fill my over sized $1 plastic Ikea bag with needed lamps, rugs and garbage cans. I guess my eyes were bigger than my biceps.
Add to that, 2 hot pizzas to go. I mean who can pass up stopping at Costco since it is at the same train station. I knew I would face hungry teenage boys with basketball-practice-sized appetites waiting at home and didn't want to arrive empty handed.
And add to that, Tim needed to go directly to church for English class because we were running out of time. That meant a hungry hubby with no dinner. Well, we already were a sight on the train with our big Ikea bag and our 2 big boxes of hot pizza. (Yes, the whole train car smelled like a pizza restaurant.) So, what do we do? We tried to take out 2 pieces of gooey, not-very-well-cut pizza out of the now soggy cardboard boxes balancing on our knees.
First of all, I've never seen Japanese carry take-out pizza on the train...And now I know why. It's smelly (the good kind though...I think the smiling granny with blue hair sitting across from us would have taken a bite if we had offered it) and it's terribly awkward (granted I was trying to type away on my computer to meet a prayer article deadline). We kept reminding ourselves we would never see those train passengers again so it was ok that we're very "Japanese" who ride the train as quietly and as unnoticed as possible.
Well, we made it. Tim to church for English class, with a pizza dinner snack tucked away under his arm. And I made it home with computer, Ikea treasures and not-too-squashed-pizza in tow. But only after a fare amount of huffing, puffing and shuffling the 10 minute walk home from the train station. Whew, it sure felt further than that.
All in a day of the life of a missionary living in Tokyo (who likes to shop at Ikea and eat Costco pizza).
