PCK Shopping

PCK may makes you think the title of this entry stands for Phua Chu Kang. But I mean something different. PCK is actually "Pi Cari Kasut". Anyway, there is still some parts that have relations to that contractor from the small kiasu island. Today, I went looking for a pair of boots.

The reason that I am getting a pair of boots is because winter is here, and it will be snowing almost everyday very soon in this part of Japan. When it snows, the pathways will be covered with a layer of accumulated snows, which make it extremely hard for walking. Slippery is one thing, and another one would be the fact that our shoes will get wet very easily.

One thing about the boots in Japan is that they comes in many types of designs and colours, whereas in Malaysia, you will usually only come across those black boots used by farmers and rubber tappers. The various designs of boots that they have here sometimes make a person having some hard time deciding which one to pick from. In fact, they have boots specially tailored for small children with pictures of the cat without a mouth a.k.a Hello Kitty and the rat without a tail a.k.a Mickey Mouse printed of them.

Of course, I did not go for those designs. Instead, I just went for a normal one.

Soon, I will be wearing this to lectures .

If you notice the size of the boots, it is 3L. But that doesn't mean that I am wearing a XXXL sized boots. The size of clothings and shoes in Japan are in centimeters, instead of inches. 3L is around 28-28.5cm. I was actually looking around to see if there were any yellow boots around, but it came to no avail. Anyway, even if I were to wear a yellow boots here, I am quite sure nobody will know anything about PCK, wouldn't they?

Since it was already noon, we thought of having a lunch before heading back to our hostel. I mentioned "we", because I went out with my tutor today. He told me that there is a restaurant serving Chinese cuisine which is located at some blocks away from the station. Apparently, this restaurant specialises on Chinese dishes from the Shichuan province. There is a dish, called 麻婆丼 (Mabadon) which is said to be one of the specialties of this restaurant.

辛いの苦手の方は無理かも知れません

On the menu, it was written that this dish is extremely spicy and it is impossible for people who couldn't take spicy stuff to take this dish. But I was told that this dish is delicious and I thought that it is worth a try, although I can't really take spicy stuff to be honest.

When I took my first taste on it, it wasn't as hot as what that is written on the menu. Well, the Japanese just tend to over-emphasis things at times. This dish consists of rice, with topping of minced meat and tofu. The taste is of course spicy (pepper spicy, not Japanese curry spicy), with some sour feeling in between.

And by the way, back to my boots shopping, there was a lucky dip thing on. So I tried my luck although I know quiet well that it will be almost impossible for me to get those shopping vouchers worth thousands of yens. The method is a bit different where we got to turn a cylindrical shape thing until the small ball inside comes out from a tiny hole. And guess what I got from turning that thing.

At least it is better than nothing.