There's no place like home. . . or Tokyo

Dorothy said it best in The Wizard of Oz(1939) when she chanted the words, "There's no place like home. There’s no place like home...." Luckily for her, all she ever had to do was to click her heels together three times and her magical red slippers would warp her back into Kansas.

Living overseas in Japan without a pair of magical red slippers means that returning home isn’t always an easy task. Consequently, the opportunity to see friends and family and to eat loads of delicious western food doesn’t come too often either. While relying on Skype, e-mail and traditional mail have allowed me to keep tabs on friends and family, when it comes to food, sometimes the island cuisine just isn’t enough to satisfy my taste buds.

Getting off the island and into the city where I can get my hands on some tasty non-Japanese food isn’t all that difficult to manage, but even so big cities like Kagoshima still have their limitations. There is one place, however, that has it all. When it comes to selection and variety in Japan, there is no place in the country that has more to offer than Tokyo.

The last time I visited Koko in the big city we took a trip to Costco and it was great! We spent about 1/2 a day walking slowly down each aisle as I stopped to marvel over products such as: Crest toothpaste, big bagels, Budweiser, Doritos potato chips, Skippy chunky peanut butter and Tide with bleach.

After dropping some big yen and working up a big appetite in the process Koko and I went out to celebrate!! Later that same day we went Wendy's, Outback Steak House and finally to Baskin Robbins. It really was one of the best days of my life thus far in Japan!