JVlog #5: SOGO Food Hall & Malls

Good Day Everyone,

I typically try and post a video on a Friday but this past week has been a little tough. The weather has been incredibly cold in our part of Japan. Yesterday I woke up to a blanket of snow and it rained all day. The wind was the icy, migraine inducing kind, so I went about my day wearing my winter beanie. All this cold wet weather has taken a toll on my arthritic joints and as a result I've been in a lot more pain than usual. So I apologies for the quality of this video. My editing is not great, in fact its quite jerky in places. All this tech stuff is new to me and I'm learning as I go, so please bear with me :o)

In this video, we take you around the food hall in the SOGO department store. Typically, most malls and department stores in Japan have a food hall in the basement. Often there will be a fishmongers and a supermarket too. The actual restaurants tend to be on the higher floors. As you will see from the video, the food halls sell everything from fresh fruit juice, salads and cakes to bento boxes, sushi and chocolates. Everything is presented and packaged beautifully.

We also show you a few other interesting things such as the Bay Bike rental scheme...Think Boris Bikes in London and the free tissues that we are always being given. Japanese brands/companies give out free packets of tissues as a means of advertising. The tissue packets usually contain an information leaflet and tend to be branded. They actually come in really useful these days as with the cold weather one of us always has a runny nose ;o)

Dried mushrooms and fresh leeks and carrots from the market

One of the things that we love about Japan, and in particular Yokohama where we live, is that there is always something going on.There was a market of independent retailers at the Bay Quarter mall where we picked up some vegetables, dried mushrooms and tried some cherry blossom honey. It was delicious! The cars had changed again at the Nissan HQ Gallery and so we popped in to have a look. There was some sort of event going on at Nissan where people (when I say people, it was predominantly grown men ;o)) were bring in their own remote control cars to race against each other at a track that had been assembled.

We ended the day by having a bit of an impromptu facial at a place that my friend had told me about which was very relaxing. On our way home we popped into Kaldi Coffee Farm which sells a range of specialist foods and drinks, including imported brands. The great thing about shopping at Kaldi is that a member of staff always greets you at the entrance with a free cup of hot coffee and on this particular day they were giving out free chocolates to try too. You really can't beat Japanese hospitality :o)

I hope you enjoyed this insight into our life in Japan and once again I'm sorry about the not so great quality of this weeks video.

Love Sheen xxx