Playing piano
with dogs ten feet away
is unexpected
Oh crazy Kit Kat
bring me good fortune today
and please taste OK
Today after work Aykut and I were looking to do something other than just head home on the train, but we didn't want to be out super late on a weeknight. I suggested we go check out the special Kit Kat store/section of the Seibu department store that is in the train station we go through every day. If you're unaware Kit Kat culture is completely different here than it is anywhere. In fact, I don't think you'd say "Kit Kat Culture" exists anywhere else. In Japanese they say "Kitto Katto" which sounds a lot like "Kitto Katsu", meaning "sure to win" or something like that. As a result, it is common to buy or give Kit Kats for luck, especially before something like a big exam. There are also a ridiculous amount of flavours here, most of which don't involve chocolate. Green Tea Kit Kats have started to make their way to Canada, mostly in Japanese or Asian stores, but here there have been more than 200 flavours. Some of them are insane/disgusting, such as mushroom flavour or soy sauce flavour. Others are just curious, like sweet potato flavour, or chili flavour. So far I've only been able to try green tea, raspberry and now cream cheese. The store in Seibu only had three flavours, as they just stock the current special flavours created by some Kit Kat master, demi-god fellow. People fill up whole baskets even though the Kit Kats are quite expensive there. They also have a Kit Kat chandelier and sell a box set which comes with a Kit Kat and a CD. The three on offer today were wrapped in really special packaging. They were chili, sakura (cherry blossom) and green tea flavour, and cream cheese. I bought the cream cheese one, which was alright. It smelled quite cheesy. So far the best I've tried is the raspberry. It smells delightful and tastes really good and very much like real raspberries.
After checking out the Kit Kat area Aykut and I figured it made sense to check out some of the rest of the store. The first floor was great, as there were lots of free samples, which we tried while old ladies stared at us or explained what we were eating in Japanese. The floor has about any kind of sweet you could imagine, a large alcohol section and a never-ending perfume and cosmetics section. Then we went up to the eighth floor and I checked out the baseball gear and some other sports stuff. I even used a muscle rolling stick and a foam roller. I was starting to love the store. The maps you have to read to find your way around the store showed that there were only eight floors, yet we realized that there was another escalator heading up even higher. So Aykut and I went up some more, and found that one the ninth floor there is a music section with pianos, ukuleles and guitars. Aykut sat down and started playing a piano. I checked out the ukuleles then carried on about ten feet, just around the corner. I was shocked to find an enclosure full of puppies. I turned to Aykut and said "What would you say if I told you that you were about 10-15 feet from a bunch of puppies right now?" "What?!" he replied and sprang up from the piano bench. We checked out the super cute puppies and some birds before Aykut decided to sit back down and play some more piano. I warned him that he shouldn't play too long and told him that I'm pretty sure we lived here now. You really could too. You'd never have to leave the store for anything.
While Aykut jammed out I decided to head up the escalator yet again, to the tenth floor of the eight floor building. Turns out there are three more floors, which are a completely different store. The only changes you notice are that the escalator railing changes colour from Seibu blue to Loft yellow, and the staff are wearing yellow aprons all of a sudden. Loft is a cool craft store, that also sells all sorts of other stuff, in case you couldn't find it on one of the eight above ground floors of Seibu, or the basement that has just about every food known to man, or the several sub-basements, or the mystery ninth floor that sells pianos and puppies and has no information as to which store it actually belongs to.
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