Electronics

Now that we're living in Japan our kids have cable TV for the first time in their lives! (Without it there are no English channels at all.) They are enthralled with the Disney channel and the Cartoon Network. Sabrina the Teenaged Witch, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck, Lilo and Stitch, and Curtis the Cowardly Dog, and Kim Possible are favorites...actually anything that is about to come on when I make them turn it off is their favorite!

This weekend we decided to go buy a DVR. We'd heard of an electronics store called Jochim and had passed by one on our way to church. Matt was very proud of himself for being able to navigate there on his own without using our very tempermental GPS unit! Once we got there we were all amazed at the extent and variety of the electronics available. Matt said that he never knew there were so many things he needed! The kids found these....

As far as we could tell these were horse riding simulators!

Only in Japan! Laura spent 20 minutes testing out the buttons on the full body massage chair.

We picked out a modestly priced ($700.00!) DVR and Matt managed to indicate to the clerk what we wanted and to pay for it. Unfortunately, after spending hours trying to figure out the Japanese directions and searching online for English directions, Matt finally determined that it won't work with our cable system. Instead, we can get recording capablity through our cable system for about $10 a month! Now we have to figure out if we can return electronics in Japan. Tough to ask when we can't speak Japanese...can anyone think of a good way to pantomime "return"? (Actually, the women at the front desk of our building are wonderful with this kind of thing. They'll translate what we want to say and write it down for us. They also help us figure out what the mail that we receive is!)