Japan-Day 8

View Photos Here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/mommydanna/JapanDay8?feat=directlink

The kids and I had a pretty quiet day today. Gracie has come down with flu and spent the entire day in bed with a fever. I helped Karen get her new I-Touch up and running, as well as her new terabyte hard drive and USB port replicator. We installed I-tunes and Picasa and made some practice runs at uploading and syncing music.

Scott ventured out with John on a 15 mile bike ride (one way) to a local brewery. They bucked some serious cold, head winds on the way out but then flew home after enjoying a nice lunch.

Gemma took some pictures at the grocery store with her new camera. She was fascinated by all the fish.

I stopped at the drugstore and had an interesting experience trying get help finding some medicine for Gracie. The shelves are stocked so similiarly to a US drugstore that you can practically find the product by location and the color of the packaging. Once I got into the general vicinity I was able to ask the pharmacist for a recommendation on brand and ingredients. The Japanese can take their children to a doctor for free for the first 5 years so they don't tend to buy over-the-counter meds at a drugstore. Consequently, there isn't much of a selection but I was able to find some "vicks type" chest rub and what I "think" is an expectorant!

I also picked up some Japanese baby food snacks. Again, it's amazing to me how they have such similar "concepts" but totally different products and manufacturers. So it's not like they have Gerber baby food with a Japanese label, it's almost all totally different, just organized in a similar fashion. You do see some US brands (the big ones) but not as many as I expected to see.