today we went to one of marukai's 98 cent stores. it's better than your typical $1 store because most of the crap is japanese AKA more interesting so i'm more likely to buy crap. i went there in the first place because i'm going to teach some basic travel japanese to twiddle thumbs and her sister for our trip in october. i wanted to pick up a couple of those small blank cards on a ring thing so i could put phrases on one side and the english on the other. all japanese use them for studying. all! you might see some kids in high school with them on their backpacks. well, at least at my high school with the heavy asian population. anyway, marukai did not have these, blasphemous! i suppose because it is the 98 cent store and so it's not really targeted for the japanese population. i bet if i went to the regular marukai store, i would've found what i was looking for in an instant. instead of getting those things i ended up getting a bunch of other crap instead. perusing the goods, i realized i could do a poor man's version of japanese decor if i wanted to. at least i could get all my dishes and other little shits for around the house. now if i only had a house...