Most of the time we go grocery shopping together as a couple, and my wife does the shopping while looking at the ingredients and planning the menu. It's the kind of thing that my wife could do on her own, but apparently there are times when she has trouble being alone. She can tell what vegetables, fish, meat and so on by looking at them, but she can't understand what they are because the labels of other ingredients are written in Japanese. So she is in trouble if she don't go with me.
For example, when she goes to buy flour to make a cake, she does not know which flour is for the cake. For example, when she went to buy flour for pancake mix, she couldn't tell which one was the right one because it had a picture on the bag, but ordinary flour did not have a picture. The bag of Nisshin Flour has "flower" written in katakana, so my wife can read "furawa" on it. But she can't connect it to the English word "flour". Furthermore, there are two kinds of flour, strong flour and light flour, and my wife doesn't know which one we should buy.
I can read Japanese so I know what it is, but I often don't know what it is called in English. And I had no idea what the difference between light and strong flours is. So I'm not sure if I'm really helping my wife.
Well, I can do a little bit of research on my phone, so now my phone is indispensable for shopping.
I'm in charge of the basket while shopping and I'm in charge of paying the bill at the register.
After paying the cashier, we put the bags in the bagging table (this table is called a soccer table, apparently. The moment I put my shopping cart on the platform for packing the bags (this platform is called a soccer table (it's meaning Luggage making stand)in Japan, unlike soccer, which is a sport), my wife and I began to compete with each other.
My wife tries to put more and more heavy things in her bag. It seems that my wife is thinking about me and she tries not to make me carry anything heavy.
I can't say I'm thankful for that. But I am also a Japanese man. I can't let a woman carry something heavy.
So the race to pack bags breaks out there. So our packing of bags is over in a flash.
The winner of the competition was, well, about 50-50. But when the competition was over, we all went home together. Congratulations to them.
