I like board games / I play board games / I have a board game

[dr4b]

Hey, do any of my friends in Tokyo have a Costco membership (mine lapsed), or know somewhere else that I can get American laundry detergent? I'm running out of my big bottle that I brought over here in March, and I really don't want to go back to using crappy Japanese detergent that doesn't get my clothes clean.

Tonight after work I went to the "view travel plaza" thingy in Akabane station and with the help of a travel agent, made my arrangements to go to Hiroshima this weekend. Whew. So I have a train ticket to go down on Saturday afternoon, a reservation at a business hotel near the station for Saturday night, a train ticket home for Sunday evening, and baseball tickets to Saturday night and Sunday afternoon's baseball games at the new Mazda Zoom-Zoom Stadium Hiroshima, as the Fighters take on the Carp for their last series of interleague. (I had the baseball tickets a few weeks ago, but not the travel tickets.) I'm totally psyched! I'm even kind of just looking forward to chilling out on a N700 shinkansen for a few hours. I'm weird that way.

Oh, at school I invented a new board game for my first-years. It's the "Have Like Play" game:



The hard part was really making the cards, or more like, finding clip art for various words/things... but yeah, so I'm hoping to get a lot of mileage out of this one, because we can use it for teaching "I like chocolate / I have a cat / I play tennis" as well as "I don't like English / I don't have an eraser / I don't play baseball" as well as "Do you like baseball? / Do you have a book? / Do you play the piano?"

Tomorrow will be the playtest, by which I mean I'm going to bring it to 1-3 Advanced and see how they deal with it to benchmark a guess for how other classes will go. They're the most open-minded and willing-to-do-crazy-stuff class I have of the first-years, so if it bombs, or if it's wildly successful, either way they'll probably have a good time.

Is 2009 really already almost halfway over? That's freaking insane, dude.

Comments

[februaryfour]

Don Quixote has American laundry detergent (imported), but it's pretty expensive. ^_^;;;;;;

Also--this game looks like fun!

[dr4b]

How expensive is expensive?

Costco membership would cost me like 4200 yen to renew for a year and I'm not sure I'd get the amusement factor out of it this year that I did last year.

[februaryfour]

I can't remember how big the bottles were, but Bounce softener was 900+ yen for a mid-size bottle. I think I saw Tide detergent, but I can't remember the prices (I actually don't mind Japanese detergents).

At home, my mother always used Kao Attack. It's _good_. I use "Be-zu" because it's cheap and not _too_ bad, but occasionally I look longingly at the Kao Attack. Have you tried it? It's actually good.

[isamum.livejournal.com]

National Azabu supermarket near Hiroo station on the Hibiya Line has various types of American detergent, but it's VERY expensive.

[dr4b]

You should get a Costco membership :)

How expensive is VERY expensive? Is Azabu supermarket a general "import" kind of supermarket as is?

[isamum.livejournal.com]

As you know, I'd love to get a Costco membership, but since it costs about 3000 yen round trip in tolls alone to the nearest outlet, it just isn't worth it.

Re National Azabu: I don't have an exact price for detergent since we're fine with Japanese ones (and I really don't understand why they aren't working for you; e.g., are you using the correct amount?), but everything is expensive there. I think their policy is something along the lines of, "If you have to ask, you can't afford to shop here." But they do have many of the creature comforts that Americans and Europeans need/want.

[ohhim.livejournal.com]

Google image search is pretty good for finding pictures based on search terms.

[crazykey.livejournal.com]

I really don't want to go back to using crappy Japanese detergent that doesn't get my clothes clean.

What is with crappy laundry detergent overseas?? We had a certain kind in Israel that would suck the color out of every item (even the "colorfast" ones) you put in the wash and deposit it on any white areas of the garments in the machine. Anyway, I feel your laundry-related frustration.