Having gone to Japantown for the first time on a day when everything was closed, I decided to give it another try. This time the shops were actually open, and I had a nice time looking at all of the gorgeous homeware that I would quite like to have but absolutely do not have space left in my suitcase to hold. That didn't stop me from buying my weight in Hi-Chews, though. I had been looking for one of the big bags for so long and of course stumbled into them at the first shop I walked into. When I go back to the UK with about 10kg of American candy and they ask me why, I really will have nothing else to say other than: "It's like gum that you don't throw away, it's amazing!" Trust me, it is.
Japantown is cute but pretty small, and because of this it put me to mind of our little Chinatown in Liverpool. After accidentally walking into (and immediately leaving) a diamond sale and having a good laugh at how much they were asking for them, I did what has become one of my favourite pass times here: to walk around pretending like I'm from around here and taking pictures of the pretty houses. As I was doing that, something that I had been dreaming about for many, many years happened. Anyone who knows me knows that, to put it mildly, I don't like children very much. As I was walking past a church, the parents were having drinks and a large group of children was standing outside. As I got closer to the church, the children started staring at me and whispering to each other. I kept walking down the street, and when I got a few metres away from them, a little girl shouted "She's coming!" and they all started screaming and running away. I looked back to see if they were playing hide and seek with a friend who just happened to be behind me, but there was no one else there. I have finally achieved my dream of becoming Sarah from Hocus Pocus; children have finally learnt to fear me.
When I got home, I sat on the couch in the garden and enjoyed the last rays of sunshine while reading the very weird The Scapegoat by Daphne du Maurier. Even though I've been afraid of cats for many years, one of the two house cats unceremoniously came to sit on my lap and laid there purring for well over an hour as I stroked him. The cats are starting to come to me. All I need is a broom now.
A house close to Japantown in San José