Ukuleles are difficult to find when you're Hard Off

On Tuesday, i went with Aki and her son Kazu to deliver their daikon radishes, potatoes and eggs to some customers in Sapporo. It wasn't a big job, they only had 13 drop-off points most of which were to individuals who wanted a carton of eggs and a single daikon radish, but it took up the entire afternoon. We took our time, stopping off at a few different shops along the way and getting other side jobs done. We even had lunch in the car. Two tasty rice balls, stuffed with mushrooms, seaweed and tiny fish wrapped in seaweed and packaged in a traditional lunch food paper.


I had fun quickly switching between these two pictures on my camera.

One thing Kazu likes to do is point out the differences between Japan and Canada. Especially the funny English in some of the signs. Almost every sign in Sapporo had some sort of English on it so theres always a good chance of finding a gem. Kazu is about 13 years old. He grew up attending public school in the States somewhere so his English is pretty much perfect and he can enjoy these signs as much as any English speaker. He made sure i saw this one on the side of a concrete factory:


Oops! Concrete Basics for Life

One favorite is a store named Hard Off. I couldn't even begin to think of what that store might sell, but on our Sapporo delivery trip we visited a few of these Hard Off stores.

A big thing in Japan, or at least in Hokkaido, are recycle shops. Think of them as kind of a high end pawn shop or Value Village where they actually give you money for your stuff and display them as neatly as any department store. Stores such as Oki Doki and Second Street take anything and everything. In the "Off" line of stores there's Off House, for your home appliances and clothing, Book Off, for books, Hobby Off, for collectible figurines and such, and Hard Off, for your music and home entertainment desires. However, because these shops are so popular, the prices are higher than what you might find at a Value Village.

The reason we went to Hard Off was to find a ukulele for me to play because i stupidly left mine on the bannister at Curt's house right as we left for the airport. Baka. Apparently, my other brother Tim had impressed them enough with his ukulele that Ray and Aki were counting on me to play for a few people at their Mochi making party on April 26th. When i told Ray the day i arrived in Hokkaido, he and Aki were already scheming the next day as to how i could get a new one. This was before asking me about all this, of course, but i couldn't say no.

Turns out, out of the three Hard Offs we visited, only one had ukuleles but they were new, expensive and didn't have tuning gears. Aki was surprised, she had seen ukuleles in droves during her previous visit. I suggested that perhaps it's ukulele season.