Obstacle One: Grocery Shopping

Comparing my local supermarket in Burma Pearl Condominium's City Mart, Kichijoji's konbini in Tokyo to Berkeley Bowl seems unfair.

In City mart making purchases is a process of elimination. Most of the products (consisting mainly of soggy biscuits, dried raman noodles and sguidgy over priced vegetables) looked so unappetizing that I didn't even need to glance at them to know that I didn't want to buy them. Those occasional times when I stumbled across honey or real tonic water seemed like glitches in the ether, when some fluke aligning of the plates had brought something I wanted to the shelves. Shopping took very little time, because it was simply about homing in on the three or four items you wanted. Coffee (there was only one kind that was good), bread (horrible, horrible white sugar bread, that in fact you didn't really want to purchase but were forced into by the imperative for toast on those days when you didn't want to drag yourself out to eat) and perhaps a tiny slither of a kit kat - massively overpriced and shipped in from Thailand, that always tasted musty and soft, as though it had been through last year's cyclone. In all fairness it probably had been through last years cyclone. There was one great, stupidly expensive store to shop in. Sharkeys: an expat haven, where pesto and humous and real bread existed. It is roughly the size of a large larder and I could spend hours choosing which overpriced treat I would indulge in - some real lettuce? proper yoghurt perhaps? The olive oil they had imported from Italy? The choice was in which item to invest, as opposed to varieties of product.

My Japanese konbini living was in fairness very much a product of my own devise. There are wonderful supermarkets in Japan. There are overpriced food halls that will sell you melons for $100 a piece and pastries baked in early morning French bakeries and shipped in to early morning Tokyo. My life however didn't seem to have space for proper shopping and the convenience of my local store - three aisles and a small vegetable/fish market were all I felt I really needed. It was always a real sense of achievement to find something different from my usual miso, tofu and rice approach to cooking and shopping.

Imagine then my constination when my shopping habits of the past three years failed me. I walked into Berkeley Bowl with confidence - hoping that the nervousness wouldn't shine through. As usual I stopped at the first item I wanted to buy (in both the konbini and the City Mart version of my shopping trip - this was usually only after I'd circled atleast half of the store and dismissed the majority of the products straight away.

In Berkeley Bowl - the organic mecca of supermarkets - I couldn't make it past aisle one - cereal. As far as I am concerned the cereal aisle should have been the easiest place to shop. There is only really one kind of cereal I am ever interested in: muesli. I thought this would minimise the choice. It turns out there is not just one muesli aisle in Berkeley Bowl, there are two. Not only is there the ready-made muesli bags and boxes, but a whole ridiculous range of buckets of dried fruit, oats, nuts and grains. I didn't even make it there - after 20 minutes staring at cereal boxes - repeating to myself - "I just want muesli, just normal, straight-forward muesli" I had to make the executive decision to cut my loses and grab the first box I came across.

Dear reader I wish I could describe having overcome the deer-in-headlight effect of shopping in California - but alas - I was not strong enough. After grabbing the first milk I could see from the row upon row of varying coloured and varying animal, vegetable and mineral milks, I scarpered to lick my shopping induced wounds and re-compose myself.

I will conquer the difficulty of too much choice. I just need some time dear reader - one product at a time. Wish me luck today when I attempt to furnish my house.