Costco in Zama

People who know us IRL (in real life) know we kinda just have this thing for Costco...80% of what we buy is from there and our kids get really excited for samples and huge hot dogs at the food court. So when we we found out there was a Costco nearby, naturally, we were there.

The first trip my husband went with me and we arrived just ten minutes prior to closing so we just canvassed the area and plotted our next visit. Second trip, we all came back as a family on a Saturday (bad idea #1) and didn't bring Cash (bad idea #2) because Costco takes debt cards...Right?! HA!  We embarrassingly had to put back 1/2 our purchases at check out to make sure we had enough Yen to cover everything. Good thing we had picked the line with the non Japanese Cashier named John! Because we needed every bit of that English he spoke to help us figure out what exactly we were doing wrong.

I took the kids back by myself on the third time is a charm trip, fully loaded with 20,000 Yen ($180) and on a Tuesday. First of all, the entrance to Costco is

scary, y'all. Its a peddle to the metal "shut up kids! I'm driving!" incline into the parking garage with a sharp right turn into the cave parking garage. I hate parking garages. Im claustrophobic. So this girl heads straight for the open air top where none of the Japanese ever seem to park, wide open spaces! My husband and I have endearingly nicknamed the top of parking garages the Gaijin Parking because the dark spaces, tiny spots that you have to back into (no thank you) in the lower sections freaks most foreigners (me) out.

After getting parked, the kiddos loaded up in a cart and baby girl snuggled in the Boba carrier we proceeded down the scariest escalator in the world. I need to get photos of this time next time. Its a steep downward moving sidewalk that the cart magically stops on and doesn't roll down killing everyone. Its fun.

Costco itself carries all the same things as in the states except for the snack section, fish & peanuts anyone?

The Dairy section is also a lot different with more cheese offerings but less milk variety. Milk is only sold in bags of 3 liters for about the $5.00. The prices are steep for most of the Dairy. I paid $17 for cheese that ran about $11 in the states.

The seafood section is new to me also, they have whole octopus, fresh whole squid, squid ink pasta sauce (I've been told it tastes like garlic by a friend, I'll take her word for it) and the best was the shrimp and squid Pizza and the so called German Pizza, with raw potato and mustard on it. Having  lived in Germany, I don't see where they got that one.

I made it through my list with minimal issues from the kids (thank you apple!) and only a few SOS photo text messages to my brother's Japanese girlfriend of "What am I looking at here?"

Even better, we made it through check out having to place one thing back! I did, shamelessly, pick a check out line with a Caucasian bagger hoping he would speak English if I did have any trouble, but this time all I had to do was fill out a form changing my address to my local one so the cashier doesn't have to call a manager every time they scan my American Costco card (which is still valid here, score!) to check out. Easy Peasy! First Costco trip in the bag!