28 August, 2014

Culture shock while clothes shopping

I spent this morning shopping in an Australian shopping centre. Most of that shock about that has worn off now. 

But I'm still a little shocked at the clothing sizes. In Japan I usually need to look for L or XL sizes (photo proves it). Here I'm buying 10s and 12s plus one 8 today, depending on the brand and how tight I'm happy to wear. These are probably M or even S sizes. That's a bit shocking, but a good shock! I'm not a large person, so to have to buy such apparently large sizes in Japan is a bit of an indignity.

I wasn't shopping for jeans or long pants today, but if I had that's when I would have run into difficulties in Australia for my legs are often shorter than the short-legged pants here. Whereas in Japan, when I can get pants that have the right waist size, are almost always a perfect length (see here for an example of shopping in Japan for trousers).

So, it was a joy to have the time to shop on my own this morning for clothes and now I have some new clothes to welcome spring. I took a couple of boys shopping this afternoon for a brief period at a second hand store, but that experience is probably best untold! The morning's session was far nicer.


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