feeling like home

...what makes a place feel like home?...

...some people hang cherished pictures on the walls...others add personal touches to the furniture or fixtures...

...for claire, it's buying bins of varying sizes, shapes, and shades and making clutter disappear...i'm not so much into bins, but i'm all for less clutter...

...so today being free, we decided to use our free afternoon to help claire make our house feel like "home"...she's "bin" wanting to search for bargains and bins in the shop-lined corridors of sannomiya (a bustling commercial hub between kobe and osaka)...

...we must've walked for miles as each busy corridor led to another...at times i felt like a lab rat in a cruel maze...the sheer amount of stuff available within a compact radius is mind-boggling...for claire, a bargain shopper, her favorite place by far is the 100-yen stores (similar to the 99-cent stores in america)...

...

...famished by dinnertime, we searched and searched for good cheap eats...we were about to give up until we saw this tiny place packed with people...

...we quickly knew (and tasted) why...piping hot ramen that comes with a spicy sidekick: your own bucket of fresh kimchee!!!

...japanese people (particularly those living in osaka) love this fiery side dish...

...sure we went a little crazy with the kimchee (what d'ya expect, we're koreans!)...and sure we paid the price for it the next day...but we'd do it again in a heartbeat...

...bins and burning hot kimchee...now that's feeling a lot like home...