Live from Japan!

Something terrible has happened. Since I arrived on Japanese soil, I have lost about 15 pounds (just less than 8 kg). Usually this would be a purely joyous affair, especially since it came so easily. After all, when I left for Japan I was a lot heavier than I had ever been and I wasn’t terribly happy about it.

The only reason that I am not quite as joyful about my weight loss as I would have been otherwise is that I no longer fit into most of the clothes I brought with me from the U.S., and most of those clothes had been purchased shortly before our departure. On the surface, this would not seem to be a total disaster. However, over the course of the past three weeks, I have tried to acquire new pants and have found it completely impossible to do so in the land of the skinny people.

First, I tried the UNIQLO, a store not to far from our house in Gifu. It is known among the foreigners for having the largest selection of foreigner sizes available. I went there and spent about an hour and a half poking around and trying on every single pair of pants in the largest size available (aside from those pants that had no chance of working – slim fit for example). All to no avail. The waist size was not an issue, in fact around my waist I could have fit into many pairs much smaller than the ones I tried on. However, not a single pair of pants in the store was able to accommodate my thighs and arse.

So, I did a little more asking around. It was recommended that I visit the Gap and United Colors of Benetton, both stores are in Nagoya. So, on the weekend Aaron and I took the train to Nagoya on a mission for pants. We spent a few hours wandering around Sakae, shopping and people watching, we did buy many things that day (Quaker Oatmeal, Peanut Butter, and English Books), but pants were not in our shopping bags at the end of the mission.

At the Gap there was no hope. The largest size they stock on the shelves is a Japanese Size 10, which is roughly equivalent to a US size 6 or 8. Now, the size 8 and I could probably come close, but the legs and rears on these pants were so tiny it was RIDICULOUS.

The United Colors of Benetton was a little more promising. I think I am only a kilo or two shy of being able to wiggle my way into those pants. Some of them, especially the wide legs, actually came really close. But they were still tight enough on my thighs that it made them look like over-filled sausages. Not quite the look I was going for.

The nice thing about this store was the service. Even with the language barrier, I got incredible help from one of the women working there. I would try on a pair, come out of the fitting room and point to the problem areas. Usually I was telling her that the thigh area was too small. She would leave the dressing room, run around the store, and bring me more stuff to try on. But, even with all that effort, nothing fit well enough to consider spending about 14,000 yen (about $140). There is no need to spend money on a pair of pants that don’t fit as well as I would like, after all I have plenty of pairs of pants in my closet right now that don’t fit. I certainly don’t need another expensive pair sitting there, taunting me.

So, much to my chagrin, we left Nagoya without any pants, and I am left to brainstorm my next plan of action. As I see it I have several choices:

Wow! This is quite a saga over a pair of pants. I guess you don’t realize how important it is until you are unable to acquire something that seems so simple.