Progress, progress

My neighbourhood seems to be very much under construction these days. I may've mentioned the new apartment building being built next to mine. And I mean RIGHT next to mine. The work seems to be roughly at ear level, too. This morning it was drilling.

But that building's not all; in the last two or three weeks I've seen the closure of several shops I walked past every day; shops that've been there since I first came; shops I've never been in and rarely seen any customers in. I feel that way about most of the shops and restaurants in my suburb - how can they make a living? I guess some of them can't.

Most notable was the convenience store (admittedly, there had been three convenience stores within 250m of each other), which not only closed, but was demolished and razed to the ground. Now it's a big empty lot, nothing but flat, perfectly smooth gravel. I wonder what will appear there??

***

Speaking of progress, I'm still loving the renovated Kawasaki BE (department store). The basement level is one big food hall and oh! Beard Papa's cream puffs are GREAT.

Krispy Kreme donuts is my pick though. (Japanese people call them 'Krispy donuts'.) Today I went there for the first time. Usually Murphy's Law operates - when I want to go and buy donuts, there's far too long a line; when I'm in a bit of a hurry and don't have time, there's almost nobody. But today the stars aligned and the line was only a dozen people.

It's a fairly small store but well organised against the crowds. While waiting in line, someone is on hand to pass out menus and - oh glee! - a free glazed donut. I thought they only did that when the line was really long, to keep the customers sweet.

This donut was warm and fresh from the oven, mmm.... sadly for them I'd been in the middle of tossing up whether to get one or two glazed donuts, and getting a free one kind of clinched the deal. Generally though, in Japan, it's probably a safe sales strategy. As I've mentioned before, Japanese people tend not to buy just one or two individual snacks, but whole boxes of them.

Anyway, they also have staff taking your order both at the counter and in the line, and then giving you a register number - there are five cash registers. Every staff member is manically busy all the time. I feel bad for them...