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| Photo From the Mitsuwa Website |
Today I met a friend of mine that I've known since college, Ron, who is visiting the Chicago area from St. Louis. We went to the Mitsuwa Mall at the corner of Arlington Heights Road and Algonquin Road in Arlington Heights.
Mitsuwa Mall caters to the fairly large Japanese community here. It has a spacious Japanese grocery store, food court, travel agency, gift shops and a well stocked book store. As we entered the main grocery store area, Ron said it was so much like being in Japan. He had spent a couple of years there teaching English.
Ron has a degree in linguistics and works with a refugee placement and advocacy ministry in St. Louis. He was beaming as we walked around the store. "They don't have anything like this in St. Louis," he said. "I'd heard about this place and have always wanted to see it."
We spent the most time in the book store. I could have looked at all the Manga books all day. Ron bought a CD of a favorite Japanese recording artist, some pastries and the aftershave "Tactics" a discontinued Japanese brand.
I bought a Japanese comic and some stationary for Emily and Melody. Afterwards, we went to Panerra where Ron had a Green Tea latte grande and I had soup and sandwich.
We talked over our college days and tried to figure out how we had met. We were recalling mutual friends and where they are now. We had a nice, if short, visit before I had to take him back to his car so he could make his way back to Chicago to the friends' house where he's staying.
It had been 10 years since we had last met. We both have aged. I'm more bald and we're both a bit more wrinkled. But it's amazing how old friends can pick up where they left off.
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