Grocery shopping

Late Saturday morning, at 11 am, I went out into Tokyo for my first time. Osamu, one of the English professors, and his wife Tomoko, who spent time in England getting her PhD and has a British accent, were kind enough to take me out essentials shopping and for lunch.
I was very lucky and grateful to have their help. My first grocery shopping experience I bought paper towels, frozen pizza, a large bottle of water, Raman noodles, crackers, milk, apple juice, butter, bread (which I may not buy again, expensive for only a few slices), and a bunch of miniature bananas.

Being out and about in Tokyo was an interesting experience because everything was equally the same and different from what I am used to. Driving in a car was the same, except they drive on the opposite side of the road, so right turns are very strange. Almost all of the products being sold are the same, but I can't read everything. I can't read almost anything. I am also a type of person who is constantly reading. While I eat my cereal, I read the box, while driving (or riding) down a road, I read all the signs, while walking through the store, I read all of the labels. Not being able to read everything is a notable, though not unnerving, change for me.
Also, metropolitan life moves very much the same in Tokyo as it does in American cities. On Saturday the mall/grocery store were full of families.
The food court, where we ate lunch, had Japanese places, including one we ate at which sold Japanese noodles and another which sold squid balls, a Chinese noodle place, an Italian place, a Baskin Robbins, and a McDonald's. The McDonald's fries smelled exactly the same.
The other sense of things being different is an underlying sense that I am different. I can't speak or read the language. I don't look the same, or dress quite the same. It's not a feeling of not belonging there, just not exactly jiving with the rest.