$700 School Backpack, Anyone?

I'm not caught up on the last week at all, but I'll start with an observation from today that I really had to share. Rie and I went with her boyfriend to some neat wineries today - more on that later. On the way home, we needed to stop at the depaato (department store - also has a grocery store in the basement) to get a few things, including a new school uniform shirt for Kaoru. Interestingly, Kaoru had requested that Rie buy a shirt that had the pleat on the back in the middle, rather than having one pleat on either side. OK, we are talking plain, white collared shirts with short sleeves. And she wears a uniform that looks like everyone else's at her school, so I'm not sure why the pleat in the middle was such a big thing. But I guess when there is very little variation in the clothes you can wear, the small details become bigger deals. ?? Maybe??

Anyway... at the depaato, I ran across a display of the standard (read: mandatory) school backpack carried by all elementary school students for the 6 years they are in school. They are not ordinary backpacks - they are called randoseru, and they are extraordinary, sturdy leather backpacks made to last a lifetime. Really, they are like pieces of luggage.

I knew they were expensive, but holy cow! They are waaaay more expensive than I thought! This display holds some very fancy-schmancy randoseru, which cost much more than the regular red or black, standard issue ones. As you can see from the pictures, they are running around $740 for these fancy ones, but even the standard ones were over $500!! Can you imagine that expense then your kids go off to first grade? I don't think I can complain about our back-to-school shopping anymore!