ROME: Who knew that grocery shopping could be so romantic? An Italian man in Venice proposed to his girlfriend at a grocery store this week, asking her to marry him over the checkout counter’s microphone.
“My love, I wanted to ask you something, in front of everyone,” Salvatore Costarelli is seen saying into a microphone, in a video published on the website of the Corriere del Veneto newspaper.
“I love you, you’re my life, and I want to ask you, will you marry me?” he adds.
Someone off-camera begins clapping and the camera pans to the detergent aisle where a woman, Tiziana Famao, is seen leaning over her cart in surprise before wheeling it out bashfully.
The couple hug next to the frozen vegetables, a ring is unearthed from Costarelli’s pocket and placed on Famao’s finger, and a long kiss is accompanied by laughter and applause from the cashiers.
“When I heard those words I didn’t understand anything any more,” Famao told the newspaper, calling her new fiance “a very shy person” ordinarily.
Costarelli said he had planned days in advance.
“I had also thought of the classic proposal in a gondola,” said Costarelli. “But then I chose the supermarket... to make her understand how much I care about her.”
“I thought that a gesture like that she won’t forget for the rest of her life.”
The wedding is planned for December, in Sicily.
Italian man proposes marriage over supermarket checkout mic
https://arab.news/jtkpc
Italian man proposes marriage over supermarket checkout mic
- Shoppers and shopkeepers gave their approval with a boisterous applause
- The wedding is planned for December in Sicily
Fans bid farewell to Japan’s only pandas
TOKYO: Panda lovers in Tokyo said goodbye on Sunday to a hugely popular pair of the bears that are set to return to China, leaving Japan without the beloved animals for the first time in half a century.
Loaned out as part of China’s “panda diplomacy” program, the distinctive black-and-white animals have symbolized friendship between Beijing and Tokyo since the normalization of diplomatic ties in 1972.
Some visitors at Ueno Zoological Gardens were left teary-eyed as they watched Japan’s only two pandas Lei Lei and Xiao Xiao munch on bamboo.
The animals are expected to leave for China on Tuesday following a souring of relations between Asia’s two largest economies.
“I feel like seeing pandas can help create a connection with China too, so in that sense I really would like pandas to come back to Japan again,” said Gen Takahashi, 39, a Tokyo resident who visited the zoo with his wife and their two-year-old daughter.
“Kids love pandas as well, so if we could see them with our own eyes in Japan, I’d definitely want to go.”
The pandas’ abrupt return was announced last month after Japan’s conservative premier Sanae Takaichi hinted Tokyo could intervene militarily in the event of any attack on Taiwan.
Her comment provoked the ire of Beijing, which regards the island as its own territory.
The 4,400 lucky winners of an online lottery took turns viewing the four-year-old twins at Ueno zoo while others gathered nearby, many sporting panda-themed shirts, bags and dolls to celebrate the moment.
Mayuko Sumida traveled several hours from the central Aichi region in the hope of seeing them despite not winning the lottery.
“Even though it’s so big, its movements are really funny-sometimes it even acts kind of like a person,” she said, adding that she was “totally hooked.”
“Japan’s going to be left with zero pandas. It feels kind of sad,” she said.
Their departure might not be politically motivated, but if pandas return to Japan in the future it would symbolize warming relations, said Masaki Ienaga, a professor at Tokyo Woman’s Christian University and expert in East Asian international relations.
“In the future...if there are intentions of improving bilateral ties on both sides, it’s possible that (the return of) pandas will be on the table,” he told AFP.
