You have no idea how much we miss our good old grocery store back at home...our HUGE aisle, big carts, loads of cereal to choose from grocery store. Here in Japan, we make do of course, we eventually find what we need, through lots and lots of trial and error (you have no idea how hard it is to distinguish whole milk from skim milk...they don't always have the nutrition info on the back to compare fat content to help tell them apart!).
The shopping carts here are hysterical, they are so tiny, they are basically a stand on wheels to hold the little baskets we use at home for "quick in & out" style shopping! I sort of have to lean down while pushing them just to keep my hands on the handle bar! They are more like the Europeans and do their shopping on a daily bases here rather than the once a week bulk shopping trips like we do at home. So everything is just sold in tiny units. No gallon milk containers here. No way. They have ity bity liter size only...you know how many I go through a day?!! Same for OJ.
Of course almost everything is labeled in Japanese so you kind of have to guess, try to ask for help, or call the team translator and hunt down someone in the store to give the phone to so he can tell them what it is we are looking for! Fruits and Veggies are different here too. They don't like it when you "feel" the fruit, so if you touch it, you buy it (that is if they are watching you!) Food is expensive here too, I saw a lime for sale a few days ago for 11 US dollars, no joke. Must have been a good lime.
We like going to the market here though, it's fun for the kids, the seafood section is like a giant Aquarium exhibit and they love looking at all the fish on display! We can walk to one of the markets which makes it nice, it's called Bon Repas, sort of like Japan's version of a Larry's Market/AJ's. It's not all that big, but it makes for an interesting outing!!
This is the kid friendly cart!
They have fish everywhere, even in the dry goods section! Austin loves pointing them out and always wants me to buy them.
Can you guess which one is the flour?! It's harder than you think!
Part of the seafood section...you never know what you are going to find in here!! We always have to go see the fish though, Austin insists!!
They sell the biggest green onions I have ever seen here. These ones were over 3 feet tall.
They love this vegetable here. It's called a Daikon, a large radish root thing. Not quite sure what they do with it, but they love it and they are everywhere.
Only 3 pieces of bread per bag. Seriously. They also come in slices of 5 (don't they know a sandwhich requires 2 slices?!) and it's your lucky day if you ever find one with more than that. Bread is a little thicker here than in the US, but it does make for some really good french toast.
Didn't get the best picture of this area, it's the grocery bagging station. You always have to bag your own groceries here, always. They give you your bags when you checkout, than you take your baskets full of stuff to these tables and bag your goods. They are stingy about how many bags they give you too, you are lucky if you get 2 bags!!
The regular shopping cart. You are really doing it up if you put 2 baskets, one on top, one on bottom! It's pretty much Austin's height, he loves pushing it around!!
