Grocery Shopping

We have a grocery store a convenient THREE MINUTE walk from our house! Needless to say, it's very easy to go every day if needed. There is also a Daiso upstairs and other shops inside as well. 

I mentioned recycling milk cartons and trays at the grocery store before. This is the area where you do it. 

You need to rinse and cut the cartons so they lay more flat. There are instructions on the lid of the bin. Here are my cartons:

Here people grocery shop more, so a hand basket is standard. However, you can put it in a cart. 

These are the carts. I once saw someone put two hand baskets in the cart, one on top and one in bottom, but that was just once. 

These watermelons must have been popular! The store had been open less than an hour. Also, those are ice packs to keep them cool! I love the attention to detail!

Most produce, but not all, is portioned out into a set number in a bag. It's a good thing they recycle film type plastic here!

Lots of seafood.

Let's talk about milk. My family is big on drinking milk! My oldest son is 6'4.5" (~195 cm) and loooooves milk. In the states I would buy 5 gallons of milk (1 gallon = 3.8 liters, so about 19 liters) at the beginning of the week, and sometimes even buy another gallon to get us through the weekend to Monday morning. Well, milk is only sold by the liter (even at Costco it was two liters of milk wrapped up together). So....we are buying 2 or 3 liters of milk at a time. It's a good thing the store is only a three minute walk away!

Salad looks a little different here. 

There is a good sized ready to eat/prepared food section. We were eating lunches from here for the first few days in our house. 

🎶Sandwiches are beautiful sandwiches are fine. I like sandwiches I eat them all the time. 🥪🎶

My Animal Crossing friends: fruit sandwiches DO exist. It is white bread with whipped cream and fruits in the middle. 

My kids like oniguri! (Rice balls)

There is even a selection of western style food. We haven't tried these corn dogs yet, but someone must be eating them. I've noticed them several times. 

Body wash section. There is even an American brand offered! 

The check out process:

OR, you can cheat and do self check out where there is an English button on the home screen and she sounds just like the ones in the States!

Side note, but related. This is my refrigerator. It has a built in egg holder! Also, look at the eggs! They have individual stickers with the date on it, so when you buy more, you can eat the older ones first. Brilliant! 

This is far from a comprehensive review of a Japanese grocery store, so let me know if there's a section of the grocery store you'd like to see more of!