Conbini AKA Convenience Stores in Japan

Convenience stores in Japan REALLY are just that, they are VERY CONVENIENT for MANY reasons! For one, THEY ARE EVERYWHERE!!!! When we were looking for a house to live in they would also list how far to the train station, grocery store, and convenience store as well.  These pictures are from our nearest convenience store, which is only four minutes away on foot.  

As the sign says in the parking lot, there is an ATM.  Who knew 7-11 had their own bank? I mean, I didn't frequent convenience stores a lot in the States, is this a thing there?

A huge convenience is the prepared foods.  I have heard Japanese people living in the States say that they miss the foods in the conbini.  They offer real meals, not just pizza and hot dogs.  There is also a microwave and they will offer to warm your food for you if it is a hot meal.

Desserts and yogurts.

Rice balls (onigiri) on top. 

Probably the least known use of the convenient store for foreigners is you can PAY YOUR BILLS at the conbini.  Conbini is how Japanese people say convenience store.  They love to shorten foreign words to make them easier to say. This lady is taking our bills.

Then the screen tells you how much total is and the number will go down as you put cash into the machine.

For the bills, I don't even think credit card is an option.  It's crazy to think that Japan is still a largely cash based society, but it is true.  Many places, especially mom and pop stores, will only take cash. Chains and larger stores usually take credit cards. I use credit cards when I can.  

Let's take a look at other areas of the conbini.  

They sell a variety of goods, including some grocery items.  

This particular conbini has a Daiso (100 yen) section.

Alcohol.

All sorts of instant ramen.

Cold drinks.  They also sell milk (bottom), which is covenient to buy when the grocery store is closed.  

Trash bags and other items.

Body wash, laundry soap, fabric softener, etc.

Paper goods, plastic twine for bundling boxes.

Stationery goods.

Magazines.

Books and manga.

Even kids items.

Masks and sanitizers.  If you haven't noticed from previous posts, masking in public is still very prevalent in Japan, especially in stores and on public transportation.

Hygiene products.  You might be interested to know that Japanese people don't really wear deodorant. I think it's not needed as much because their diet is different. 

Snack items are available, just like convenience stores in the States.

There is also a copy machine and (not pictured) a restroom.

TRASH CANS are also available. I am sure that doesn't sound like a big deal to someone living in the States, but IT'S A THING! There are NO TRASH CANS IN PUBLIC SPACES IN JAPAN. YOU ARE EXPECTED TO TAKE YOUR TRASH BACK HOME WITH YOU.  

Here are pictures of the other two large conbini chains, Lawson and Family Mart. 

What do you think? I never frequented convenience stores in the States (only on road trips). Would you like to visit the conbini in Japan?

Garbage and Recycling

It might sound bizarre to make a post about this, but IT'S.A.THING. There are many rules and collection happens all week. 

There are four types of garbage. Red is the easiest. It's burnable. This includes kitchen scraps, dirty plastics (like when buying food and eating on the go) and anything else that doesn't fit in the other categories. The hazardous category is collected in a separate bag on the same day. This garbage is collected twice a week (so nice)!

Green is nonburnable trash. It's things that can't be recycled, or are big. Things likes batteries, old small appliances, broken dishes, or in our case, my garment bag that was dragged along behind Papa P's truck. It's only collected once a month. We just missed putting out for the moth by a week. 

The most complicated category is recycling. It's divided five subcategories: glass, plastic bottles, other plastics (including film plastic that is commonly used to wrap new items in the store which I couldn't recycle in the US), metal cans (soda and canned goods), and paper. 

Me, trying to figure out today's recycling (Monday), which covers four types of recycling. 

I went to take the first bag of plastic bottles and realized it was more than just that today. I hadn't looked super closely at the paper--today is also paper and cans (we don't have any glass bottles). I cheated by looking at how others had sorted it.

I went to the store to buy smaller bags. Our relocation contact had me buy 45 liter bags for recycling and burnable garbage, but they are way too big for our trash sorting cabinet and our amount of plastic bottles and cans. 

Bags for trash MUST be bought within the city you are using them in. The cost of the bags pays for the collection. 

The Nagoya bags have their owl mascot on them. 

This recycling day is done at the park. Other plastics such as wrappers are left in front of the house, once a week, on Wednesdays. For today's recycling,  there are signs thar have writing and pictures on them telling you where to sort each kind. I ran into one of my older neighbors here for yhe first time. I spoke with her in my broken, particle-less Japanese abd told her we lived over there, came from America, and that my husband works for Toyota. I am sure I sounded worse than a three year old. I probably sounded like a cave woman, but I tried. She seemed pleased to meet me. 

There is one more way to recycle that I forgot! Paper milk cartons and styrofoam meat and food trays are recycled at the grocery store! Milk comes in liter cartons and you rinse and cut open the carton. 

Last week when I went on a walk it was burnable garbage day. I took a few pictures because I thought it was interesting. I saw the garbage truck and several guys jumping out to collect the garbage from several houses at a time. I think this was an apartment building or business. They have the cages to keep the birds from getting in the garbage. Not sure why there were blue bags on the right. 

Residents in houses or apartments sometimes had nets, also to keep the birds out. Apparently a lot are yellow (but not all) because supposedly the birds can't see them. Our contact called them crows, but the ones I saw were so huge, I think they were ravens. Ravens are smart!

I think I have a basic understanding of the garbage sorting here, although, I think there is always more to learn!