And I Thought That Hyde Park Co-Op Was Expensive

In this post, I'm going to talk briefly about food in Japan, primarily buying and cooking your own.



This is the mall where I do my grocery shopping. There is a huge grocery store inside. The mall is, in actuality, much larger than it looks in the picture.


This is my supermarket "Jusco". It's really huge and in addition to selling tons of food they also have departments that sell everything from couches to bicycles. I suppose it's kind of like a Wal-Mart but with a much better supermarket section and hopefully, less evil.


The carts at Jusco are much smaller than American carts, they are really just meant to hold a shopping basket. In Japan, food has far less preservatives in it, so most food goes bad within about 2-3 days (anyone who shops at organic supermarkets will know what I'm talking about). Thus, most Japanese people only buy enough food to last them about 2 days at a time. I've been going to the supermarket pretty much daily, although primarily out of boredom.


This is the first haul of groceries I bought from Jusco. Coke, bread, rice, toilet paper, two kinds of spaghetti sauce, margarine, laundry detergent, dish soap, pork, kraft cheese, spaghetti. All together, this cost me about 34 American dollars. Yeah, I know.


The second time around, I tried to be a bit more conservative to see if I couldn't keep the price down a bit. Bread, apple juice, ziploc bags, paper towels, frozen pizza, shredded cheese, onion, mushrooms, tangerines, green peppers, bacon, ramen and eggs. This cost me about 21 American dollars.


Now, for the good news. Just about everything is expensive in Japanese supermarkets (especially beef, which costs about 10 USD for a small amount, since it's now imported from Australia) except for seafood. Anything having to do with seafood is dirt cheap. Additionally, all supermarkets make fresh sushi which they sell at bargain prices. I bought the sushi pictured above (12 pieces of nigiri) for about 5 American dollars. Unlike in America, it was really good, pretty much on par with what I would expect from a decent restaurant. According to the sticker on the box, it was made just an hour before I brought it home and ate it.