Welcome, welcome, welcome.

Please, have a seat. On the floor there's fine, thank you...

So, today we're going to talk about shopping for foodstuffs in Japan. They like to eat in Japan. They eat just like we do, with mouths, teeth, indigestion, and the rest of the whole mess, but are their shopping habits any different? Let's find out.

Here we have a supermarket. This place is roughly named...

"Yokubinimaru" Which could be roughly translated to "your convenient market". No really. They do that there.



From an initial glance, things are relatively normal looking.




Nothing weird here...

Beef runs about $4 a lb.


100g x 10 = 1kg = $10~ = 2.25 lbs, etc...

$2 for a pint of yogurt, not bad, not bad...




All in all, it looks pretty normal, eh?

But no... That's when the cracks start to show.

First you see a head of lettuce for 100Y.

Not bad, right?



But then two over from there are fucking melons.



Here's a link to a bigger version of that so you can see what you're paying for a goddamn canteloupe.

Yeah, right?

And it gets weirder.


These are like $2-3

Apples, right? They're about $1 apiece in Japan. Not cheap, but not expensive. What would you pay for say... 4 apples, a persimmon, pineapple, and some oranges? $10? $12?



Nope, this bitch is expensive. REALLY expensive.



Yes, nearly $37. For fucking fruit.

You walk by the meat department and you start seeing weird shit you shouldn't see. You're used to beef, chicken, pork, maybe some shrimp and tilapia. But what the fuck?


Blue light special today on suckers and tentacles!

EWWWWW!

Oh. you're thirsty... Maybe you'd like a nice american soda? They have coke. Pepsi? Aw, you want something really unique? Have a Dr. Pepper.



Hope you're really thirsty, because this'll set you back $14.



You wander aimlessly. Where's something normal?
The condiment aisle! Ketchup and BBQ sauce! Fish sauce! Hell even soy sauce has to be normal here. Right? WRONG.



Oh the penis shaped bottles. Right. Well, I took one of these babies home this time. And what did I buy? Goma salad dressing.


Hidden Varrey Bukkake

It's a sesame based salad dressing. Quite tasty, but WTF? It looks like SEMEN in a cock shaped bottle.

Potato chips. Okay, they're normal right? Surely, if there's anything you can't fuck up, it's the slicing of a potato and adding salt or seasonings to it.

Until you see weird shit like Ethican Chipotle chips.



WTF is an ethican? Did I miss that in Geography?

I guess to balance out the oddity, they do carry Ritz crackers and Pocky.
Thank god for levity in cases like these.



Still.

As a final wrap up, I present to you the bedrock of my daily eating habits. Every day, with out fail, I have breakfast. I have a bowl of cereal and milk.

Well, in Japan, my options are some foriegn-y Muselix of flax seed and walnuts with soy chunks, Frosted Flakes, or Snoopy Choco-Pops.

I opted for the Frosted Flakes because Tony made such a concerted effort to let me know that "Frosted Frakes.... They are GLLLLEAT!!!!"



*** - PS - I promised myself as a new years resolution to try and make these Japan blogs slightly more racist whenever I could.