Shopping

Instead of fish and chips you will find a sushi shop here.


The supermarket. Not that luxurious as the Gaijinshop nextdoor where the wealthy expats go. But here they at least have fresh vegatables. The University, of which the foreign students population is mainly American advised to eat Japanese food while living in Japan. Do not try to have your daily hamburger or pizza and diet-coke as you might bankrupt yourself.


The 100 Yen shop sells everything for... 100 Yen! That is 68 cents now, 1 Euro is 147 Yen. And that brings us to the very Duth subject: Japan is very expensive isn't it? In daily life it is not that hard. Of course if you insist on daily eating cabbage and sausages, sauerkraut, milk, liters of yoghourt, to little fish, sandwiches with peanut butter and chocolat sprinkles... it will be expensive. But as soon as you accomodate and adapt, everything turns to normal again. A Japanese who visited Amsterdam remarked: "it was so expensive over there...".


Every salesman knows that you sell more from a shop filled with abundance, even in the more prestigeous streets:


Minato-ku happens to be the area with most embassies. Therefore many foreigners come shopping here. The shops offer many western goods, mainly imported. Many ready to eat microwave meals. Halves of cucumbers. Melons in parts. Sweet sweets. It's not cheap, but that is where the expats get their "hardship allowances" for.


Sigarets, tea, coffee (both cold) in the street 24/7 (!)
There are also beer vending machines, which close on a decent time when it is not too late yet...