Monday, April 11, 2016

Conbini コンビニ



A conbini is a Japanese convenience store, except cleaner and more convenient.
 You can do everything from paying bills to grocery shopping and then grab a quick lunch to go. 
The matcha (green tea) chocolate above is in honor of all of the items in the conbini (and in Japan in general) which look familiar but are nothing like what I expected them to be. 

This is a youtube video I found where a blogger slowly walks you through a Family Mart (one of the bigger conbini chains) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2RwlSxFYuQ and tries to explain what he sees.
The music that you keep hearing in his video is the "someone just came in" sound.


Like an American store, there is a little bit of everything from toothbrushes to alcohol, milk and clean shirts. You can even get stationary and clean underwear.




Below are the hot snacks which might include anything from a corn-dog to fried squid. My favorite are fried chicken and korokke (fried patties with meat and/or mashed potatoes inside).
http://www.japanesecooking101.com/potato-korokke-recipe/

There is also usually a space set aside with tables for eating. 
Below are "American" potato chips (which I did not  buy because they were $4.00 for an itty-bitty bag) and refrigerated "cheese" which cannot possibly be real cheese. 

And this is spaghetti sauce... one thing I have learned is to not expect western style food to taste western...

Although this is only a quick glance at a conbini, they are a surprisingly important part of my life (occurring at least 3-4 times per week).
They truly are convenient.
コンビニはべんりですね。

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