Life in Japan: Grocery Shopping - It's Autumn's Life

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I’m a rebel. When I arrived in Japan, I figured out pretty quickly that a Japanese grocery store was a whole new world for me. Regardless of all the posted signs for no pictures, I had to get a few for keepsake, right? 😉

Needless to say, I bought a lot of random things and didn’t really shop smartly. You win some, you lose some right?

My apartment is near two pretty large groceries stores, Aeon and Hallows. They play these jingles over and over and you can’t help humming them as you shop. Hallooooooooozuhhhhh!

I was on a budget, so I would go to the grocery store at night when they discounted a lot of their food to save money. Since the stores were just two minutes from my apartment, I went there every day! Even though I was buying a lot of discounted food, the food was still so fresh since everything is seasonal and pretty fresh in general. Plus, I’m from a landlocked state where seafood is expensive (and frozen), so getting super cheap fish that was just a day old was a deal!

Japanese grocery stores are pretty similar to American grocery stores when you think of their layout. But when it comes to the products inside… there are so many new things!

There is obviously a huge selection of fish available, as well as an area for sashimi, high quality cuts of raw fish. So fishy! Every morning fresh fish are brought in and at the end of the day anything left over is discounted. Talk about fresh!

I feel like Japan is the land of snacks. They love to snack here, and the snack aisle itself is amazing. There are so many options and they are all packaged so cutely. 🙂

Yum! Sometimes I found some really weird flavors, like cheese flavored white chocolate.

There is a dedicated aisle in all of the grocery stores I’ve been to for little kid snacks and sweets. There are a lot of small snap off packages and heavy advertising of characters like anpanman.

A lot of Japanese grocery stores have little bakeries in a corner that sell freshly made breads, sandwiches, and sweets. The smell is so intoxicating and everything is delicious. 😉 Their bread is HUGE. Take a look at that slice… haha.