Picture of the Week 8 – Shinagawa Station

I was in Shinagawa Station in Tokyo today, and thought I’d take this picture. This is going toward the Central gate on the east side. This is a large station, and can be easy to get lost in it.

This is the eastern entrance to Shinagawa Station.

Grocery shopping difficulties in Japan

I remember my first time in a supermarket when I came to Japan.  I had a difficult time finding anything I wanted.  I spent an hour in the supermarket searching for what I wanted.  Now, I can find things easily, no problem.  However, I still have some problems.  Maybe they’re more like complaints.

Japanese bread is terrible. I can’t find proper bread that can be used to make sandwiches.  The bread here is usually sold in small bags with extremely thick slices of white bread.  And this isn’t just any white bread, this is white bread that’s full of fat.  It’s soft and moist, but also extremely unhealthy.  I can’t eat all of the sandwiches after I make them, because I feel sick from the fattening bread.  I haven’t been able to find wheat bread at all.

Cheese is too expensive. Any cheese is expensive.  Milk isn’t a big thing in Japan, so it is expensive.  This makes cheese expensive.  Ice cream is expensive, too.

No pepperoni! I love pepperoni, but all I can find is salami.  I want pepperoni!

Japanese salt and vinegar potato chips are a joke. It’s not a very common flavour here, but I have found salt and vinegar potato chips in Japan.  However, it’s not imported, it’s made in Japan.  It’s terrible!  Honestly, who has ever heard of sweet salt and vinegar potato chips?  Ugh!

Convenience store sandwiches suck. Mayonnaise is on everything.  I hate mayo.  And it uses the awful Japanese bread.  Enough said.

Wasteful packaging. In Canada, you can buy cookies and eat them right out of the tray that’s in the package.  In Japan, once you open the package, you have to open individually wrapped cookies.  Waste of plastic!

Although this has nothing to do with buying groceries, I do have another food gripe to make.  Kentucky Fried Chicken in Japan is very greasy.  If you thought North American KFC was greasy, Japanese KFC is even greasier.  I can’t each much.

So, what do you think?

Picture of the Week 7 – Colonel Sanders

This is Colonel Sanders. Yes, Japan has KFC, too.

Outside KFC restaurants in Japan, you can find a Colonel Sanders statue. At Christmas, it's dressed as Santa.

1 year

One year ago, this blog was started.  Actually, 1 year and 1 day ago, it was started.  Sorry, I’m late for my blog’s anniversary.  Over the past year, I have been to many new places, watched sumo twice, attended 3 festivals, and took too many pictures to count.  There’s been a lot that’s happened, but I haven’t been able to keep my blog updated as much as I wanted.  I have a lot to post, so I’ll defininitely get to work on that.  I hope the next year is even better!

The shopping street cat

In the neighbourhood I live in, there’s a busy shopping street near the station. During the day, it’s quite crowded, but at night, there are only a few restaurants and bars open. When I go home from work, I walk down this street in the evening, always looking for my friend. My friend is a cat. She’s a friend of many people, actually. It seems that she lives on the street, being fed by shop owners. She’s a very social cat, and is often waiting outside an ice cream shop for someone to come and sit with her. Often, I see a different person sitting on the ground with her relaxing in his or her lap. She loves to sit with people, who love to pet her. If she’s alone, I’ll often go over and pet her. She’s always happy for the attention. I don’t know her name, but she’s my friend.

This is my friend.

Picture of the Week 6 – Tanabata, the Star Festival

It’s getting close to the time of the year for Tanabata, or the Star Festival. I’d already posted a picture about this last year, but I think this picture is much better. Tanabata is on July 7th.

Very colourful decorations for Tanabata.