In the supermarket she got distracted in the meat department

When people find out we don't have a car, one of the most frequent follow up questions we get is what do we do about groceries? Well, getting groceries in Japan without a car is actually really easy and fairly typical among the locals. There are lots of little green grocers around for produce and I'm gaining familiarity with the supermarkets. Between having small kitchens without a lot of room for storage, having to walk everything home, and cooking with fresh ingredients, the Japanese tend to make smaller grocery trip more frequently, maybe even daily.

We have a bigger kitchen, since we live in base housing, but having to carry it all and preferring to cook fresh - we, too, make more frequent trips rather than stocking up on everything every two weeks, like I remember my mom doing when I was a kid. We tend to get most of our milk, eggs, and produce out in town at supermarkets or green grocers and everything else at the commissary on base. It depends on what we're making though, and I'm definitely trying to make more of effort to cook local foods. I have a lot to learn, but we have some time to keep figuring it out!

First, a grocery trip I documented back in March. Every grocery store does things a little differently, but this is the place I go the most.

This supermarket has two levels.

You pay a 100 yen deposit for the cart, which you get back when you return it. When you check out, they move the things from the red basket into a green basket.

Everyone bags their own groceries. Most of them are also going into backpacks. This was an usually large grocery trip, since I had to borrow Blake's largest backpack to get it all home.

Heading home!

This is a less pleasant trip when it's training.

And this was yesterday's haul:

I actually know what all of this is! One thing that I like about this store is that a lot of the store seems to be organized by meal type. The ramen section has a lot of what I need for ramen, all the okonomiyaki specific stuff is near each other, etc.

I'm getting lots more confident at the Japanese grocery stores, but I'm also confident that I will probably never buy one of these.

And this is dinner from last night! Blake's bowl says "No Ramen, No Life", which we picked up at Fire Ramen in Kyoto.