How to Spend Very Little on Groceries in Japan

I know I'm still about a month behind in my posts, but I figured if I don't start posting current stuff (i.e. as it happens), I'm just going to keep falling further and further behind!

Anyway, here's my random list of "tips" on how to live with a grocery budget of ¥1000-2000 ($10-$20)/week--all from personal experience!

In no particular order...

• like eggplant, tofu, small green peppers, and bananas--some of the cheapest food available!
• have a high tolerance for repetition: I have eaten the same dish (eggplant, green peppers and sometimes tofu with packaged sauce--all cheap ingredients!) 2-4 nights/week for the past 5 weeks, and I'm not sick of it yet!
• appreciate simple foods: grilled cheese or tuna sandwiches, baked potatoes, onigiri, etc.
• appreciate bland foods: keeping a large variety of spices, condiments, etc. on hand can get costly; the only condiments I've purchased so far have been soy sauce, mayonnaise, "Tare" sauce (available only in Towada/Aomori), and salt, and I hardly even use them!
• introduce yourself to/make friends with your neighbours: one neighbour gave me potatoes and tomatoes!
• show interest in different Japanese foods: a teacher at my base school talked about eating "soumen" and I asked her what it was, then today (2 weeks after she explained it to me), she gave me a package of soumen, a bottle of the sauce for it, and a handwritten explanation of how to cook/eat it!
• teach at an elementary/junior high school: you will usually be provided with a school lunch at little to no cost! Not only are these lunches quite large, but they're also reasonably balanced/healthy! I always try to finish my lunch at school so I can get away with a small dinner at home
  
• bring a large bag of your favourite cereal with you from home: I haven't had to worry about breakfast once yet since coming to Japan!
• eat your cereal with a banana: again, bananas are cheap, and the space they take up in your bowl will help you to conserve your cereal, so it will last longer!
• drink tap water: it's perfectly safe; if you don't like the taste, invest in a Brita filter (I inherited one from my predecessor) or boil your water before drinking
• invest in ¥100 ($1) onigiri molds: onigiri are cheap and filling, and the molds make making them fun and easy!
• store your bread in the freezer: for some reason bread expires very quickly in Japan (2-3 days after the purchase date is typical)
  
• limit your grocery shopping trips to once or twice a week: if you don't see all the different foods available (particularly ready-made foods) you won't be tempted to try them!
• start a blog: instead of snacking, I go on the internet when I'm bored; if I don't have anything else to do online, I can always update my blog!
  

Shimoda Mall

Saturday R and K offered to take us three Towada newbies shopping, either at the Towada Jusco or at Shimoda Mall. They all met up at my place, and CH and T (whom we thought were going to watch fireworks somewhere else) also came.

At the bookstore, I bought an issue of Hana to Yume (a manga magazine) because it had Hana Kimi on the front. On a more practical note, I also bought a new pillow, pillow case, and what I thought was a futon cover (it was actually a duvet cover, but I think I needed that more than a fitted sheet for the futon, so it worked out well).

Towards the end of our shopping time, CH and I decided to have ice cream (before dinner!) at the Baskin Robbins. For summer, they had a special snowman (yuki daruma) cone—a small scoop on top of a king scoop—so of course, being the sucker for advertising that I am, I had to try it! The flavours I chose were musk melon and “sweet mariage”. They were both pretty good, but I liked the musk melon flavour better since “sweet mariage” was a bit too sweet.

We had dinner at “Steak & Hamburg” in the mall, and because we were split into two tables separated by a wall/divider, we spent most of the meal throwing messages written on pieces of paper/napkin/straw wrappers back and forth. Juvenile, yes, but also fun.

At the drink bar, they had apple and melon slushies! It was quite tasty, and I enjoyed the neon green colour! =P I ordered "baked curry doria" which is basically curry on rice baked with cheese with a lightly poached egg thrown on top. (Really, I just ordered it because I saw the egg!)












After dinner we watched movies. CH, R and I watched Rush Hour 3, and everyone else (plus CD, who came just for the movie) watched Oceans Thirteen. Oh, the interesting thing about buying movie tickets at this theatre (I’m guessing it’s like this across Japan?) is that there is assigned seating so if you’re in a group you have to buy your tickets all together (and it’s also probably better if you buy your tickets ahead of time).

I’d seen previews for Rush Hour 3 in Canada, and I thought it looked like a terrible movie, but it ended up being not too bad. There were definitely more funny scenes in the movie than I expected from the previews. The unfortunate thing was that one of the characters spoke Japanese, so I wasn’t actually able to understand all of it (since of course they wouldn’t bother to translate the Japanese into English in Japan).

We finished a LOT earlier than Oceans Thirteen, though, so we ended up amusing ourselves by taking funny pictures with the life size cut outs for the upcoming Hero (Japanese law drama, not the Jet Li action film) movie. Well, I took pictures—CH and R posed (both knowingly and unknowingly) for them.












When everyone else came out, they also posed for photos.

S-san's Drinking House

Friday was a rare day at the office because people in our department were actually in! So we all had lunch at Oirase-ya (the soba place across the street).













I hung out at AH’s place after work and then everyone—AB and J—met up with us so we could go together to S-san’s “drinking house.”

It was a lot of fun; there was an abundance of food and alcohol (having learned my lesson from the lemon sour, though, I only drank ½ a glass of beer). We had kimchi nabe (stew), grilled eggplant, fish, sausages, steaks and onions, and scallop sashimi. S-san introduced us to a Towada sauce that’s really good with meat and vegetables. I tried it on a grilled onion and it actually succeeded in making the onion taste decent! I mean, I HATE onions, but I managed to eat the small slice I was given, thanks to the sauce.

Towards the end of the night, S-san’s daughter, KA came home, so we got to talk with her for a bit. She works at the Aomori bank and she’s around the same age as AH, J and I, so it was fun to talk with her. Hopefully we’ll be able to hang out sometime.

Homemade Okonomiyaki!

Wednesday was another half-Kirita, half-office day, but this time I went to Kirita first. Only two (out of the four) students were asked to come in for practice, so I was finished before lunch. Back at the office, AH and I went off on our own for lunch at the soba place across the street, Oirase-ya.

After work, I really wanted to go to taiko practice again, but we (AH, J and I) had to “teach” at an English conversation class (eikaiwa). That was fun too—we met S-san (a former All-Japan soccer player!) and other nice people—but just hearing the taiko practice going on outside made my hands itch to grab some sticks and to drum.

Thursday AH and I went together to Sanbongi JHS to help the students with their speeches for the contest. T-sensei was supposed to pick us up from the school (to take us to get our gaijin cards and to open our bank accounts) afterwards, so I decided to walk.

Luckily I left a LOT of extra time, because I actually managed to get lost!! For some reason, I thought the school was further south than it actually was, so I overshot it and had to ask for directions to get there. As I started going back north, I decided to ask someone for directions, just to be safe. Well, that turned out to be a bad idea since the first person I asked was an elderly lady who didn’t really know where it was. When I talked to her, I thought she was giving me rough directions, but it turned out she was actually just suggesting that I look for someone else to ask!

Of course, I didn’t figure this out until I’d walked a fair distance back south (the way I’d come—the wrong way) and finally saw another person, whom the old lady then told me I should ask. Thankfully the lady (a storekeeper) knew where the school was and was able to give me directions that I could actually understand.

So I ended up going back up north, but a little more west. Thankfully I made it just on time.

We were supposed to finish around lunch time, but we ended about an hour and a half early—just about 10am. Not knowing what else to do, we called our office (well, I asked AH to call since I hate phoning!) and made arrangements for T-sensei to pick us up from AH’s house.

T-sensei took us out for lunch at a restaurant in a downtown hotel. We all had the unagi special—yummy! Then AH and I finally got gaijin cards and opened our bank accounts! It was quite the process, since you can’t make any changes/corrections on a form, AH and I ended up having to re-write our forms a couple of times.

AB and RB had invited us to their place for dinner that night, so AH and I made plans to meet up at J’s place, but I was late because I missed the turn off of Route 4 and ended up going WAY far south. (Yes, I made the same mistake twice in the same day!) On the plus side, though, I found the Uniqlo!

Anyway, we (re: I) eventually made it to A&RB’s, where we enjoyed homemade okonomiyaki! The way RB made it was different from the restaurant in Aomori in that she didn’t mix the egg in with the batter, but just cracked it on top and let it fry that way. It was really delicious—even better than the restaurant’s!