Japan Survival Guide Point 4 – Food and grocery shopping.

So, you’re coming to live in Japan. You’re going to teach English probably, and you’ll have your own apartment and quite often you’ll be cooking for yourself. What’s that like? What is Japanese food like and what are my choices when I eat out?

Shopping in Yokohama for food.

These are all important questions. Let’s start with self-catering and seamlessly melt into eating out via the convenience store, a big part in the lives of people in Japan, foreigners and Japanese. The first question you may have is – ‘Are supermarkets significantly different to those at home?’

Well, yes, and no. Firstly, fruit and vegetables are very seasonal here. I come from Australia, and things are not so seasonal at home because of our mild to non-existent winters. In Japan there’s plenty of snow, so that affects produce. Also, there simply isn’t that much land here to farm, and so much of that land is used for, you guessed it, rice.

We studied chapters at school which talked about Japan’s importing of food, and there’s so much that is imported. A high percentage of the beef and meat comes from other countries, including Australia. They like to marble the beef with strains of fat, so lean beef is not so easy to find. That’s the way they like it here. You will also find that meat is often sold in small, thin ‘strips’, rather than fillets.

There are a lot of noodle products, usually plenty of vegetables with an unhealthy obsession with radishes. Vegetables, I feel, are pretty expensive, especially in winter. A tomato could cost you $1.50 or more for one, and they tend to price per unit, not by weight although that is not always true. There are plenty of chips on the shelves and it’s often hard to know what flavour they are by the packet.

Lots of ice cream too, and you’ll find green tea is a very popular flavour here for it. And many other things as well. Ham and cheese especially are disappointing for quality and choice. Sausages are hard to find, unless you are looking for wieners. Self-raising flour is very rare. Bread is ALWAYS sold as a half loaf, is usually white and sweet and cut into very thick pieces. 1.5 cm is pretty standard and it gets thicker from there. That’s why I have made my own bread for two years in Japan, I want it cut thinner, I want it brown and with less sugar and chemicals. You can leave you bread in the fridge for weeks here and it doesn’t change. Yes, bread is disappointing. I HAVE seen bread as thick as an INCH.

I could go on but you get the idea. Then you get home and most houses, apartments and whatnot don’t have an oven, just a stove. And that usually doesn’t come with your apartment, so you end up renting or buying a one burner stove and that’s what you cook with. So no baking for you! Or roasting. Keep that in mind when you try to whip things up of an evening. Also, I find prices more expensive here in Yokohama than I did in Iwate which makes little sense, unless it’s sales tax.

If you’re in a rush, you can do what everyone does and that’s go to a convenience store, or as they call it here, a ‘conbini’. 7/11, Lawson, Family Mart, Sun K us… there are a legion of them here, I have never seen so many. They carry bentos (a kind of prepared lunch pack), sandwiches (not advised, will send you to the loo!), hot dogs, some very nice fried chicken, hot pockets, chips… for a few dollars you can sort a meal out for yourself with a bit of variety. Of course, it’s unlikely to score well in being healthy. But this is what a lot of Japanese people do and they love their conbinis very much.

Then you could go to a restaurant. And truly, of course you must try some Japanese food whilst you’re here. Here are some examples.

Sushi – you know sushi and sashimi right? A sort of rice ball or tube with raw fish, or vegetables, or egg or maybe something else on top or inside? You’ll find them at supermarkets, conbinis and restaurants and they are actually pretty healthy.

Okonomiyaki – well this one is a sort of omelette thing I guess. It involves egg, cabbage and a mixture of various other vegetables, often sprouts, a bit of meat maybe, restaurants specialise in this one. You can often make it yourself with a little hot plate included on your table! Cook it yourself and then smother it in ketchup, mayo or brown sauce. It ends up not being really healthy, and I don’t much go in for it, but many love it.

Yaki-soba – can be really delicious. It’s a sort of noodle thing mixed with cabbage, pork (or some other meat) and other vegetables. Really really nice! My favourite Japanese food.

Natto – this one is more for the brave I think. Strong smelling beans in a sort of sauce served usually with rice. It hails from Iwate I believe, and to be honest is not my cup of tea. But it might be yours!

Ramen – and if none of these appeal to you, try a bowl of ramen noodles. I like it with pork slices on top, the ramen noodles are in a delicious soup with vegetables too.

Tempura – well tempura can be many things from chicken to vegetables to shrimp. It’s basically just a Japanese take on covering something in batter and frying it. And yes it can be pretty darned tasty, and no, it’s usually not healthy.

You might also want to try –

Yakitori – grilled chicken on a stick in a sauce, really nice.

Onigiri (Rice balls) – People here LOVE rice balls for lunch or snack, usually wrapped in seaweed. Me? Not so much.

Soba, udon – more interesting kinds of noodles. There are many!

Curry & Rice – known more simply as Curry Rice, it’s usually a curry with maybe a little potato or other vegetables, and rice. It’s very popular up in Iwate, tastes okay and is usually not particularly hot.

So there are a few quick ideas to start you off for eating in Japan. Japanese cuisine is varied and usually tastes very strong, they don’t like things mild here. Again, I have only touched the surface there are so many different Japanese dishes. Be adventurous, but be aware you may end up with a bowl of something you can’t stand! Japanese food is really a love or hate it sort of deal. 

The World Journeys Podcast is here! Episode One!

Howdy all! Yes, it has finally arrived! The World Journeys Podcast!

Michael Eastwood - our very first guest!

I, your humble host, Andrew Boland, will be interviewing and chatting with a number of people this year about travel-related topics, the best of countries, the worst of countries, backpacking, taking a show overseas, the experience of living in another country and so much more.
The topic or theme of 'travel' is a wide one and there are so many possibilities, so please join me as I begin this new adventure, my first ever podcast. Podcasts aim to be between 25 and 40 minutes.









The first mini-series of 6 episodes features a range of interviews I have and will conduct with people here in Japan, and focuses mainly on living, working and teaching in Japan. I have a great line up of people with various experiences in Japan, and it's a really good look at expat life in North Asia (principally).






Episode One is an interview with Michael Eastwood, who has spent the last eight years living in Japan teaching initially for the JET program and subsequently for a company called Joy Talk. We talk about the different companies and pros and cons, and about the JET program. We talk about the highlights of living here in Japan, about the food and about the people. It's a great listen and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did when I recorded it. It goes for about 30 minutes.


So without further ado - Series One, Episode One is here!

Living in Japan Survival Guide Point Two: Money

Continuing on with my tips from part one a week or so ago, today I am blogging a little about money in Japan. I can start by telling you the local currency here is the ‘yen’, or as the locals say ‘en’, and that it is worth just over 100 to the US dollar right now, but that doesn’t tell you what you need to know, that the way people use money here is a little different to that in ‘the west’.

Most importantly I guess, Japan still loves cash. It’s untrue to say that credit cards and debit cards are useless here as I have heard people claim, even in rural Iwate you can use credit cards at most places and if your international debit card is Cirrus/Plus connected you should be able to find an ATM to withdraw from, but it’s likely to require a little searching and you’ll need to be there at the right time.

If you come to Japan to work, already hired by a company, they will help you set up a bank account. There’s a strong chance it will be probably the most common in Japan, the Japan Post (JP) bank account. Yes, the post office here is also a bank. The thing is, companies do deals with banks for bulk transfers which means they get a discount for depositing money into accounts, so you probably have to get paid into the bank your company uses. My wife had a job last year that she had to set up a new account for, as the company only dealt with the Bank of Iwate. In Australia I don’t believe there are deposit fees, which is why it seemed strange to me.

Don’t expect you money to earn any interest. Maybe it does, but you don’t receive it. Presumably the bank is doing something with it! On the plus side there are no ongoing fees, at least with a JP Bank account. To transfer money into a foreign account you need to fill out a form and pay 2500 yen at JP Bank plus your own bank fees. For me, it cost around a total of AUD$40 to do a transfer, which is a fair whack. There are other ways which are cheaper. Go Remit has a service which used to be run by Lloyd’s Bank which is a bit cheaper, and takes around 1-2 days. JP Bank take a good week plus to transfer the money over.

You can’t do it via internet with JP Bank. ATMs are annoying in Japan, there’s no way around that. IF you are visiting and using a Cirrus-Plus system card, then the ATMs in 7/11 take these cards, and should be functional as long as the store is open, which is usually 24 hours. However, if you need to pull money out of your Japanese bank, and remember you will cop a fee if you don’t use the bank’s own ATMs, you strike a little trouble, because they close. I was at Haneda international airport at 10.30pm before boarding a plan and the JP bank ATM told me ‘Machine opens at 6.30am’. And that’s generous! Some close by 6pm or something, and it’s similar for other Japan bank ATMs.

The passbook is still king as well, more popular it seems than the bank card, but you usually get both when you open up an account. Even the ATMs are equipped with a slot for the passbook and will update it, JP Bank will update it without entering a code which is a little ‘dodgy’ – someone could steal your passbook and at the very least see how much money you (don’t in my case!) have.

The country loves point cards – such as T-point, and many shops will give you points for each purchase and they eventually you have enough points to buy something I imagine, however then they will ask you to pay in cash.

At the convenience stores you can pay your utilities and phone bills, as well as buy tasty treats like super-fried chicken. You can use a credit card there, however only for items bought from the store, not for bills, they have to be paid in cash. This is typical of how inflexible Japan can be at times, things are kept separate as much as possible.

You should find you almost always get correct change, in the supermarkets at least. Many if not most cash registers do not open, instead the cashier puts your money in, the machine calculates and spits out the change. Then there is the love for vending machines. You find them everywhere, but they are also installed inside shops. Small restaurants, even my hairdresser’s back in Iwate. You select what you want to eat, put the money in, press the button and then take a ticket to get served. In the case of my hairdressers, every cut they did was just 1000 yen. The machine was just for 1000 yen. Put it in, get the ticket, pass it on to the person to cut your hair.

When you have to pay for something at city hall, or even to renew your visa at the immigration centre, you pay for it by buying a stamp, either from a machine or a woman in a booth. But, that’s stepping into the territory of the next topic on my Japan Survival Guide. And that’s next week!

Always carry a bit of cash in Japan, it can’t hurt, the place is ridiculously honest and safe. But don’t think your cards are completely useless, just be of when, and where you can use them.

For more info and travel tips for the tourist coming to Japan, my ebook:

Short Journeys: Japan 

Sayonara Apartment!

Well, today I said 'Goodbye' to my apartment where I have lived the past two years. If moving to Japan was tricky, leaving is not only difficult but also quite slow and frustrating.
Still, even though the apartment wasn't quite as comfortable as I might have liked, I'll have fond memories. Not so much of sleeping on a futon or the earthquakes - actually the whole building shook when a train went past or there was a strong breeze! But it has been the first home for my wife and myself and will be special because of that fact before anything else.
Last night we had the Yamato shipping/transportation company take away no less than 12 boxes from the apartment! For around $55 too so I was impressed with that. I woke this morning with multiple things on my schedule.

The walk to my front door.

My name in Katakana on my door. But, no more!

1/ We rented the fridge, washing machine and a few other things. The company was coming to take those away. They told us nine, they arrived at twenty to, thankfully it was all ready to go.

2/ Sell the last of our stuff to the 2nd Hand stores. This didn't go so well, I didn't even get 3 bucks and 3/4 of the stuff was rejected outright!

3/ Get back to the house for the gas man. He came and turned the gas and water off, which is quite a procedure especially considering it's just a small apartment.

4/ Meet the landlord who would look over the flat. He came a little late and I was just waiting for what seemed like forever in a practically empty flat. Actually he was only 10 minutes late, and five of those minutes were spent climbing the stairs. It is just one flight of steps but my landlord of the last two years is an elderly gentleman of (at a guess) 85 years, and it takes him longer than use youngsters!

Well, this took a good fifty or more minutes. He examined everything up close, especially the spot that was left on one of the tatami mats from an ill-advised use of incense in the bedroom. We knew it had to be replaced, small though it was, but he got down on his knees and stared at it for what seemed like ten minutes.
He turned every light one and off a number of times, checked the air conditioner worked and was annoyed that the water had been turned off as he wanted to try every single tap in the house too. Then we sat down on the tatami mats and he wrote on a piece of paper, circling things in Japanese pertaining to every aspect of the apartment. This took an age and then he phoned my company and spoke to them for 10 minutes, the upshot of which was, as before, he would need to get estimates before he could say how much we needed (if anything) to pay.

See, the renters are really responsible for everything here, including light bulbs that die. Fortunately in two years none did for use. One half centimetre spot on the tatami mats means the entire room with six mats will probably have to have them all replaced.
It's like that. Plus, tenants need to pay for cleaning, although the apartment is now cleaner than when I arrived in my opinion. I wouldn't mind so much but for 21,000 yen  or $210 US, you'd expect them to be able to clean more than one apartment. There's very little to do but regardless of how clean you leave it, you pay for everything to be cleaned. Apparently, I've been told, the cleaning is 'special' and includes the pipes. I guess I will never know. Here they take it out of your security deposit, unless the total is more which it may well be in our case. Here is the apartment after almost everything was taken out:

Finally, I today I recorded my fifth interview for the upcoming World Journeys podcast. I have now conducted five interviews with people who live in Japan, one a local and four English teachers like myself capturing their thoughts and opinions on this life that we lead here! I hope to record a couple more when I am in Yokohama.

Tonight I am at the Toyoko Inn in Ichinoseki, tomorrow night it is another overnight bus adventure. Stay tuned everyone, more coming soon to a blog near you!

Living in Japan Survival Guide Point One - Second Hand Stores

Hello! Today I am starting a series of points that will form a sort of informal 'Survival Guide' for those thinking of living in Japan. My time in Ichinoseki is almost up as I type - tomorrow I say goodbye to my apartment, Friday night I am off to Yokohama via night bus, so things are coming to a close here, so I hope I can depart some information.

Hard-Off : best for big things.

A lot of people come to Japan to teach English, and probably half if not more stay just the one year. If you are coming or going from Japan, you either need to buy a lot of stuff for your apartment, or you need to sell a lot of stuff as it doesn't make a lot of sense to post it back to your home country. Especially things like shelves, irons, printers or whatever.


So one thing to start with, which ever way you are using the second stores in Japan, and there are a LOT which is good news, you are not going to be a massive winner here. To be honest, when I arrived I didn't buy anything from the stores, but I have sold quite a bit building up to the leaving. Simply, in my opinion, the stores sell at pretty much the same sort of price that you could buy something new for. For example, 'Doki-Doki' was selling a Lenovo computer, very similar to the one I have now, for 39,000 yen. I paid 42,000 yes for mine new, and it has double the memory.

Don Don Down Wednesdays for clothes...

Your main stores are Doki-Doki, which sells all manner of things, Hard Off, which sells most things too but seems to specialise in big stuff - like tables, sofas and the like. Then there is Book-Off, the main line there is books, don't get too excited you'll have a lot of trouble selling English books there though, Japanese books you have a chance, and finally Don-Don Down Wednesdays. Yes, it's a truly bizarre name - I think there are special deals on Wednesdays. This store is only really looking to buy and sell clothes, and will give you a decent deal on name brands, otherwise they might not take what you've got or give you much for it.

I've found that Hard-Off gives the best payout when selling, but that are also more choosy. Yesterday I had to sell the bread maker that I paid around 5000 yen for ($50). Hard-Off wouldn't take it, and I got 100 yen only from Doki-Doki - yes one lousy buck.

..and Doki-Doki for the rest.

On the other hand, last week I sadly had to sell my guitar. I received over 3000 yen for that. And here's the thing - I was just in Hard Off again where my guitar is now on sale, and the price it had was 12,960 yen! Yes, they make a BIG profit on what you sell. And to go back to my point about buying stuff from these places - I paid, in Tokyo, 9,980 yen for this guitar, bashed it around and used it in classes for 2 years, and here in Ichinoseki, they have added 30% to the price of it brand new! It is true that these second hand shops offer better prices in the big cities, we are in the sticks here, but still!

You may feel miffed sometimes - especially with what Doki-Doki offers you for your items. I suggest that if you're looking to sell, leave Doki-Doki until last.
For books you'll be lucky to get 20 yen for a small Japanese novel. It's a mixture of surprise and mostly disappointment I must admit, with the occasional happy surprise.


Here are some examples from Hard Off of prices -

Here we have the oil/electric heaters. Second hand priced at over $100! In Australia they retail for around $30-$40.

This is a plastic container we sold to Hard Off. They are charging over $8 for it, they gave us 20 cents. It's old and warn and dull, and I paid less for nicer ones brand new when I first arrived.

An old, faded, couch second hand - asking price over $300. Just insane in my opinion! Might get $20 in Australia for the same couch. If you were lucky. Most of them end up on the nature strip awaiting the hard rubbish collection!

So. When you're leaving these places are your only choice really. There's no room for negotiation as you would have in Australia, it's what they offer you or nothing. One positive from Hard-Off is if they won't buy it they will often get rid of it for you, which can be tricky in Japan.
For new arrivals, you might as well buy your stuff brand new. Look for a 100 yen shop for stuff like plastic drawers/containers, they will be cheaper and shinier than the stuff at a second hand store.
Thus endeth today's lesson - more survival tips are coming in a week or so amongst budget recommendations, photos, life postings and more! Please stayed tuned!

My Short Jounreys: Japan is available on Amazon here!

Thoughts on Graduation

I’m sure I am not the only Gaijin in Japan blogging today about their thoughts on graduation. Across Iwate at least, today was graduation at many high schools including my own, and it’s a very strange day in so many ways. For starters, we are saying a big goodbye to many students, students I have now taught for two years. A second year really builds an understanding of the different students, and that goes both ways. So I feel that I had a little more to do with the students graduating this year compared to last year. If I was staying for a third year, it would be even stronger for the group of students finishing second year right now.

And that’s my regret I guess, that I won’t get to see the students that started here when I did graduate. That’s quite disappointing for me. As for those who graduated today, well, when I first started teaching them, generally I found them to be the most troublesome of all the year levels, with the exception of the ‘B’ class.

The C, D and F classes I taught seemed to have little to no interest in English for the most part, bar a handful of students, and I really had to work hard to keep their attention in the class room. There were a number of students in different classes who were class ‘clowns’, for want of a better word. They were so easily distracted and even my fellow Japanese English teachers were at a bit of a loss.

However, that said, the more you work with students the more you understand them and connect. And slowly I could recognise there were a number of students interested in English and keen to progress and learn. Not only that, but I could identify students that struggled, and those who could do the work but couldn’t be bothered. And thus adapt and try different ways to reach them. And I must have reached some of them. Today I was signing year books and getting presents.

But also after a little bit of time it was clear that there were no ‘bad’ students, although I always believed that beforehand. Students have pressures and lives and different upbringings and they all lived through March 11^th, 2011, a year before I arrived to teach. I have heard people say that my school is low level, or even a ‘bad school’, but it simply isn’t true.

This year’s graduates are fine young people. I have heard of some pretty bad stuff going on in classrooms via other Gaijn teachers, but I had nothing too bad in mine other than the occasional all-boy class getting a bit loud here and there and… no that’s about it.

They are nuts about flowers in Japan. And pretty flowers about nuts too.

But this year’s graduates have so much character and life, it was almost bizarre to see them at the graduation ceremony to be honest. I think of them in the class room laughing and asking me questions, and clearly having an incredibly strong bond with each other. The ceremony was, well, what can I say?

It seems traditional first of all that everyone in the hall must be as cold as possible. The giant gas heaters are incredibly ineffective and probably should have been turned on yesterday and left on. The graduates walk in, blank faces, looking straight ahead and follow a strict line to get to their chairs at the front of the hall, it’s almost army like. Of course, some of the students cut a corner or two, but for the most part they were emotionless. In fact, the entire hall including the other students, teachers and parents had not a smile among them.

As the graduates walk the walk, everyone else claps in time to the music provided by the brass band, which incidentally was the same choice as last year. This takes ten minutes, ten minutes of clapping in time. Sounds like fun? Remember, not ONE smile.

Then every student gets their name read out, walks onto the stage and receives their diploma from the principal. That’s around 200 students and it took 40 minutes. Not a smile. They bow to the principal, with varying degrees of bowing. Some seem very orthodox and dip their head low, others it was barely a movement at all. Not a smile. 40 minutes. Did I mention? They reply ‘Hai!’ when their name is called, and occasionally one student shouts it really loud. One student from my 3F class does this, and I couldn’t help laughing a little. Luckily, the teacher next to me does too, she knows him well. Nevertheless we are still the only ones to crack a smile in nearly an hour.

Speech by the principal. No applause for speeches. Then a member of the PTA. Then another. Each are 5-7 minutes. Straight faces. Two students give speeches – one from a second grader wishing the graduates well, one from a graduate, I think the student council head. It ends in tears. We’re over 90 minutes now. I look around and there are teachers and parents asleep. There’s also an NHK crew (Japan’s main TV network) here today, one camera, filming bits and bobs of the day. Probably for a piece in the Iwate news.

Then it’s time for the school song. I’ve spent time going over the hiragana and know the tune. I do pretty well, it’s not perfect but at least I didn’t confuse the hiragana for ‘ra’ with the one for ‘chi’ which I keep doing and vice versa. There’s a few more words and thankyous. The teachers stand up and bow to the PTA, sit down again. Finally the music starts up again and to continuous applause and no smiles the graduates walk out of the hall, with a look on their faces saying they have just been through pure hell. Except – there was one student whom I never taught smiling! It’s a minor victory at least.

Kind message on a present from a student. I also got a bobble-head monkey.

Afterwards there are smiles and happiness, taking of photos and thanking teachers and the like.

おめでとう- that’s Japanese for congratulations, all round. ‘Thank goodness!’, I thought. The end of high school is something to feel happy about, to celebrate, yet the event honestly felt like a funeral. The teachers almost all wore back with white shirts. I had dark grey and didn’t stand out too much, I hope. One teacher had a light grey suit and another a blue suit that was 5 sizes too big for him.

And so a new chapter begins for 200-odd students at my school. I’m going to miss every single one. I hope with all my heart the future brings them nothing but happiness and security, and that they chase their dreams. They were a year full of colour, exuberance and character. Japan, and the world needs a bit more of that. 

Andrew Boland / World Journeys is a travel writer and blogger who has visited 69 countries. For more on his travel writing and books, please visit: World Journeys.