international grocery store

i work in an area of tokyo with a lot of foreign embassies. consequently, there are a lot of foreigners. walking from the station to work, it's not uncommon to hear a handful of different languages. it feels so "un-tokyo" but it's refreshing. when i've been to other big cities (i'm specifically thinking toronto and chicago, from recent travels) there has always been a hodge-podge of people and an "international feeling" that i rarely get in tokyo.

most of the time in tokyo, it feels like there's "japanese" and "white people," even though, statistically, this is not the case. sure a lot of foreigners in tokyo speak english and are white, but there are also a lot of other people, speaking other languages. and in my morning walk to work, i finally feel like i get to experience that.

all that to preface that yesterday i made my first time trip to the international super market near where i work. it's on the way back to the station so i've passed it several times a week for 2 months but had never visited. it was amazing.

they had grapes like home! (not the really thick skinned and huge seed japanese ones) they were a little expensive and i passed them up...this time! the vegetable section was pretty standard, otherwise. there were also spices i can't find at my local grocer, which i will be taking advantage of later. there was also a whole aisle of curries, taco "supplies" and salsas.

and they had TURKEY! that you order at the deli counter and they slice for you. this is a huge deal for me. turkey, lettuce, and cheese sandwich? you are within my reach! sort of unsurprisingly, the american cleaning products were about 5 times more expensive than their japanese counterparts.

so as to be expected, some of the food and products were more expensive than the states, but i expected things to be more expensive than they were. i was willing to pay 480some yen for hamburger helper fettucine alfredo. i had a chicken breast in the fridge and it made enough for dinner last night and i had leftovers for lunch today. it was only missing some broccoli, which i will definitely add next time.

i've always felt like i've had to "give up" some comforts from home, because i didn't like the idea of paying so much for things at international stores (and maybe was a bit pretentious in my martyr-like avoidance of international stores), but i've realized you just have to pick and choose. not everything will be a deal, but some things are still quite reasonable. and even when a medium size bunch of grapes is 500yen, sometimes it's worth the little taste of "home."

i'll definitely be stopping by every once in awhile from now on. :)