It's easy to eat out here - so many delicious foods to try at very reasonable prices - but you do need some staples in the fridge, as well. I went to a small supa (that's how the Japanese say "supermarket") conveniently located in our Ebisu Train station. There is another, grander supa located next to us in the Mitsukoshi, but I'll save that for another post.
Here are the things I came away with on my first solo trip to the supa.
Packaged salad, sliced ham, bananas, eggs, ramen noodles, brie, crackers, carrots, and apples
It's hard to see but the ham and the brie have been placed in plastic bags with a small cold pack to keep them cool during the trek home. They think of everything! It does make me uncomfortable, though, that they use massive amount of plastic here. At every store they put everything into a plastic bag, inside another plastic bag. It's very sturdy and secure and usually very cute, but wasteful. :-(
The fruit in Japan is very carefully grown and each piece looks absolutely perfect. Look at the styrofoam band that they placed around these apples so they wouldn't get bruised in transport! Because so much labor goes into raising the fruit so carefully, it is quite expensive. We were so lucky in California and I didn't even appreciate it! These apples cost about $2 each. For the specialty fruit you can pay $100 each, easily! Note to self: take photos of super pretty, super expensive fruit
Then I had to figure out how to use the stove top to boil my eggs. Basically, I used Google Translate, pressed a bunch of buttons, and almost gave up before I somehow got it to work. I don't know which of the variables I tried actually made the stovetop turn on, so I'm back to square one the next time I need to use it. Sigh.
