Let’s go shopping at the local grocery store! At my local you use baskets – either carry them or put them on the trolley. Luckily the grocery store is pretty close so I don’t have to buy large quantities of items at a time.

Mmmm chu hai Having alochol in the supermarkets is novel for me, even though there are states in Australia, as well as many other places in the western world that does this. Fairly large selection if you are into beer or sake.

Cheese! I have heard that cheese can be hard to find in Japan. Well, not in my Japan. I have a wide selction of cheese from parmesan, camembert, to sliced plasticy goodness. All for what I percieve is a pretty reasonable price.

Meat is cheap, but tastes cheap too. I am planning to check out the local butchers for some better quality cuts.

There is a good selection of milk as well with both low fat and no fat avaliable.

Taco flavoured Doritos! There is a large selection of chips and lollies, some things familiar, lots of new things.

Bread only comes in this half loaf style with like 5-8 slices. If you get five slices, they are quite thick, or eight thinner slices. No crust bread in sight, or anything other than white. If you want to get adventerous with your bread, you are better off trying the many flavours of bread rolls you can get.

Assortment of cereals. The boxes are ten times smaller than those from home. And for some reason the kids at my school still don’t know what cereal is even though it is in the shops…

Beef here are all thinly sliced for ease of eating with chop sticks. Heavly marbled with fat too which is good for the taste bads but bad for the waist line/heart

Section for hot foods. Sitting in hot oily goodness. Who said that Japan was a healthy place?

Rice. Even though I live next door to rice, even though it is eaten at every meal, it is damn expensive here.

Some smellies. Some familiar brands. Make sure you read the katakana carefully though…

Here is some fruits and veges. The prices are expensive, but over all I don’t think they are as bad as I have heard prices can be. Also there are lots of stalls around here with fresh local fruit with decent prices. Fruits here are mostly large and very juicy.

At the end you pack your own bags. You can buy plastic bags for 5 yen each or you bring along your own bags. As I have previously been employed as a check out chick I am a pro at the awesome bag packing.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of my local food place

Here’s a quick little tour of the area around my home. I am loving living here.

Of course there are vending machines. I love vending machines. In Australia I was always forgetting to bring a drink with me when I go out walking etc. Here, it’s something I don’t really need to worry about. Not only are beverages cheaper here, there is usually a vending machine around somewhere. I haven’t seen any hot food vending machines here yet, so far only drinks, cigarettes and alcohol machines (which I suppose is also a drink machine).

Rice fields! There are rice fields in the smallest spaces between buildings. However, rice here is expensive.

A karaoke joint. Haven’t been here yet.

A scarecrow in the field

Japan has a lot of buildings that look soooo old and run down.

Here is the view of my backyard! A rice field

I have been in Japan for over a week now and in Mie for a week exactly. I am having a really great time, but of course I haven’t really started work yet. I have a mobile phone, internet, bank account, everything set up, and have now finished orientation. Today is sort of the first day I’ve had a break and time to myself!

I really love my placement and (most of!) the other ALTs in my area. We are a pretty fun bunch so it’s been a blast. I haven’t visited my school yet, I think that is happening next week. My supervisor is very helpful and speaks pretty good english.

My house is still a pigsty, but I hope to finally get most things sorted and put away today. Speaking of sorting, the garbage is sort of a nightmare.

Anyway, expect lots of updates of my adventures soon!

Remember those ninjas I talked about? Turns out I’ll soon be living with them!!

OK, I am not going to be in Iga-Ueno, which is where the Ninja Museum is, but soon I will be living in the same prefecture as them. I’m so excited and can’t wait – it’s only about a month away now.

I will be teaching in a small village of about 4000 people. There is a middle school and three elementaries. The schools are all small, with the middle school only having 98 kids. I’m very excited!