Gaijinpot: "Beginner's Guide To Supermarket Shopping In Japan"

Above, a Tokyo supermarket. Photo by Armand Vaquer.

Most foreign tourists to Japan will go out to a restaurant or a fast food eatery instead of cooking their own meals. Or, if they stay at a ryokan, will take their home-cooked meals there. There are some who plan on an extended stay and will be lodged in an extended stay hotel (here's an example) or apartment with kitchenette facilities. If you plan on staying at a place with kitchenette facilities, then this article is for you.

Those who plan to cook their own meals while in Japan will have to shop at a Japanese supermarket.

Gaijinpot.com has an article on the "Beginner's Guide To Supermarket Shopping In Japan."

They wrote (in part):

Let’s start by focusing on the supermarket themselves. In many ways Japanese supermarkets are exactly the same as those in any other country, but they also differ in one or two ways too. Firstly, most supermarkets in Japan are actually better described as grocery stores, in that they exclusively sell food. Don’t go in expecting to buy bubble bath, a razor and a few cheap t-shirts because most supermarkets just won’t stock these kinds of items.

To read more, go here.