Japan is the land of convenience, as far as the mundane everyday things go. For example, the enormous amount of vending machines. In other areas, Japan seems behind the times. The ATM's for instance are seldom open 24 hours; usually they are only open the same times the banks are open. This sort of defeats the purpose of an ATM... But in one area Japan has it right, and that is the Convenience Store aka Konbini in Japanese.
The Konbini is a magical place of reasonably priced goods and quality service with a smile! It is like an American Gas station, except more welcoming I think and with better food. Konbini obento aka boxed lunches are much better than standard American gas station fare in my opinion.
Even on campus at OGU there is a konbini called Yamazaki and it is attached to the Macdonalds. Here is a website that lists the services konbini's offer http://www.japan-guide.com/e/e2071.html. Probably two of the more popular chains are Lawson and 7-11.
Usually my trips to the Konbini are for lunch, snacks, or for certain.. ahem.. personal lady products. At the school Konbini I usually buy this one delicious sandwich, OMG, it makes my mouthwater just thinking about it! It is this really good pork that has been cooked with crunchy/sweet mixture. I try not to get one everyday since I know it is probably high in calories! Also, one popular snack is KitKat bars. Here in Japan, as I have mentioned before, there are tons of different flavors. The other day I had a strawberry cheesecake kitkat bar and it was delicious. Another favorite of mine is a chocolate called MeltyKiss. That is probably my favorite chocolate from Japan. It really does meltily kiss you... hmmm candy love. I will have to bring a few boxes home to share...or not share!
One thing I don't like about Japan is the blatant pornography at times. These magazines are not covered in plastic wrapping or censored in anyway. They are often easily at children's eye level, and I can't help but think this is wrong for them to be so easily exposed to it. But that is Japan's culture for you. I saw an even more extreme example of this when I went to DenDen Town in Namba. Den means electricity, or electronic, so DenDen Town is a famous street of electronic goods. But every third store was a porno shop, and the pictues were NOT censored. There was one store in particular that had this lifesize cardboard cutout display of... well.. you can fill in the blank! And there were plenty of children walking around with their parents too! Different culture, different values.
