I am excited today to talk about convenience stores, not convenience stores in north America but convenience stores in Japan or as they call them in Japan convenience which might add is a way more convenient way of saying it is one of the most inconvenient words to write out.

Try it right now.

I always got auto corrected.

Convenes are so different than the types of convenience stores I have experienced in North America seven elevens in Canada are usually places that I go for like slushies or ice is in the summertime.

There's usually like eight machines with big gulps and half of them aren't working pretty much just junk food and you would never say I'm going to go for a quick grocery run at the 7 11.

Like that's just unheard of interestingly.

I basically talked my mom's ear off about the glory of convenes and she didn't really seem to believe me until people went to Japan for the olympics and the reporters started to report back on the food that they were experiencing.

And my mom was like martina doesn't, that doesn't sound like this at all.

Why does my mom sound like Pinocchio martina, you were right, convenience stores are amazing in Japan.

There's a reporter and every day he's talking about the amazing things he's having at a convenience store and I'm like, I know so why are convenience stores so awesome.

Well just to give you a rough idea of what I'm about to talk about convenience stores in Japan.

You can grocery shop, you can buy takeaway, pre made meals that are actually delicious.

You can pay bills, you can buy concert tickets, you can do photocopying and just like so much stuff.

So there are five main convenience stores in Japan.

There's 7 11.

There is losses, there's natural losses, which I would say it's kind of an anti up.

It's kind of like a specialty convening.

Then you have family mart, they have a green, white and blue logo, you've got a mini stop, which I'm not that familiar with and you also have the special Yamazaki especially Yamazaki is kind of like a small town or countryside type location.

I've never been in one.

I think I've seen one when I was on a trip out the window.

Like especially Masaki.

Now this is probably the big highlight of convenience to the pre made food is delivered daily, it's refilled all the time.

People don't go to convenience stores because they're just like desperate and in the middle of the road driving and they gotta gas up and they're getting a hot dog and they're like, I shouldn't do this.

But I'm gonna, convenience stores have literally good food.

It ranges from hot dishes.

We're talking curries, pastas.

Currently the 7 11 now are doing thai food tom, yam goong.

Each convenience store has their own thing that they're doing soba or cold soba Udon ramen and we're talking about fresh ramen noodles with the broth and I'm definitely gonna do another video that's talking about how they separate all the items so that they last, they don't get soggy.

But that is for another video now with these items.

You can also do my favorite thing to do, which is convenient hacks.

So I'd like to take like one item and like mix it with another item to create something even more awesome or like things that are really helpful for if you're traveling.

So I like to kind of like go to communities and do these little hacks and stuff.

Did you wait?

I think I'm being hacked.

Can I be happy to make video being hacked?

Mhm.

Such breaking cokie.

Did you really think you talk about hacking and not include me?

Hacker woman?

Oh well while I'm here, might as well introduce you to one of my favorite convene e packs.

So every convenient japan sells these kind of like ubiquitous, rock hard vanilla ice creams.

But what I like to do is hack that and make it into a super delicious sneaky for God.

Oh what?

No, that's right, I forgot.

Oh we're talking coffee, an ice cream usually espresso but for me, I make a sneaky cup of coffee.

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Where was that?

Oh yeah, take your a scumbag cut off the top and dump that big old cube into a bowl.

Next you're gonna want to make your coffee.

You're only going to be using a bit for your ice cream and the rest you get to drink on the side, then pour your coffee unceremoniously over your ice cream, dig on him with a spoon.

It's gonna be hot.

It's gonna be cold.

It's gonna be creamy and magical.

Boom been Now, that's what I call a delicious dessert to become one.

It's like a, is it a spice Girl song?

I don't really access to.

Also do you mind if I move in, I'll pay rent.

I'm really good at ordering stuff on that.

The system hacker woman.

But I will say she has inspired me.

I think over on king kogi, my other youtube channel, I'm gonna do a whole bunch of videos about uh, convenient hacks.

That's right.

Hacker woman.

Well maybe I'll invite her to step in and give a couple of tips as well Now, where was I before?

I was really, yes.

Food from the convenience.

Let's talk about groceries.

You can get things for your pantry all the way to fresh items at a convenient because you can get all the basics that you need.

We're talking about milk, egg, they have apples, they will have like seasonal fruits.

So right now cocky, like persimmons are really in, you can get onions, potatoes, carrots, green onions, like basically anything you need.

Sometimes they have meat, like fresh meat depending on the place that being said.

You can go to expensive grocery stores in japan, you can go there for specialty items, different types of cuts of meat and fish and different types of vegetable products.

So I'm not saying live your whole life at a convenience store.

I'm just saying you could sugar, salt, mayo, salad dressing, little bags of flour, show you like soy sauce, like oil, olive oil, all the things you might need for cooking.

You can get at a convenient and they also have these amazing miniature sized items you guys like, you can get mayonnaise, that's normal, you get like normal tongue cuts the sauce for like your fried food time, Damascus, it's amazing.

So whatever I have to travel for work on them at like a hotel or an Airbnb, then I can actually use these like little mini items.

I don't have to buy like a big item.

So that's a little bit of a hint there for you guys.

If you're coming here on vacation, you don't have to buy a giant bottle of mayonnaise if you're just trying to cook for like a week.

But you also could buy a giant bottle of mayonnaise because Japan's main is, it's amazing and now the roman that's being put for sale in the convenience is actually ramen and growth that's made by some of the number one ramen shops in Japan, like the real ramen shop, chefs are now making a convene e version if you can't go on way to that location, you can have a comparison to it at a convenient if you bring up your food to the front to pay for it, they are going to ask you a question, what they're asking you in.

Japanese is do you want me to warm up your food?

And if you don't understand it because you don't speak japanese, you can say hi or you can say yes or you can say only guys.

Sheamus or you can just say yes please and they will warm it up for you and then the next thing they're gonna do is put it into a bag and they will grab for you.

Either chopsticks or fork or spoon.

Some places will do little hand lifestyle.

Somebody they'll put them in for you.

Some places might ask you so they might start reaching for that might glance at it.

And the next question they're asking you is do you need cutlery?

So if you need it you can again say yes or high or when you guys schemas, if you don't need them to warm it up then you can just say no.

Very helpful as well.

That's no.

So use body language.

If you don't speak the language that way, you can communicate regardless from there.

You got cold items.

So you got sandwiches or as they're called here Sando, which I love.

It just sends like sand oh within these categories, every single location will have some ubiquitous items that you can get every location.

However on top of that they will have their own specialty brand items.

So there's like 7 11 snacks that are like the 7 11 version.

There's the family mark snacks and these are only available at those chains.

So people get very argumentative about what their favorite places like.

I have a favorite place to go for pasta.

Like I prefer lost its pasta lost since pasta lost since pasta loss since now.

It sounds like a funny word, say it with me Lawson's pastas and each shop will have basics like everyone has an egg salad sandwich but people will fight over which one has the best one.

Everybody will have like a tuna mayo onigiri but everybody will fight over what they think is the best one and then some will have specialty items.

One of my favorites was Margo cocky going on which is like an egg that's been mixed with soy sauce and gets all creamy and it's normally a dish that you get but they made it into like an only GT format and I could never always sold out but I used to go in the morning to the hospital with my friend Anna and she would help me and we would get them on the way there would always be like yeah we got them and then they were gone limited edition.

So even if you visited Japan before and you've gone to a convenient don't think that the stuff that you had is going to still be there?

It's always changing.

You want to know what else convenience have in Japan alcohol.

I mean so much alcohol, bourbon, vodka, whiskey, you've got things like show que saca, you've got red wine and white wine.

Is it the highest most expensive wine?

No, the most expensive wine.

You're going to get out of convenience around, I would say $12 And you can also get a bottle of wine for $5 and you know, what It's not that bad if I have to be honest with you.

I also use an aerator which helps out all red wines and also really good for cooking.

But outside of hard alcohol, they have canned items.

If you've ever heard anybody talking about things like strong Zeros, basically it looks like a wall of sodium.

They're all different flavors.

So it's kind of like mysterious alcohol mixed with lemon or grapefruit or they do seasonal items which are always like terrifying.

Like they have grape, which so sweet or peach, you can also get rem mixed with soda water, lemon sours, which is like kind of like a japanese alcohol mixed with like a sour lemon.

There's beer of all different kinds.

Some convenience stores will have craft beers and have a glass, beer bottles and others will just do like The normal beers.

Like when you buy them, you get to the front cash and the screen will pop up and say, are you 20 years old and you press yes because because you are right, you're not going into underage drink depending on the style of person.

You are.

Some people will stick to convene me drinking for the entire evening, which I don't really recommend because it can lead to some pretty nasty hangovers.

Some people will go there for the pre drink, they'll go there just to get a couple drinks started before they go somewhere else.

And some people will make incredibly bad decisions and go to convenience stores after they've spent the night drinking being like I'm a little drunk and then they buy strong zeros and it will give you a very strong hangover.

So mom look away, I made all of these mistakes in my time in Japan.

So I feel like I've had a strong respect and understanding for such beverages.

You will also be able to use a convenience store to buy concert tickets, sporting events, you want to go to a baseball game if you want to go to the Ghibli Museum you gotta go to a convenience store.

So there are machines that are usually located to your right or left when you walk in.

They're called Lapis L.

O.

P.

P.

I.

I think and they have all these different options available for you to buy these tickets.

Some machines have english and some of them don't.

So it can be a bit complicated.

You might be able to get an app on your phone to help you kind of translate your way through it and I'm sure there are millions of websites now available that if you look up how to buy Studio ghibli they kind of walk you through it but you do need to go there to actually buy them.

So what else can a convenience store do?

Well if you're living in Japan you're going to be using it to do things like pay your bills, so your gas bills and your water bills, it'll arrive in your mailbox and you'll take this with you to the convenience store and you just walk up to the front and hand it to them and the person will know what to do.