AvailabilityIn this post, I’ll go into a little bit of detail about convenience stores (conbini), American fast food, and Japanese fast food in Japan, which was a decent portion of my diet in Japan. The main reasons for why I ate this kind of food was due to the cheap prices and the fact that they are literally everywhere, especially conbinis. For instance, next to our dorm in Gumyouji, there were about four conbinis within a five minute walking distance, with one of them being right next to the dorm. Not only this, but also in the Gumyouji area, there was also about a half dozen Japanese fast food establishments as well. Seasonal FoodOne of the aspects of Japanese fast food that I enjoyed the most was the fact that they had a wide variety of seasonal items vary frequently throughout the year. It was interesting in that although I had some stuff that I would default order, every now and then they would have interesting flavors or dishes that would make me want to try it out. In a weird way, eating seasonal fast food helped me understand a little bit more about the seasonal food culture in Japan. Price: CheapAgain, the main plus of eating fast food in Japan was probably the price. Sit down restaurants were generally expensive in Japan or I would feel a little out of place if they were kind of fancy. Conbini and other fast food restaurants normally would have meals that I would be satisfied with that were on average under 300 yen, or about $3. One of my favorite things to get that was fast and simple was called a “Famichiki” from Family Mart, one of the most popular conbini chains in Japan. It was a little more than 100 yen and could easily satisfy me for a quick meal. American vs Japanese Fast foodSeveral American fast food chains were prominent in Japan, with the main two being McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken. Although fewer in number by comparison, I also saw Burger King, Wendy's, Subway, Carl’s Jr., and even Taco Bell while abroad. Out of these chains, I only ate at McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Wendy's and Taco Bell. From my experience, the taste was more or less the same compared to the American versions but had items only available in Japan and were missing certain items from the American menu, such as mashed potatoes not being available at KFC in Japan. McDonald’s was the cheapest out of them and KFC and Taco Bell actually ended up being pretty expensive, so I didn’t really eat them all that often and mainly stuck to McDonald’s for the price and convenience.
For Japanese fast food, there were plenty of restaurants such as ramen shops, noodle stands, yakitori stands, and some chains such as Sukiya, a beef bowl restaurant, and Mos Burger. For the non-chain restaurants, people would pay at a ticket machine most of the time, tend to eat extremely fast, and then just simply leave. This was literally fast food. The chain restaurants like those mentioned above, were very similar to that of American styled fast food restaurants, with a very familiar atmosphere. Comments are closed.
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AuthorI am Kyle Sablan and I studied abroad at Yokohama National University (YNU) during the 2016-2017 academic year. This blog was created as one of the requirements for receiving the Gilman Scholarship. The purpose of this blog is to share my personal experience with everybody and encourage interest in studying abroad. Archives
April 2018
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