weekly grocery shopping trip and I thought I would share it with you guys

because if you're anything like me you're probably really interested to see

what kind of products they have here in Japan that I'm eating on a weekly basis

and maybe how much things cost here because it's probably a little different

than where you live! So there are two grocery shops in my town that I frequent

a lot they both carry a very different range of products so I find that I kind

of have to go to both of them once a week to get everything that I want. The

one that's close to my house does carry all the necessities and I could get by

just by going there but the one that's a little further has an import shop so I

can get like foreign snacks and foreign cooking ingredients. I use this huge bag

when I go shopping I tend to buy a lot of food I do a lot of cooking at home

especially now that I'm inside all the time but this is pretty similar to what

I would buy on a normal basis as well. Produce wise I just got some broccoli and

some bananas this week. I wanted to get some more bananas but unfortunately I

don't drive and I haven't purchased a bicycle since I moved to Morioka so I

need to make sure that the amount of groceries that I buy I'm able to carry

home! It's quite a long walk so I only got four bananas normally I would

get a lot more because I like to freeze them for smoothies. One of the major

differences that I find at Japanese grocery stores is that the fruit section

is very seasonal. At the moment strawberries are in season so there are

like three rows of strawberries, different types of strawberries from all

over northern Japan but other fruits that aren't in season at the moment are

very difficult to find, whereas back in Canada I found that we kind of had a

little bit of everything all year round. So that's something I've had to get used

to in Japan. It's kind of fun though because you're always looking forward to

strawberry season. Oh the strawberries are back, awesome! Because

you couldn't get them all year right? So it's kind of fun.

Oh and I got an avocado of course. So my grocery store is really weird with the

pricing of avocados, it fluctuates like crazy. I would say probably the average

price is about 175 yen sometimes that goes up to 195 and on a really good day

I can find them for 98 yen and I'll stock up on a whole bunch of them. It was

just a regular price today so I got one. I've been eating a lot of pasta recently.

normally I just buy these packs of spaghetti they're like already packaged

into one serving size bundles, it's very convenient. And then I get this tomato

and garlic, it's like a ragu sauce. I'll usually add some veggies like peppers or

onions. Makes a really quick dinner for when I'm feeling super lazy. This is a

brand new product that I was super excited to see because Mabo tofu is one

of my favorite dishes! It is like a spicy tofu and it normally has ground meat in

it you can see it looks like ground meat. But this one is made with soy meat! It

is very rare to find a dish like this prepared with soy meat in like a premade

sauce like this. So all I have to do is cut up tofu and add the sauce to it and

I'll have a spicy tofu dish for dinner! I've noticed that recently Japan is

really getting into the fake meat scene. Slowly I'm seeing more products

arise, especially like pre-made things like this. Okay I got this to try out a

brand new recipe that I've never made before. These are harusame noodles

and what I want to make with this is sunomono salad! So if you go to a

Japanese restaurant in Canada they always have sunomono salad on the menu

it's basically these noodles with like a vinegar and maybe some cucumbers or some

shrimp and tomato. Those are usually the basic ingredients. What is funny is I've

never had that dish in Japan, I've never seen it in Japan, it's just not a thing. But

I love it so much and I kind of miss it so I'm going to attempt to make it

myself with these harusame noodles! Are you guys ready for probably the

most exciting development of my life in recent weeks?

Japan has come out with a cereal that actually looks really good, and like

something you would get in North America! Now if you saw my previous Japanese

cereal video that I put out a couple weeks ago with Emma, they have a very

interesting selection of cereals here. If you go to the supermarket you'll see

that about 70 to maybe even 80% of the cereal row is different flavours of

granola. There are probably over ten maybe even fifteen flavours of granola at my

local supermarket. But today they had these unicorn fruit loops! It is so rare to

see like a really sugary junk cereal like this in Japan and I have to get it

because crappy breakfast cereals are one of my weaknesses. I like to think I have

a relatively healthy diet, I eat pretty well most of the time. But now that this

is available things are gonna change. It's made by Kellogg's so it probably

tastes really similar to the Froot Loops back home in Canada. Heck yeah and it was

only like $2, it was so cheap. I also got a bag of my usual cereal that I

get these are genmai flakes. Genmai is brown rice. I thought I would try this.

I've actually never made this at home myself. These are the little tofu pouches,

they're like deep-fried tofu pouches and then I got some kishimen to put them

on top instead of udon. They're basically udon that has been

flattened out. I've had them at one restaurant so far and I really enjoyed

them so I'm gonna try making that. These are one of my favourite snacks!

They're called Sapporo Potato and they're a vegetable stick, a little

potato stick with chunks of veggies in them. They're not healthy at all they're

like a deep-fried, basically like a potato chip, but the package was sakura

I thought it was so cute. Normally I don't get much junk food like this but I

was attracted to the really pretty packaging. The Sakura have finally

started to bloom here in Morioka, like just starting today was the first time

that I've noticed them. So probably within the next week or two they should

be in full bloom! And finally I got some nori to make some sushi rolls. That's it

for my regular grocery store, and then I went to the import store to see what

they had, to see if I can find anything fun. And I found lentils for the first

time ever! But this is not a product that you would normally be able to find in a

regular supermarket here, you have to go to an import shop to get it

unfortunately. I also found this butter chicken curry paste and when I looked at

the instructions you actually add the butter and the milk and the chicken

yourself, so the sauce itself doesn't have any dairy products or chicken or

anything in it. It's just a bunch of really yummy sounding Indian spices so

I'm gonna make this with my soy butter and my soy milk and add some tofu to it

and make like a butter tofu curry to go on rice really excited to try that!

Last but not least, I found microwaved popcorn it's not really a common thing

you would find in the supermarket so I picked these up from the import shop.

They were only like a dollar each which is a score for a product that comes from

outside of Japan. I would say normally I would buy a lot more fresh produce but

because I'm trying to go to the grocery store as few times as possible

throughout the month I've been eating a lot more frozen vegetables than usual so

my freezer is packed with frozen goods. But yeah I thought I'll give you guys a

little tour of my fridge! Alright it wouldn't be a proper fridge tour without

showing you what I've got going on on my fridge door. So I've got some purikura that

I took with Candie! This is my meal ideas sheet. I'm the type of person that will

eat the same thing for breakfast and the same thing for lunch and dinner like

over and over again throughout the week. So I try to encourage myself to try some

more variety with my cooking. This is one of the shots from my 80s photo shoot

with Taylor! Some more purikura with Natsuki and

the message I got at the restaurant from my birthday party last year!

It's quite a tiny fridge, fridges in Japan are in general this size I would

say. Unless you're like a big family with kids. The top row is my favourite because

at the moment it is stocked full of pudding! Japan just released a

plant-based pudding by the pucchin pudding company. This is probably Japan's

I would say most famous pudding. The typical custard pudding with a

caramel sauce on the bottom. This is made all from plants! And recently I found

these mango puddings which are made with soy milk, so those have been my like

go-to desserts recently. Next we have soy yogurt at the back there, that's just

like a regular plain soy yogurt and this one has aloe pieces in it. Haven't

tried that one yet, not sure how it is. But again Japan seems to really be

increasing their amount of soy products which is very exciting as someone who

doesn't like eating dairy. This is my soy milk-based margarine, I use that

on toast and stuff. And in the back we've got my favourite soy milk flavours of

chocolate and earl grey tea! Not much going on on the next shelf. Got some

sriracha sauce and some ketchup that I use in cooking a lot. Some apple juice,

this is a tomato paste that I use in Hungarian cooking. Got half an avocado

left over from this morning, some tofu and miso paste. On the next shelf I've

got some fun products that I haven't tried out yet. This one here is a jyajyamen

made with noodles that are sugar free basically just a lower calorie

noodle but jyajyamen is actually the specialty of my town here in Morioka.

We're famous for noodles. Jyajyamen is usually made with meat but this one here

it didn't have any meat in the sauce so I thought I would give it a shot. I'll

let you guys know how that goes when I eventually get around to trying it!

Here we've got some agedashi tofu it's tofu fried in like a tempura batter, so

good. In these little Tupperware containers I've got some leftover

veggies, some green peppers up top, and some carrots. Down on the bottom this

is like my obscure drink collection. Every time I find an interesting drink

at the grocery store I have to buy it, it's like an obsession of mine. Like I

don't drink soda but I saw this strawberry coke and I just had to get

one so I can try it. This is a sparkling sake, it's not very alcoholic at all

it's more just like the flavor of sake and it's pretty sweet. This is like a

tree sap drink that I got as an omiyage (souvenir) from someone. Lots of these are

omiyage. This as well, this is a strawberry cider from a strawberry farm.

some more omiyage sake in the background there.

These are one of my favourite vitamin drinks. These are one of the only ones

that don't have artificial sweeteners in them! So if you're like me and you try to

avoid artificial sweeteners this is one of the only jelly vitamin drinks

that you can get that doesn't have them in it, so look out for this one. It's House

brand, it's called perfect vitamin. It's a grapefruit

flavour, really good. Lettuce there. All right now over in the door, I've got this

it's like a ginger paste mixed with sugar and lemon peel and it's great to

add to boiling water when you've got a cold, super tasty. Some wasabi paste for

sushi, this is like a lush oil massage bar I think, I keep it in the fridge so

it doesn't melt. Down here I've got some maple syrup, I actually really don't like

Canadian real maple syrup like this but I do use this in cooking, not on my

pancakes. Some salad dressings, chili sauce, these are basically just like

cooking sauces. This here is my favourite skin serum, it's like a vitamin

serum for your skin. I keep it in the fridge so that it doesn't oxidize. Keeps it

nice and fresh. Down at the bottom I've got my soy milk and these are all

things like cooking sake. This is mirin it's like a sweet liquid that's used in

lots of Japanese recipes. Liquid aminos, okonomiyaki sauce, vinegar, mayo and some

more sweet chili paste. So that was about it for inside the fridge and then down

below is my freezer and I've got a pack of bananas that I'm freezing for

smoothies. I've always got a bunch of bananas in there. Some edamame these are

super convenient to just heat up and have as like an extra side dish for

dinner or a good snack throughout the day. Frozen spinach something else that's

really easy to make a little side dish with. Asparagus, green beans, and some

frozen mango. it's really hard to get fresh mango in Japan and when it is

available they're like 5-6 dollars each it's crazy. So I can really only

afford the frozen stuff. And also some blueberries for smoothies. And then

there's this little tray here I really like this where I keep my ice cubes and

these are frozen soy milk packages in really interesting flavors. Rum raisin

chocolate mint, amazake, and what's this one

kinako mochi, it's like a Japanese dessert flavour. They're in the freezer

because I have this kakigori machine, this like shaved ice machine, that's made

specifically for these little soy milk packets. You just like take off the

wrapper stick it in the machine and you can make shaved ice in any flavour you

like! That's pretty fun. And that completes my fridge tour and my grocery

shopping haul here in Japan! I hope you guys found that interesting. Do you let

me know if you have any ideas for videos you would like to see from me. Obviously

I'm pretty limited at the moment to things I can film, so if you can think of

anything exciting or interesting that I can film from home here in Japan do let

me know down in the comments. I would really appreciate your suggestions!