What is a Convenience Store, Really

What do you expect to find when you walk into a convenience store?

In America I knew I would always see food (the assortment ranging from candy to soda to the occasional bag of mixed nuts, and maybe some milk if you were lucky), magazines from sporty to sexy, cigarettes, alcohol, maybe some amount of toiletries.

In Japan I've come to expect mostly the same, although I know I will be devastated when I return to not have easy access to such common foodstuffs here as onigiri and melon bread. But for the most part a convenience store is a convenience store, and there is not usually any great variations from the norm.

The exception to this seems to be the convenience store next to my school, run by an elderly couple and open from 7am to 7pm every day of the week. It's actually a pretty nice little shop, though it's not name brand and therefor lacking in some of the usual amenities. It makes up for it with the local products it regularly carries, such as bags of apples from Yuwa, a neighboring prefecture, sold at the ridiculously low price of 7 for $2.00. Additionally, every weekend there is a sort of mini-farmers market in the empty room next door. 'Farmer's Market' here refers to one little old lady selling lots of vegetables the selection of which varies week to week. It tends to have a pretty great stock, but yesterday in particular it had something special.

And by 'something special', I mean it had fresh, living crabs caught from the local river that morning, selling for $1.50 each.

Paula came and knocked on my door at 11:00 to tell me that there were living crabs for sale at Bonafi's and did I want to have a crab dinner with her tonight.

Of course we bought 10.

Paula, modeling our purchased crab bag with the appropriate severity.

Additionally, me with our bouquet of leeks. Also, my hair is long enough to kind of sort of put up now!

While we planned our attack we kept the crabs in what we had on hand- a large pot, a plastic strainer, and a note tied to the top. Clearly the most sophisticated technology available.

Pictured: Technology

A close up of the note I wrote to keep people from disturbing our crabs. In typical AIU fashion, it featured both English and Japanese, and an illustration as well for good measure.

After a bit of research into proper crab-preparation we started planning a meal, and before we knew it we'd made not only crabs but spaghetti with homemade white sauce and fried leeks, a broccoli-like vegetable with a soy sauce-based garnish, avocado, and a bit of apple each for dessert. Ryuusei, the third of our party, was very shocked upon learning that a fair amount of Americans do not eat the "kani miso" (the stewed guts of the crab) and actually throw it out. It's considered a bit of a delicacy here and is often the main reason the crabs are purchased. You can even buy it in jars. It's often served on rice.

The feast.

After we'd finished eating we brought the leftovers out to the lounge to be devoured by the colony that has developed there; the group of (mostly exchange) students who sit in a certain corner of the room by the vending machines. It's grown to be quite the living area- Simon regularly buys small bouquets of flowers for the table, Paula brought down a tea set, and I contributed tea and cookies. As I said, the colonization is fairly complete. Anyhow, the leftovers were happily devoured, and so our day of crab ended- happily, and with more food consumed in one setting than I have experienced in quite awhile.

Bonus: I was the Mad Hatter for Halloween, for those of you who do not have the books of face.

Paula was the March Hare, and when we found Alina dressed as Alice we had to take a picture. The mad tea party, together again!