41–50 of 59 posts
Why do you write 'conbini' instead of 'konbini' in the usual romanization form? For the todōfuken I would leave out the suffixes (mostly 'ken') in the English labels, except for Hokkaidō obviously.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One thing that struck me when visiting Tokyo (as an American living in San Francisco), was that it was not uncommon to go to a restaurant or bar on, say the 3rd or 4th floor of a building. In America and Europe, restaurants and shops are basically all zoned to be on the ground floor, with residential or office units above. This gives the density a different feeling, because commercial/dining space extends upward.
ADA law in the US financially prohibit this. Once you need an elevator, the costs go though the roof for the building. Elevator design, installation, inspection and repair are incredibly expensive and eat up a lot of square footage on every floor.
Elevators are smaller there. But I think the cost of building is lower there, for a variety of reasons, which makes this more feasible.
There's a Lawson-heavy area about a twenty-minute walk from where I live in Yokohama. The three convenience stores closest to me, though, are 7-11. One reason for this clustering, I suspect, is deliveries. Convenience stores are carefully designed for logistical efficiency, and having stores close to each other must shave a bit off the distance traveled by delivery trucks.
You might consider adding Aeon My Basket stores to your map, too. They have sprouted up all over the Tokyo region in recent years. They are positioned as small supermarkets rather than kombini, but their size, locations, and product overlap with kombini puts them in competition with Lawson, 7-11, etc., too.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One thing that struck me when visiting Tokyo (as an American living in San Francisco), was that it was not uncommon to go to a restaurant or bar on, say the 3rd or 4th floor of a building. In America and Europe, restaurants and shops are basically all zoned to be on the ground floor, with residential or office units above. This gives the density a different feeling, because commercial/dining space extends upward.
In the US, Chicago is also like this. I've been to a "shopping mall" that had ten stores but was spread among four floors. Makes it hard to believe Americans when they claim their city is "very dense" when it is mostly single story buildings surrounded by parking lots.
Chicago used to have a number of "vertical malls." I think Water Tower Place (7 floors) and The Shops at 900 (7 or 8 floors, IIRC) are the only ones left. Unless you also count smaller places like Block 37 (4 floors).
Some are now shadows of their former selves. Some sit empty (Chicago Place), or in various stages of redevelopment.
On my recent first trip to Japan, I couldn't believe the number and quality of 7-Elevens/Family Marts/Lawsons. You're never more than a five-minute walk from one in Tokyo, and they've got good stuff.
I visited Tokyo a few months back, and while the convenience stores seemed nicer than equivalents in America, I also wasn't particularly impressed. I think if I had just encountered them I'd be impressed, but the internet has hyped up the convenience stores of Japan so much I thought they'd blow me away. They're nice, they're good, but not amazing.
I must say, though, that the Family Mart konbini near the hotel I stayed at two months ago was amazing for being able to order off Amazon Japan and picking up deliveries there. This is something I wish I discovered many trips ago.
In general, though, I concur with your assessment; konbini in Japan are nice but they’re not mind-blowing.
> I noticed that my neighborhood is all Lawsons There's a Lawson-heavy area about a twenty-minute walk from where I live in Yokohama. The three convenience stores closest to me, though, are 7-11. One reason for this clustering, I suspect, is deliveries. Convenience stores are carefully designed for logistical efficiency, and having stores close to each other must shave a bit off the distance traveled by delivery truc…
Seven minutes away was a larger grocery store called Maruetsu, and ten minutes away from my dorm room was Musashi-Nakahara Station, which had a grocery store (I forgot the name) about the same size as Maruetsu. What I loved about these latter two grocery stores was the nice selection of hot foods, especially around lunch time when many workers from Fujitsu and other nearby companies went to buy hot bento. I still remember the ¥300 bento from the grocery store inside the train station. It was tasty and was reasonably filling.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I visited Tokyo a few months back, and while the convenience stores seemed nicer than equivalents in America, I also wasn't particularly impressed. I think if I had just encountered them I'd be impressed, but the internet has hyped up the convenience stores of Japan so much I thought they'd blow me away. They're nice, they're good, but not amazing.
I concur. I’ve been to Japan 11 times in the past 15 years, including an eight-month stay in 2010. Japanese convenience stores are nice, and they’re certainly nicer than their American counterparts, but when it comes to food, whether pre-packaged or prepared, I’ve found better deals for food at grocery stores. Granted, konbini prices are reasonable, and it’s hard to find grocery stores in central Tokyo locations like…