The "Konbini"

When you live per the Tokyoite, you cannot miss the convenient stores. There are more than 40,000 convenience stores, known as konbini in Japan. There are different competitors such as Seven Eleven, Am Pm, Lawson and Family Mart. They primarily sell food such as snacks (ramen, pasta, onigiri, sandwiches…) and sweets, instant ramen, beverages including alcohol. Other goods available include body care products, cosmetics, batteries, blank CDs and tapes, umbrellas, newspapers, magazines and manga.

We can also find a wide range of services, for example banking services (withdrawal of money), Copier and fax, ticket reservation (concert, highway buses), bill payment, delivery services (post card and stamp).

These convenient stores are very useful for the Tokyoite life in general because we can find them everywhere. They are close to your residence. The services that they provide avoid going the bank or post.  In addition to that they correspond to the rhythm and Japanese life style, because most of them are open 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Moreover the Japanese food has very short purges dates its because they are adapted for the Japanese life.

It is very surprising because in France, we cannot find this type of store. We can find little supermarket but they don’t provide these types of services. If we need to carry out a money withdrawal, you have to go the bank to do it.