[Oh! Japan] Things I miss about Japan Pt.1 100 Yen stores

Hello everyone,

How are you doing? It's getting colder and colder here and I don't wanna leave the house on most days >__<

Today I want to introduce a new "type" of entries I plan to do on my blog from now on.
As some of you may know I spent a year in Japan from April last year to April this year which was a wonderful and breathtaking experience.
Now I want to share some of my impressions of this year with you.

I will first start with things I miss about Japan.
Before I start I want to say that this is based on my personal experience. Some of the things I liked about my stay in Japan you may not like or absolutely hate. Or maybe there's something about Japan that you adore but won't be featured in my list. Experiences like a year abroad are something very personal and differ from person to person.




Let's start with the 100 Yen stores

source: http://owlgoko.jp/shop/96/

Now you may think "don't you have 1 Euro stores in Germany?". Yes. We do. However they are total rubbish (we would call that 'Ramsch' in German XD). They truly don't sell even one useful thing there. The more I was surprised at the 100 Yen stores in Japan. Of course you will find products with very low quality there. But you can also find pretty good products. When I arrived at my apartment in Japan it had basically nothing in it except furniture. So I needed to buy tableware. Daiso (one of the 100 store chains in Japan) saved my life at that moment. I knew I would only use all my kitchen stuff for one year so I didn't want to buy really expensive kitchenware. If you decide to live in Japan for good you may invest into good quality products but for a short-time stay and/or students the products from Daiso are enough in my opinion. You can also find a lot of small things for around your apartment like laundry nets, gardening supplies, bento supplies & stationary. You always have to keep in mind that products from the 100 Yen store aren't the highest in quality but I'm sure no one is expecting that with those low prices. I always went kinda crazy with the Bento supplies and stationary because they have a lot of cute stuff and when I decided to do some arts and crafts with the children at my part-time job, Daiso was always the first adress to look for supplies XD They also often have collaboration products with Disney, Hello Kitty and other popular characters.

Source: https://hiraganamama.wordpress.com

 Most 100 Yen stores have a selection of drinks and food as well so if you get thirsty or hungry while shopping help is just around the corner ^^

I also wrote an entry (pt.1 + pt.2) about the make-up from the 100 store, which is one of the categories of products from 100 Yen store that are truly a hit or miss.
You can also find those infamous clear umbrellas in the 100 Yen store.

Source: http://www.iatemywaythrough.com/

Daiso is probably the most famous and easiest to spot of all the 100 Yen shops. Other chains include: Can*Do, Seria, Tokutokuya & Watts.
Japan Guide has a little article about 100 Yen stores here.
If you are in Japan, definitely check out 100 Yen stores!! Even you find nothing useful I'm pretty sure it will be a fun experience (especially if you're from a country like Germany where those kind of stores are just boring and rubbish).
Last tip: Keep in mind while shopping in Japan that all prices are without taxes. So if you buy something for 100 Yen the final price will be 108 Yen (100 Yen + 8% tax) (I hope this is the right tax at the moment, they keep increasing it...)

If you want I can show you a few of the things I bought from the 100 Yen store (besides make-up since I already wrote that entry) =D

Take care,