yamaonna

Despite my leg being on the mend, I’ve had to take advantage of online ordering quite a bit over the last month.  In Japan it’s very easy to get almost anything delivered.  Books, CDs, DVDs can be delivered from Amazon.co.jp (free shipping for orders over 1000 yen).  Clothes, furniture and linens from Nissen.jp.  And, the one that benefits me most; groceries, kitchen, bathroom and cleaning things from http://www.pal-system.co.jp.  I wouldn’t have to leave my house if it wasn’t for work!

So, the system works this way.  Every week they deliver a catalog and an order form.  I have a week to look through it, and decided what I want, and then I hand in my order when they deliver the last weeks order.  So, for example, I get the order form the first Friday in February, I hand it back on the second Friday, and the food is delivered on the third Friday.  And this process happens every week for a weekly delivery.

Here’s the last delivery I got from Palsystem –

The delivery comes in a variety of boxes and plastic bags.  On the top is my frozen goods in the plastic bag, in the white polystyrene box are the cold items, and the green collapsible box contains dry goods.

This week I’ve got a couple of frozen pizzas (my just in case food), two serves of creamy tomato salmon pasta, mixed frozen seafood and frozen potatoes (frozen foods) –

 

6 pack of yoghurt, 500ml of milk, 1 kg of mikan, and a cut pumpkin (the cold items) –

Half a loaf of bread, 3 small chocco muffins, and 5 caramel scones (from the dry goods) –

10 pack of mini noodles (another just in case food – I ate through a lot of my rainy day foods while I couldn’t get out to go shopping), crackers, and pasta sheets for lasagna (dry food box again) –

and then the catalog and order form for the next week –

So, this weeks menu is – scone or muffin for snacks, pumpkin soup for lunch when I’m at work, either salmon pasta, lasagna, or goan seafood curry for dinner, sandwiches for lunch on my days off, yoghurt and fruit for dessert.  You get really good at planning this way.  Next week it will be fish chowder, pumpkin soup, cornflake cookies and something else…..  I forgot…..

Anyway, the delivery cost is very cheap, only about 200 yen a week, and the groceries are reasonably priced, I’m spending about the same as if I were going shopping by myself (on average just over 5000 yen a week). Plus I can get other goods like soap and what not delivered as well.  And, one of the big pluses for me is that the vegetable and fruit are organic, all meats and poultry are from within Japan, and you hand back a lot of the rubbish for recycling.

Its all fun and games!