Over the weekend I made the 65 km journey to the nearest Costco, the membership warehouse chain from the U.S., which operates nine of its mammoth stores in Japan. To a gaijin who’s been here long enough to remember driving for miles because someone heard a rumor that an import food shop had gotten in some Doritos, having a fully stocked Costco within range of my house is a little piece of heaven. The layout of the stores is exactly like the ones back home, so that we even know what part of the store to go to without searching, and the company won points with me for having my U.S. membership in their database already — that’s a lot more visionary than some Japanese video websites that not only require that you use Windows but that you use Internet Explorer if you want to view their content. There are plenty of good products from the U.S. on display at the store, but it was also fun to roam the aisles and see what unique Japanese items they stocked — I mean, does your local Costco have takoyaki and taiyaki in the frozen foods section, and corn pizza at the food court?
Costco is an island of convenience for a gaijin in Japan.
