Japan is a first world country so we understand why there's a high cost of living here. From taxes to daily necessities; every person in the family needs to work to pay up for those bills. The good side here is that, the cost of labor is enough to cope up with the cost of living. For example, a regular factory worker here earns around 850 yen per hour. With 8 hours of work a day, could earn 6800 yen a day. Less 20% tax, that is 5440 yen, or around PHP 2720 a day...but in the Philippines, the minimum wage is PHP 350 per day. Now that's a great difference. That is why, every time we go shopping, I stop myself from converting prices from yen to peso. haha!
Our apartment is about two blocks away from "Station Park", a place full of shops for leisure, shopping, and dining. It's where we often go for grocery shopping but it also has shops of shoes and clothes, which we truly love.=) But besides Station Park, there are also a lot of shops that we explore within Suwa City. We even visit nearby cities such as Chino and Shimosuwa for more shopping experience.
Here are some of our random shots while shopping...
self-service at MaxValue
pastries section at Valor
fresh fish & meat at Kakuju
toiletries, beauty needs & med stuff at Kusuri
blame it on the a-a-a-alcohol :))
Seiyu (Chino City)
J-Mart (it also has pets & home stuff inside)
Watahan (plus some appliances inside)
people packing their groceries at Nichigen
Clothes, Shoes, Accessories, and Other Stuff
Hak Yen Shop
Ogino (Chino City)
ShoeMart
Shoe Plaza
kikay stuff
Daiso (hak yen shop in Chino City)
Jusco Mall (Chino City)
for sports stuff
Brands!
Love Love (kinda similar to Rustan's)
Love Junkie
G.U.
Honey's
Uni Qlo (I love their leggings!)
Tech Stuff, Toys, and Games
Eiden
Yamada Denki (Chino City)
Toy Kingdom (Mister Donut haha)
Game St.
Mandaiteng
Well that's it for now. Will just continue sharing next time. I got a lot more to share: food & dining, health & wellness stuff, etc. So this entry will definitely have a part 2.=)
Then there was this 50% off SALE on bags at SM Department Store, so my bestfriend and I bought one black bag each. I planned to buy a black bag because most of my bags were white. Well there were lots of nice black bags but we settled for the cheapest. haha! Got these bags from Secosana at P390.
Then I searched for high-heeled shoes. I always wanted to buy a pair of shoes at Syrup, People are People but that was during the time I wasn't employed yet so I can't spend that much. But now that I've got money, I went to the shop and was pleased to find it there, still available after 2-3 months since I last saw it at another branch! haha! Unfortunately, the EPS didn't work so I had use my credit card instead of my debit card. I was so happy after buying it! I finally got it after a few months of waiting haha.=)) P1,500 for this pair.
Then as always, every first salary with every job, I always treat my bestfriend for dinner. So after shopping, we went to Pizza Hut Bistro. I spent about P500. Sorry but I was too hungry to take photos of our food. haha!
The next day, we went back to Glorietta to search for flats but I ended up buying at Landmark where there was a SALE on shoes. I got a pair of flats for P380 and slippers for P260.
We also dropped by the bazaar outside Glorietta where I was able to buy a semi-formal dress for only P250! Good thing I was able to control myself in buying a party dress worth P700 at the bazaar. But I swear, it was really nice. I just didn't know where and when to wear it that's why I didn't buy it.
And my payday shopping total was less than P4,000 (including food & transpo). hahaha!=))