Trip to Costco in Tokyo

Originally written on Oct. 29, 2005.

To get to Costco (which is basically in the middle of nowhere), I had to take the train from Tabata station on JR Yamanote Line (15-20 min walk from the dorm) to Shinjuku station (22 min journey), change trains at Shinjuku, walking through the badly designed Shinjuku station to the Keio Line to board a train bound for the station of Tamasakai station where Costco is located.

Because Tamasakai is a small station on the line, have to take a express train to the station of Chufu and then take a local train to Tamasakai. The part took around 47 mins I think, and costs 390 yen one way.

Once we got off Tamasakai, it was really weird, the place looked like an American suburb with no one walking on the streets and big box stores on the entire road leading to Costco. Each big box store’s parking entrance had 3-4 people directing the cars into the parking lots, most of the parking lots at the stores were multilevel.

On the way to Costco, I saw a Family Mart (convenience store) that had a parking lot attached. This was the first convenience store I have ever seen that had its own parking lot.

I actually brought my small luggage to Costco to carry back the stuff back to the dorm. The Costco here is almost exact same layout as back home, it is surprising that they sell Tim’s Cascade Jalapeno Chips for 410 yen for big size here. Today because it is the weekend, lots of Japanese families come to shop. I got big bottles of spaghetti sauce, 3 pack of cereal (the cereal that they sell in regular markets is small and only lasts for 4-5 days). Also I got some potatoes, chicken nuggets, pizza and 12 pack of Macaroni and Cheese. Lots of stuff that they sell at Costco is cheaper and comes in bigger sizes than even at regular “big” Japanese supermarkets like the chain Ito-Yokato. The luggage that I brought could not even hold the stuff that I bought because of all the big boxes, but good thing they sell giant reusable bags for 136 yen. Also in this area, almost all the cars where big (i.e. minivans, full size sedans) not like your usual boxy small cars that you see in the city.