By the way, please don't imagine that I only buy crap. I do have fresh fruit and vegetables in my house, I promise! I just didn't happen to buy any on that particular outing.
This 'stick donut' is from the bakery connected to my local supermarket. As far as donuts go, it's not greasy, but rather cakey and crunchy. It's nice as a not-excessively-sweet dessert. 98 yen ($1.20). It was a toss-up between this donut and an apple pie, same price. Donut won because I knew I could eat it without wanting cream on it. ^_^
Margarine. In Australia I used to get an olive-oil-based spread, so coming to Japan, I found the smell and taste of proper margarine a bit hard to get used to again. I like this brand fairly well. At 300 yen, it's one of the pricier ones (for 180g; a pretty typical size, and smaller than the typical Australian tub of margarine). I have tried cheaper brands, and also brands that claim to be low in fat, but their margariney smell was so cheap and bad it made me feel a bit sick. So I stick with this Koiwai brand.
Not being able to read most labels, I don't know where Japanese margarines stand in terms of cholesterol, unsaturated fats, etc. This brand I buy claims to be 'healthy type' margarine, but goodness knows what that means, if anything.
Frozen pasta. I wouldn't say this is good, but to be honest, it equals most of the carbonaras I've had in restaurants here. (In Japan, cream-based pastas are usually insipid. Imagine a bowl of pasta to which someone has added milk and a little cream, with half a dozen sad pieces of bacon or mushroom.) It was only 200 yen ($2.40) for a packet. If I empty half a jar of parmesan cheese onto it, it scrubs up well.
Tirol chocolates. These are little chocolates, in a pack of 8. Only 80 yen ($1). I was encouraged to try them after reading the Japanese Snack Blog. Their flavours were 'castella' (a type of cake), 'white chocolate and cookie', 'coffee' and 'milk'. They were all okay, I guess. I like trying Tirol chocolates because they're very small and they have loads of different kinds; you can often buy them individually or in variety packs, so it's easy to sample new flavours.
Frozen pizza. You probably can't see from the size of this picture, but it does have corn on it, in notorious Japanese style. Not much though. ^_^ Cost about 300 yen ($3.50) for two pizzas.
Packet of tissues. I didn't buy this. People stand on the street and give them out for free; they have advertising on them. I've received seven or eight packages in the last two months. If you are interested, this particular package is advertising an 'exciting weekend' at a local pachinko parlour. I certainly shan't be going.
Sansai vegetables. Let me give you a close-up.
These are 'mountain vegetables'. I don't know exactly what they are; they look rather exotic and wild, and include a mix of greens and mushrooms. They are popular in soba and udon noodle dishes. In many small restaurants you can buy a bowl of sansai soba for as cheap as 300 yen. It's my favourite kind of soba.
This package of sansai vegetables was about 100 yen ($1.20). I shall add them to soba; they'll make a tasty and easy way to add some veggies to my diet.*
*(I don't know how you are supposed to cook hot soba in broth like the restaurants do, but I just boiled the water, chucked in the soba noodles and sansai vegetables, and waited a couple of minutes. Then I drained half of the water, added liberal amounts of tsuyu (soba sauce) and ate it. It tasted good, anyway. ^_^)
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