When Blythe got to Japan I’d already been there a week.

“Where are you eating“, she asked.

Sheepishly I replied: “Mostly 7-11. … But I’m planning on a dinner at Denny’s“, a popular chain also owned by 7-11.

In fact I did eat more at convenience stores than anywhere else in Japan. Day or night, if I got a pang it was sated by a piece of fried chicken and an ice-cream treat.

For some reason foreign bank cards do not work in Japanese ATMs. Yet they do in 7-11 ATMs, maximum 30,000 Yen in my case.

UPDATE from Blythe:

7-11 food was amazing in Japan! Rick’s advice was stellar — I snacked there every day and night for three weeks in Tokyo, and it was genuinely delicious.

However, I wouldn’t recommend taking money out of a 7-11 ATM. I did it once, and my bank charged a $20 fee for using an “international ATM.” At the post office, however, I was able to use the ATM and the transaction fee was only $0.60 per 10,000 yen withdrawn.