During our trip to Cairns,
we visited
Coles
inside Cairns Central.
It is a large supermarket selling everything from
vegetables,
meat,
milk and other drinks
to household products such as laundry detergent.
Basically,
you can find just about everything you need for everyday life.
We bought souvenirs here
and also picked up dinner for one evening,
so I'll show you what we found♪
Everything Looks Bigger in Australia!
The vegetables in Australia looked huge!
The sweet potatoes and potatoes were so big
that I had to take a photo.
We really enjoyed fries
and mashed potatoes during our trip to Australia,
so next time
I'd like to stay somewhere with a kitchen
and try cooking some of the local produce myself.
I had never seen the potato in the middle before either!
It looked so smooth
and quite different from the potatoes we usually see in Japan.
The Sausages Were Huge Too!
This was the sausage and processed meat section.
We enjoyed some of the bacon and other processed meats we ate in Australia.
I do not eat processed meat very often at home in Japan,
but seeing products that are different from what we usually find at home
is part of the fun of travelling.
And once again,
everything looked big.
Some of the sausages were incredibly long,
and there were so many varieties.
The AUD7 item at the front was so large
that I wasn't even completely sure
whether it was still a sausage.
I’m only half joking.
Prices shown in this article are from the time of our visit and may have changed.
So Many Different Kinds of Cheese
The cheeses were large too,
and there were so many different varieties.
Maybe people in Australia simply eat more cheese in everyday life than we do in Japan.
There were plenty of prepared foods too.
I actually took this photo because
I thought this was tofu at first.
It turned out to be
feta cheese.
There really was a lot to choose from!
The Bread Was Huge — and Great Value
The bread was also unbelievably big
compared with what we normally see in Japan.
I remember wondering:
How many days would it take us to finish one of these?
Some looked about two or three times the size
of similar bread we would buy at home.
Here it is next to my hand.
It was almost
the size of a soccer ball!
We Bought Salad for an Easy and Cheaper Hotel Dinner
We were not especially hungry one evening,
so to save a little money
we decided to buy dinner from the supermarket.
We chose this salad.
It looked similar to the convenience-store salads we have in Japan,
but the portion was about two or three times larger.
Sharing one between two of us
was just right.
The Roast Chicken Was Excellent — Great for a Budget Dinner
To keep dinner costs down,
we also bought
half a roast chicken
from Coles.
This was about one person's portion.
The full amount was roughly twice this size,
and at the time of our visit
it cost the equivalent of around
¥1,500!
Considering that eating out in Cairns could cost several times more,
we thought this was excellent value.
The flavour was simple and natural,
and the chicken itself was
soft, juicy and delicious.
The chicken itself tasted really good!
We have also tried roast chicken from
a certain large warehouse-style supermarket in Japan,
but
I personally preferred the Coles chicken by quite a long way.
Even supermarket prepared food in Cairns
was surprisingly good.
I definitely recommend trying the roast chicken
if you want an easy hotel dinner.
Macarons, Mochi Ice Cream and So Much Rice Paper
Coles also had lots of macarons!
We do not often see this many macarons
sold like this in an ordinary supermarket in Japan,
so of course
I took a photo.
We also saw
mochi ice cream,
which has become increasingly popular outside Japan.
It reminded us of Japanese mochi ice cream desserts,
so it was interesting to see something so familiar
sitting in an Australian supermarket freezer.
There were also
so many different kinds of rice paper.
It was another little thing that made the supermarket feel different from Japan.
There were almost too many choices.
I wouldn't have known which one to buy.
We Bought Sale Chocolates for Easy Souvenirs
We also found these cute Australian chocolates
shaped like koalas and wallabies.
At the time of our visit,
a box of 12 was normally AUD6,
but there was a promotion:
two for AUD6!
Lucky☆
Prices and promotions may change.
Lindt chocolate was also discounted
when buying two,
so we managed to pick some up at a good price.
Not exactly a souvenir for everyone,
but Australian potato chips were delicious too!
Supermarkets Can Be Great for Affordable Souvenirs
There were several other
buy-more-and-save promotions
when we visited.
Because we found sales in quite a few places during this trip,
we were still able to enjoy shopping
despite the weak Japanese yen.
For easy gifts such as chocolates and snacks,
some supermarket products can be cheaper
than buying similar items at dedicated souvenir shops.
If you see a good sale,
it is worth taking a look♪
Self-Checkout Was Easy Even Without Much English
At Cairns Central,
there were both staffed checkouts
and self-checkout machines.
We decided to try the self-checkout.
When we used it,
the screen was fairly intuitive,
so we could work things out as we went.
If you are not confident speaking English,
self-checkout can sometimes feel easier than having to explain everything at a staffed register.
Shopping bags were not free when we visited,
so we were glad we had brought a reusable bag.
Buying salads,
prepared food
or roast chicken from the supermarket
can be an easy way to reduce the cost of eating out.
And if chocolates or snacks are on sale,
you may also find some affordable souvenirs.
But even beyond saving money,
we simply enjoyed looking around Coles because ordinary supermarket products showed us so many little differences between Australia and Japan.
Huge bread,
giant sausages,
a surprisingly good roast chicken
and enough rice paper to make choosing one unnecessarily difficult.
Sometimes
the supermarket itself becomes part of the travel experience.
