[lethain]

I lived in rural Japan last year, and had similar experiences with stores being open or lack thereof. There were three restaurants and two bars. One restaurant never opened for dinner, another was run by a family, was closed at 8PM and was closed on Sundays, the third was run by one woman and was closed for dinner on weekends and also tuesdays. One of the bars' closing schedule involved being closed on the third Sunday of each month. Grocery stores closed by 8.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how things must have been to live 50 years ago, and how much we've come to take (this very limited sense of) openness for granted.

[nihilocrat]

Also had a similar experience while living in Munich a few years ago. I learned I had to plan out my food purchases much better, but otherwise it wasn't very inconvenient. Definitely a change of pace, and I comforted myself thinking that it meant people didn't have to work at their crappy grocery store jobs late / on Sundays.

If it somehow enabled 50 cent beers and 2 euro bottles of (good!) wine, I am not about to complain.

[eru]

The limits on opening hours for German shops have mostly been lifted in the last years.

Aldi enables 50 Cent beer and 2 Euro wine. Their drive hard bargains with their supplieres. Interestingly Aldi pays their employees quite well and seems to occupy a higher moral ground in the German opinion than Walmart does in America. (Lidl, the second big discounter chain, has a reputation for mis-treating employees, though.)

[pragmatic]

That's how it is in rural America (Midwest, the South) also.

You need a large population to support 24 hour consumerism.

[jd]

In the Netherlands it's not a matter of population -- shops are not allowed to be open outside the regulated hours. I believe the law was introduced a few decades ago in order to protect the mom and pop stores (a misguided attempt to put mom and pop stores on equal footing with larger businesses. If the mom and pop store can't afford to stay open at night then nobody is allowed to. Because that's "fair".)

Since gas stations have permission to stay open around the clock they're used to get emergency food. You can also get food delivered on Sundays and in the middle of the night, so it's not so bad.

[endtime]

>If the mom and pop store can't afford to stay open at night then nobody is allowed to. Because that's "fair".

Any time I finding appealing stories of the allegedly comfortable northwest European life, I just remind myself of things like this.

[crux_]

... On the other hand, a lot of the appeal in such a life is in the fact there are still lots of unique mom and pop stores, often with generations of history, still in existence...

[randallsquared]

But in rural Alabama, at least, Walmart is open 24 hours a day, and chain pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens as well.

[biohacker42]

This is how it is in small New England towns also. I used to live in a lively tourist trap seaside city where everything closed after 9:30pm.

[ovi256]

Pre-planning is hard. Let's go shopping.

Anyway, when in Rome, do as the romans. Hard if they have weird customs, I agree.

[jimbokun]

That's pretty weird, considering Japan probably has more 24-hour convenience stores than any country on Earth.

You must have been pretty far out in the "inaka". :)

http://jet.wikia.com/wiki/Inaka

[delano]

Whoa, an irregular schedule to boot. You must have had to do a lot of pre-planning.