Life of an ALT: What I Eat In A Week

For a week, I decided to take a picture of (almost) everything I ate!

As I mentioned from my daily routine post back in 2019, I have quite a busy schedule – this has actually increased over the past 18 months – so I prefer quick meals that take little-to-no preparation after work, or I stop at the conbini on my way home.

It is of course more cost-effective to cook more, however this currently suits my lifestyle in Japan.

As I’ve previously mentioned, living a short walk to the downtown area I enjoy eating out at the weekend – but as we all ride Japan’s fourth wave of the ‘rona, I’m still trying to stay home as much as possible and have been ordering in instead.

Also notably, 99% of the time I don’t eat breakfast during weekdays.
I know this is really bad and breakfast is so important, but when I have a 5:30am alarm I’d prefer to trade this in for an extra half an hour in bed.

I usually just have a cup of drip coffee with soy milk, then drink a huge flask of English Breakfast tea in between classes at the school.

I also opt-in for school lunch – it’s usually pretty great and is very reasonable at only ¥270 (around £1.75). You can see my posts about Japanese school lunch here.

So here we go…

Monday

BREAKFAST:
Coffee with soy milk.

LUNCH:
Soup with veggies and pasta shells, currypan and a custard pudding. (¥270)

DINNER:
Mondays are really stressful at work so I stopped at the conbini on my way home.
Pasta salad with proscuitto, tomatoes and cheese (¥496), karragebo (¥180), rice in tofu (¥213) and kimchi (¥110).

DESSERT:
Two kiwi fruits. (Discounted from the supermarket ¥100)

Tuesday

BREAKFAST:
Coffee with milk.

LUNCH:
Soup with veggies and bean sprouts, two spring rolls and minted pickles. (¥270)
(We also had rice but I took mine home as I don’t like to eat a lot of carbs if I have afternoon classes as it brings my energy down.)

DINNER:
Aubergines and mushrooms in a sticky Korean-style sauce, the rice from school lunch, miso soup with tofu and the rest of the kimchi.

DESSERT:
Discounted fruit salad from the supermarket. (¥250)

SNACKS:
Cheese puffs. (¥180)

Wednesday

BREAKFAST:
Coffee with milk and a potato croquette (¥120) as I waited at the bus stop.

LUNCH:
Creamy soup with mushrooms and pasta, chicken karaage, bread with chocolate sauce. (¥270)

DINNER:
Spaghetti with mentaigo (cod roe) sauce

DESSERT:
Daim bar (thanks, mam!)

SNACKS:
Edamame

Thursday

BREAKFAST:
Coffee with soy milk.

LUNCH:
Creamy soup with pasta and sweetcorn, fried fish, cabbage. (There was also bread but I didn’t eat it) (¥270)

DINNER:
I went to KappaSushi for dinner. 7 plates of sushi and a beer. (¥1300)

SNACKS:
Cornetto-like ice cream. (Multipack – 5 for ¥350)

Friday

BREAKFAST:
English breakfast tea with soy milk.

LUNCH:
Special bento for the school sports day. (¥800)

DINNER:
Cheese and ham baguette sandwich (¥300) and pizza crisps (¥130).

DESSERT:
Coconut Pocky. (¥150)

SNACKS:
Vanilla mochi ice cream. (¥200)

Saturday

BREAKFAST:
Coffee with soy milk, greek-style yoghurt with granola and honey.

LUNCH:
Okonomiyaki (Japanese pancake made with cabbage), the rest of the mushrooms and fried aubergine.

DINNER:
I ordered a personal-size Dominos pizza and potato wedges. (¥1600)

SNACKS:
Another Daim bar! (Thanks again, mam!)

Sunday

BREAKFAST:
I ordered a McDonalds breakfast – sausage egg McMuffin, two hashbrows and an iced latte. (¥960)

LUNCH:
Japanese-style curry (¥250, but I already had the sauce in my cupboard) and rice with the rest of the edamame.

DINNER:
None. I wasn’t hungry for dinner as my breakfast and lunch were pretty heavy so I just snacked in the evening…

SNACKS:
Cheese crisps (¥120), Black Thunder chocolate (my favourite Japanese chocolate!!) (¥100)