tatami mats to square feet

I've always had trouble trying to translate apartment sizes from tatami units to feet, so I found this page quite handy.

convenience store bagging

At Japanese convenience stores, it's standard that cold and hot items be placed in separate plastic bags for the customer's convenience and satisfaction. So you often end up with two little plastic bags; one holding your bottled drink and one for your teriyaki burger or french fries. I usually use plastic bags as trash bags, so the little versions aren't very useful for me. Also, I don't really care if my drink gets hot or my bento lunch cools down a bit from being in the same bag, so I usually ask that they put the stuff together. I always have to get the request in pretty quickly otherwise they've already put my stuff into bags, so it's a challenge of timing it to right after they've given me my change. The same with the cases when I don't need a bag (I've been carrying around my blue Moomin eco-bag). If I'm not quick enough, everything's in a bag before I know it, and then I feel bad asking them to unbag it.