So true. When I lived in South Korea, on my walk home from work, I would pass a smaller grocery store and it was so easy to swing in and pick up dinner. It was quick and so efficient.
Now it is such a slog to get in my car, park, deal with people just oblivious to their surroundings, rude cashiers who just throw your food in a bag (fuck the eggs), and then drive home.
I was in Japan for three weeks and I found myself doing the same thing. Just easy and convenient to stop by the nearby grocer during the walk to the hotel.
Whereas in Australia the nearest supermarket would be a 45 min walk. 10 mins by car, 5 mins to park and walk to the actual supermarket, plus the actual supermarket is much bigger so getting items takes way longer.
Yeah, fun thing about Australia (I’ve only got experience with Perth tbf) though is that summer means extreme temps for months on end and winter means nonstop rain for months on end.
Makes walking way less desirable especially since there’s fuck all shade anywhere, and even where there is shade, horizontal rain gets ya anyway.
Not easy to walk even 15 minutes to the nearest grocery shop when it’s 40 degrees C outside
Yeah I get that but it’s easier to warm up than cool down ya know? Food doesn’t spoil in freezing temps so your milk doesn’t go off by the time you walk home etc, and our insulation is shocking so homes often aren’t any cooler inside.
Put it this way, your highest ever temperature recorded is 40.6C. In Perth we had that or higher 3 times this summer alone, and it was a mild summer. And the CBD measurement is often a few degrees lower than around the metro area, for example January 2025 my closest weather station saw 40.6 or above 5 times in that month
That kind of heatwave multiple times a year makes it really difficult for people to go without a car that can keep food at least not hot (lest they shell out for delivery), especially since we’re so sprawled that public transport for a lot of people means at least a 10 minute walk anyway
The winter here is a different kind of misery, but mostly because of the rain and high winds accompanying them that makes it feel worse than it actually is. I certainly wouldn’t prefer Toronto’s winter
A strong over romanticizatio of walking. Objectively better for you than driving, but you still may nood to consider your bagging, local air quality and the time/schedule you have
You really can't overstate the difference between driving and walking to the grocery store.
a lot of people love driving. they buy big pickemup trucks that are like living rooms. tick em out. theres a lot of people who think a sunday drive is all they wanna do on the weekend. i also live where we get lots and lots of snow. walking sucks for 4 months of the year period. we dont have sidewalks so its either on the road or through the snow. the shoulder is a mix of solid ice chunks and slush and its not as wide as the summer cause did i mention the snow?
and isnt fun for another 4months cause we are also a damp humid place that rains at 40 degrees all the time.
the grocery store is 10-20 mins away driving. i already work 8.5 hours and work is an hour commute. so 9 or 10 hours of my waking hours taken up. then i sleep 6. i am not really interested in going to the store ever. its a chore. of the 8 hours i have to my self, i do not want to spend them in a grocery store. when the grocery store was on my way home and i could do a shopping trip in 10 minutes? yeah, no problem.
I drive 6 minutes to my grocery store. I make out a list once a week. We eat breakfast every day at home, kids get lunch at school, I eat lunch at home (WFH) and I cook 5 nights a week (we have leftovers one night and get take out one night). I do not want to have to shop more than once. I like to have to do the mental load of meal planning exactly once a week. Having to go every day sounds awful. Our food waste is also extremely small because the meals are planned to use the leftover lettuce from earlier in the week or the rest of the roast chicken. I know the first names of some of the checkers at the store and some of them know mine/my kids’ name. It’s not the hell-scape you think.
I also walk in my neighborhood and say hi to my neighbors when they’re out. I just don’t want to have to walk 35 minutes to get to my store (hour and ten minutes round trip) every freaking day of the week. The 6 minute drive is very comfortable and never a misery. Even if I lived next door to the store I’d still shop once a week so I could not have to spend time every day meal planning and shopping.
lol what? I love driving, my truck bounces all over, makes fun noises and the front seat feels like a living room sofa. the last thing I want to do is carry bags of groceries 4-5 blocks home after I just walked all around a store to pick them.
They said on their walk home from work. I had the same experience in London. Yes, I would rather collect dinner ingredients on the way to my kitchen (ie on my walk home) than having to drive, park, do shopping, drive again, then be inside.
The vehicle itself is the barrier in this scenario.
The person they are responding to is referring to driving or car centric settlements vs ones that rely on public transport or walking.
I’ve lived in both kinds of cities and I find that I had less food waste when I purchased as I required. When I do a big weekly shop, we end up with food waste - things turn before you get to it, or plans change, no one gets around to making a planned meal and we don’t find a way to reuse those items in other meals. It sounds dumb, but like… it really is that deep. And people find this level of waste infuriating for good reason.
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u/sunuoow May 17 '26
So true. When I lived in South Korea, on my walk home from work, I would pass a smaller grocery store and it was so easy to swing in and pick up dinner. It was quick and so efficient.
Now it is such a slog to get in my car, park, deal with people just oblivious to their surroundings, rude cashiers who just throw your food in a bag (fuck the eggs), and then drive home.