Iwakuni MCAS » Shopping
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Shopping
Commissary
The Commissary here stocks most of the what you are used to seeing on the shelves at your Commissary in the US. If there is something they don’t have that you want, you can always put in a request, and they’ll make an effort to get it here.
You can visit the Commissary website, hover your mouse over the Shopping link, and choose Shopping List from the menu that appears, then select your location, and you can view the products that any Commissary carries. You can also click individual items to create a shopping list.
Stores on Base:
Book Store
Marine Corps Exchange
Military Clothing Sales/Uniforms
New Car Sales
Northside Seven Day Store
Optical Shop (inside MCX)
Oscar’s Gift Shop (inside MCX)
Photo Processing and Studio
Seven Day Store at MCX
Torii Video
On Base Dining:
AMC Terminal Snack Bar
Auto Mini Mart Food Court
Bowling Center A&W
Club Iwakuni
Eagle’s Nest
Food Court (called “Crossroads”):
Burger King
Baskin Robbins
Seattle’s Best Coffee
Subway
Kentucky Fried Chicken
Pizza Hut
Taco Bell
Club Iwakuni (combined club complex):
Landing Zone Enlisted Club
Officers Club
Staff NCO Club
Eagles Nest
Stores off Base, nearby:
Fuji Grand - located in downtown Iwakuni. This is the largest department store in Iwakuni. It has seven floors with the grocery store located on the first floor and restaurants (including McDonald’s) on the top floor. The departments include children’s, ladies, men’s, boys, sporting goods, housewares, 100 Yen department, health and beauty aids, shoes, accessories, kimono shop, giftware, and stationery. On the same floor as the children’s department, there are many fun games for the kids to play, including some with candy prizes!
Ginza Street Shopping Mall – located in downtown Iwakuni. It consists of a covered street lined with restaurants, the Kokusai Movie Theater, drug stores, beauty shops, clothing stores, etc.
You Me Town – Similar to a Super Wal-Mart, there are several nearby locations, including off base in Iwakuni and nearby in Otake. Find your favorite Japanese foods here, as well as clothing, kitchen items, a place for the kids to play, and a bakery.
Nafco – Similar to Home Depot or Lowe’s, this store meets your needs for tools, gardening supplies and plants, kitchenware, and a wide variety of pet food and supplies. Upstairs, you will find furniture, including those hard-to-find floor length mirrors!
Stores in Hiroshima:
Toys ‘R Us – There is a Toys ‘R Us in Hiroshima, just like the ones in the US.
Alpark Mall – One of the largest and most modern malls in the area.
Diamond City Mall – Starbucks, McDonald’s, Babies ‘R Us, Tommy Hilfiger, Disney Store, and many more familiar places await you at this great shopping location.
This is by no means a complete listing, just a little sample so you will have an idea of what is there. There are also plenty of cuisines to choose from, including Italian, Chinese, and of course, plenty of local Japanese food to sample!
Online Shopping:
The internet will be your best friend when it comes to shopping. If there is a store you particularly like, check out their website and see if they ship to APO/FPO, because many stores now ship APO! If a site doesn’t specify that they do not ship APO, you might consider contacting them through their contact form or email address, or even calling them, because many stores will ship things for you, but they just don’t have the online ordering set up for it.
When placing your order, enter the PSC 561 BOX XXX on the address line, and enter FPO for the city and AP for the state. If a site uses dropdown boxes and doesn’t list AP for the state, select CA instead, because our mail for Iwakuni goes through the California sorting facility for military mail. It works most of the time, I use that method often!
A list of a few major stores that ship to Iwakuni (stores with * carry plus-size clothing):
JC Penney*
Jessica London*
Lane Bryant*
Goody’s*
Old Navy*
Fashion Bug*
Target (some items will not ship APO)
Wal-mart (can take 30 days or more)
Toy ‘R Us
Lowes
Amazon.com (some items will ship APO, others will not; check each item’s description for shipping details)
Drugstore.com (great for those health & beauty items you can’t find on base)
Shipping can take anywhere from a week to a month or more, depending on the shipping method used. If you select Priority Mail, you can expect to receive your package in about 7-10 days. If you select regular mail, it may take a month or more. JC Penny only takes about a week to get here, and Drugstore.com reports that it can take up to 8 weeks, but I usually get packages from them within 10 days.
Can’t find your favorite Health & Beauty products? I found an online store called Shop In Private that carries a few hard-to-find items.
Getting Around Shipping Problems:
The first, and most obvious solution to companies that won’t ship things to you while you’re stationed overseas, is to order what you want and use a friend or family member’s stateside address as the ship-to address (with their permission, of course) and have them mail the package to you when they receive it. Of course, that requires extra work on their part; going to the post office, filling out the customs form, and paying for the shipping to get it to you, but most people don’t mind doing this for their loved ones.
As an alternative, there are two places that I know of that will provide you with a stateside mailing address, which you can use to order things online. These companies will receive your packages at their facilities and basically forward your packages on to you at your FPO/APO destination (which you specify when you set up the account with them). This is very handy for those companies who simply refuse to ship FPO/APO, and saves you the hassle of shipping to friends or family and waiting on them to get to the post office to send your package on to you.
Both of these services, of course, charge a fee for forwarding your package on to you, and both require you to pay twice for shipping when it’s all said and done (once for what the company you order through charges you to ship the package to your stateside address, and once again for the company providing your stateside address to ship it from there on to you, plus their fee for the service).
However, if you really want something, you do what you have to do. If you reimburse your friends and family for mailing packages to you, though, it really doesn’t cost that much more to use one of the above two services, and they get it shipped out to you generally faster than your family and friends do, unless they’re very loyal and get right to the post office for you every time.
As always, you should never attempt to use any method, above mentioned or otherwise, to ship goods or products which are illegal to ship or which are banned by either country’s import/export laws. Check with your local customs office or post office if you are uncertain about the mailability of any item.
