If you’ve travelled to Japan you know just how convenient this country can be. There are vending machines everywhere: in trains; at temples; on street corners. The same can be said for convenience stores, found: at airports; on train station platforms; and even in video games.

When staying in Ōsaka, next to Umeda station, I was strolling the streets doing some night photography when I stumbled on this…

Two of the same convenience stores, not just on the same street, but metres away from each other on the same block. While the signage out the front was slightly different (you can see a sign protruding out of the external wall above the Family Mart furthest away in the photo), the inside of each store was almost identical…

Bizarre…

In Japanese convenience store is written in katakana as コンビニエンスストア [konbini-ensu-sutoa] but as the Japanese often do with foreign words, it’s shortened toコンビニ [konbini].

View this location (GPS coordinates: 34.707315,135.496319) on Google Maps.

This photo is a handheld 3 shot HDR (High Dynamic Range) photo taken late one night in autumn.