Taisho Pabron is one of the cold medicines I always keep at home. When I started flying to Japan again after the pandemic, I quickly bought a box to keep on hand, because it’s reassuring to have when I suddenly get a slight sore throat, runny nose, or other cold symptoms. It’s also really common in Taiwan. In the past, about half my coworkers at the office had some on hand, so if you started feeling unwell on the way to work, you could ask around and usually borrow some. It was honestly kind of crazy.
Even though it’s easy to buy in Japan, I still carry a few packets with me while traveling in case I suddenly feel unwell in the middle of the night or while in transit. You also need to be especially careful when buying it now because, due to Japanese regulations, drugstores generally only sell one package at a time. You can’t just grab several boxes like before, so that’s different from before the pandemic.
So if you already use it regularly, don’t assume you can stock up on many boxes at once when shopping in Japan now. For me, though, one box of 40 packets is more than enough to keep at home. I go to Japan pretty often anyway, and even if I don’t go, someone around me will, so there’s really no need to stock up.
