So one of the city's supermarkets just went 24 hours.

Is this already commonplace in the less civilized parts of the country?

It was a Seiyu unfortunately - high prices, crap selection - and they 
blocked off my usual route into the car park so I almost smashed a front 
headlight on a less than obvious steel chain across the entrance.  Best 
feature - the checkout girl had a headset microphone so she could bid each 
customer a fond farewell over the shop's PA system...actually that wasn't 
the BEST feature...5 hostess bar girls having obviously finished work early 
for the night arrived just as I was leaving...of course I had forgotten to 
buy something !


--
jonathan