Shopping

 Recently, David has been shopping on the way home from work. The supermarket he goes to is open 24 hours, which is good, but it means that early in the morning, there isn't a good choice of fruit or vegetables.

Yesterday I decided to go and see what I could get! There are two supermarkets that I like, one has good deals on meat and fish, the other is better for fruit and vegetables!

I was really hoping I could buy some nice vegetables, so that was the first stop. I was shocked at just how expensive everything was! A very small broccoli was 250 yen, about £1.25, which might not seem a lot, but last year the same thing was 100 yen, about 50p! The same for all vegetables! I think fruits and vegetables will get a lot more expensive because the weather has been so bad this summer. Too much rain at the wrong time! One news segment I watched the other week was showing a vineyard in an area that was hit by heavy rain and then a typhoon; every single bunch of grapes had gone mouldy. The farmer was saying that every field he had was the same; he had lost the whole crop!

After being disappointed with the vegetables, I went to the other supermarket to buy some meat! I managed to buy some fish, 10 fillets for 1000 yen, about £5:00, again twice as much as last year. The same for meat and chicken. Last year, 100 grams of chicken was about 40 yen, 20p, now the cheapest I've seen is 70 yen for 100 grams!

Coffee is another item that has gone very expensive, 3 times the price it was in the spring!

We are lucky in that I can buy rice from one of my students, but rice prices are crazy. In less than 12 months, the price has tripled! My student said she was shocked at the price of rice. She isn't seeing the benefit of the price hike. She told me that she only got an extra 30 yen on 30 kilos of rice!

As much as I hate this house, I think being forced to move here was a good thing. There's no way I could pay the rent on the other house! Even paying the tax on this property is hard. 

I'm hoping that things will turn around, but I know that I need to make more effort, especially to get new students. 

One good thing is that it is a bit cooler, still too hot for autumn, but that awful draining heat of summer is fading. It's that nice time of year when I don't need to run the air conditioners or the heaters, a chance to save a bit of money!

One problem, though, are the spiders that come in!

This guy ran all around my ceiling the other day, then it disappeared. Should I be worried?

My new friend?

I've seen a lot of these spiders about. For some strange reason, these don't freak me out!