Shopping

 As I've mentioned before I've been doing a lot more shopping then I used to!

Not having shops near by makes things a lot more difficult. In the old house I would just send somebody to pick up what I had run out of or forgotten. 

So I've been making lists, which helps but sometimes what's on my list isn't available or too expensive so I have to change my menu plans.

Another problem is the shocking price of food.

5kgs of rice cost about 2000 yen last year, about 10 pounds, now the same rice costs over 3000 yen, about 15 pounds. I know that I can cook potatoes, pasta, Japanese noodles or bread but rice is so easy to use. I cook a large lunch everyday, in the evenings it's usually a case of everybody making themselves something.  Having rice cooked in the rice cooker makes that a lot easier.

Fruits are expensive, but I've always felt that fruit is more expensive here.  4 apples would set you back about 1280 yen, almost 7 pounds. At the moment I only buy bananas!

This year vegetables have become very expensive. Most vegetables are domestic, Japan imports very few vegetables.  If there were more imported produce I could understand the high price as the yen is very weak at the moment.  But most of what I buy is from local farmers, the furthest is from the north of Japan.

I'm sure the reasons for such high prices are multi- layered, but according to one of my students, who is a farmer, the weather this past year has been very bad. She told me that on her farm the sprinklers were set to go off mid morning but the water would just boil in the ground it was that hot. They had to change to late evening watering. The extreme heat also lowered the production of rice, plus panic buying in August after an earthquake triggered an advisory that the Nankai Trough mega quake could happen, has caused a rice shortage.

Most vegetables are at least double what they were last winter but cabbage has gone really expensive. 3 or 4 times the usual price.

This was the price in a discount supermarket that I use.

780 yen for a head of cabbage

I couldn't believe it, that's about 4 pounds for one cabbage.

 The prices this year have made me more determined than ever to try and grow some vegetables. I don't know how successful we will be but we have to try!

In another store I was in I almost got run over by the robot vacuum cleaner.

This little guy needs indicator lights

I like how they have put a lovely cheerful face on him! But some noise or indication that he is coming round the corner would help. I was trying to decide what to buy, I wasn't paying attention to the floor, the vacuum cleaner came round the corner, fast, I yelped and jumped. David and Christopher, rolled their eyes and walked away.