Fruits.. Grapes..

Before coming to Japan, I always thought that temperate fruits like grapes, orange, apples, pears etc would be cheap and plentiful in Japan. But I was very very very wrong..

Fruits are very expensive in Japan, period. Yes, the size of an orange and apple is much larger than what is usually available in Malaysia and Singapore. They are maybe twice or thrice as big as the Fuji apple that we are familiar with.. and so is the price.. An apple the size of an adult's palm is between 250 yen to 400 yen! The only affordable fruit in Japan, ironically, is banana!! A comb of banana (about 4-5 bananas) cost between 105yen to 200yen, depending on its quality and source.

I once saw a durian, smaller than a basketball, being sold for more than 2,500yen! That is almost SG$30!! And the watermelon during summer was equally expensive.. Imagine paying more than 600yen for 1 basketball-sized watermelon!! :o :o Madness!!


This small bunch of grapes cost 400yen. Bought this in one of the supermarkets in Shimo-kitazawa. I had always liked grapes and had bought it once in a while during my stay in Singapore. Over there, it was between SG$0.69 to SG$0.69 per 100g. I will only buy it during sale period.. :p But here, the prices of fruits don't seem to go down.. After monitoring the prices of grapes for a while, I've decided to just buy it once.


Each grape is bigger than my thumb! They are very sweet to the point of being bitter in some instances.. Too bad they aren't seedless.. :p Else they would be perfect!! :)

Frankly, the prices of fruits here are so expensive that fruits had become luxury items instead of daily food. In the end, I just drink fruit juices (like apple or orange juices) or vegetable juices to get my daily doses of natural Vit. C and fiber.. A liter of real orange juice or apple juice cost between 200yen to 350yen, so they are much more economical..