Big Grapes

Japan has the most fantastically overpriced fresh fruits and vegetables. Since this culture values presentation immensely, farmers in turn strive to produce and select only the most perfect fruits. This applies, in my limited experience, to both flavour and appearance. Here are some example prices: (ranges indicate size-wise pricing)

• Apples: 200-350 yen
• Asian Pears (half apple, half pear): 200-250 yen
• Single small bunch of grapes: 200-600 yen
• Peaches: 350-500 yen
  

There are three fruits in particular that are very expensive:

• Cherries - Any decent department store has a boxed set for 10,000 yen.
• Melons - Most supermarkets have these for 2,000 yen and up. Only the smallest are (barely) less than 1,000 yen.
• Grapes - You pay for the average size of your grape. There is a box at my local supermarket for 3,000 yen.

Fortunately, I found this box to the left for a mere 980 yen at my local supermarket. I don't know why it is one third the price as the prized box in my other supermarket. Mine had seeds; maybe the others don't. Regardless, the grapes were amazing. I ate the first box, one kilogram, in a single day. This is my second in two days! There is a quarter (twenty-five US cents) in the middle of the box for the purposes of comparison.