Today it misted as opposed to rained. Again, totally fine with me - much preferred to sweating to death. So now that it has rained for like 10 days straight, people are starting to worry about the rice crop (this is the rice ramble from yesterday which I am going to re-write). Japanese people have this thing about rice tasting different. Even within Japan there are different types; the stuff grown in the north being supposedly better and therefore more expensive. Now last time the rice crop failed, people freaked out... because rice grown in other countries doesn't taste good. Now, I do grant them the fact that rice has different tastes, but come on. It isn't worth paying $100 for a 5 lb bag. Rice is already the biggest ripoff on the planet here, costing about $15 for a 5 lb bag of the cheap no-name kind. That's just ridiculous.

So last time the rice crop failed, they got rice from southern Thailand, which is kinda silly, cuz apparently northern Thai rice is most similar to Japanese rice. So people forked over the C-note. Crazy. But then again, I'm pretty sure it was still during the bubble, when people doled money out like water.

In addition to the rice issue there is also the fruit/vegetable issue which is of more concern. It's expensive this year! No cheap melon which really sucks, cuz melon tastes good! Which is one of the reasons why I'm so looking forward to Thailand - cheap fruit galore! Yummy yum yum. Speaking of which, I leave in one week, and am getting more excited by the second.