Few items of note

1. Grapes-My host family loves grapes. They buy them by the case and we eat them with every meal. 2 kinds, big red globe grapes and ordinary looking green ones. Semi-seedless. Both kinds blow our grapes away. Our grapes taste like water. These taste like grapes and if you are lucky, wine. The skin is a bit thicker and my family sucks the grapes out of the skin but I munch on the whole thing because the skin has good flavor on the red ones. The middles slide out of the skin like jelly. They are clear and cool and taste like fruit.

2. Mushrooms (shitake) Best ever found in ordinary supermarket. Everything a mushroom should be. Japanese came up with "umami" and no surprise what are ordinary cooking mushrooms embody the umami goodness that should be in every mushroom.

3. Tako (octopus). Host mother bought an octupus leg for sashimi. (I got to slice it!) It was so delicious that I think it came off of the octupus right there in the market. It was slightly salty on its own and just needed a dab of soy sauce and wasabi. Octopus in america is more a textural affair, for better or for worse, unless it is seasoned, but it had actual flavor on its own tonight. It tasted eerily like a roasted pork chop. Meaty, tender, little salty, but had a slight crunch at the end since it is a mollusk.