Tokyo is known to be an expensive city.  My recollection from when I was here in 2002, was that costs varied wildly.  As it turns out, memory had served me correctly.  There are things that are considerably more expensive by American standards and others that are quite reasonable. It's an interesting dichotomy because sometimes the variances can occur side-by-side with no rhyme or reason.

For example, today I was on the very tony Omotesando Avenue which has been compared to Paris’s Champs-Elysees. ( I know that you're shocked to hear that I made it there within my first ten days in Tokyo!)  On one side of the street, a cup of coffee at a café was 1000¥ ($12). Directly across the boulevard,  you could fetch a Campari for 450¥ ($5). Now I’m no mathematician but it didn’t take me long to figure out I could have two Camparis for less than a cup of coffee.  Such a deal!

I have found milk to be considerably more expensive regardless of where it is sold.  It is primarily sold by the quart for about 250¥ ($3).  Besides that I have yet to figure out if I’m buying  1%, 2% or whole, I’m quite surprised at the difference.  I suppose there is less room here for cows than at home.  Nonetheless, for $12 a gallon, I feel like I should get to meet the cow or at least see her picture on the container.

The most interesting difference by far is the cost of cantaloupe here.  Cantaloupe is a cherished fruit and can range from $85 to well over $120 per melon. Yup, you saw that correctly! It is considered a luxury item. You find them in the fine grocers cloaked in what appears to be a diaper.  The fruit is cared for better than some children in this world, having been monitored and coddled from the time it was a mere seedling.  It made me wonder what  the Japanese would think if they visited Boston and saw them at the fruit stands at Haymarket for about a buck a piece.  Would they be very excited at the bargain of it all or totally repulsed by Dante behind the stand, scratching his privates and spitting on the ground?

[I wrote this article up to this point while riding the Metro back to our apartment from Omotesando.]

I’m now waiting to pick up the takeout that I ordered for Greg and myself.  An order of shumai and two grilled fish entrees with rice and sautéed vegetables  cost just less than that cup of coffee that I mentioned earlier.  Once again proving that Tokyo is not always super expensive.  It depends what you want and where you are. 

The bottom line. .. Outside of the States,  the US dollar currently has the value of Monopoly money.   You want to play, you have to pay. There are things that are good value and others that are not so good. I suppose traveling to third world nations would be one alternative.  But then you would risk catching hepatitis, or worse, no Campari.