Banana in Japan is basically imported goods, but it has become the cheapest fruits among all.

I have a Korean friend who liked banana very much. When he was small, imported banana was still a luxury in Korea. When he came to Japan, he was like arrived in paradise, eating banana almost all days. Now he is in Taiwan, banana has become a local fruit for him. I wonder if he eats it daily like before.

By the way, normally the cheapest banana is about 100 yen for 4 to 5 pieces. I got 198 yen for the above, about 17 pieces. It’s a big bargain.

We got a basketful of karin from the kindergarden headmaster. Chinese quince is called Karin in Japanese. In Greek, the fruit name means apple that cut half.

We slice it, add brown sugar to make karin syrup in winter, it is good to drink it when you catch a cold, got cough. Take a spoonful and add hot water to drink at night.

Persimmon is called pisang kaki in Malay, literally means banana feet. I didn’t find any websites mentioned about how it came about. I was told by someone that it was the Japanese army at World War II who brought it over and introduced to Malay peninsular. Read at your own risk.

When the Japanese pointed at persimmon and said, kaki, the local didn’t know why or anything about the legs. Then the Japanese pointed at the banana trees, wanted to say it’s like banana, one type of the fruits. It’s then known as pisang kaki.

Persimmon isn’t cheap, but it’s worth the money to have it. Sweet, seedless, and it’s nice and easy to peel too. The orange colour reminds me very much of Halloween.

I bought one pineapple last week just because it was 100 yen. Normally it cost 3 times more. At first I thought of making one pineapple fried rice; cut half, dig a hole in it and serve like a boat, the kids might like that idea.

Somehow, to slice the pineapple is kind of troublesome when you don’t have the time to do cooking.

2nd girl found it and wanted to have it after dinner. It’s been a week since I bought and still troublesome it’s going to be, I said bring the knife and I will do it. Then I saw her actually reading the instruction that came with photos. It was in English so she didn’t actually read it but just did what she saw in the photo. At the end she managed to cut into four and shared among the siblings! I must have been thinking the wrong way to eat pineapple all the while. Hmmm.

Autumn is here.