Bananas for us
In general, we don't have local bananas except in some southern islands such as Okinawa, Ogasawara, Amami and other ones, and other tropical fruits too. It might be tough to believe for people outside of Japan, banana and those tropical fruits used to be so expensive before, often used as a souvenir when visiting to patient in hospital when I was young. Kids like us could enjoy bananas only when parents visit their friends or someone who got hospitalized. We enjoyed also dried (hmmm I guess I should call it "half-dried") bananas and banana tips too.
When I was a kid, most bananas we'd seen are from Taiwan, but now, many of those are from the Philippines and Ecuador today. Bananas became one of popular fruits because its price got lower, anyone can enjoy bananas now then.
What the heck, price of bananas is getting higher and higher recently, almost double now. I read that it's because a cold weather in the Philippines and banana farmers turn to sugarcane since it's sold at higher price for bio-ethanol production. Until its price gets higher like now, I often saw people buying bananas at supermarkets, since they really like it because it's nutritious and yummy, one of the best choice for snacks. But not recently.
Please give us back bananas at reasonable price! I prefer mangoes and papayas personally, though. (^_^)
