Wacky Price Levels

Today we had a novel pricing experience.

Due to the power being out in the morning Pavan brought her laptop in and worked in the office. At lunch we went to the village to try the super-cool shoulder-cut noodles. These are made by a guy with a board upon which a large block of dough rests slashing at it, with the noodles falling off into a steaming vat. One of these days we'll remember the camera and post a picture. A bowl of noodles was ¥4.5 and a local pop was ¥1 so lunch and drink for four cost ¥22. The noodles were absolutely delicious, one of our favorite meals to date. We're paying literally 10x more when we go out to touristy restaurants and the food isn't really much (if any) better. Oh well. In the afternoon we walked over to where we'd been told a coffee shop was located. It turned out to be a Blenz, and was setup as a sit-down restaurant. After a considerable amount of confusion we communicated that we wanted a hot, takeaway, americano with milk (which was steamed prior to being added, but close enough). The single coffee cost ¥22 - AS MUCH AS LUNCH FOR FOUR!!!

Coffee shops are clearly a remarkably profitable endeavor since westerners think the price is more or less normal (just over $3 for a large americano). We might have to switch exclusively to tea at this rate, though good tea at restaurants often costs ¥40+ (to a max of ¥3000 at one place we saw).