Strawberry Fields Forever

As I've come to learn, every town and city in Japan is famous for something. Whether it be the best persimmons, the saltiest rice crackers, or the largest variety of wildflowers, each town boasts some local product or activity. My town, Tateyama, is most famous for wildflowers and strawberry-picking in the winter. So, as a Tateyama resident, I decided I should take a go and see what all the fuss is about these delicious strawberries (they're in the supermarket now- not cheap, I might add!). There are a variety of strawberry-picking sights, but the one I went to today with some friends was 1,300yen (about $13) for all-you-can-eat strawberries in thirty minutes. Thirty minutes didn't seem long at all, but trust me, you can eat more strawberries than you want to in thirty minutes, as I've recently learned from experience! When you entered the greenhouse, everyone got a little tray with two sides- one side was filled with some condensed milk, and the other was for putting strawberry stems. We walked up and down the aisles of strawberries, eating as many as we could. They were so good! I didn't realize that there are different varieties of strawberries. We could taste a big difference better the different varieties- some were sweeter, some were mushy, and others were more firm. At first I thought I was going to be stressed out trying to eat as much as I could within the time limit, but it turns out that the time limit is more of a guideline because most people get sick of eating strawberries after 30 minutes. We ended up staying closer to an hour : ) We counted our stems after we left, and I was surprised that I had only eaten 36 strawberries- after all, I had been eating nonstop for a long time! I guess some of the berries were pretty big... Anyways, it was really fun, although I think I've filled up on my strawberry quota for the next year...