Random Picture #116

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I don't know if my readers think that I carefully select my random pictures from a distinct set of photos, but I can tell you that the process is, well, very "random". I have thousands of pictures from my time in Japan and I choose a folder and just poke around in one until I find something I want to show people. For reasons that I cannot begin to fathom, it is not infrequently the case that the random picture I stumble upon is related to a recent review. In this case, I reviewed a rice bar sandwich cookie on Monday and happened upon this picture of rice cereal sweets for sale in Asakusa. Perhaps the rivers of fate flow in a particular direction, or I'm just exercising selection recognition and fooling myself (likely the latter).

Since breakfast cereal isn't very popular in Japan, it always seems odd that there are these cereal-based sweets though it really shouldn't since there is no reason why the Japanese can't puff or crisp rice for cereal as well as anyone else. These bags of cereal snacks are blocks of crispy rice glued together with rice syrup. The silver bowls contain samples and this was an unusual display because there are actual economies of scale at play here. It was extremely rare to see any sort of meaningful price reduction for buying more in Japan. One bag is 400 yen and three bags are 1000 yen. That being said, I think that even at 333 1/3 yen per bag, these were overpriced.