We're fortunate in Canada that food is abundant, readily available and relatively inexpensive to acquire. By food I mean whole foods, grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, along with fish and meat and of course dairy products. In season all of these items are there in wide array for the consumer; out of season imported fruits and vegetables find centre stage. In any season, more exotic fruits and vegetables are available, particularly for the large numbers of immigrants that have migrated to Canada over the years from all corners of the world, with their own customary cuisines that often make their way in stages introduced into the general roster of food choices and preparation of ethnic-type dishes.

We found, while living in Tokyo, a bit of bias that we acquired in the belief that the Japanese are most particular about the quality and freshness of the food they eat, and quality control seems a mainstay of everyone's preoccupation from growers to middlemen, the seller on the street and the perusing purchaser. This fixation on quality and freshness needless to say affects expectation and taste, and we were of the opinion throughout the year we were privileged to live there, that our diet was comprised of the freshest whole foods we had ever been exposed to. There was one issue that did concern me, though, that it was my impression that the flour available in Japan lacked the baking quality of Canadian wheat.

Every day represented an adventure in food shopping as I would venture out beyond the compound where our house was located to the nearby streets comprising our neighbourhood to visit familiar open-air stalls focusing on fruit or on vegetables, and little shops selling rice or tea. Nearby there was a florist which had installed a commercial-grade coffee grinder where we could buy roasted beans and have them fresh-ground. In Tokyo it was notable that stands or store-fronts selling fish, before closing down for the day, would hose down their premises; one never passed such a stand or store to find it reeking with the odour of fish.

There were also a sprinkling of Western-style supermarkets which we would occasionally venture into to poke about to find foods more familiar to us, certainly cheeses, some imported from Australia and New Zealand. Where Bavarian-type breads were also a specialty to be acquired there, though there were stand-alone baked-good shops specializing in French or in German baked products.

Apart from my daily shopping forays, there was the week-end when we took buses and the subway down to the wonderful shopping markets of the Ueno district, where we would wander, dazed and happy, stuffing our shopping bags with all manner of foodstuffs we found unique and appealing from the open-air stalls lined neatly along the thoroughfare. Nearby was Ueno park with its national museum, and Tokyo's zoo housing among other animal species the beloved pandas.

What a privilege it was to live there, to pass by temples and shrines and venture into their beautiful gardens, mesmerized by the koi ponds, by the exotic plants, by the centuries-old treasured temple bonsai, sitting out in display in the the summer weather. Tokyo was a cornucopia of sights,  sounds, smells and life whose display was fascinating, the culture both ancient and current absorbing, the people both reserved and ebullient in interacting with foreigners, with always someone passing on the street who would accost a foreigner to practise their English phrases. In turn we learned Japanese phrases of comment and enquiry to enable us to communicate with others during our sojourn there.

On our brief trips outside Tokyo to take part in day-long hikes in the forests and mountains surrounding the city we were exposed to the rich natural settings on this island of Honshu, the largest of the four that comprise Japan. It was a time of exploration and familiarity, when in passing another group of hikers, the familiar "konitchiwa" would ring out in acknowledgement of shared humanity and appreciation of nature.