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Originally Posted by mgatepi

We too were shocked at how affordable JApan was!! Food was down right cheap!! We ate at a lot of small local restaurants. MAke sure you have a tleast one meal of Shabu Shabu!! You can find all you can eat places that are fantastic!! ITs a beef eating feast!

I'm not suggesting that this sort of thing is still available, but when we lived in Japan in the mid 80s, there was a place that we would go that was all you can eat. You had a griddle in the middle of the table, and then they had a place that had a selection of prepared (sliced, cleaned, etc...) meats, veggies, sauces, etc...). You'd get what you wanted, go back to your table and cook it. The only thing was that if you took food that you didn't cook/eat, they would fine you (we never had that issue). It was ¥1000 per person. For the 2.5 years that we lived there, the exchange rate varied between ~200 and 250 yen to the dollar, so it was $4-5 each for my parents and I.