The best souvenir from Korea? It’s rice for rising numbers of Japanese visitors
Amid a rice shortage in Japan that has seen prices rise 92 per cent in a year, Japanese visitors to Korea are buying the grain to take home
By Jun Ji-hye
An increasing number of Japanese tourists are visiting South Korea to buy rice, as prices continue to soar in Japan, retail industry officials say.
Japanese visitors have increasingly been spotted filling their carts with rice at supermarkets in Seoul in recent weeks.
This growing trend was highlighted in a viral post on X, formerly Twitter, where a Japanese tourist shared her experience of buying rice during a trip to Korea and bringing it back home.
The Japanese tourist, who identified herself as a middle-aged housewife, shared earlier this month that she bought 4 kilograms (8.8lbs) of white rice and 5 kilograms of brown rice in Korea during a layover in Seoul, after travelling from Cebu, the Philippines.
“My mission in Seoul was to buy rice, as prices in Japan have become too high. I decided to take the opportunity to purchase some while in Korea,” she wrote.