storebought sweet potato may be treated to prevent sprouting. You may go to flea marke or famers market to get it.

All purple http://www.southernexposure.com/sweet-potatoes-c-229.html
Alabama purple, Okinawan purple http://www.duckcreekfarms.com/pdfs/SweetPotatoCatalog2012.pdf
Sandhill has Dingus Purple Flesh, Korean Purple(white flesh),Myanmar Purple ( white flesh with purple streaks), Purple Delight, Tainung 65 ( purple skin, cream flesh). http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/catalog/sweet_potatoes.html
Red Japanese (white flesh)http://www.tatorman.com/p9.htm

Well, I sprouted the purple skinned, white fleshed variety, but would still love to get my hands on some of the purple fleshed variety, but I'd rather trade than order from a nursery. I've got plenty of planting projects to keep me busy in the meantime.

The imports from Hawaii are usually just low grade x-rayed before transport. This will keep some of them from sprouting but not all of them. I got one to sprout years ago, and I bought a plant once from a specialty Asian store. To be honest, the all purple forms developed in the US Southeast are much easier to grow and have way more flavor. I've been told that the Okinawa form does best in the tropics and suffers anywhere else. In my zone 7b garden I had to baby it all summer and it only gave me 5 tubers which had no flavor at all.

thanks triangle John.

BTW - I just flew through Hawaii on my way back from Japan and was surprised how heavy they are on the agricultural inspections. Had to go through twice - once upon arriving and once again before departing.

With the asian psyllid menace, I suppose it is quite understandable.

I grew up in Japan and dream of someday going back. One of these days I'll scrape up the money and get over my fear of flying (I fly often, but try to keep the flights short since I am terrified of heights). My biggest problem is finding a tour that wants to tour smaller villages and farming/gardening hot spots. Everyone wants to do the normal touristy stuff. Well that and the fact that it would take 3 months to see all the stuff that I want to see and that would be quite expensive. Gotta win the lottery!

If you want to experience rural Japan, you can go WWOOFing, and not worry about cost. That's a real immersion.

Anything particular you want to see? I know a few folks scattered here and there around rural japan. At least one of them takes foreign wwoofers.

Beautiful countryside. People talk about population density in Japan, but in reality most of the country is forested mountains and little rice-farming or fishing villages.

Someday we may find a place in the country of west Japan - east Japan the radiation is too high for my tastes.

There are a few places that I want to go back and see just to remember when I was there as a child/teenager: Kamakura, Mt. Fuji, the Ginza/Tokyo downtown, Tachikawa (we lived in Ome outside the Tachikawa Air Force Base which is now a park). But then I want to go all the way up to Sapporo and down to Kyushu & Shikoku and over to the western shore, maybe Sado Island. I doubt I would ever get to go back so I would want to do it all.

I have friends that WWOOF in Italy during their off season (they are organic farmers). I'm not sure what I would do with my large garden and pets in order to go away for such a long time but someday I will go back to Japan.