Status Updated: Missed Flight, part two

I am (as of 10AM February 19th) still at the airport, and I'm doing alright. It's looking like my, uh, little mistake is going to cost my family about $1,500 on top of the $1,200 it already took.

Moral of the story: Don't miss your flight.

[Update:
The moral of the story is still "Don't miss your flight". The people at Northwest have been very helpful, especially when compared to the nice, if rather English-challenged lady I talked to who was with Travelocity. They were able to get it down to $1,200 by waiving a couple of fees and doing some kind of magic - this is actually what the woman said - which is pretty cool. If I were to wait a week, I could get it for "only" $300 on top of my current ticket price, but that flight was taken by the time I talked to them about it again.]

[Edit: Oh, and this is the 400th post to this blog. Beth put up two or three, so it's not my 400th. I had been hoping to hit 500 before I left, but I guess the number's not really important.]

Coins, Coins, Everywhere, but not a Yen to Spend

One of the most striking things about buying things in Japan is how much you can spend without really noticing. This is largely due to the fact that they use coins for everything up to 500 yen (~$5).  And those 500 yen coins look a lot like an American $1 coin, which are pretty rare, and we usually use paper money for $1 values.  The 100 yen coin here is very, very similar to an American quarter ($0.25).
The smallest bill currently in circulation is the 1000 yen ($10) bill.  The other two pieces of paper money are the 5000 (~$50) and 10,000 (~$100, though about $110 with the current exchange rate).  I cringe every time I have to break a 10,000 yen note, but the 1000s and the 500 yen pieces feel like 1/5 to 1/10 their value, so they disappear really quickly.  Add to that the fact that everything here is at least twice as expensive as I think it should be...

Now, that said, the coins are really convenient like that.  They're actually useful, not just something to have to put up with.  That said, it's still frustrating to carry around ten nickels and twenty cents in pennies on top of all of your money with enough zeroes after it to matter.  I've been tossing excess coins into a little baggie basically since I got here, and I had forgotten about it for the past two months or so.  I have to go to pay rent today, and once I pull out the money for that, I'll be at (thanks to the exchange rate) about $50 left for the last week that I'm here.  Now, that's no small amount of money, but given that $15 of that will go to getting me to the airport, and I will need to have some money on hand or at least in my account in the event of baggage handling fees or something, well, I remembered my little yenny bank.  That was a pun on piggy bank.  Please tell me someone got it.

So I decided to see roughly how much I've got in it.  About an hour later, it turns out I've got a little over $80 in random change that has been gathering.  Now, there is a slight problem with this, and that's that clerks are not so happy when/if you come in with 226 dimes and want to buy something.  So, for the sake of international relations, I'm going to take everything under the 50-yen coins down to the bank and have them turn that into real money for me.  Hopefully.  I also hope the processing fee isn't super-high, but Japan does love its paperwork, so I'm only vaguely hopeful on that one.

Here are the statistics:

4100 yen	41 coins	100 yen
2050 yen	41 coins	50 yen
2260 yen	226 coins	10 yen
435 yen	87 coins	5 yen
350 yen	350 coins	1 yen	(guess)
9195 yen	Total

No More Kitten...

Well, I saw Jes off at the airport today. We ended up eating out a lot and doing a lot of sightseeing and travel and stuff, and on my way back to Kyoto today, I noticed I was down to using the $20 I keep in reserve, and that I should go pull some cash. And then I realized that I don't really have money left in the bank.

I'm usually fairly careful with money, so it was kind of strange to realize that I was running so close to the line... for the third time since I got here. Fortunately, the reason I'm low on cash is because I did all that Jes-is-visiting stuff on top of paying my phone bills up to date and buying a new bag of rice, so I'm fine in terms of food and whatnot. I should also have some money coming in from the people I share my Internet connection with, which will really help.

I'm really behind on posting stuff about all these travels and whatnot, and I'm hoping to get some of that stuff through post-processing and get some of it posted here. Probably tomorrow. Certainly not now, as it's nearly 4AM.

My screen isn't usually thisi blurry...

Bank Not L33t

I'm just a little bit short of having l33t cash in my account. It's l33t enough (99.55%) to pay rent, though!

Charged into Overdraft

Most of the time, I like my bank, Washington Mutual. They generally have pretty good people, and they do everything in a fairly reasonable timeframe. My opinion of them was lowered somewhat today when I discovered an email in my inbox labeled "New Overdraft/Non-Sufficient Funds Notice". Since I haven't done anything with either account in about two weeks, it seems kind of strange to have an overdraft funds notice.
As it turns out, they hit me with a $5 fee for going too long without having the minimum amount in my savings account. Well, the 78 cents in my savings account really isn't enough to satisfy that five-dollar charge, so it naturally went into overdraft. They have a policy of optionally charging you $30 for overdraft incidents, depending on how good a day they're having at that moment.

I've transferred money from checking to that account to cover it and hopefully bring it past the minimum amount. I just wish someone would've been a little more thoughtful and maybe notified me that I was outside of some kind mystical limit.

New Bike

Yay, a new bike! It's the same as my previous bike, but the guy who calibrated everything wasn't quite as skilled, so it's not quite as nice as before. Also, after having ridden a number of times every day, I haven't been on a bike in a three weeks, so riding feels a little weird.

Between the calibration and the three weeks, I'm pretty awkward on it. I don't think the guy filled the tires up enough, either. But, it's a bike, and it means I can get around again. Yay!

Another $300 down, though, between the bike ($250), registration, a second lock, and lunch while I was waiting for them to get it ready to go. That puts me with $100 for this month, and $50 of that should go to my 'Net connection, if they ever actually charge me for it.

Rice and Cookers

Most of the time I've been here, I've made it my policy to always have at least a bowlful of warm rice ready. In theory, it's a great policy, but when combined with my air conditioner and electronics, it's too much power. Last month I went over my pre-allotted allowance by $10, so I'm going to try and cut back a little this month. I don't want to cut back a lot, since I'm paying for the rest of it anyway, but a little would be good.

Anyway, I still like to have some rice ready, but I don't leave the rice-cooker on it's "Preserve Warm" setting 24/7 anymore. In spite of that, the rice I made early yesterday morning (about 30 hours ago) still has some last vestiges of warmth in it.

So if you're wondering why Japanese rice cookers are so expensive...

Transportation

Here's a table showing my costs and times for the places I went yesterday.  You should know that Kobe is decently far from Kyoto, about 40 miles as the crow flies and well over 45 if you have to stay on the ground like the rest of us mortals.

From	To	Duration	Cost	In Real Money
Kyoto Saiin	Juuso	00:50	¥ 390	$ 3.54
Juuso	Kobe Sannomiya	00:40	¥ 250	$ 2.27
Kobe Sannomiya	Juuso	00:40	¥ 250	$ 2.27
Juuso	Kyoto Saiin	00:50	¥ 390	$ 3.54
Total		03:00	¥ 1,280	$ 11.62
From	To	Duration	Cost	In Real Money
Apartment	Sanjo Keihan	00:30	¥ -	$ -
Waiting in the crowd		00:25	¥ -	$ -
Sanjo Keihan	JR Yamashina	00:20	¥ 250	$ 2.27
OMG CROWD		00:20	¥ -	$ -
Yamashina	Otsu	00:10	¥ 180	$ 1.63
WTF crowd (even after an hour!)		00:30	*	*
Otsu	JR Yamashina	00:10	¥ 180	$ 1.63
JR Yamashina	Sanjo Keihan	00:20	¥ 250	$ 2.27
Total		02:45	¥ 860	$ 7.81

*Actually, we were going so slow that I got a lot of pictures here; there was just enough space for my 18-55mm to get most of a person at the wide end.  Good thing Japanese women are short?  In addition, I was running around and spotted a pretty decent fan that had fallen under-ish some shrubbery.  It's blue.
So I spent about $20 total on trains yesterday, and figure about $15 for food: $5 for lunch, ~$4 at a pastry shop, and $3 for a melon-flavored shaved ice thing.

Tutelage

I just did my first lesson as an English tutor-ish person and it was... boring-interesting-frustrating-difficult?
The guy apparently was in a rush to get this one document translated, but didn't say anything about it until we had about 20 minutes left. By that, I mean the shop we were in would close and they would kick us out. I did my best to beat some sense into the English. Anyway, I apparently did a good enough job that he wants to do it again. Won't get to until next week, but... Eh, $15 is better than nothing and it's not like I have anything better to do.

電子辞書

Some of you might recall that I have two electronic dictionaries, both of which I picked up by way of working in the computer labs and having access to the lost and found, from which we are allowed to claim stuff if after one quarter of school has passed.
One is pretty cool and has all kinds of features, but I think it got left behind because the keys don't work quite perfectly, so you sometimes press a button and it doesn't register. It's frustrating for me, but this is the dictionary I usually carry.
The other is super-old and is from, like, the year 2001, maybe earlier. In any case, the thing is... venerable. But! The keys all work very nicely. Its screen is lower resolution, and it has very few dictionaries in it, but for the most part it works just fine.

I sold off my more advanced one to Bryden, who has been looking to buy one, for 一万円 (~$95). It was convenient, since I've been planning to sell one of them for quite a while. I mean, there's little point in having the two of them, except as a redundancy. If I had two that had fairly separate functions, that would make sense, but they don't, really.

Woot for liquidating assets.

Camera Economics

I'm mostly just pulling numbers from the air to do this math, but I checked them and they aren't too ludicrous, so they're good enough for me.
My camera says I've taken roughly 5,300 pictures. I reset that counter a while back by accident and it had already reached about a thousand. This puts me at roughly 6,300 pictures.
Assuming that a roll of film has 28 frames in it, I've taken 228 rolls' worth of pictures thus far.
Assuming that it costs $2.50 for such rolls of film, and an additional $4 to have each roll developed, I would have spent about $1,490 USD on just development costs. As is, I've spent about $2 on batteries for my external flash and probably about a dollar on power to charge the camera's batteries.
It would be weird to not give this post the "pictures" label, but I'm reserving that for posts that actually have pictures in them, so here's a random picture of me.And while I like that picture, some people (who just might be my parents...) have been bugging me to put up more pictures of me, and that only mostly counts, here's an actual picture of me, though I apparently won't smile, even when I'm taking pictures.

Spendy... Pedals?

Once again, I've killed the pedals on my bike. I seem to perpetually be having this problem, but other people who are heavier than me don't seem, so it seems kind of weird. Maybe I don't actually know how to ride a bicycle? Whatever it is, the pedals on my bike were coming apart. I managed to get another week or so out of them by way of about ten zip strips, but they were still slowly getting worse, despite my best dollar-store efforts.
So, I went to the cycle shop and did it right. As it turns out, they sell some pedals that look and feel to be cast from iron. At $17, they're nearly twice as much as the other, plastic, pedals, but they should last a little longer, I figure. Spent another $5 on having them change the pedals for me*.
Cool thing is that they also oiled my bike lock, pumped up the tire, and... something else I can't remember. Definitely worth the $5, I think.
Between this and the burger I had while I was waiting, I spent $25 getting new pedals for my bike, which is half of what I spent on it in the first place.

*I tried to remove the pedals earlier this week, just to see how difficult it would be. To do this, I borrowed the 管理人's (manager's) crescent wrenches, found one that worked, and... completely failed to get the pedal nut to move. We grabbed another wrench and beat on it for a while, and we tried having him steady the pedals and bike while I put my weight down on the wrench... Nothing.

Before you say anything: yes, I am fully aware that pedals are reverse-threaded. Yes, I was fully aware of that when I was trying to take the pedals off.

Pitapa

There's a cool thing you can get here called Pitapa that allows you to not worry about buying tickets for the trains and stuff. You post-pay at the end of each month through a credit card. This would be really nice because it means I don't have to worry about finding out how much a ticket will cost and carrying around piles of change or making piles of change by breaking a 1000-yen note to pay the ￥150 to get to Kawaramachi (downtown Kyoto, about a half hour by bicycle, if you know the way).

Cards in Japan

I don't know if it's just my bank being stupid, or if there's something wonky with the ATMs or what, but I am once again left with only the money in my pocket. It totals about $5 right now, in random change.

I wish the Japanese would join the rest of the world in having a banking system that doesn't blow so hard.

[Edit: I was thinking it might have something to do with me not having enough money in my account, as I had gone below $300, which is the max you can take out from an ATM here. I had a sneaking suspicion that my bank simply said whether or not I had enough to be performing overseas transactions and if you don't have enough to take out the maximum, you aren't allowed to take out anything at all.
This would seem to not be the case, as I transferred money from my savings and was still unable to pull money out. Both accounts are at at least $400 now, and it worked fine yesterday. Japanese banking system. Seriously? Fail. ]

Semi-first day

Today was our first day of actual, we-signed-up-for-these classes. My first class, Basic Japanese, was cancelled due to the teacher having some kind of infection… Under her ear I guess? I don’t really know, but another teacher came in and proctored the test she had planned to give, and that was it for that class. So at 10:30, by which time most people had finished the test and we were starting to clog up the hallway outside, we dispersed.

So, cool, a day off already, right? My next class wasn’t until 3PM, so I had plenty of time to wander around and do stuff, but I ended up staying in the area around the school. Upside is that I found an okonomiyaki shop that’s right by the school and, bizarrely enough, serves 糯お好み焼き(… imagine a non-sweet pancake with onions, ginger, and little balls of compressed rice good and you’ve got the right idea) which was pretty… mediocre. I guess the location makes up for it, as well as the size. Admittedly, I also ate a クリームパン(cream bread) and a チョコパン (bread with swirls of chocolate pudding), but that’s because they’re delicious, not because I was hungry.

I think one of the weird things about being here is that you get used to using coins to pay for stuff. The smallest bill is essentially a $10 one, and they have coins that are about $1 and about $5, so you can buy most daily stuff with just random change from your pocket. It’s hard to equate that with spending actual money, though, instead of the American/English concept of pocket change. I have a little change purse that I got that is big enough to hold a small handful of change, and I think it’s got about $10 in it right now.

Every few days, I go through and pull out all the ￥1 coins, and leave four-ish of the larger coins in, as it otherwise slowly ends up filled with, essentially, pennies and dimes.

I did that just now and it turns out that I had ￥757.

By the way, tax is included in the price of things here, which is really nice. So if it says on the menu that something costs $7.50, it really costs $7.50, not $8.133141592 and a 15% tip ($1.13) totaling an entirely different number ($9.26π) than you were originally thinking. Oh, you don’t tip, either*. It’s really convenient.

That said, a basic bowl of ramen costs $5 for the smallest size (fills me up, though!) at someplace cheap. Okonomiyaki starts at about $6 and the size varies a lot more than with ramen.

*There are a couple exceptions to the not-tipping rule here, but they mostly involve going to places where the reservation alone will cost more than it would to take all your friends out to eat at a decent place.

Money

I paid rent yesterday. It was ￥252,000 (~$2,470) which is more money than I’ve ever held at once, as far as I know. It’s enough to buy everything I own, and I just got a $1,400 camera system. Really, you’d be coming pretty close, but it’s still kind of astounding.

I’ve been sitting on this one for a while, as it didn’t seem like a good idea to advertise both my location and that I had an unguarded pile of cash. Now, normally, you wouldn’t pull out $2,500 ahead of time and sit on it, but I can only pull out $300 each day with my ATM card, and I didn’t want to be caught off guard by something else and not be able to pay rent.

I now have a debit card, so it won’t be an issue anymore, but I felt somewhat obligated to take a picture of the money pile.

Bento-ish

So I went out wandering today. I had meant to go to judo club, but I got the starting and ending times mixed up, and got there as they were finishing, which was disappointing, as you might imagine.

There’s another practice on Monday, so it’s not a big deal, but I still feel stupid for mixing them up.

Oh, and I bought a lunchbox, a thermos, and a pair of collapsible chopsticks. The pile cost me $30, but will allow me to pack food from home, which should save me money in the long run.