Money

I am totally frustrated with the money situation. Tokyo is a cash town. While places take cards, you’re not going to get very far if you do not have cash on hand. Isn’t this the place where all the hot technology comes from? I’m pretty sure these people had a hand in creating the damned credit card machines so why they don’t use them is beyond me. Our only recourse is to withdraw cash from ATM machines which, in turn, dispense it in Yen. The exchange rate is something like 90.80 right now. So changing $400 will yield you something like ¥386 or something like that. The yen come in demonimations of 10,000, 5,000, and 1,000 bills. Then there are the coins that come in 500, 100, 50, 10, and 1 yen.

There are a ton of ATMs around but many only take Japanese bank cards or Chinese bank cards. The best ATM to go to is at the post office. Unfortunately, the post offices aren’t as numerous as you’d like. They’re also not 24 hours. On the plus side, there’s a post office branch right next door to school, so it shouldn’t be hard to get cash while over on that part of town.

Pics link

I figured since I’m going to be taking so many pictures that I ought to put them somewhere else instead of trying to embed each one into this blog. I’ve got a photostream poppin’ over at Flickr. Check out the link to view:  http://www.flickr.com/photos/hellokia/

Patience

Hey friends,

I’m taking a little time to get myself settled in my new place. If you don’t know, I’m in Tokyo, Japan for the next five months. I’m still going to be back here at Bourgie Adventures, especially when school starts next week. I need something to occupy myself during class!

If you want to check out my ramblings about Tokyo, you can check out my other blog, Hello Kia!

Sayonara babes!

Pictures

You guys are killing me. Yes, I have been taking pictures of almost everything. Have I had time to get them up here? No. I can barely sit still with all the crap I have to do. I’m up at 6am right now just trying to get THIS little bit down. So please, be patient and let me settle a bit. I will get them up!

While it’s 3pm in Philly…

It’s 5am as I type this and I can’t sleep. That’s probably because we all passed out at like 9pm. Why? Well Hello Leslie (HL), our third roommate, she had been traveling ALL DAY. See, she was on a different series of flights than we were and she ran into some cancellations. Oh, she lost her luggage too. HR and I spent all day walking around the city. My legs are shot, yall.

The first thing that sticks out in my mind about yesterday is the fact that the Japanese are really really nice. Like, freakishly nice. So nice, that folks leave their bikes outside without locks. So nice that they’ll tell you “thank you very much” about three times when you’re the one who ought to be thanking them.

We’ve had to do a lot of adjusting in terms of the simple cultural things you don’t really pay attention to. For instance, when me, HR, and DKLA (Dave & Khoa from LA) walked down the street together, well we like to talk. Somewhat loudly. Folks in Japan don’t really run around being boisterous and calling attention to themselves in that way. When we got on the train (which is like 4 levels underground) for the first time, it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. Take that SEPTA and NYC MTA! Did you know that everything was oriented to the left here? What I mean is that folks drive on the left side of the road and walk on the left side of the sidewalk. They ride the left escalator up and when they get on, everyone stands ALL the way to the left right away. Ever want to walk up the escalator and have to navigate around people all spread out? Not here. Once, I forgot where I was and stood out to the right of the escalator. HR was like “Girl! Get in line!” LOL.

I bet you already heard this, but until you’ve been here, you won’t believe how clean many of the streets are. Compared to Philly and NYC, hell… even Raleigh, the folks here keep things extremely clean. I guess that’s why the caretaker at our apartment spend like 20 minutes talking about garbage disposal procedures, complete with a colored poster he suggested we hang next to the refrigerator.

Speaking of the apartment, HR and I moved in yesterday morning. Moved in consisted of dragging our 3 suitcases a piece from our hotel to the apartment. Our caretaker is this cute little old man named Amayahi. He greeted us with a big smile then told us he could speak a little English. After which, he immediately proceeded to speak in Japanese peppered with 3 or 4 English words. LOL. We did a lot of nodding and saying “Hai/Yes”. However, we got through it and he showed us how to use the gas water heater (which we must turn on every time we want to use hot water), how to use the heating/cooling units, and of course, how to dispose of trash.