Adventures in Japan

I'm a Dollar

Japan is odd. There are many good odd things about it and a few bad odd things. The worst of these odd things, as I believe we have mentioned before, is the banking.

North America is well on its way to being a cashless society. Japan not so much. Which is weird because the homeless people here don't beg for change. It took a while to get used to the fact that I only get paid once a month. Per job. And both jobs pay me on the same day. It makes the last few days not so fun sometimes. But we're getting better at budgeting. I am still not used to getting paid in cash. My two day a week job puts my paycheck right into my bank account, but my fulltime job pays me in cash.

One day a month I carry around three thousand dollars (Canadian) in cash in my wallet. That's cool and scary all at the same time. What's not cool at all is that once I put that wad into the bank, it's not always the easiest thing in the world to get it out again. Most ATMs here aren't 24 hours. They close. Even the ones in a 24 hour convenience store. Figure that one out.

Figure this one out: when we bought our Summer Sonic tickets, we couldn't direct debit with our bank cards, but mine worked just fine in the ATM a foot away from the cashier. The ATM tacked on and extra two fifty (Canadian). The amount of effort it has taken us just to arrange for our bills to be paid directly from my bank account has been ridiculous. And we still don't have it all sorted out. I don't like the way money works in this country.

Carla says only one bank in this country is solvent. Or only one can actually prove that it is. That's kind of scary.

But Summer Sonic tickets!! Woo Hoo!!