JapanBlast.com

Okay life has been non-stop crazy.   I have left my beloved Fukuoka and have recently moved up to Yokohama - At a later date perhaps I will delve into the irony of this.

Anyhow.  Once again trying to get life into an organized state.

I learned a fast and hard lesson recently.  I was on my way to catch the Shinkansen (bullet train) from Hakata to Shinagawa (in Tokyo) in the wee hours of the morning and wanted to grab some cash.  First I went by the local bank branch that I knew the location of but found that it wasn’t just the bank that was closed (not a surprise given the hour) but the ATMs were all off as well.

So next stop - the Convini [コンビニ] (the Japanese shortening of Convenience Store).  But there I found not cash, but a bigger shock - the convini’s ATM would only service ATM cards from certain banks at certain hours.  Admittedly, this is not very convenient.

For those of you who do not already know, Japan is very much a cash country.  Meaning, that as you go through Japan there are many places that using a credit card is either difficult or outright not accepted.  So in Japan, carry cash and probably a decent amount of it.

One last point to put the “Japan is a cash country” in perspective:  In the USA you are typically limited to a daily withdrawal from the ATM of $300.  In Japan the limit is roughly $5000. 

Oh well, lesson learned.

The past couple of months I have been tied up getting settled in here in Japan.  As part of this, I have beenInternet handicapped.  But yesterday, NTT finally installed the Internet connection in my new apartment.

So it is now time to catch up…..

I will be talking about it in posts to come, but I can tell you that although I have been to Japan many times both for business and person reasons, moving here has been a totally new experience.  More to come on that topic.

Welcome to my blog - or whatever it winds up being.

Through both work and personal exploration I have traveled to many
parts of Asia.  However, most of my time has been spent visiting
Japan.  Currently, I am in the process of relocating to Japan and
should be living there starting next month (Nov. 2008).

My plan for this site is share my experiences in Japan and my opinions about learning the Japanese language.  I’ve got a lot going on
as I get relocated, so bear with me over the next several weeks as I
get situated both here and in Japan.