Keiosu

Coinage

At the minute there are three woman in my apartment helping out with the packing. They seem overly concerned about the number of coins scattered about the place and have started to create a pile of these on the dining table. I really don’t like small coins and even though I try to get rid of them when I am shopping I always seem to end up with far too many weighing down my purse. The worst culprit is the Japanese 1 Yen coin (worth about a half pence in sterling). So far they have found 101 of these in the living room. They have also found eight 5 Yen coins, forty-one 10 Yen coins, nine 50 Yen coins, three 100 Yen coins and one 500 Yen coin. It’s going to get much worse when they get to my bedroom.

I also have coins for many other countries. But I wasn’t expecting to find coins from countries I have never been to. Seems that it isn’t only me who doesn’t like these cluttering up their pockets!

4 Responses to “Coinage”

karen Says:
October 8th, 2008 at 2:56 am
I am not going to count the coins found in the bedroom as there are easily 20 times more coins in there than there was in the living room. There are some coins I don’t recognize at all – I can only assume that Tony picked these up on his travels earlier this year.
Barbie Says:
October 8th, 2008 at 11:30 am
You know in this day and age most people use a bank account rather than hoarding their money under the furniture. Then again with the way the money markets are going, maybe hiding your funds under the bed will give you a much better return on investment 😉
Geoff! Says:
October 11th, 2008 at 9:38 pm
I have about 1500 yen sitting loose here on the computer desk. I’ve almost been able to see it grow in value with the naked eye as the bottom falls out of sterling… 🙁
karen Says:
October 14th, 2008 at 11:54 am
Just went and had a look at the exchange rate. Wow. Sterling really is weak compared to Yen.

Moving Apartments

Marty and I are moving this week. We have been told that it’s easy to move apartments in Japan but we are still finding it stressful. First there is the expense. We need to pay the agent, key money, and a deposit. This comes to five months rent! The key money is the bit I find strangest. We have to pay the value of two months rent to the building owners as some sort of gift before we move in.

Then we need to pay the moving company. We knew that this would be expensive and I started to investigate a variety of different companies. But it turned out that there was no point in researching it. The building we are moving into only allows us to use one moving company. They told us that we are getting a discount by using them because we don’t need to rent “panels”. I have no clue what the panels are for.

Actually “no clue” is starting to sum up the whole experience. I have no clue what anyone has said to me on the phone when they have rang about the move. I have no clue how to sort out the utility bills and services. And I have no clue how I am going to understand the three woman who are coming to pack tomorrow morning. At times living in Japan does leave me feeling clueless.

3 Responses to “Moving Apartments”

Barbie Says:
October 7th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Karen Pauley … the japanese Alicia Silverstone!

Hope the move all goes well 🙂
Tatsuhiko Miyagawa Says:
October 8th, 2008 at 12:51 am
key money = Reikin? People hate that tradition and these days and I always tried to avoid the apartment that requires the gift money. I never paid that.

Re: the moving company, my current apartment that I stay when I’m in Japan had the same restriction of only allowing one moving company, but I negotiated and was able to use another one. I selected the moving company by letting them estimate and did negotiation to get the cheapest price, before knowing the restriction and I’m not sure if it was any cheaper.

About utilities, you need to make calls to gas (Tokyo Gas) and electric (Tokyo Denryoku) to tell them you move. If you pay by credit cards or bank transfer, you don’t need to anything besides telling them your new address. You also need to make a call to water management office (Suido-kyoku) and they’re less flexible because they’re government based. If you move inside Tokyo that’s less annoying than moving to another, in which case you need to set up your account and bank transfer etc. again.
karen Says:
October 8th, 2008 at 1:24 am
We aren’t very good at negotiating in Japanese. Marty did try to get a reduction in the gift money but wasn’t successful.

So far this morning everything is going well with the packing company – well apart from me not knowing the word for “valuables”. I am finding it a bit strange having three woman in the house packing lots of things for me.

We had problems with the water when we moved into this apartment – as we didn’t know if was something you had to pay for. But someone arrived at the door one day and asked me when I had moved in and all the payments were sorted out. I’ll try ringing the utility companies in the morning – or I will cheat and have my Japanese teacher do it for me 🙂

Shopping in Tokyo

We have had lots of people stay with us this year and most of them have enjoyed shopping in Tokyo. Norwin, who is with us at the minute, went out shopping today. I must admit that I was expecting him to buy some sort of electronic gadget or maybe another godzilla toy. I wasn’t expecting the hat…

The Joker

4 Responses to “Shopping in Tokyo”

Anonymous Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 3:38 pm
Wow! What a great hat!
Alan in Belfast Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Just want to point out that Anonymous may well = Norwin!

Is the Joker card detachable – and will it be like a scene from Goldfinger when you (playing Oddjob) fling your hat across the office and onto the hatstand on your return?
Geoff! Says:
October 1st, 2008 at 9:59 pm
How very Norwin! I look forward to seeing attempts to fling it onto a hatstand at work. I salute you – you truly are Macadamia… “King of Nuts”!
Norwin Says:
October 2nd, 2008 at 1:10 am
All this unseemly jealousy is very unseemly.