Aug 7th-9th: Banks and Fried Food

Aug 7th and 8th: Not much to report. A lot of signing papers, getting used to getting to school by myself, setting up the apt.

Oh Aug 9th, I had an interesting day at the bank. A word about Japanese banks:
Japanese businesses as a whole are very honest. They won't charge you hidden fees (except maybe cell phone companies), they won't accept tips (even cab drivers!), and will chase you down the street if you forget your change (even if it's just a few yen!). With utilities - gas, water, electricity - cell phone, and rent, you can have it set up so that the money is directly taken from your account to pay your bills. Kind of like what you can set up with online banking, except Japan has been doing this for years. For someone like me, it's rather convenient since I wouldn't be able to read the bill anyway! (If you don't have the direct payment set up, when you get a bill you don't send them a check -- checks don't exist in Japan -- you take the bill to the convenience store, they scan the barcode on the bill, and you pay cash.) Also, Japan is primarily still a cash society - they don't use checks, credit cards, debit cards, anything like that! So keeping track of your cash is very important. And pretty much everyone carries around a lot of cash all the time (this is still hard to get used to - being someone who rarely carried cash).

Also, the post office is also a bank. The post office was the first government run organization to act as a bank before banks existed in Japan. Most Japanese people still have accounts at the post office -- usually they have their paychecks deposited into the bank and they use the post office as a savings account.

When you open up a Japanese back account, you get a banking passbook -- kind of like a check book. This contains all your bank account information (I'm pretty sure it's coded). When you go to an ATM, you put in your ATM card and your passbook and it automatically updates the passbook for you! It's fantastic! No more writing in your checkbook trying to remember when you took out some cash or used your debit card -- the ATM does it for you! And if you don't have your passbook with you, that's okay - you can have it updated the next time you go. I love it :)

Anyway. Back to the story. I went to the bank to exchange and deposit the last of the money that I had brought with me. I knew this would be difficult, so I brought the point-and-speak phrasebook that Mike's mom gave me, bookmarked at the bank section. I mimed to the bank greeter lady that I wanted to exchange and deposit my American dollars. She helped me fill out the forms and get in the right line. The teller who was helping me was also very nice and tried to speak English... HOWEVER... While she was exchanging my money, she LOST my bank passbook!! My proof of my bank account!! I had given it to her with my money and she misplaced it while calculating the exchange rate or something. Oh you should have seen how they fussed over me! The teller, the greeter lady, and another teller who wasn't with a customer were frantically looking all over the desk and shelves. They kept talking to me in Japanese, trying to reassure me, and I tried desperately to get a hold of someone who spoke English and Japanese so they could talk to them for me (sadly, no one answered their phone). After what seemed like hours (but was probably only 20 minutes) they found my passbook and apologized over and over. As a parting gift, they gave me some dish soap and wet wipes to compensate me for my trouble :) I was escorted to the door by the greeter lady while she kept bowing all the way to her knees!

Now I can look back and laugh, but at the time, I was sooooo scared that my bank account was going to be frozen!

Later that night I met up with some other ALTs at an English Pub in Kobe called The Hub. (For all you Huskies, funny right?) Most Friday nights the ALTs in the Kansai area meet up a The Hub for happy hour and then go get some dinner. It was decided to take me someplace new (again!) for dinner...

We went to a kushi-ya, which basically means "a shop to deep fry food." Again, pay by the hour and built into the center of each table is a pot of hot oil. There's a buffet of various foods on sticks -- like shish-kebabs -- meat, vegetables, sea food, all sorts of things. You dip your selected food in batter, roll it in bread crumbs, and put it in the pot to fry! Not the healthiest meal, but it was very fun.

(This isn't my picture, but looks pretty close to what I experienced...I should've taken a picture!)

Okay folks, I should be going -- school starts tomorrow and I need to work on my opening speech! Wish me luck :)

Japanese phrase of the day:
Gambatte! Try your hardest!