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AHH F/UGH posted:I’m definitely concerned about the budget It sounds like they'll also be paying for trains and maybe some hotels out of this for two people. And according to op, it comes out to 80/day. Even if it's per person, that's pretty reasonable. More than I usually tell people to budget, especially with the weak yen, but within reason.
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Apr 17, 2024 15:03
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harperdc posted:Yeah, the concern isn’t the budget but in handling it in cash. I didn't read that post as "I am going to carry 500,000 cash on me at all times." Clearly you're going to keep it locked in the hotel safe and take what you need with you. Yea, you can stop multiple times for cash (but this often sucks, and is a waste of time) but it isn't necessary as Japanese hotels are safe and also your gear on a trip is likely more than 3500. My camera, lenses, our computers, Switch and my wife's purse are a lot more than 3500, and if I am not terrified at the thought of leaving that in the safe or even the room, some cash isn't a problem either. Ultimately I think the need for cash is kind of overblown. Most tourists are shopping at places that take cards anyway and eating at restaurants that take cards for a majority of the trip.
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Apr 17, 2024 16:07
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totalnewbie posted:It sounds like they'll also be paying for trains and maybe some hotels out of this for two people. And according to op, it comes out to 80/day. Even if it's per person, that's pretty reasonable. More than I usually tell people to budget, especially with the weak yen, but within reason. Yeah $80/pp/day is a super reasonable budget for 2 people sharing lodging. It's just that most of $160/day is going to be spent on the hotel and trains, which you pay by card, so bringing the entire $160*#days in cash seems excessively anxious. I've done trips to countries that do not have international banking access where we paid for 100% of everything in cash on the spot (hotels, rental car, etc), it's just very annoying. Like we spent €3k in 3 weeks in Algeria last year and had to do the entire thing by cash in Algerian dinars - and their largest bill is worth €9. I definitely wouldn't carry a full trips' expenditures worth of cash as a "backup" in normal countries where you can use credit cards and ATMs, but I guess not the end of the world. zmcnulty posted:Not a tourist but this did kinda happen to me. I was at a poolside party, got in the pool, and when I went back to where me and my friends were, all my stuff was gone. Like, ALL my stuff: friends, phone, wallet, house keys, my drat t-shirt. Those people seem like, uhh, not your friends. Unless you were all extremely drunk and/or something dramatic suddenly happened that caused all your acquaintances to suddenly peace out.
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Apr 17, 2024 17:20
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You know what Japanese cash can get hosed? Anything less than a 100y coin. I'm randomly finding that garbage in my pockets for like three months after my trip. Dumped everything I thought I had into the receptacles at Haneda and I'm still plagued by it.
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Apr 17, 2024 21:32
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Having to print documents and send them to AAA with a physical check for $20 and passport photos in order to obtain an International Driving Permit that still requires my US driver's licence is the definition of archaic. Someone please confirm this is actually necessary for a rental car, it feels like a joke
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Apr 18, 2024 00:20
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I guess if you don't have a local AAA office. You do need the permit to rent a car, but I just went to one of the AAAs in town and it took about twenty minutes.
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Apr 18, 2024 00:39
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Oh good deal, it wasn't clear if it was able to be resolved in person or if the office just mailed it off somewhere anyway. I'll call a few of the places nearby Thanks!
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Apr 18, 2024 00:52
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The actual IDP is just a translation of your US license with your photo, signed by Debbie in Florida.
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Apr 18, 2024 02:19
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some kinda jackal posted:You know what Japanese cash can get hosed? Anything less than a 100y coin. Change wallet with two sections, one for 100s/500s and one for small change. Space for all those super necessary point cards. This is the way. root of all eval posted:Oh good deal, it wasn't clear if it was able to be resolved in person or if the office just mailed it off somewhere anyway. I'll call a few of the places nearby Yeah I just went to my local AAA office and got the IDP before I moved to Japan. It’s necessary. Don’t think anybody can just arrive in Japan and use their home license without at least a translation, and the ‘just a translation’ group of countries is very small.
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Apr 18, 2024 02:51
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some kinda jackal posted:You know what Japanese cash can get hosed? Anything less than a 100y coin. One of my favourite Japan stories is an American friend of mine who just threw every coin he got in a big jar for his year in Japan (this was in the 2000s) because he hated dealing with change. Took it to the bank when he went to leave and it was like USD$2k.
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Apr 18, 2024 04:02
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Ethics_Gradient posted:One of my favourite Japan stories is an American friend of mine who just threw every coin he got in a big jar for his year in Japan (this was in the 2000s) because he hated dealing with change. Took it to the bank when he went to leave and it was like USD$2k. 1400 in 3 years. Late 2000s
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Apr 18, 2024 04:14
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A friend gave me their "I don't do coins" jar in Korea, I never counted it but it covered my bus fare for a year or so.
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Apr 18, 2024 04:27
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Ethics_Gradient posted:One of my favourite Japan stories is an American friend of mine who just threw every coin he got in a big jar for his year in Japan (this was in the 2000s) because he hated dealing with change. Took it to the bank when he went to leave and it was like USD$2k. I have one who did that with I think 500 yen coins, and he had enough to pay for freight shipping his and his partner's stuff back to the UK once he moved home. it was a pretty big jar by the end of it. also my old JET apartment had a sizeable bucket of pachinko parlor balls in it for reasons that I never knew. but that place had been 'the JET's apartment' for over a decade by that point, so who knows. Zettace posted:I understand why getting small change is annoying but I never had the problem where it accumulated. Small coins are so easy to use. You don't have to pay everything in small coins just chuck a couple of 10 yen or 5/1 yen coins so you get back a 100 yen coin instead of 89 yen. This is how the locals do it - round it off to get better change harperdc fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 05:13
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I understand why getting small change is annoying but I never had the problem where it accumulated. Small coins are so easy to use. You don't have to pay everything in small coins just chuck a couple of 10 yen or 5/1 yen coins so you get back a 100 yen coin instead of 89 yen.
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Apr 18, 2024 05:15
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On JET I kept a jar of random coins and eventually dropped them all in an ATM that had a coin slot.
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Apr 18, 2024 06:53
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Common sense isn't common
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Apr 18, 2024 08:24
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harperdc posted:This is how the locals do it - round it off to get better change Do this, everyone. The cashiers are used to it, and it's good mental practice too. Also, "never pay with coins and throw all coins in a jar", so you'd buy a bottle of water in a vending machine, pay with 1000 yen, and dump 880 yen into the jar? That's some expensive water.
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Apr 18, 2024 08:28
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Teriyaki Koinku posted:Is American Express really universal in Japan though? I saw some reservation pages that didn't have it listed, but pretty much everyone had Mastercard and Visa listed. Very common, I main an AMEX and 99% of transactions are fine with it, only very rarely will a store not support it. Both AMEX and Diners run on the JCB network here.
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Apr 18, 2024 08:52
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nielsm posted:Do this, everyone. The cashiers are used to it, and it's good mental practice too. Yep! Then I get a surprise 880 yen around 5 years later.
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Apr 18, 2024 08:58
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Jesus, if you're that lazy, throw the coins on an IC and pay for stuff with that.
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Apr 18, 2024 09:14
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It is funny when your tourist friend gets their mind blown when you pay 1022 yen for a 922 yen purchase. You get this look of "you're allowed to do that????"
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Apr 18, 2024 10:51
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Zettace posted:It is funny when your tourist friend gets their mind blown when you pay 1022 yen for a 922 yen purchase. You get this look of "you're allowed to do that????" You don't do that in the US? I mean, in Europe we do it all the time too - give 10,22€ for a 9,22€ purchase to get 1€ back 
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Apr 18, 2024 10:58
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It's done in the US, but there is definitely a generational divide. I try to stay away from using cash in the US because if the register is being run by someone under 25 they might BSOD.
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Apr 18, 2024 11:01
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Otoh I did that in the US and got a nod of appproval from the grizzled biker casheir so I felt very accomplished.
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Apr 18, 2024 11:22
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Plus in the US it's virtually impossible to anticipate a precise total on anything. If I weren't intimately familiar with the currency and how much I have I would just emotionally fold lol Add on the cultural impatience for lines/queues and you get folks like me that will just stuff cash back bills in the first pocket to leave the zone of commerce as fast as humanly possible out of perceived guilt toward others.
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Apr 18, 2024 12:33
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I'm going to be honest with you, I deal with cash like once a year if that. It never even occurred to me to just do some math to throw coins in to get a non-poo poo coin back. I'm at that weird point where I used to think I was living in the future because I could tap my card to pay for something, nut now if my watch is freaking out and I can't pay for my coffee by waving my arm in front of a box like some kind of wizard, going back to pulling put a plastic card from my wallet feels like I've reverted back to medieval times. If I actually have to insert it and punch in a PIN I might as well be banging rocks and stick together for fire. some kinda jackal fucked around with this message at 13:02 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 12:58
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When I left Japan in March and had a whole pocket full of stupid little coins and there was nowhere to dump them in the airport (no charity box or anything!) I just gave them to an old security guard who walked away with a smile on his face
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Apr 18, 2024 14:07
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I did end up making lemonade out of the lemons and bought one of these https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIN7aD7TyXs so every time I find a coin I toss it in there and get a fun little train nerd reward. e: It looks like Pasmo machines have an "all your coins pls" garbage chute which is immensely useful. I would absolutely just dump my pocket contents into a machine and charge my phone's Suica going forward.. 
some kinda jackal fucked around with this message at 15:33 on Apr 18, 2024 |
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Apr 18, 2024 14:17
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Gabriel Grub posted:It's done in the US, but there is definitely a generational divide. I try to stay away from using cash in the US because if the register is being run by someone under 25 they might BSOD. It's also because all coins are garbage in the US. Like even a bunch of quarters is barely even worth the effort, and everything less than that is completely trash. In most if not all European countries, some coins actually have value. Like, Switzerland uses coins worth $6, which even with Swiss prices are not worthless. It's actually kind of a relief in the US in that you can spend a lifetime dumping all your coins into the nearest tip jar or incinerator and not worry about it ever adding up to anything.
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Apr 18, 2024 14:59
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I don't think I've paid for anything in cash in the US for years and years.
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Apr 18, 2024 17:48
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peanut posted:Common sense isn't common
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Apr 18, 2024 18:24
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I forgot which combini it was, but they had machines where, if you picked the option to pay by cash at the register, you just dumped your coins and it told you how much you had left. Great way to just get rid of all the low value coins without having to even count.
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Apr 18, 2024 18:41
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Freaksaus posted:I forgot which combini it was, but they had machines where, if you picked the option to pay by cash at the register, you just dumped your coins and it told you how much you had left. Great way to just get rid of all the low value coins without having to even count. A lot of 7/11s have that. I also used it to dump my coins if I wasn't going to be holding up a line.
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Apr 18, 2024 18:42
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One of my friends had amassed a giant bag of coins during his holiday here and I told him to just dump them into that machine at 7/11. There were so many coins that it actually clogged up the machine and it stopped working, the person working behind the counter just opened it up and fixed it and let him continue though. Highly recommend doing it to pay for your last minute ice creams or something!
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Apr 18, 2024 22:47
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I miss Family Mart so much. Coffee, onigiri, souffle for £3 and it was delicious
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Apr 18, 2024 23:31
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Grand Fromage posted:A lot of 7/11s have that. I also used it to dump my coins if I wasn't going to be holding up a line. Pretty much all the grocery stores with self checkouts will let you do that too.
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Apr 19, 2024 02:25
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It might sound lame as heck but do any of y'all know where to maybe look for cheaper sukajan like..maybe a particular Tokyo district? I dunno they look cool and I love the bomber jacket look 
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Apr 19, 2024 05:20
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Only white person who ever pulled off a sukajan is Rachel McAdams in Game Night.
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Apr 19, 2024 06:21
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It used to be Ameyoko, then it was Nakameguro, and now it's probably back to Ameyoko again. Asakusa side streets also have a lot of everything including those Kewpie dolls with yakuza tattoos https://maps.app.goo.gl/85oN4MsyiHeoG7AR9
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Apr 19, 2024 08:28
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Gabriel Grub posted:Only white person who ever pulled off a sukajan is Rachel McAdams in Game Night. I mean, other white people who could definitely pull it off: • Ana de Armas • Jason Momoa • Eiza Gonzalez • Jason Statham etc. It's actually really easy to pull it off as a style: all you have to do is be really, really, really ridiculously good looking. There's even a whole Ben Stiller documentary on that concept which came out way back in 2001.
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Apr 19, 2024 11:10
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