The Yen

In Japan, the price of living is pretty much what they say it is. Darned expensive. I am lucky because I am currently mooching off of my fiancé who is JET. As far as housing goes, I can’t give you all a realistic price since his place is well subsidized and nowhere near what the usual rent would be. First off, I will describe the yen. It comes in these denominations
1 yen - a flimsy, tin-like coin
5 yen - a more solid, gold coloured coin, with a hole in the middle
10yen -an even more solid, copper coin
100yen - a silver coin, about the size of a quarter
500yen - the biggest coin of all, light gold
1000yen - the smallest paper note
5000yen - the next smallest paper note
10000yen - the biggest paper note

If there is anything larger than the 10000yen note I don't know what it is. Japanese people, I've heard, usually carry about 20000yen with them at all times. This is roughly equivalent to $225 CDN. I don't know about you guys but I was lucky if I had a quarter in my wallet back home. The disarming thing is that loose change in your pocket could easily equal $20. I'm sure this has prompted many people to carefully search under couch cushions. You could come up with next month's rent. I will now relate the costs of some items and irritatingly switch between the yen value and dollar (CDN) value. It keeps you on your toes.

At the supermarket, particularly near the fruit section, I become depressed. The price of apples (my absolute most favourite fruit in the world) is about 2 dollars CDN per apple. Oranges are about the same and grapes go for about 4 dollars per tiny bunch. Actually most fruit are in the realm of the pricey. So what do I end up buying? It’s sad but honestly, I buy peaches that aren’t in their prime so to speak. The supermarket in my town (remember, I only have one!) usually sells fresh ones for the bargain price of 2 for 398yen. When these fresh peaches pass their peak they are packaged into trays of two or four and sold for a lower price. For instance, I picked up 4 not-so-fresh peaches today for the great price of $2! The drawback of this is you need to eat them...FAST. Apparently fruit was meant for the rich (and possibly famous). Perhaps the fruit all have diamonds and gold embedded in them. This could account for the sky high fees.

Video rentals go for what they do back home. Ie, Too Much. After some painful interaction, I managed to open an account, paid 200yen for the membership, was told something about 2 weeks (???) and then went to go pick out a video. I chose "Oceans 12" but, to quote Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, I chose unwisely. Unbeknowst to me some videos are dubbed into Japanese while others are just subtitled. Guess which one I chose? This misguided choice cost me 515yen. Like I said, pretty standard.

For a cost that caught me by surprise, I will now introduce the train. I'm fortunate to live fairly close to the town's train station. To ride into the nearest city (Tokushima), a ride that takes about an hour and fifteen minutes, it costs me 2120yen or about $23 round trip. Yeow, after the economical subway of Seoul this is painful indeed! (a similarly distanced trip would cost $1.50) I've bravely taken this trip twice though both times I felt like I was getting royally ripped off.

Gas is also quite expensive, going for about 140yen per litre. I pulled up somewhat shakily (my standard skills are still not up to snuff) and asked for a full tank. I drive a Mitsubishi Minica, a car so small that I routinely lose it in parking lots bigger than 2 spaces. The grand total? 3014yen! The cost to fill a mid-size sedan back home. I shudder to think what it would cost to fill a hefty, gas-guzzling, environmentally unfriendly SUV.

The last thing I can think of that costs more than usual is lodging. Want a hostel? Sure, it'll be close to $40 bucks for a standard bed. From this you can deduce what an actual hotel would be. If you can't, I don't have a lot of numbers for you but I think they start at $100. It would be good to know someone if you want to come to Japan, that way you can crash at their place instead of paying an astronmical bill.

Aside from the things I've mentioned, prices in Japan are somewhat similar to prices back home. I'm sure if you scoured the country you'd find bargains...even with apples. But this is what I've found in the 3 weeks I've been here.

Stay tuned because I'm visitng Kobe on the weekend. I will update when I return. Cheers,