Payday!

Trip Start Sep 28, 2010
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Trip End Nov 06, 2010


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Flag of Japan  , Ibaraki,
Thursday, October 14, 2010

Just a quick entry to emphasize the nature of this cash-based economy. It's amazing – everybody pays for everything in cash! And since the yen generally sits around ¥100:$1 (right now it’s just over 80:1; when we were here last it was 106:1), we’re talking large denominations.  Fortunately more places, including large modern grocery stores, will now accept credit cards, which we found useful during the 2 weeks we had to wait for Bernd’s expense reimbursement. There are also plenty of ATMs that take standard U.S. debit cards.

We drove to Tsukuba to pick up the envelope of cash. They still haven’t really adjusted to dealing with visitors (or likely their own staff members) who are now at J-PARC. It’s still an amazingly easy process to get paid, however … show up, sign a form, and get your envelope of cash. Afterwards we went to the large shopping center, Lala Garden (you can’t make up these names!) – we used to call it Lala Land – and went to the big grocery store for old times’ sake. Bought a few goodies that are difficult to find in Tokai. We then went looking for a wonderful French pastry shop and bistro we used to go to. It took awhile to find it, and then when we did, it wasn’t open. Sadly, they must have changed their hours. We had a pretty decent lunch at a chain place (Coco’s) and headed back to Tokai.
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