We Live Where We Are

Take a Number, Have a Seat

The day is winding down and in a few minutes I'm going to walk to Julianna's school so that I can help the poor gimp down the street to our apartment. Since school doesn't start until Thursday, today was basically an exercise in errand-running. With my supervisor's help, I opened an account at 77, Sendai's local bank. Funny thing, really. Japanese banks operate in a very similar manner to the Department of Licensing in the states. Meaning, you take a number and get served in about twenty minutes. Then, once you're being helped by a teller, you're asked to fill out some vague paperwork. Having accomplished this, you'll be politely asked to sit down and wait for another five minutes while said paperwork is being processed. This pattern occured today no less than three times. On the flip-side, however, Japanese ATMs are the BMWs to the junky '92 Ford Tauruses that are stateside auto-tellers. I've got a handy dandy bank book that keeps track of all my deposits and withdrawels everytime I insert it into an ATM. No messy checkbooks with ill-performed math, no ledger lines or scribbled notes. Personal checks are virtually non-existant in Japan, in fact. To boot, all of my utility bills are automatically withdrawn from my account on the day they are due. No late fees, no dashes to the post office, no walking into your apartment to find the power has been cut. Oh, and my electric bill for this month was roughly $7.

Today was payday, and to celebrate I'm going to venture downtown in search of a used acoustic/electric guitar. Wish me luck!