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Setting up shop Wednesday August 31
I'm still setting up shop around here. Yesterday and today were booked solid with apartment hunting, which was actually quite fun. There's an interesting system here that combines the benefits of real estate with the benefits of rental property. Particularly, when you want to rent an apartment, you don't go to the landlord -- you go to the listing agent for the apartment. Much like it were for sale.
The listing agent makes a commission (usually one month's rent) from each sale, and in return, they show the places to you, explain all the options, act as a resident expert on locations, and help negotiate with the landlord to get the job done. My kind of service. Very convenient, and useful if you don't know an area well (let alone the language barrier factor).
There are only two parts that I don't like: (1) rei-kin, and (2) hosho-nin. Rei-kin (礼金) is money that you pay directly to the landlord that you'll never get back. Essentially, it's "thanks for letting me rent your place" money. From an American perspective in rental property, we can easily see that it's baloney. It merely encourages tenants to resign their leases because they can't afford to pay rei-kin on a new apartment.
Hoshonin (保証人) are people who act as guarantors of your lease. Essentially, you ask one of your elders to guarantee you, which, as it sounds, means that they'll be forced to cough up rent if you don't pay it. The Japanese are societally very low-risk, and thus the idea is that the landlord will still be able to get rent money even if the tenant can't pay it.
Ignore the fact that I have my entire year's worth of rent money sitting in the bank right now; apparently, here, facts are not what is important. Procedure is what is important. This is something even in the States I routinely struggle with...
Anyway, long story short, I found a place I want to move into. Pictures will be forthcoming next week when I move in.
Jet lag's still getting the best of me; I get very tired each day by 10:00pm, and I wake up at 5am. Yikes.
In Japan Monday August 29
Well, I successfully made it to Japan. Certainly, that doesn't sound like it should be a difficult thing; it's the matter of getting on an airplane and flying, but you see, my family seems to have this problem with (a) getting on planes and (b) losing things. These two things do not mesh well while travelling.
Cross reference today, when I left my wallet on the plane, and let my suit on the train. No, it's only coincidence that those things rhyme, but it's no coincidence at all that I got them back. Riho has my back.
Riho and I worked together in New York City three years ago, and she met me at the airport today. Quite a long trip, actually -- it takes two hours from where she lives. It was awfully nice of her, so the best I could do was buy dinner. I got my first taste of Japan being expensive, because it is, but yeah. I needed to buy her dinner for all the time she spent helping me out today.
Okay, enough for now. Just to let you know I'm here, and all is well.
And, I had a great conversation over dinner. I'm getting comfortable with Riho, so it's enabling me to just rattle off Japanese as I think of it, as opposed to trying to sculpt it in my head (read: not the right way to learn a language intrinsically).
Financial Markets Sunday August 14
I have a significant amount of capital saved up for my time in Japan. Of course, I don't mention this to "show off" -- it makes sense that I must have a year's worth of money saved up when I can't legally work on my Japanese visa.
I've started to learn, frustratingly, however, that the value of money is relative in global terms. The US Dollars that I have are only valuable relative to other world currencies: this is obvious to most, but because a dollar still buys what it did last week at the coffee shop, we usually don't think about these things.
When I was in Japan three years ago, one dollar bought 125 yen. Now, one dollar buys 109 yen. Last week, even, it was 112. Certainly, it has been a rollercoaster: earlier this year the yen was changing to dollars at a rate of 104.
All of these factors are based on the supply and demand of the currency, which is based mostly on speculations of future performance of those markets. And now, I'm sitting on all of these dollars, wondering myself whether they're losing value as I type, and whether I should have them in yen instead.
What I have decided to do is choose a price-point. I am a conservative investor; i.e., I cannot afford to speculate on the resurgence of the dollar against the yen, despite some suggestion that a weaker dollar compared to the Euro will fuel exports, reducing the trade deficit, and thus strengthening the dollar against other currencies, including the yen.
Rather, I can only afford to speculate to a point. If the dollar drops to 108 yen, only one yen on the dollar, I "lose" $120 of value from my investment (compared to if I had converted to yen when it was 109). That's a tough cookie to bake -- because if it goes to 112 again, I "make" $360.
My solution to all of this currency market hullaboo is to pick 108 as my price point, and even if it surges to 130 after dropping to 104, at least I'll never have to deal with the idea that I'm losing money I can't afford to lose. Rather, I will miss the opportunity to make money. Not such a bad thought when you remember that because you were conservative, you can eat.
I saw the first of the following two Mark Twain quotes on Rick's door at his office.
- There are two times in a man's life when he should not speculate: when he can't afford it and when he can.
- October. This is one of the peculiarly dangerous months to speculate...Other dangerous months are July, January, September, April, November, May, March, June, December, August and February.
If I really want to feel better about all of this, I'll look to Benjamin Franklin:
If a man empties his purse into his head no one can take it away from him. An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
Oh, That's Funny Tuesday August 9
The other day I was telling some friends about how spartan my living situation in Japan will be:
"I'm just going to have a bicycle, a rice cooker, and an apartment. That's it."
"What's her name?"
"Huh?"
I didn't get it.
"The rice cooker," they said.
Still Preparing Monday August 1
Preparations are still going well. I have most of my stuff accounted for, if not packed. Move-out is this weekend, and then I'll be residing at Foellinger until either Todd or Sara moves into their new places.
I'm still curious how we're going to get my huge futon from here to Foellinger; last time we had to move it, Razdude and I just carried the thing down Busey.
Rachel just left after spending the weekend in Champaign-Urbana. I forgot how much I liked this town, and then I had to show it to someone else, and all of a sudden I felt rather proud of it.
Odd.
I know I'll miss it.
