Since arriving in Japan, the big topic of conversation has been the tax rate change. As of April 1, 2014, the sales tax rate is increasing from 5 percent to 8 percent. There has been a mad rush to buy goods before the change, especially higher-priced items where the rate has more impact.
NHK’s news had an interesting side story related to the hike. The one yen coin is basically a throwaway here. Most prices are rounded to the nearest tenth, so there isn’t much need for them with a 5 percent tax rate. However, the 8 percent rate increases the need for the coins.
Japan’s one-yen coin supply isn’t sufficient enough to handle the increased demand, so production of the coin has been restarted with new coins being created for the first time in four years. Since the coins are made of aluminum, there’s also an impact on acquisition of raw materials to make the coins.
As a former tax agency employee, I know lawmakers typically don’t think of all the impacts associated with a tax rate change. Apparently it’s a universal issue.
One of my favorite things to do in a new town is to get lost. Just start walking or driving until you have no idea where you are, then find your way home.
Typically, this isn’t as scary as it sounds. You stay out of dark alleys, keep main roads nearby and use the signs and known landmarks to guide your way back.
I headed out for my first big walkabout on my own. To be fair, I actually started out looking for the train station with the plan of taking it to Kawagoe Station to get Starbucks, but I’m hardly the first person to have a spiritual journey on their way to buy overpriced coffee.
I passed the Belc grocery store and the 100 Yen Shop (the current exchange rate is about ¥100 to $1, so it’s like the Dollar Store only way, WAY better). I bucked temptation, passing more than one of Kawagoe’s many patisseries. And I kept walking… and walking… and walking. I realized I was missing a few tools from previous treks.
First, the lack of a smartphone, GPS, Google Maps, internet, etc. makes you wonder how smart you actually are without these things. All of the buildings are two stories or higher, so it’s hard to find landmarks at a distance. The roads dance about like a ballerina, resulting in a bizzaro world of directional dissonance.
Second, very few of the street signs are in English. Every once in awhile, the fine folks at Kawagoe Public Works throw you a bone and give you a street sign in both Japanese and English. It’s just enough to recalibrate your path.
Finally, I left my water and snacks at home. It was high noon, 70 degrees, and very sunny. Fortunately, the ever-present vending machines appear every few blocks like some desert mirage. I had a pocket full of yen, so I was able to replace electrolytes in the middle of neighborhoods, street corners, parks… really, pretty much anywhere.
You tend to find very interesting things on these kinds of journeys. Kawagoe has several excellent paved paths surrounding recreational areas. In between two of the paths, a long field featured soccer and softball fields as well as an epic putt-putt golf course. Four players used croquet mallets and balls to putt the ball from tee to cup on an 18-hole course.
Community gardens, fantastic public park spaces and small shrines pepper the city’s neighborhoods. Some of the shrines are larger and supported by community donations while others seem to be built and managed by nearby homeowners. The parks are an interesting contrast of brown, dead-looking grass and brand-new playground equipment, tennis courts and picnic tables.
Community garden in KawagoeA park in Kawagoe’s Isehara neighborhood
The biggest surprise of all is my growing fascination with Japanese mailboxes. I find myself snapping pictures of them left and right. Some are traditional, some playful, but rarely boring.
One of many adorable mailboxes you’ll find in Japan
At this point, every trip out of the house results in a walkabout. Can’t wait for the next opportunity to get lost!
The internet connection hasn’t been set up at our apartment yet, so it’s a constant search for a WiFi connection. While free WiFi is abundant in the states, it’s been hard to come by so far in Kawagoe. There are plenty of paid options, but seriously, who wants to pay for internet access?!
On Tuesday, I found a free trial at the Market Place, a strip mall near our apartment with really nice public spaces. I found a shady spot and started catching up on e-mail, when the local pre-school class surrounded me for storytime.
These little guys climbed on the table right next to me. They talked to me a little bit, which made me feel even worse about my level of Japanese proficiency. But mostly, they listened intently to the story, which contained two chefs consoling a superhero, a box that spit coins on little alien-looking creatures, and some sort of caterpillar, I think.
It must have been a good story because they were pretty excited at the end. In between all of the “so far from home” moments, there’s been a lot of moments like this to remind me that we’re not all that different.
虎穴に入らずんば虎子を得ず。If you do not enter the tiger’s cave, you will not catch its cub.
I discovered my love of writing in high school when I was recruited for the school newspaper, the award-winning Gresham High School Argus. My first published article was a profile on a GHS graduate-turned-professional baseball player, who I woke up with an early morning phone call on Opening Day 1995 to get my interview. I worked for local newspapers as a reporter throughout college while also spending two years as editor-in-chief of my college newspaper. However, the dream of spending my days traveling between America’s baseball stadiums and writing about the national pastime lost its appeal after a few months as an agate clerk for a local daily.
So, after college, I decided to make a change and found a job in state government. After a few years in communications work, I joined the agency’s IT team as a web application developer. I worked my way through the ranks over the next five years, eventually becoming a team lead and finally manager of the organization’s application development team.
In March 2014, my wife and I will be switching gears. She accepted a teaching position in Japan for two years and I’m choosing to use that opportunity to get back to some of my more creative callings. I plan on writing about our experiences to exercise the creative side of my brain while documenting our adventure for ourselves, our family and our friends.
As a lifelong resident of the beautiful state of Oregon (i.e. the southernmost territory of the Cascadia bioregion), I wanted to honor the place I will always consider home while documenting our adventure halfway around the world.
