A Bit of a Rant/Welcome to Japan

I have to admit, as I was sitting in the boarding lounge at the Hong Kong International Airport, waiting for my flight to Osaka, Japan, about 75% of me wished I was boarding a flight to Toronto instead. I just questioned my ability to summon the energy for another country. Whine, whine, boo-hoo, poor Heather. Pathetic, I know. But people, I was pooped after almost 5 months on the road.

My flights, Singapore to Hong Kong and Hong Kong to Osaka, were pretty magical. I got to see two movies that we on my should watch list, and on the flight from Hong Kong to Osaka they were generous with the red wine. (No one has been generous with red wine in, like, 5 months, so this was big.) It was 13 hours in transit in total, which does seem ridiculously long given I didn't even get of out Asia, but the shiraz made it all quite civilized.

At customs at Kansai International Airport, I experienced the most vigorous questions I've had in 5 months of travel. I think the combination of my slovenly appearance (who doesn't dress for comfort when flying, I ask you?), a backpack that looked like it had been at the epicentre of a nuclear disaster, and my visas for dangerous places like India and Thailand made me a slightly suspicious character. A very polite customs officer pawed through my undies with his gloved hand, and asked with the most serious of expressions on his face, whether I'd smoked any marajuana while in Thailand. I tried not to giggle, but 13 hours in transit does make one a little punchy.

Right. So it was 9:30 at night and I had two tasks to accomplish before I could collapse. Find an ATM and catch a shuttle bus to my hotel. Emerging from customs I spotted a Citibank ATM, my favorite international bank, as my stupid CIBC ATM card doesn't pitch a hissy fit when I stick it in the slot and expect it to perform. Clearly I jinxed myself, though. Because 20 minutes later I still had no money and was highly irritated. I wish ATM machines would speak in plain English when telling you to piss off. I do realize that I was dealing with a couple banks communicating with eachother, but can't the smart people who work at banks dedicate some time to scripting more helpful and informative ATM messages? There was some gobbledy gook sentences that used some big words, but the jist of the message was 'no money for you, loser'. Finally giving up after the same message had flashed at me 8 times using both my ATM and Mastercard, I rummaged in my trusty money belt to see what currency I still had. I gave up on being organized about money a few countries ago. It's simply too much work to get currency before entering a country when I can just zip up to an ATM machine in the airport upon arrival. It's actually more exciting this way - the fancy, colourful dollars with monarchs in absurd hats are sort of the welcome wagon for me, 'Hello beautiful lady, come spend lots of us'. Anyway, clearly this little policy of mine was in the process of backfiring on me. I had a grand total of 2 U.S. dollars, 50 Singapore dollars, and 4 apparently useless ATM/credit cards. At the currency exchange I was disappointed to realize that this only netted me 4000 Yen, which really seemed on the low side. But partially comatose, I decided things would be better in the morning and I stumbled out to the shuttle bus for the 5 minute ride to my hotel.

Fifteen minutes later I was in a puddle on my bed, cracking open my Lonely Planet, looking for the helpful section on currency. I've always imagined Japan to be a utopia of high tech marvels, tiny robots and obscene efficiency. So imagine my surprise when I read that while ATMs were everywhere, the did not accept international cards. This is both inefficient and completely unwelcoming, as far as I am concerned. My only hope, according to the Lonely Planet was to find a Citibank machine or go to the post office, which had ATMs that would accept my nasty foreign cards. Citibank, good times indeed. As I read more, things appeared more bleak. Apparently in Japan, cash is king and few businesses accept credit cards. Lonely Planet's parting words of advice were to stock up on cash and traveller's cheques before entering the country. I could have done something about this 7 hours ago in the airport in Hong Kong, but now I was pooched. My overactive imagination quickly got the better of me. How far could my 4000 Yen stretch? How could I afford to eat? Perhaps I'd finally lose the 10 pounds I was supposed to shed on this trip, as I'd be forced to resort to eating every other day. I slept, dreaming of the complimentary snacks I'd refused on the plane. If I'd only known the hardships that faced me ahead - those peanuts could have kept me going for a couple days.

At 9am the next morning I was back at the Citibank machine, trying to be optimistic, given it was the only thing between me and potential starvation. An international trio of tourists were infront of me in line and seemed to have no trouble receiving cash. Asking what magic buttons they'd pushed, I confessed my problem. A young Japanese woman offered to help. She asked how much money I was trying to take out. I replied 300,000 Yen, as I was concerned about how long it might be before I found another ATM that didn't hate my guts. Upon hearing the amount, she replied 'that is a lot of money'. And that, friends, is when I realized the importance of a simple zero. Instead of asking for $300, I'd been suggesting it cough up $3000. So I'm stupid. I can chalk it up to being overtired, but really it comes down to bad math, really, really bad math.

But let me rant for a second. If ATM messages were in English, I wouldn't have lost sleep the previous night, imagining my own death by starvation. Here's some potential options:
a) Hey loser, $3000 exceeds your withdrawal limit.
b) 300,000 Yen = $3000 Canadian. Keep dreaming, my friend.
Perhaps this is a potential career option for me. Translating bank talk into rudimentary English for the exhausted traveller with the math skills of a 5 year old. There must be other people out there that are equally stupid, right?