ICS info - Accessing cash

The following is some info on the availability of funds in Japan.

Japan is a cash country. There's no way i can stress this enough. In Sydney if you run out of cash you're most likely to swipe your bank or credit card. The 'cash card' is never available to use in this manner. NEVER.
Department stores and large stores of course accept credit card but considering Japan tends to have more small businesses they won't have those kind of facilities.

Who cares? I hear you say. Just go to an ATM! WELL. Banks are very localised in Japan, every prefecture will have at least two of their own bank, which means they also have their own set of ATMs - which aren't terribly numerous. These banks are NOT national!!! The only relatively national financial institution is the Japan Post bank account.
Another option is to use the ATMs in convenience stores that accept a variety of banks. However they do charge an ATM fee of 210yen (as at november 2008) and only particular convenience stores will accept your cash card.

If you want to withdraw directly from your Australian bank account 7eleven ATMs will work. They also accept Visa and Cirrus. Japan mostly utilises Visa.

Another thing to remember is that ATMs have opening and closing times in Japan, especially the smaller ATMs and in smaller cities. Public holidays are usually closing times.
Although for KIT students there is a Fukuoka Bank one that's open on the road to Tobata - walkable distance on public holidays.

I have been transferring funds online from my Australian bank account to my Fukuoka bank account ever since the cash i brought over in the beginning ran out.
It does take a while to set up though. After receiving your Alien Registration card and getting your inkan (stamp) made your tutor will take you to a bank - usually your local one)
I notified my bank but without the bank account details they couldn't do much, so after setting up a bank account i filled out the forms and faxed them over, the first transaction took a month!!! but after that it took a week.

Matsuri - the pinnacle

The Kanmon Straits Fireworks!!

The Kanmon is the strip of water separating Kyushu and the main island of Japan Honshu, the fireworks are held on the towns right by the Strait on both sides of it - at Mojiko on the Kyushu side and Shimonoseki on the Honshu side.

Mojiko is only a couple of stations away from our university. The trains were absolutely PACKED on our way there...Tokyo style.

As usual the streets lining the strait were dominated by festival stores XD for some reason i don't have any pix of those... Here are some fireworks pix but my camera sucks...

We didn't get there early enough to stake out a spot so we had to made do:


We could vaguely see the fireworks on the other side of the Strait (there were better D= ).
A video for your enjoyment:

We wondered around Mojiko cos we knew the trains would be packed...

The bridge connecting Honshu and Kyushu:
Keep checking for updates!!

Matsuri IV!

Matsuri IV!!

The festivals are wrapping up!! All the festivals in Kitakyushu come together in one big weekend event called the Wasshoi Hyakumannin Matsuri (わっしょい百万人祭り). The Tobata, Kokura, Wakamatsu and Kurosaki festivals and fireworks!

Day 1:

Soooo many people:
The Tobata floats strut their stuff

These ones spun: Themed mikoshi (floats) - one of them was Totoro themed:
I had to tone it down but this float was from the Kurosaki festival apparently - they were SO BRIGHT! - and they spun like crazy and everything.

Afterwards, we all met up and went drinking with Satoko and Jay, who is visiting her from Oz: Yes - it's fatty horse meat:

Day 2:

Today was a different sort of parade and fireworks! A very different sort of parade:

Barrett - an American who works here and his wife:
... Basically different groups dance around to this song that's repeated over and over and over... for two hours. The dance has/had meaning - back in the day

Absolutely no comment:

I finally got the guts to wear my yukata!!! (summer kimono)
And Tin wears his badass yukata too:

There were fireworks...but my camera is too crap to take a decent pic of them.

To top off the summer festivals there's one more massive fireworks show to go!! Keep a look out!