Money woes

Tis a day of reflection, a day of lying around not doing particularly much at all.
I begun this day at 12pm...that's right, I slept for 13 hours straight, a record even for me. I was very exhausted last night! It's cloudly outside, and already mid-afternoon, so I figure I'd be better just to hang around here. However, staying still for more than an hour allows that spectre of thought to catch up with me...where is all my money going?

Losing my wallet meant I had to go to an ATM, which marks my first $1000 spent in Japan. $1000? That's right. How could you possibly spend that much, you say? Well, Here's my current list of excuses

- Some was spent on one off things, which I needed to buy at the start of my trip. $100 went on the first day, on items like iPod cases, headphones, battery chargers and so forth.

- Some was spent on the hectic period of travel, where I traversed between the airport, Osaka, Kyoto, Nagoya, and everywhere inbetween. Even trying to use the cheapest, most time consuming forms of transport, this still totalled about $100.

- Accomodation is predictably expensive. I have kept to the cheapest forms of accomodation, dormitory rooms that seem a lot like living in a college, except very very compressed. It very much shatters the whole notion of early to bed, early to rise, as the lights stay on until at least 11pm, and people come and go at all hours of the night and day. Still, it ends up at about $30 a night, and the only way I can go cheaper is to spend a 7 hour night (e.g. midnight to 7am) at the internet cafe, sleeping in a recliner chair. I pre-booked my accomodation for the next three nights, which is roughly another $100 accounted for.

- Food is sneaky. An area of particular weakness for me, since I love Japanese food and want to eat all the delicious sushi, tempura and miso soup I can get my hands on. Having spent at least $7 per meal (I usually skip one meal a day though), and a lot on snacks and so forth, I am putting my foot down on my hobby of eating, and went to the supermarket instead today. I followed the boarders' advice of buying whatever is on special, and I have enough Japanese curry and rice to last me for days. Hopefully I'll be spending a lot more time in the common room with my miso soup and grilled salmon, and less time in those damn sneakily expensive restaurants.

- Water costs money here. As someone who drinks several small lakes worth of water per day, this is very annoying. In Japan, tap water is not something that most people drink. Therefore, there are very few water coolers, fountains and so forth where one could get a drink of fill up a water bottle. I have been filling up my drink bottle with terrible tasting water from hotels, but I drew the line at the last guesthouse when it came out brown. Actually, come to think of it, I did end up drinking it after it went clean...In the summer, when its humid and sweaty and your walking around 15km a day (I did the maths for how much walking I do on a typical day of touring), you end up buying a lot of drinks at the very conveniently located, very enticing vending machines. Luckily, the hotel I'm at now has reasonable tasting water, so I think I'll stick to that. Otherwise, I can always buy one the 2L bottles I found in the supermarket, and just fill up my bottle with that.

- $100 vanished along with my wallet

- Going to internet cafes does cost money. But you don't want me to stop that, now do you?

- Being a tourist costs money. Buses are $2.20 one way, and temples charge about $5 each for entry. Having skipped only one temple due to the expense, I already regret not doing it. You just can't say no to temples!

I have therefore spent about $600 on living costs (food, drinks, accomodation, entry fees, transport around the city) over 8 days in Japan, working out at roughly $75 a day. However, I believe this figure most likely reflects the cost of inexperience. It takes time to adjust to things, to figure out what's cheap and what's not. Hopefully I'll be able to manage my cash better as my trip goes on. Luckily, my trip is very very flexible, and I can always change my plans to suit my budget.