Play Money

That's sort of what Japanese money looks like--play money. I guess that's what all foreign currency looks like compared to our greenbacks; why don't we use more color in our money like everyone else? Who knows; I digress.

We spent three weeks in Japan spending play money all over the place. Here, I can finally show you the coveted pie chart that documented the entirety of our spendings. Ta-da:


This was the first (documented) trip where we ever broke the budget. We've gotten rather good at estimating travel costs and knowing the cost of our travel style. We made two main errors in calculating our estimated costs for this trip:

1. I accidentally forgot to multiply the cost of our hotel by the number of night we were staying. Our original estimate hence only included like 5 nights of hotel. Oops.
2. We drastically underestimated the cost of transportation around the cities.

These weren't really huge tragedies, but it did leave us about 18% over budget (after adjusting for the hotel pricing blunder). Most of that error was due to severely underestimating the quantity--and hence the cost--of subways, taxis, and train tickets during our travels.

Here is the breakdown of estimated versus actual costs (in US dollars for both of us together), with the percent over (or under) budget:

• Accommodation: Prediction $1807, Actual Cost $1614, 89%
• Transportation: Prediction $267, Actual Cost $1118, 418%
• Food: Prediction $900, Actual Cost $1272, 141%
  
• Activity: Prediction $720, Actual Cost $501, 70%
• Stuff: Prediction $90, Actual Cost $147, 163%
• Other: Prediction $180, Actual Cost $25, 14%
• Flight: Cost $1524 (no prediction)
• Insurance: Cost $43 (no prediction)
  

So, as you can see, transportation was what killed us. We just didn't realize how many $1 trips we were going to need to take every day, and that they would rack up to quite a bill. Accommodation was under $100/night on average, so we were happy with that, and we apparently used "Food" as an "Activity" since the surplus of the first fits nicely into the latter. Which is fine with me; food was a main part of the trip for me and I'm happy to fork out* the bucks for their delicious foods.

"Stuff" is anything we buy like gifts for others or souvenirs for ourselves. I think I pretty took over this category (surprise) and spent $70 of that on all my bowls. The "Other" category is for laundry expenses, ATM fees, and renting a locker at the train station. This ended up being minuscule on this trip, which I won't complain about.

The cost ended up being just over $150/day for each of us ($312 for both of us), compared to the $140/day each we had estimated. And we weren't doing the super-thrifty hostel route this time; we were almost traveling like normal people. I think it worked out well for being our most costly trip (per day) to date.

Overall, I pretty much don't care how much it cost because this trip was one of the best ever. It was totally worth it in order to spend time with two of our best friends enjoying a truly awesome culture and probably my favorite type of food for three weeks. Plus, we technically spent our Australian dollars on this trip, which was left over from working there (oh so long ago), so it really is like spending play money anyway. Yeay for Japan!

*I suppose "chop stick out" doesn't exactly fulfill the needs of this phrase quite the same way? Har har har...

Serious about Souvenirs

If you recall, in 3.5 months in Europe I essentially bought only one thing for myself as a souvenir. It was a cute and portly piggy bank and I love him very much. He is currently full of change and holding up books on my bookshelf - he is multi-talented. Our trip to Japan was a bit different.

I mentioned that in Osaka there is an extensive web of shopping arcades. Block after block of pedestrian streets lined with shops, restaurants, and entertainment venues; one of the main attractions in Osaka, and other cities. It's fun to walk up and down the endless avenues and engage in total sensory overload of all the colors, flashy lights, loud noises, and masses of people. It was in this vast sea of commerce that I found the kitchen and restaurant supply area of stores.

This may not sound exciting; it's not like I'm in the market for a deep fryer while on vacation. And while they do sell stoves, mixers, and other large restaurant kitchen items, they also sell serving dishes. In America, we typically see the standard white, round ceramic plate at restaurants. Sometimes they go all chic and use square or rectangular plates. In Japan, each meal consists of a great many types of food, each with its own sauce or side. See the picture below for an example. This necessitates using up to half a dozen tiny plates and bowls to accommodate each person's meal. Hence, some of the stores in this fabulous area of town are what I like to call Bowl Stores, where people can purchase their multitudes of serving-ware.

The Bowl Stores make my eyes bug out and my heart skip a beat. I love bowls. I love all dishware in the same odd way that I love office supplies. Cute, decorative, and cheap Japanese dishes make me melt with happiness. There were half a dozen Bowl Stores in one strip of the Osaka arcades alone, in addition to there being a hearty dishware section at every dollar store (of which we frequented many, much to Marc and Kane's increasing dismay). It was fabulous. Look at the blissful chaos that is the Bowl Store:
I made multiple trips to the Bowl Stores, purchasing dozens of bowls and plates of different sizes and designs. Perusing the bowl selection was one of the most satisfying experiences ever. I bought a special little carrier to carry them home and Kane carried all these bowls for me from Osaka to Tokyo and then on the plane back - he's the nicest and bestest boyfriend ever. And so I arrived home triumphant, with not one broken or chipped platter, and am able to present you with this--behold the bowls that I bought in Japan: