I have a large number of family members who have served missions in Japan, but I guess that I never really discussed Japanese money with them. I knew, of course, that the Japanese currency is called yen, but I guess that's about all I knew, and I was a little surprised about some of the differences.
The first thing that surprised me is that there are no decimals with yen. In America, coins are usually fractions of dollars; such as a quarter of a dollar or $0.25. In Japan, the smallest currency is 1 yen. No fractions, no decimals. Now I understand why at 87 yen to the dollar, the yen is stronger than the dollar. 1 yen would be similar, although currently more valuable, to a penny. There are a lot of 100 yen stores here, which are similar to dollar stores, except that with inflation, everything costs 105 yen.
I was also surprised at how many coins they use. The Japanese coins are 1 yen (smallest silver), 5 yen (copper with hole in the middle), 10 yen (copper, no hole), 50 yen (small silver with hole in the middle), 100 yen (silver, quarter sized), and 500 yen (large goldish looking). (I'm not really sure what the metals are, I'm just describing what it looks like to me.) So, your 100 yen, would be like your dollar, which in America, is mostly printed on bills. Thus Jason and I had to begin carrying coin purses, because we use the coins quite often, and it was a pain having them mixed with our American coins.
In America, our paper currency is printed in 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100 dollar bills. Japanese banknotes are printed in 1000, 2000, 5000, and 10,000 yen bills. (I didn't have any 5000 yen bills to add to this picture.)
The sign for the yen is ¥. There is also a kanji symbol for yen, which I can't find a way to import. That was really confusing to me at first, because I'd try to find the price for something and not be able to find the Y with the lines through it.
Today, the on-base yen rate is 91 yen to the dollar. This is pretty high, compared to how it's been since we got here. It was around 87 yen to the dollar for the last couple of months. We've also discovered that we can get a better yen rate off base, than on base.
Things are pretty expensive here, which I did expect. McDonalds for our family, (which would be an interesting post for another time) is about 2,730 yen. That's $30. I've heard, although I haven't looked, that electronics are three times the price off base as they are on. On base, they are a little more expensive than they would be at home. We've been able to find good prices on produce at the farmers markets, and a few restaurants that are reasonable. We want to experience things, so we know we're just going to have to pay the price. Fortunately, we get a cost of living allowance to help with these expenses.
We're figuring things like this out and doing okay. Luckily, we have a lot of people to help us and we have a good sense of humor!
Do you have to barter at all? That was the thing I hated most of being in Mexico. It was hard enough just trying to make the conversion to pesos, but then add negotiating into the mix and I never came out ahead.
ReplyDeletePretty much no bartering in Japan. One time I was at one of the Concessionaires in the 'mall' (I guess you'd call it) and I was surprised that she said she'd sale something to me for $10 less than the tag said. Maybe because I was hesitating, I don't know. So maybe there is more of that in some areas, but most of our shopping has been in established stores or fruit markets. I should blog more about that later.
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