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Even After X amount of years in Japan I'll never get used to____

Not really a beef with Japan but with myself
Im kinda addicted to all those point cards
R Card, T Card, Ponta Card, Suica points etc
I can waste fortunes on bad investments, ungrateful SBs (getting better on that though), dinners, wines etc. But I am still happy like a pig in shit when I can get a free coffee at Family Mart with my T points :wacky:
 
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Frenchy said:
Not really a beef with Japan but with myself
Im kinda addicted to all those point cards
R Card, T Card, Ponta Card, Suica points etc
I can waste fortunes on bad investments, ungrateful SBs (getting better on that though), dinners, wines etc. But I am still happy like a pig in shit when I can get a free coffee at Family Mart with my T points :wacky:
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Try getting the Amazon Prime Visa card with 5% points back. I've been giving Jeff Bezos way more money than I should during this pandemic and all year in general, but every time I log on and see that I have like $50 in Amazon points it's like Xmas. I have five or six stiff drinks and start buying dumb shit I don't need then get the additional bonus of being surprised when packages start arriving in the mail.

Does Yodobashi still do the Gold Point card? I know one year when I returned to Japan for a visit and tried to get a new card those fuckers wouldn't issue me a replacement since I wasn't a resident anymore. That thing was dangerous. I spent half my wages buying automatic watches at Yodobashi and the points would quickly add up. Then I'd go out and do an all-night blackout bender that continued well into the morning and unfortunately into Yodobashi's opening time, and I'd wake up in the middle of the night or the next morning on the floor of my apartment (or at a nearby park) with bags full of obscenely stupid shit I never knew I needed. A thermos, electric fan, cell phone accessories, small appliances. Thank goodness for those soft tatami floors.
 
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So I recently discovered all the rakuten points that I had been racking up during my year of living wildly. Couldn't have come at a better time; I was absolutely skint, but managed to eke out a whole month living off the points via rakuten food delivery etc.

And then my computer broke the other month so I had to get a new one. Now I've got about 10,000 yen to spend at yodobashi (having used about 5,000 already buying presents for my daughter).

About to head to yodobashi now to buy Lego or a boardgame that I absolutely don't need.
 
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Tabanico said:
So I recently discovered all the rakuten points that I had been racking up during my year of living wildly. Couldn't have come at a better time; I was absolutely skint, but managed to eke out a whole month living off the points via rakuten food delivery etc.

And then my computer broke the other month so I had to get a new one. Now I've got about 10,000 yen to spend at yodobashi (having used about 5,000 already buying presents for my daughter).

About to head to yodobashi now to buy Lego or a boardgame that I absolutely don't need.
Click to expand...

like for coupons and tickets etc there should be some kind of points re-sellers or exchanges . Sure each company doesn’t want it but wouldn’t it be great to trade all those points for cash or miles or other points etc
 
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Frenchy said:
like for coupons and tickets etc there should be some kind of points re-sellers or exchanges . Sure each company doesn’t want it but wouldn’t it be great to trade all those points for cash or miles or other points etc
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There is actually quite much point exchanges already available. I think I was able to change my electrify company points to Rakuten points last year. The details are fuzzy because I am old and lazy, and I didn't even know the electricity company gives me points before I noticed some of them had expired already.

But for some reason I have hundreds of thousands of Amazon points; and I think those cannot be exchanged to gift cards either. So I probably end up buying porn and alcohol instead. Win-win.
 
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My wife uses my Amazon points as soon as they accure. (She also cashes in my coin jar without my permission, and doesn't give me the money).

She doesn't have access to my Rakuten Travel account, and for some reason I got 30,000 bonus points over the New Year.
Some (un)lucky girl is going to get a night at the Conrad or the Okura.

I also seem to get a lot of 300yen off and 3% off coupons at my local JA supermarket. Like @Frenchy these small things make me way happier than they should.
 
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Frenchy said:
yeah , and given your lifestyle that’s probably for the best ! ;)
Ps: how do you rank the Okura since its renewal?
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TBH I've nver stayed there! I'm not a big fan of spending a lot on accommodation. Much rather spend it on food and drink.
 
Rusty Trombone said:
TBH I've nver stayed there! I'm not a big fan of spending a lot on accommodation. Much rather spend it on food and drink.
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yes , agreed , but I’d make exceptions for good ryokans in the countryside (and their food is part of the attraction of course)

the rooms at high-end downtown hotels are all kinda similar anyway... never felt wowed by any of them , actually the wow factor was better at Hotel Sara, Kinshicho :)
 
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Talking to people (usually cow-orkers) who ask me what it's like living in Japan/Tokyo and are disappointed to hear that I live next to a cabbage field (has other crops too) and do not spend my days fighting off ninja-samurai in some sort of robot-powered 24/7 anime sushi paradise.
 
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Once in a blue moon you will have a single glass of liquor at a Hanami party to keep your coworkers happy despite not being a big fan of alcohol and then there is that coworker who will not shut up about you and your newly acquired “drinking habits”.

- Waaaa Simona saaan are you still drinking te he
- Simona san did you drink over the weekend
- Simona san what did you do last week? Perhaps, drinking?
- Nomou

Yes, indeed I’ve been continuously drinking since that day. Once I got the taste of liquor in my mouth I’ve stopped all consumption of water or non alcoholic beverages and now I carry a bottle in my backpack at all times. Seriously, who needs to hydrate. Hydrating is lame. That’s all I do now, I drink, let’s discuss this. I hope that one single glass has killed enough brain cells so that I can be more blissfully tolerant of you for the remainder of the time I am obliged to spend with you.
 
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Simonka said:
...then there is that coworker will not shut up about you and your newly acquired “drinking habits”.

- Waaaa Simona saaan are you still drinking te he
- Simona san did you drink over the weekend
- Simona san what did you do last week? Perhaps, drinking?
- Nomou
Click to expand...

So basic....
 
Generally, how attractive the woman are, and how unattractive the men are.

Yes, I was raised in the West so there's a lot of cultural bias here. Maybe because, typical features that Japanese women show align with what is considered "feminine" in the west. On the other hand it's rare to find a Japanese guy that exhibits traits typically thought of as "masculine" in the west.
 
LKjdklfje64j said:
Generally, how attractive the woman are, and how unattractive the men are.

Yes, I was raised in the West so there's a lot of cultural bias here. Maybe because, typical features that Japanese women show align with what is considered "feminine" in the west. On the other hand it's rare to find a Japanese guy that exhibits traits typically thought of as "masculine" in the west.
Click to expand...
Sometimes I have probs telling if a dude is actually a dude. There seems to be a lot of “feminine” dudes here.
Get them in ski wear and I’m chasing dudes all day.
 
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When I set off for Japan I was only 22 years old, fresh out of college. As such, I was still of the college mentality, and only three things were important to have: muscles, beer and pussy. Not trying to brag at all but by American standards, I was in pretty fucking good shape. By Asian-American standards, I was a fucking catch. I had a 28-inch waist, high cheekbones, square jaw, the v-shaped torso, could bench almost 300lbs, etc. I thought I was pretty hot shit.

Then I arrived in Japan. What I pretty quickly discovered was that the only females who found me attractive were old women. I mean, OLD...as in, over 70. And they all seemed to think so for the same reason: because I was masculine like Japanese men USED to be when they were young girls. No need to do the math, that means pre-WWII.

The young girls, on the other hand, largely thought something was wrong with me.

"WHY ARE YOU SO BIG?" I was constantly asked. "DO YOU PLAY PROFESSIONAL SPORTS? DO YOU PLAY RUGBY?"

No, I do not.

"THEN WHY DO YOU NEED BIG MUSCLES???"

The young housewives I met also revealed to me another fun fact about modern Japanese culture and mindset.

"JAPANESE MEN WHO LOOK LIKE YOU ARE EITHER YAKUZA OR GAY."

Initially, I refused to believe them and figured they were just dumb gossipy bitches. After all, I was manly as shit. I also ignored the fact that most of the females I nailed during my first six months were fellow expats from the eikaiwa, usually after drunken welcome/goodbye parties at the izakaya, and very rarely Japanese. And then, I started noticing things at the onsen, particularly late at night. The old men gawking at me and then yucking it up while flexing their arms was one thing; the cops stopping me on the street to feel my muscles was one thing more; but the furtive glances and other suggestive provocations I started getting at Spa World at 11pm from obviously gay men (and not even good looking gay men, I was fucking offended) was the last straw.

I stopped lifting weights, although not really by choice since Japanese gyms are fucking awful. I slimmed down and in order to project that "educator" look once I landed a real job, I started wearing douchebag shit like v-neck sweaters, scarves and expensive wool coats, tighter slacks and silver-framed glasses rather than my contacts. And with each progressive step I took toward looking more like a fag and pussy, the correlating level of actual pussy being offered to me increased accordingly. I suppose it culminated with me fucking young girls in random purikura booths in Umeda game centers while the camera snapped photo after photo, looking like a member of that homo group BTS. When I finally escaped back to the real world, it took at least a year of proper rehabilitation to man the fuck up and un-fuck what Japan had done to me.

Go figure. The 80s live forever in Japan.
 
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