Travelling Is Spendy

Man. All this time I joked around with my students about how after all this travel I would be broke, but rich in experience, I was a lot more correct than I realized. At least about the broke part.

I've got like, zero money to my name at the moment, I borrowed 3,000 yen from Ty to last my until payday, and thank God it's only one more day till then. Even so, I'm committed for another large chunk of my livelihood when I pick up my Chinese travel visa on the 26th, the acquisition of which was an episode unto itself.

I got up early this morning, and thanks to the bright sunshine pounding down on my face (which I like, for the record, rather than despise), I was up and ready early enough to cruise to the train station to catch the train one earlier than I had originally planned. Sweet, extra time to find this place that I would undoubtedly get lost trying to locate. So I get there, and as the train is arriving on the platform, I stick my hand into my pocket as I always do and realized that, yes, yesterday I had in fact worn a different jacket, and as such my train passes and alien registration card, quite neccessary for a visa application, were sitting in my other jacket at home. So, scratch that whole, I'm ahead of schedule thing. Another quintessentially David-style move. Notice that I talked about doing this EXACT same thing in my entry about Hokkaido.

So I went back, got my shit, caught the train I had originally planned on, and when I got to Shin Matsudo, I wound up missing my train because the stupid ticket machine was broken, and the morons behind the counter were unable to provide me with an instant solution as they should damn well be able to working for an extremely time sensitive organization. I stood there answering questions all the while looking at my watch and realizing there was no way I was going to make my train and soaking in the irony of the whole, "I left early and now I'm late both by my fault and sheer luck" situation. Anyway, all in all I got down to Roppongi a only ten minutes or so later than I had planned, and I found the visa place just fine, thank God.

Except, that my visa is going to cost 9,000 yen for some strange reason, even though the website says it should only be 4,000, and it will be delayed until the 26th because of the Chinese New Year celebration, which starts on Saturday, which means there are only 3 full business days after I dropped it off, and they need 4, for whatever reason. Allen, who's Chinese that I work with, tells me that the Consulate does this all the time, overcharging people. Even him, who has permanent residency in Hong Kong. *sigh*

Anyway, on top of that I have to pay Samantha back for the hostel she booked for us, but that's only like 8,000 yen per person for the whole week we're going to be there. I really hope that China is as cheap as they all tell me, because otherwise I'm gonna be screwed for money. Especially because rent has been much higher these last two months thanks to winter heating.

On a side note, Natscha's only got like 6 weeks left in Japan, and that's starting to sink in. It's weird how when someone's leaving, you start taking inventory on all the shit you let go unsaid or undone for too long. I'm glad she and I are on better terms again now, she was over here the other night to see Dave and have dinner with him, and they invited me to join and get shitty drunk on wine, and she and I went to the store together to have some time to shoot the shit and all, and that was really nice. I think what I respect the most about her now is that she handled that situation exactly how I would, walk away from it, let it cool off, and then come at it like it never happened, allowing the other person to take whatever steps they feel comfortable with, making sure they know that I've looked past it already. I respect her so much for it because, well, no one else really ever does that, at least not for me. She just lets things go. I hate saying it like this, but, it's very Christian of her, and I like that. Too many other people I know hold grudges, or worse, rationalize against me. It's, lol, refreshing. That's right, I said it. It's refreshing.