[steven]

"I am a foreigner and I have two cards - one has a guarantor, but the other is just me on the paperwork. :P
Either way, I wouldn`t be so fast to say that for a foreigner it is a cash based society - international cards work here. Tons of people bring their cards registered at home to Japan and use them while here. This is particularly true when there is a limited income situation (student) with money sitting in a foreign bank account."

Completely overlooked on my part. I forgot about using cards from other countries. However, I'm certain you couldn't get a grocery store credit card unless you've been here for a long time. I couldn't get one after a year, so.

About looking at 10,000 like $20's, I think that's an accurate description. I've only run into one situation where I felt a little trouble with that. They still took it, but my neighborhood dry cleaner seemed a little bit dissapointed in receiving one of those for like a 5 dollar service at 7AM. I get the impression that you could forget your wallet somewhere and have it be safe-- but then again I've been somewhere where people had their belongings stolen from them, so don't take the extra safety for granted.

Clothing outside of Japan is definately cheaper, but when it comes to shipping it, the price of buying cheap stuff in Japan can sometimes be cheaper. I've had no problem with finding shoes up to like 28 around here. That is like the borderline size, though. Around 10.5-11 is the end. Once you go past that you will have trouble. Is this a regional thing maybe? I have never had trouble finding my size (27.5 ish) and my girlfriend is a 24, which is about average, but on the small side of that average. It must be the water and rice after all haha. I was surprised when I got here though... people just seem to be bigger here than in other areas for whatever reason. (I'm about 5'11" and there have been people that tower over me in my office before). People over 6' here are not extremely unusual.

Also, there is a phillipine-american guy around here and he always gets mistaken for a japanese. I've seen that quite often around here-- there are a lot of chinese people who live here who blend in quite well. There are certain people that don't blend though. I have a Japanese friend who is very americanized and his face almost looks european... so it's harder for him to blend in than the phillipino guy I was talking about. Again though, this could be a regional thing for this area (Toyama).