Wow! I haven't looked at the Yen/Dollar ratio in a while. I checked it out for the first time in a while thanks to this thread.
What seems crazy about this day in age is the ability to shop on the internet... why would I drop 30万 on audio equipment in Japan when I can get the same thing for $2000 in America... plus if I buy that $2000 thing in yen, it suddenly becomes in the ballpark of 16万. That's almost half off the Japanese price I would've paid! I don't know if Japanese people are taking advantage of the times, but I've managed to get some good deals this way.
Unfortunately, princessmarisa, I'm on the other side of the fence as you. I didn't go on my honeymoon this year. Instead I opted for next year. I'm going to be going to America from Japan, so I'm hoping that the yen stays at about where it is (if it gets too much stronger then my remaining dollars will turn to nothing
).
If I were to take a stab in the dark about when things will go back to around 100円-$1, I'd say give it 2-3 years if things go well for America. I think realistically, 2015 or so would be a good guess. I don't think this is something that happens over night, as it would kind of disrupt the flow of things. You never know though! I'd say it was maybe around 10 years ago... it was at 140+ yen to the dollar at one point! In otherwords, the yen doubled on the dollar in a little more than ten years! I think it's been a long time a comin' though.
If you look at the history of the situation, you'll see that there was a "fixed rate" for like a quarter of a century. That fixed rate was 360 yen to the dollar. I've heard that it was an arbitrary number (something to do with the degrees in a circle supposedly). So the yen gradually rose on the dollar until about the mid-90's. I don't know for sure, but I'd be willing to bet that this month will be the all time high for the yen-dollar. Usually when I see a record like that, I expect things to kind of level out and return to normal... but I'm not so sure if that will happen so soon this time.