Here is a link to the information (in Japanese) about accessing your money at Joyo Bank branches/ATMs during Golden Week.
http://www.joyobank.co.jp/top/atm_gw.html

If you think you are going to need extra money during the holidays, plan ahead carefully!

November 30 commemorates the day in 1987 that the City of Tsukuba was born from the Village of Sakura and the Towns of Yatabe, Toyosato, and Oho. (The Town of Tsukuba merged with the rest on January 31 of the following year). Since Alien Times was also born in 1987, the Alien Times staff have chosen November 30 and the week that follows it to be ALIEN TIMES FUNDRAISING WEEK.

If you would like to donate to support the publication of Tsukuba's Original English Newsletter which has been published for and by the foreign community of Tsukuba since 1987, please choose one of the following options. You can choose the amount that you would like to donate. (As a guideline, if 20 people donate 2500 yen, we will be able to meet our target. But any amount is welcome!)

PayPal or Credit Card

Click to Donate via PayPal or Credit Card.

Furikomi

Bank: Joyo Bank (常陽銀行)
Branch: Kenkyu Gakuen Toshi Shiten (研究学園都市支店)
Account Name: THE ALIEN TIMES
Account No: 7259017 (regular account, 普通)

Cash Envelope by Mail (Genkin Kakitome)

Address: 305-0051 Ibaraki-ken, Tsukuba-shi, Ninomiya 1-6-2
Ninomiya House
Alien Times Post Box

Cash to AT Staff

If you meet up with one of the AT Editors (Mieko Ono, Shaney Crawford, Anna Hamakoji), you can hand your donation to us and we will be sure to put it directly into the bank account. (If you are not comfortable with this option, please choose one of the other options above.)

About Alien Times and the Fundraising Week

Alien Times is a free publication that has been providing information in English to Tsukuba's residents since 1987. The magazine is published once per month (except for the July/August issue) and there is a companion blog site where the articles are archived (TsukuBlog: http://blog.alientimes.org).

The printing of Alien Times is generously subsidized by the Tsukuba Expo '85 Memorial Foundation and supported by a number of local sponsors including Blomster Anna (flower shop), Fleur de Lis (jewelry shop), IACE (travel agent), Isebu (printer), Isshinryu Karate, and J-Cool (hair salon). We also get some income from our website (basically enough to cover the cost of the website).

All of the people who work on Alien Times are volunteers and none of the money that comes into the Alien Times accounts gets paid to any editor, contributor, or volunteer. All of the income goes towards the printing costs, the website costs (only the hosting and domain fees -- all of the design work and maintenance is done by volunteers), and the costs incurred while managing the publication (e.g. binders for the archives, stamps to send copies of magazines to contributors).

The editors of Alien Times are dedicated to keeping the magazine free so that it can be distributed to various locations around the city and be spotted and picked up easily by the people who need the information (foreign residents and tourists). However, in order to keep the magazine free, we need to do some fundraising!

We are hoping to raise approximately 50,000 yen this week, which is the approximate cost of printing a single monthly issue. We have never asked for the Tsukuba community to contribute financially to the making of the magazine, but we thought that maybe it was time to bow our heads and ask humbly for your support.

If you have benefitted from Alien Times or TsukuBlog in the past, please consider making a small donation to show your appreciation and to help ensure the continuation of our community's English magazine and website.

We sincerely appreciate your support,
The Alien Times Staff

An all-natural skin lotion made by Junko Takasaki from yuzu (citron) seeds and shochu

One thing that never fails to surprise foreigners who wander through Tsukuba`s traditional hamlets in December is the abundance and variety of CITRUS FRUITS which can be found weighing down the trees in the gardens of nearly every private home. Most people imagine these fruit to be the products only of of more southern climes, and in fact, Tsukuba ( Mt Tsukuba to be exact) IS the Northern limit for commercial citrus cultivation. Besides the usual tangerine-sized mikan are the miniscule FUKURE MIKAN, which besides being wonderful to look at glowing on their trees, are used as one of the components of SHICHIMI, Japan`s distinctive seven-spice seasoning.

Citrus fruit (perhaps natsu mikan) along the road in Tsukuba in December

But there are still more citrus varieties growing in these gardens, most of them which I would not be able to identify without asking the locals. 

 Among these is the YUZU (柚子), or citron, which seems to appear in disconcertingly many different sizes, shapes, skin textures and shades of color (which can sometimes make it hard to identify).

These deliciously fragrant fruit ( more specifically, their rind) have long been an indispensible part of Japanese cuisine, especially as a flavoring in NABE, savory winter stews, and in one of my favorite dishes FUROFUKI DAIKON (風呂吹き大根). They are also used to make an assortment of traditional winter confections such as: yumochi (柚餅), yubeshi (柚餅子),and yuzu yo-kan (柚子羊羹)- DEELISH!

Large and bumpy skinned yuzu (demon citrons) and they are often placed inside the entranceways to homes to ward off bad luck

But more importantly, since ancient times the yuzu has been used on the day of the WINTER SOLISTICE (to-ji, 冬至) as an addition to the evening bath. Not only do the yellow fruit make a beautiful sight floating in the water and provide a refreshing scent, but yuzu has been believed to possess certain qualities which invigorate the body and recharge it with LIFE FORCE. This is probably because yuzu is the fruit which remains ripe on the tree the latest ( or among the latest) in the year, staying firm and strong even when it grows harshly cold ( and maybe because they look like the sun, as well!).

Today, I discovered another use for yuzu, one also takes advantage of its health-giving properties: making skin lotion!

I learned of this traditional Japanese beauty-care product ( and how to make it) from Junko Takasaki,who in turn learned how to make it from her mother, who uses it everyday on her face and hands.

I`ve never had the honor of meeting  her mother, but one look at Junko-San`s fine complexion is recommondation enough for trying out this very easy ( and inexpensive) to make skin lotion.

Here is all you need to do:

Remove the seeds from several yuzu.

Place them in a jar.

Add enough SAKE ( Japanese rice wine) or SHOCHU ( Japanese distilled liquor) to immerse the seeds.

Let them sit overnight.

By the next morning, the oil from the seeds interacting with the alcohol will have made a lotion.

You can keep it at room temperature.

Use it everyday for the hands and face.

I tried it myself this lotion this morning, rubbing the slippery liquid over my hands until it had evaporated- leaving a slight hint of the yuzu fragrance and my hands as smooth and soft as a baby`s bottom!

Try it!

If you live in Tsukuba, you can just ask a local farmer for some yuzu. They will most probably be happy to provide you with a few!

                                                                                Using Citrus Peels to do the Dishes

And just when I thought I had had my big scoop for the day, Harumi Takaya, who was also with us, told me about how she ( and many other women who grew up in Tsukuba`s traditional neighborhoods) do not use for or detergent for doing the dishes during the winter. Instead she uses citrus peels- especially those from mikan.

Just you the inner part of the peel ( the white part) to scrub the pots, pans and dishes. Apparently this even cuts through heavy grease.

Sounds like another all natural, cost-cutting idea ( with a long history of effetiveness) that you might want to try out.

Let me know how it works out for you.

4 Comments

• At December 14, 2010, Abe wrote:

  Thanks for your information about yuzu seeds. I have whole bunch of yuzu fruits on a tree in my garden. I make yuzu-shu, yuzu jam, yuzu jerry and yuzu syrup. Of course, I put them into the bath, and give them to my neighborhoods and colleagues. I peel the skins (it is hard job) and keep them in a freezer. They are available any time in a year. But, seeds are obstacles to make any things from yuzu. There are many seed (much more than oranges) in a yuzu fruit. I'll try yuzu lotion this year.

• At December 14, 2010, NoVo (Nora) wrote:

  Great like every article on the blog (thought I've been read a tiny amount this year, hope that the web archive is available (:)!

  About the lotion, I was heard from my Japanese mother-friend Mitsouko, that it is for whole body.

  Otherwise, one year before I made one similar lotion with yuzu seeds and strong brandy which I never used keeping for damaged skin... but on this dry season I'll do.

  As for the 'mikan' detergent, I'll also try; putting the skins on the plastic fruit's string bag...

  Before that, you can still enjoy the very delicious mikan-road next to the Mountain hill in the way to Makabe town...

  My child memory is full of joy for this favorite seasonal fruit. Enjoy these very special citrus in the end of the year!

• At December 18, 2010, Nakayama wrote:

  Nice skin lotion.

• At December 27, 2010, Keiko wrote:

  I made the yuzu skin lotion you introduced. I have been usuing it everyday. It is good for this season because I am now doing a big cleaning. The lotion is keeping my hands and feet smooth. Thank you.

My translations are just provided to give you an idea of what the categories are about. I don't have a degree in tax law, so I am not 100% sure what some of the categories are meant for. If you have any questions about your own pay statement, the best person to ask is your own employer.

Click the image below to see the translation.

Did you know you can call 3 friends for half-price with AU? Ask for the application form at any keitai shop (we applied at Dayz Town), write your name and details, and nominate 3 of your friends for the discount. It will cost 315 yen per month for the discount, but if you call your friends alot it works out cheaper in the long run! See the AU English website.

Kate

1 Comments

• At January 10, 2007, RrFish wrote:

  I've been using this service for 2 years or so, and loving it! I definitely recommend signing up for this monthly service, too!!
  
  I think it took about a month for this service to become effective when I signed up. Did the AU people tell you it'd take that long when you signed up?

Related article:
Namiki Shopping Center Getting Ready For Its Reopening

Here is what the Japan Times has to say about this organization.

HOPE International was founded by three Canadians, including a housewife and a pilot, and now operates in 20 countries worldwide. It's a very professional no-nonsense NGO with low overheads, using local people in offices and aiming globally to get 95 percent of donations to projects overseas.

"Profit and the nonprofit sectors are now interacting in very interesting and synergistic ways. 'Do-gooders' are operating in the for-profit sector as well as the nonprofit sector. There's room for corporate entrepreneurs, and social entrepreneurs like myself," says Canada-born Sheppard.

HOPE, for example, is engaging companies not only through providing an opportunity to donate to sustainable development that helps the poor, but also acting as advisers and coaches to firms and individuals who are seeking to develop effective CSR policies and practice.

Read the full story.

A: Sometimes.

There is a maximum gas price that is set once a month and the gas stations on the expressways (like Joban Expressway) do not increase their prices at all during a particular month. The maximum price is set by the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry (METI) at the end of the previous month. You can see the price on this site. The reason for this is that the number of gas stations on the expressways is extremely limited, so drivers do not have a choice of which station to use when they need to fill up their tanks. If the gas stations could set their own prices, it would be possible for them to set unreasonable prices and the consumers wouldn't be able to do anything about it, since the next station might be 100km ahead. (Also, cars that run out of gas often cause accidents, so it is better not to encourage drivers to shop around for the best price.)

So, this means that if gas prices went up this month as compared to last month, you might be able to get cheaper gas on the expressway than on the regular roads. However, the opposite is also true: if gas prices went down this month, the gas on the expressway will be more expensive.

The prices for regular gas in November and December were 140 yen and 136 yen respectively.

(Note that this only applies to gas stations on the expressways. Regular gas stations do not have to follow this rule.)

Source: Japan Automobile Federation (JAF) Magazine, November 2006

====================

On Sunday, December 9th, 2007 at 1:30 p.m. the students of FriendsWorld/Global College will be participating in a Clean Up Walk through Shimogamo Jinja and along the Kamogawa to help raise awareness about the environment as well as to raise money for the Karyo-en Orphanage in Kyoto.

Karyo-en is located in the Shimogamo area and houses 20 girls and 18 boys between the ages of 3 and 17 who have been abandoned by their parents, in most cases because they have remarried or somehow changed their lifestyles in a way that did not leave room for their children. Some children are of mixed blood and were abandoned when their mothers remarried into a Japanese family.

Karyo-en is subsidized by the Japanese government and its most basic needs, such as for food, clothing and adult supervision are minimally provided, but as you can imagine, the children's lives are far from complete. In the past few years, some of the students at Friends World/Global College have brought food, clothing, books and toys to them as well as spent time playing with them and teaching them English.

This semester, one of our students who has been interning there, thought to raise money for computers and an internet connection for them. Although this will in no way come close to filling the gap left by the absence of family, on- line computers will give the children a way to connect to the rest of the world.

We are asking the children at Karyo-en to participate in this clean up walk with us to help empower them and demonstrate they can make a difference in their own lives as well as in the lives of others. We are hoping to raise money to purchase new and/or used computers that have a wireless internet connections, to buy equipment to set up the connection and to pay for it on a monthly basis. We are planning to continue this fundraising drive when necessary to buy additional computers or replace broken or out of date ones and to support the monthly internet connection charges.

We hope that you will help us by offering whatever donation you can. Any support, no matter how small, will be appreciated, so if your children would like to participate in their own name by contributing along with you- even just a few hundred yen- we will be grateful. This is not to say that we are not looking for larger donations- only that we hope that everyone can contribute an amount with which they are comfortable. We would also love to have you join with us in the cleanup, and ask your friends, family and colleagues to be sponsors too. The more money we can raise, the more computers we can buy and the longer we can support the internet connection.

Please contact me or anyone at Friends World/Global College and let us know if you can contribute to this drive in any way. We would like to buy the computers as soon as possible and start setting them up so please let us know how much you would like to pledge by Sunday, December 9. And please suggest to your family - especially your children and your friends - that they participate. Also, if you could help by forwarding this email to anyone who you think might be interested in helping, we would be much obliged.

Here are some of the different ways in which you can help:

Donate money (any amount would be appreciated) by sponsoring the students and children from the orphanage who will be picking up trash in Shimogamo Jinja and along the Kamogawa.

Participate in the cleanup walk and/or after-party with the children.

Donate any used computers you have that have wireless capability and are in good condition.

Forward this email to people on your mailing list who you think may contribute to this very worthy cause.

Start your own fundraising drive by telling your friends about this and asking for their help in any of the listed ways.

Donations can be sent either by mail to

Friends World/Global College
1-287 Akasaka Cho
Kinugasa, Kita-ku
Kyoto 603-8486

or can be deposited into our account at

Bank of Kyoto (Kyoto Ginko)
Kinkakuji Branch
Branch code: 165
Futsu Account number: 553079
Account name: Global College Japan Center
Barbara Stein

Overseas contributions can be sent to the above school address by an international postal order which can be obtained at any US post office.

For more information, contact Daniel Douglass (douglassdanielk[AT]yahoo.com).

The most important things to remember are (1) to withdraw some money before the banks and ATMs close and (2) to make sure you take your garbage out before the trucks stop coming!

Garbage

The last day of garbage collection is tomorrow (Monday, December 29). The next garbage day will be Saturday, January 3 and burnable garbage will be collected on that day in all parts of Tsukuba. The Clean Center is also closed from December 30 to January 2 so if tomorrow is not a burnable garbage day in your area and you cannot take your garbage to the Clean Center, you have to keep it until January 3.
Source: http://www.city.tsukuba.ibaraki.jp/266/003391.html

Joyo Bank

Every bank is different, so I will just mention the situation for Joyo. The banks will be operating pretty much as normal on Monday (29) and Tuesday (30). They will then be closed from the 31 to the 4th and open up again on the 5th.

ATMs will have limited or no service between December 30 and January 4. All ATMs will be closed on January 1. This includes accessing your Joyo account through an ATM at 7-11. Some ATMs will be in operation on the other dates, but not all, and the ones that are in operation will mostly be on "holiday" hours. Regular ATM service will resume on Monday, January 5.

Online banking will be completely unavailable on January 1 and will have limited availability on December 31, and January 2 to 4th. All online transactions that occur after December 30 will not be processed until January 5. (So if you want to send money to someone by online furikomi and you want it to arrive before January 5, you will have to send it on December 30 at the latest.)
Sources: http://www.joyobank.co.jp/top/20081217.html and http://www.joyobank.co.jp/access-j/info.html

Postal Banking

Postal banking will be available as usual on Monday (29) and Tuesday (30). Teller services will not be available between December 31 and January 4. Regular teller services will resume on January 5.

Postal ATMs will be available as usual on Monday (29) and Tuesday (30) and they will close early (between 5pm and 8pm) on Wednesday (31). ATMs will not be available between January 1 and 3. They will open again between 7am and 9am on January 4. They will operate as usual on January 5.

Online banking will not be available from 11:50pm on December 31 to 6:30am on January 4.
Source: http://www.jp-bank.japanpost.jp/news/2008/news_id000345.html

City Hall

Tsukuba City Hall is closed from December 27 to January 4. The Sakura Branch office will be open on Sunday January 4 for limited services relating to issuing certificates such as inkan certificates or certificates of registered matters for foreigners. All branches will resume normal operations on January 5.
Source: http://www.city.tsukuba.ibaraki.jp/266/003391.html

Library

Tsukuba Public Library is closed from December 28 to January 5.
Source: http://www.city.tsukuba.ibaraki.jp/266/003391.html

Community Centers

All community centers (公民館, kominkan) will be closed from December 29 to January 3.
Source: http://www.city.tsukuba.ibaraki.jp/266/003391.html

Children's Centers

All children's centers (児童館, jidokan) will be closed from December 27 to January 4.
Source: http://www.city.tsukuba.ibaraki.jp/266/003391.html

Tsukuba Express

The trains will continue to run throughout the holidays, but will be on "holiday" schedules from December 30 to January 4.

Some extra trains have been scheduled on December 31. The last train that will reach Tsukuba on the night of December 31 will leave at 12:40am from Akihabara and arrive in Tsukuba at 1:37am. It will stop at every station. (Three trains will leave after that time, but they will all terminate at Moriya and will not come to Tsukuba.)

The last train to leave Tsukuba will be at 11:47pm and it will arrive in Akihabara at 12:45am, stopping at every station.

Source: https://www.mir.co.jp/uploads/20081211092155.pdf

TsukuBus

TsukuBus will run as usual.
Source: http://www.city.tsukuba.ibaraki.jp/266/003391.html

Emergency Services

Call an ambulance (119) if there is an emergency where time is of the essence. In case you ever need to call an ambulance, you should memorize how to say your address in Japanese, and keep a copy of your address in romaji posted near the phone or on the refrigerator so others can call from your house.

Call 029-241-4199 to find out where to bring a sick person whose condition is not in need of urgent attention.

There is also a hotline to call for advice about whether your sick child needs immediate medical care or not: 029-254-9900 (or #8000 from a regular phone or cellphone).

In all cases, you will most likely have to speak Japanese.

The following hospitals will have some services available on the following days (but it is probably better to call 029-241-4199 to find out where to bring a person first).

December 30: Tsukuba Kinen Hospital
January 1: Tsukuba Soai Hospital
January 2: Tsukuba Gakuen Hospital, Tsukuba Kinen Hospital
January 3: Tsukuba Chuo Hospital
January 4: Tsukuba Soai Hospital

Source: http://www.city.tsukuba.ibaraki.jp/266/003391.html

I hope you have a very happy holiday! (Just don't forget to get some money out before the banks close!!!)