Bargains at Masuda
Masuda grocery store in the Namiki Shopping Center has marked down many of their goods today. I went there around 6pm after work, and a lot of shelves were already empty. I think the store is open until 9pm today if you want to hunt for real bargains. Cashier told me yesterday that the store will be open until Sunday but it may close early if it runs out of things to sell, so it's possible that tomorrow will be the last day of business before its reopening.
Related article:
Namiki Shopping Center Getting Ready For Its Reopening
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Charity Auction: Hope International
Hope International is holding a charity auction until March 9. Get your bids in now for a luxury vacation!
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.
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Cheaper Gasoline on the Expressways?
Q: Is gasoline really cheaper on the expressways?
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
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Children’s Home Needs Computers
A group in Kyoto is trying to raise money to buy computers and support an internet connection for a local orphanage. If you have some spare change, please consider donating it to this worthy cause.
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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).
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Closed for the Holidays
For those of you who are spending your first new year's in Tsukuba, please note that MANY businesses and services are closed during this holiday.
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!!!)
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