lingqi's Journal: March 3rd, 2003

March 3rd, 2003 (8:54pm)

Damn, I just can't go home early, and I really tried too.

This weekend's weather was especially notable, as saturday was raining for about the entire time, but sunday cleared up, all nice and sunshines for the whole day. Highs got to 16 degrees celcius, which is, heck, pretty darn nice for a day in March, especially in this latitude.

Friday night I seriously explored the possibility of joining a sports club. I have been becoming progressively pudgy, and I figured that paying money to people would be an incentive to working out, since that if I don't use the facilities, I'd be wasting my hard-earned dollars. erm, yen.

Anyhow, The cheapest version of the deal was basically prepay one year, get a month free - but this did not include sign-up charge (5000 yen), yearly membership fee (1000 yen), and processing fee for signing up (2000 yen). I too am confused why there is a separate "yearly membership" compared to the monthly membership, and a processing fee in addition to the sign-up, and no they didn't explain it to me. Apparently if I was refered by one of their members I can waive the 5000 yen signup, but it still comes out to be about 7000 per month, which is 84,000 per year, or roughly 700 US dollars or so. For two years I can buy my own hamster cage. erm, treadmill.

So screw that idea. Mostly what I need is weight training anyhow, so I picked up some dumb-bells and a bench from sports authority (It's on the north side of kumagaya, next to toys-r-us). 120 dollars for that and some other stuff, but I think it's still better than the aforementioned membership.

Sunday was so nice that I decided I'd go flower viewing even if it was a four hour drive each way. I headed out to kairaku-en (å楽åoe'), which is somewhere really far. In fact, if you take a map and trace directly east from where I am, right before you hit the ocean, would be the said garden.

Cherry blossoms are still a few weeks off, so this time was for plum("ume"/æ...)-blossoms. The excruciating drive was actually like 3 hours there and 4 hours back. However, it's supposed to be one of three very famous parks for this sort of thing, so I guess it's worth it. (the other two are rumored to be kouraku-en (å¾OE楽åoe') and kenroku-en (å...¼å...åoe'); I have no clue where they are)

To get to kairaku-en (for the guys without navigational systems), take highway 50 all the way down and that's it. I have realized that my car, while sporting a navigation system and power retracting sideview mirrors (folds to avoid damage while parked), does not have cruise control. I did not miss cruise control after all this time - different place with different needs.

Ahem. okay; it's getting a tad late. I will continue on the adventures a bit later

A short comment about taxes and stuff because I figure everybody might be interested:

1) About people leaving their country when they get rich to avoid taxes: US apparently have this thing where if your net worth is 599,000 in 2002, or 120,000 for five years before that, and you try to leave (relinquish residency - as otherwise you'd be taxed anyhow regardless where you are), you will be automatically assumed to be leaving to avoid tax and be taxed extra hard. Death and taxes; except maybe death might object to the previous sentence.

2) Japan, as most countries, have their own set of tax problems. From what I have seen / heard, the worst of which is probably government construction projects. some 10% of the country is in the contruction industry. While natural disasters do make rebuilding necessary, usually roads gets pulled from place to place that actually serves no purpose except to keep thoes people paid and fed. Then again, people will always find something to complain about governmental spending - since no budget will please everyone at the same time - so while I hope it gets better, I am not that disturbed about it, unless it affects me more fundamentally in some way. I simply avoid the highways to voice my complaint.

3) I hear rumors that certain european countries (maybe Switzerland?) have a thing set up where its citizen can live a full two years in mountain cave fall-out shelters in case of a nuclear war. So keep up those tax payments - I think y'all are in a much better position than the rest of us.

Keeping the construction workers busy

[Vengeru]

Hey, here's an idea. Instead of keeping the country's construction workers hard at work moving roads back and forth for no reason, why not have them rebuild the street system in a fashion which actually makes it easy to find a location just from knowing the adress? Like in... everywhere else in the world.

Oh, but then the Japanese GPS makers would face a sudden slump in sales, which would slow down the economy. Meaning it must be a bad thing and should be avoided at all costs. Ack.

/ V