30,000 dollars Bank Heist, Minus the Theft Part

 $30,000 Bank Heist, Minus the Heist

Money I like money! I wish I had some money right now. All gone!

As I geared up to leave Japan after three years I contemplated what to do with my buckets of money. And by buckets I mean a lot. But don’t try to rob me its all gone now. As the saying goes "Never trust a man with the money, you can be guaranteed it will be spent on drugs, alcohol, gambling or wasted on things they don’t need", like in my case.
Yes, even after spending large amounts of cash across three years at the dollar store (I almost went everyday) I had managed to save quite a bit believe it or not. $30,0000 is quite impressive if I can toot my own horn.
I’ll never forget the first day when I bought 100 items and the teacher said “I’ve never seen anyone buy so much at the dollarstore”. I smiled and told him, “And that’s just today, I’m planning to come back tomorrow!”. And the best part. I did!
As you may know I was on the JET Programme which is a Japanese government sponsored program.
A lot of people are able to save a lot of money since we were paid fairly well and in most cases, our apartment or living rental is subsidized. I knew of a few people who were able to to pay off their University loans. In my case, I just collected the buckets of money and dreamed of dollarstore glory.
So what should I do with the money I thought. How should I transfer it or should I just carry it in my suitcase, so it will be like a drug deal. When they ask me at the airport how I got all that money, I’ll be like, “Well, I Taught English for three years. I basically got paid to be beaten”.They would probably arrest me and say, "Must be drug money, there is no way you can get beaten in Japan by students, they are too nice". Not at my school.
The exchange rate was terrible! In fact it was the worst it had been since I had arrived in Japan.
Me, being the person I am, was not prepared to lose any money on the exchange rate. I was thinking I could make money on the exchange rate. If I waited long enough.
How long though, I didn’t even want to think about.
My final decision was to sit on the money, literally and figuratively. I thought since I had a post office (bank) account I would put all my money in the post office bank account (no fee to hold it), give someone I trusted my post office bank card (preferably someone rich so they don’t want to steal my money)  and for them to send it to me when the exchange rate was better.
The only issues I had was that my approximately $30,000 dollars was sitting in a different bank account across town and they wanted me to pay to transfer it. Ridiculous I thought! Who pays to have money transferred (I guess they do everywhere I found out later).. I’m a loyal customer of three years, the least they can do is transfer it for me. So I showed up during my last few days. I brought my ID and told them, “Hi, I’d like my $30,000 dollars please”. They suggested I transfer it and pay the $20 for the transfer. Seriously? I lose $20! I could buy twenty things the dollarstore with that.
I told them no, I want cash.
They prepared the bills in my bulletproof case (that's a joke about bulletproof case) and asked if I was OK. I said ya no problem and tossed the $30,000 into my old backpack. Now, had I been in the United States, or possibly Canada I may not have done this. Walking around with $30,000 is a bit of a risk.
To make the risk even greater I had ridden (rode?) my scooter. Plus my backpack was so old the zippers weren't staying together. Not to worry I thought, should be fine. Maybe.

This bag should hold the money well I thought.  The odd hole, hopefully no money will fall out.

I started up my scooter and drove to the other side of town. Since it was probably the last day I would get to use my scooter I gunned it, thinking about how I won’t be able to enjoy the wind through my hair again, nor the typhoons and rain in my eyes. I had forgotten the bag wasn’t closed very well.
I arrived at the post office. The teller asked what I’d like to do. I told her deposit $30,000 dollars.
She was like OK nonchalantly. I pulled my backpack off and noticed the zipper was open more than hallway, whoops!
There was a man standing pretty close behind me as well, so I was lucky he hadn’t put his hand in and taken any.Its OK though, he's Japanese I doubt he would.
She counted the money as I hoped to high hell it was all there.
I waited another three years before the exchange rate was what I considered good enough to transfer. I ended up paying 50$ per $10,000 to send to Canada, so $150.
In the end I paid more for waiting then the damn $20 to have to it transferred to the post office and avoid any risk. Plus I could have just taken it with me and lost less money on the exchange rate.
Oh damn, just my luck!
$150 to transfer! Can you believe that. Damn I could have bought 150 things at the dollarstore!

It's basically my Disneyland. Where dreams come true.  $1 everything!

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Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva

Radiation Man, Can I get some gamma radiation too please?

Radiation Man, Can I get a little Gamma Radiation too?

If you are going to poison me with radiation please add a little gamma radiation for good luck!

If you don't get this joke it refers to the HULK. Bruce Banner gets overdosed with Gamma Radiation which basically makes him invincible.
That might be nice. Of course at the same time you will become a big green monster and destroy everything, but hell I can live with that.

When I was teaching in Japan on the Jet Programme we had to do a number of tests. Urine tests, I found pretty annoying. They asked that the first pee of the day be entered into a special vial then brought to work. To be honest, I didn't find that too sanitary. For most of my time in Japan I didn't have a car, so I would use my granny bike to get to work. I'm sure on more than one occasion people were wondering why I had a vial of pee in my granny basket.

One time the top was a bit loose, so I put it in a plastic bag. When I went to hand the school nurse the vial it seemed to be wet. Whoops!
I threw the bag out, I didn't really want to bring back my coffee mug in it.

Another of these tests that were required was X-ray's. I didn't quite understand why, it seemed so often. I think it was about once every six months or more. A huge truck would come to the school parking lot. They told the men to rip their shirts off and get at it. Finally one day I asked if I could possible get some lead shielding or something since I had been through quite a few X-ray's that year. Beyond the school once I had about 3 on my neck. Plus Superman couldn't see me (inside joke for comic nerds here, Superman can't see through lead!).
They looked at me funny. It seemed to me that whatever they were looking for they didn't think the radiation was a big deal. I thought at least a lead vest or something that they provide in Canada would be nice. Maybe I can hold it around my waist so at least I don't get cancer down there. That would be a bonus.

Finally after the fourth X-ray at school I asked what they are looking for. They told me tuberculosis. I was like what the heck? Isn't that some old world disease that died out 100 years ago? No one seemed to understand.
Since no one got it, I figured I better push my point. Black plague, isn't it like black plague? Since I didn't know the Japanese word for that I substituted death for plague. Don't you guys know black death is over? No response.
I think the X-ray technician thought I was nuts.
I tried to make a joke "Any chance I can get a little gamma radiation thrown in?". Bam!
I thought it was hilarious and started to laugh. I could see on his face he had no idea what I was talking about. Plus I didn't know the word for gamma radiation in Japanese so I just said it the way it sounds. That makes it even more cryptic.

After the X-ray I decided to bring it up at one of our weekly foreigner teacher meetings. "Hey do you guys think I can get too much radiation from X-rays? Its so stupid they even make us take it, after all who the heck gets tuberculosis these days?".
Everyone seemed to agree with me.
Well, guess what.
My good friend Mack's X-rays came back positive for tuberculosis. I couldn't believe it.
He mentioned he had been in Thailand for two weeks during Christmas and it must have got it there.
Its transferred through coughing.
He mentioned they told him he was banned from school and considered a threat to everyone by his school. He was to stay home on bed rest for 1 month and take anti-biotics. I thought this sounded great. A chance to get away from my bad students.
I asked him if he wouldn't mind coughing on me a bit.
He told me that it wouldn't be much fun though, as he had to sustain from tea and crumpets and eat healthy. Those crazy Brits! Crumpets and tea ha!

This isn't our X-ray. But it does apparently show Tuberculosis. I didn't even know it exists in the world anymore.

As you recall Mack was one of my better friends during my first year in Japan. When we first arrived he had come out with us one night, forgot where he lived and didn't have a contact from anyone from his school. He ended up staying with me for a few days.
One morning we looked in the fridge for some food. I hadn't bought much yet and all my pots and pans were from the dollar store, the lowest quality you could get.
He found some eggs in the fridge and brought them out. He saw the bananas and said that would be good cooked together. I'd never heard of eggs mixed with banana but I thought it must be some British delicacy.
As we cooked it the pot started to melt. It was so cheap (I guess aluminum) it couldn't stand up to low heat.
After it was done I threw the half melted pot out (its illegal to throw out in the garbage I found out).

As I took a bite of my slightly metally banana eggs mix, I was shocked. It was the worst thing I had ever tasted. Mind you, metal doesn't help anything taste good, but I thought it might be edible. I glanced at Mack and he scowled, "Emm this is terrible". Uhhh... he recommended it so I didn't know what to say.
"You have eaten this before right?", I inquired.
"No, I just thought it might be good and its all we had", he answered.

F!

If you found anything above amusing or even slightly funny help me out and click one of those boxes above or give me a Google +1 or something. Might come in handy in the future. If only it could make me some money. That would be even nicer!

My Youtube Channel, wearing red tights and jumping around as Deadpool (but I say Dadpool to avoid copyright. Smarter than I look!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUXxArlapy0

Other funny stories from this blog 
http://memoirsgaijin.blogspot.ca/

My blog about everyday life (not Japan related)
http://eyethroughtheglass.blogspot.ca/


My Youtube Channel (makes no sense just like my blog)
http://www.youtube.com/user/judoka4eva