Of ARCs and peanut cream

This morning, I woke up early and walked down to my ward office (a mere ten minutes from my house) to pick up my Alien Registration Card. Every foreigner in Japan must have an ARC 90 days into their extended stay in Japan, or they can be deported without so much as a by-your-leave. For me, this means that I no longer have to carry my passport and an official document with me everywhere I go, making my purse that much less crowded. This also means that I can officially open a bank account, which means that I can transfer my cellphone bill to charge my bank account instead of my credit card, and also get paid by direct deposit instead of cash.

This will be a good thing, because I've found out that I'm not very good at budgeting my money when it's in cash. Since Japan is a cash-based society (I have yet to see anyone use a debit card or a credit card anywhere), I will have to learn, I suppose, but having a bank account which tells me exactly how much is in it at all times will be enormously helpful.

I took the opportunity to walk around my neighbourhood more this week, and there are some really adorable streets with wonderful houses and yards. Yards are a status symbol here; these ones are wonderful. Always packed with trees and flowers and shrubbery and things, though; I've only ever seen one grass lawn in my neighbourhood, and it wasn't very impressive.

My local Lawson's (a hybrid of a convenience store and hyaku-en store) is wonderful - I bought my groceries for this week for a mere 1500 yen (roughly equivalent to $15). They don't have much of a selection, but they have fresh fruits and veggies, meat, eggs, drinks, yogurt, rice crackers, chocolate, household stuff... everything you need to live simply, basically. Unfortunately, they lack peanut butter. I bought - foolish gaijin that I am - something called "Peanut Cream", which I assumed was merely a terrible translation of peanut butter - but no! This is actually... a peanut-flavoured gelatinous substance. I would describe the texture as not unlike apple butter, or caramel spread, but without the usual stickiness. It tastes quite good, though the texture is jarring, but I don't think I shall buy it again.