Bill paying

Looks like the Blog has been taken over by Rex. That's ok - he likes to write and his days are filled with much more interesting interactions than mine.
Here's an example of a recent day I had: bill paying day. First I tried to read & decipher the bills. That took at least 1/2 a day . . and there are only five. I had to figure out if I needed to pay it or not as some of our bills are getting set up on auto pay from the bank. I determined that I had to pay the Yahoo BB internet bill at the Post Office - but no, "ie" the lady tries to explain to me, "convenience store" is all she says after a long uncomfortable pause, and points to the logo for 7-11.

So I ran around the corner to the 7-11. I hand the clerk the bill, he scans it and looks panic stricken. It appears he has to tell me something bad but is at a total loss how to do it. So he quickly explains to me . . . in Japanese. All I caught was that it was "over". I said "what do you mean over?" and he points to the past due date. I said "sumimasen" (I'm sorry) and tried to hand him my 10,000 yen. He backs away saying "over". I hadn't noticed that the date was past until he pointed it out. We had just recieved the bill the week before. Even so,I still wanted to pay the bill, but it was clear from his body language it wasn't gonna happen.

After a little research(another 1/2 day or so), I found out there is no way to pay a late bill in Japan. The system is: pay your bills on time. Period. If you don't, you have to wait for them to cancel your service - about 2 weeks later. Then you will recieve another bill, which you can pay immediately and they will re-connect you in 2 or 3 days. I've explained to anyone who will listen that I just want to pay the bill and avoid an interruption in service. "It's the Japanese way" is the only explanation I've been given. So, I guess the "Japanese way" is, if you don't pay on time you suffer. It's a pretty good system actually. I bet most people don't pay their bills late more than once. Hopefully all our bills will be on "auto-pay" though the bank next month. But that brings up a new problem - how to balance a bank book written all in Japanese?????

At this point we're still waiting to have our internet shut off. No idea when to expect it, so, I have checked out some "hotspots" nearby for the interim. Hopefully we'll be able to stay in touch through this period penance paying.