In the past 3 days I have heard the same story about Japanese Cedar Trees numerous times... so I guess I'll share. Apparently many, many Japanese people have really bad allergies in the spring (beginning now) due to cedar tree pollination. I guess after Japan was defeated in WWII, somebody decided that cedar trees were the way to go because they grow quickly and they could use the wood to rebuild. So all of these cedar trees were planted on the mountain sides, but they stopped cutting down cedar trees to use the wood a very long time ago because it was cheaper to import wood from somewhere else. Now there are just a bunch of cedar trees that cause really bad allergies. Even more people are sporting the doctor masks - not because they are sick or don't want to get sick anymore - but because of the pollen in the air. So that's the story I've gotten all week.
The Japanese yen is pretty weak right now. Less than a month ago the exchange rate was around 1USD = 0.89 yen. Today, it's a lousy 1USD = 97.18 yen. The exchange rate still isn't back to where it was when I came back in July, but the dollar is catching up. Well, either that or the yen is doing worse. I haven't been keeping up with it, but I'm pretty sure the yen is losing more value than the dollar is gaining. The Japanese economy has been steadily worsening for the past few months... right along with every other economy.
Japan's finance minister, Nakagawa, resigned recently due to his ... unusual... performance at the G7 conference a few weeks ago. They blamed it on cold medicine... but everybody knows he was wasted drunk.
All JET's have been informed that we should be expecting a stimulus check from the Japanese government sometime soon : )
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