Japanese Bank Account With SOFA Status

People in Japan under SOFA status:

It is possible for you to open a Japanese bank account, even if you don't have a Japanese spouse. But only if you are willing to jump through several hoops and demonstrate the patience of a saint.

If possible, bring a translator, a utility bill, your passport, your military ID, and a US driver's license. The process may be streamlined if you can also bring a letter from a superior officer stating on official stationary that you belong to your APO address. (Note: I didn't have one, so I don't know for sure that it would have helped.)

If you live on base, this may be more or less a straightforward process. We live off base, so we have a Japanese address that receives our bills, an APO address for US mail, and an address in the US where we are technically residents.

Here's my headache-inducing experience, so you can learn from it. My friends tell me that Shinsei has pretty crappy service, but foreigners don't have so much trouble opening an account. Circumstances brought me to a different bank, so I can't comment on that one with authority.

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Because I hate making posts without pictures, for all intents and purposes, this is me:

We will be marking the progress of my emotions.

I am signed up with several talent agencies, one of which insisted on my opening a Japanese bank account to be paid by direct deposit. Problem 1: I'm here under SOFA status, so I don't have a foreign residency card or a work visa. Customer service people have no idea how to deal with that. Problem 2: my Japanese is terrible and I can't explain anything. I'd made a couple attempts, but got turned away pretty quickly because of one or both of these problems.

So my agent said he'd go with me to help the process along. We met at the Shibuya branch of the bank where the agency has its accounts. A month prior, my local branch was one of the banks that refused me. We were there for an hour and a half. It turned out that my Japanese address can't be used because even though we can prove we live there, we're not residents. We don't live at our APO, and a US credit card statement or statement from a US bank aren't enough, for no reason I can fathom.

We were eventually told that I couldn't open an account at that branch because they couldn't process accounts with military IDs, but the branch near Yokosuka Naval Base would be able to. They'd also have English-speaking representatives. A call was made to the Yokosuka branch to confirm. So I went the next day, the last working day of the year.

Yokosuka isn't far on the map, but from where I live, it's about a 2-hour trip each way. The agent didn't go with me, but he was available by phone if I needed him. Which I did, almost immediately. The person that sat across the table from me spoke a little English, and said I should have gone to my local branch to open an account. I said I had, but they had refused me. She asked why, I reminded her that I don't speak enough Japanese to understand a word they had said beyond "can't." She asked a couple more questions, but between multiple days, languages, and branch locations, something was about to get lost in the translation, so I called the agent and they talked for several minutes.

After a couple hours in the waiting area and a few angry phone calls from the agent to both of the bank branches (he updated me as things moved along or stalled out), I spoke with an English-speaking representative from the Shibuya branch on the phone. She said they never told me to go to Yokosuka, that I shouldn't have gone to Yokosuka, that I needed to open an account in Shibuya because it was closer to my address.

This was 20 minutes before the doors to the bank closed for the year.

Remember how I mentioned needing the patience of a saint?

She asked me if I'd like to go back to the Shibuya branch next year to try again. Insisting that I was specifically instructed to make this very inconvenient trip was getting me nowhere, so we moved on to the list of required documents.

I had a military ID and passport to prove my identity and two different bills to prove we lived at our Japanese address, but I don't know what would have been sufficient to prove that our names were connected to an APO address. She (and several other people over the last two days) didn't seem to know either. Apparently my (US) credit card and (US) bank statement weren't acceptable, and neither was our mobile phone bill (mailed from a Japanese company, in Japanese, to our APO). But they might accept some sort of letter from my husband's boss on official stationary stating our names and our APO address.

That sounded way too easy for them to refuse it later. So I asked for that list in writing.

"Can that list be emailed to me?"
"No, we're not allowed to do that."
"Can it be emailed to the agency? They are already clients."
"We're not allowed to do that, either."
"Can it be physically mailed to the agency?"
"Why? Don't you trust me?"

&$(@*#!...
No, madam, I do not.

I managed to not say anything rude, but my reply had a more complicated sentence structure than she could follow and was probably much too fast. I took a breath and rephrased, slowly, by saying I would feel better if I had a written list.

It's a little bit of a rage-filled blur, but somewhere around here I mentioned that I had a US driver's license.

Finally, she said that if I had a passport, a US driver's license, and utility bills, she could have the Yokosuka branch make an account with the Shibuya branch on my behalf.

Yes, I'd like to do that. Please! Thank you, merciful spirits of commerce.

It makes me nervous to sign contracts I can't read. Especially when some of the blanks need to be filled in kanji that I can't read, which has been helpfully written on a sticky note for me to copy. I asked several times to confirm what I was writing. If I didn't misunderstand, it was just a note stating that my primary correspondence address was my Japanese address, not my US one. That is what I wanted.

Eventually a little money changed hands and I received a bank book.

The ATM card will be mailed to me in two weeks, and I hope I'm home to sign for it. She said if I miss it twice, they destroy the card. Picking it up at the branch is not an option.

Oh good, there might be a sequel to this post.

EDIT: I was home when it arrived. I did a little dance for joy.

A Traditional KFC Christmas

In Japan, Colonel Sanders is about as iconic as Santa. Fried chicken may have been a traditional solstice dinner to begin with, but KFC really capitalized on it by running an uber successful marketing campaign several years ago, and it is the thing to eat this time of year, if the advertisements are to be believed, particularly on New Year's Eve.

Mix in Christmas being a date night (New Year's is the family holiday), and couples will line up down the block to get KFC. To seal the deal for character recognition, every KFC I've seen in Japan has a life-sized fiberglass Colonel standing by the door. When Husband dressed up as the beloved Colonel for Halloween, we knew he'd get some attention, but we didn't necessarily expect him to achieve rock star status, which he did.

So of course he broke out the look again for Christmas.

Just as the Christmas Chicken predicted.

Reactions in the early afternoon were more subdued than we thought, but the later it was, the more he was recognized. More than once we were at risk of blocking high-traffic areas (sidewalks, photo spots in front of mall holiday displays, train stations, random storefronts) with spontaneous queues that formed after the first person recognized Kentucky-ojisan fast enough to pull out their phone/camera and ask for a picture.

He got every reaction from blank stares and confusion (mostly older folks, some foreigners) to full-on freak-outs complete with clapping and jumping up and down (usually women). Most people that noticed the white suit, of course, were just delighted. Eyes widened, smiles appeared, jaws dropped, hands waved excitedly. Even when he wasn't stopped for pictures, he left a trail of giggles in his wake. It was awesome.

If you ever feel sad, dress up as something people love and go out in public. People just get so excited! They don't know you, but they're sure as heck happy to see you.

This is not the longest queue, but I was coming back from the restroom. When I was there to act as photographer, there were easily 20 people in line in a couple places, but I couldn't stop long enough to take my own pictures. On the plus side, I am now familiar with a variety of makes and models of camera phones.

Monkeys, Fire, and Sightseeing in Ubud

Part 1: What's Bali like?
Part 2: Food and Sleep

Note: there are some bad words in one or two of the videos, and one photo might not be appropriate for young children that like to ask uncomfortable questions.

We hired a cab to do some sightseeing.

One of the places we went is Tegallalang, as much known for its stretch of shops as the rice paddies carved into the hillside. We made the mistake of not actually seeing any shops before we went back to the car to make contact with the driver (who had rather suddenly disappeared), and we were whisked away to another sightseeing spot. Too bad.

We also didn't expect to be charged a parking fee on the way in, but it was only a couple dollars, and hopefully goes toward a good cause.

Another place our driver brought us is a temple known as the Water Palace. Beautiful grounds, as maintained and landscaped as any temples I've seen in Japan.

I felt bad for the handful of animals caged on the grounds (especially the cockatoo), but the plants and architecture were beautiful.

I'm constantly impressed with the colors and intricate detail.

For lunch, we were brought to a restaurant that apparently all the tourists are brought to. Someone flashed our driver a thumbs up as we pulled into the parking lot, I'm still not sure how to interpret that.

This is, by far, the busiest place we'd seen all day. ALL foreigners.

We mentioned that we'd like to see a place to get wood carvings, so the driver said he knew just the place and brought us to RAI Wood Carving, where he clearly knew someone. It was kind of in the middle of nowhere, possibly on an unmarked road.

In theory, all the carving was done on site, but it's a pretty good guess that this guy wasn't spending his afternoon carving until we pulled up. A very talkative little man gave us a grand tour (and a really hard sales pitch). He started with the woodcarver, who may be an artist of considerable skill, but it's a pretty safe guess that he wasn't hard at work until our car crunched gravel in the lot out front. (Tourists! Places, everyone, it's showtime!)

Over-the-top presentation and unsolicited trivia aside, there were several enormous showrooms with beautiful carvings made of several different types of wood. Some were hand-sized, some were taller than I am. There were statues, masks, doors, and elaborately carved furniture.

It's a store, but very much like a museum, too.

Again, the detail is amazing. This statue is life-sized.

This is a door! Lots of carving for something you use to get out of the place you currently are.

I was aghast at how much they were asking for a small statue, even though I knew that the price was inflated. We ended up offering what we were afraid was an insultingly low price (compared to the sticker on the bottom), and we felt pretty awful. But they accepted, then just about jumped for joy.

We got a better-than-internet-store rate, but we could have probably started at half of what we offered and they still would have been pleased. I hate haggling.

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Monkey Forest is a tourist destination and local landmark. For a small admission fee, you can walk around the park where monkeys roam free, doing as they please. Which can include stealing your valuables if you don't keep an eye on them, or attacking you for food if you try to hide some in your pockets.

I don't trust monkeys to begin with, but they mostly seemed not to care that people were around, unless you threatened his preciousssss.

In a less-traveled part of the park was a temple setting straight out of Indiana Jones. The temple building itself was closed except for ceremonies, but the surrounding area was covered with statues and stone and creeping vines.

No monkeys here, but it was a pretty walk.

Near a different, larger temple on the grounds, there were even more statues. Statues upon statues, even!

I'm pretty sure this is a Balinese Luck Dragon.

A statue of a monkey hiding from the rain on top of a statue of a snake/luck dragon.

Some are more surprising than others.

The end of the snake is the torso of a two-headed something-or-other.
I'm sure it's a well-known story, I just don't know it.

Art imitating life, or life imitating art?

I have lunch with you, but it's like talking to a rock.

Boars and tigers also make appearances at the Monkey Forest temple.
A stylized boar and tiger are often part of ceremonies as protective spirits.

Like I said, the monkeys were pretty chill around people.

Back on foot in downtown Ubud, we strolled past a lot of small shops like this. Most stores sold linen clothing, silk scarves and dresses, art, and/or silver jewelry. It's an odd mix of tourist-fancy and what you might expect to see in a developing nation.

In the posh part of Ubud, as modern as any typical beach town (where we saw no less than four Polo stores), a street fair was happening. My snack of choice: roasted corn on the cob, smeared with some sort of mildly spicy paste.

More or less like a street fair anywhere in the world. Obvious knockoff cartoon characters included.

We got there just as a dance performance was starting. We said to ourselves, "Hey, a chance to see some traditional Balinese dance. Cool!" And indeed, the first minutes seemed to be a tribute to one of the traditional stories, complete with Monkey King costume.

Then it went in an artistic direction I can only describe as "traditional Balinese dubstep." I was particularly surprised with the language in the English-language soundtrack. (NSFW unless muted.)



Our other experience with Balinese dance was a Kecak Fire Dance at a palace. When we saw "Fire Dance," we expected something fairly dynamic, waving torches about and the like. Maybe something akin to belly dancing.

What we saw instead was a Greek-style chorus providing the soundtrack to the interpretive dance retelling of a famous story. It was a cultural experience, for sure, but it wasn't quite as lively as I thought it might be.



Following the first piece was something described as a "trance dance." I envisioned something fluid and soothing.

I definitely didn't read the description closely enough. The premise of this piece was a man who is lulled into a trance while riding a horse, and becomes a menace to himself and others until wrestled (after 20 minutes) off his horse and to the ground. Or something like that. At any rate, you can guess the moment that made sure everyone in the audience was awake.



The first time he kicks the glowing coals at the audience, you can hear several beer bottles being knocked over in surprise.

On our last night, we walked around until dark and finally saw a great sunset. I wish we'd seen more of them!

Food and Sleep in Bali

Part 1: What is Bali like?

Candidasa

We booked a package deal with AquaMarine Diving for three days of diving and a stay at the Watergarden Hotel and Resort.

I highly recommend both of these.

AquaMarine even picked us up at the airport (standard service with tourist dive packages, but still appreciated) at 9:30pm, and arranged a "VIP meet and greet," a service in which someone meets you at the gate, runs off with your passports, and gets everything approved so you can skip all the immigration and customs lines and walk right out the door.

Candidasa is just starting to really develop a tourist center. The whole area is very quiet and every person we saw was very friendly. We were constantly asked if we wanted to hire a taxi, (Hire a taxi? No? How about tomorrow?) but nobody was aggressive about it, like we've heard they can be in the southern regions where the tourist industry is thriving. A little ridiculous when someone driving in the opposite direction honked or slowed down to ask, but never aggressive.

It is standard for employees to have a base salary, so even in the off season when there may not be a single customer for days at a time, everyone has to show up for work just like they would in the peak season. It's a little eerie to walk down a street of restaurants and see dozens of tables with pristine linens and uniformed wait staff and not a single customer.

Our room at the Watergarden was a cabin, set well away from the road, past the restaurant, pool, and spa.

The bed is a canopy style, probably only partly to add to the ambiance; the windows open, but have no screens.

We're pretty sure a gecko snuck in and stole some crackers while we were asleep one night.

The view out the double doors it pretty awesome. We have our own koi pond! We saw a three-foot water lizard swim by once, but I couldn't get to my camera before it swam away.

There are plenty of nice places to eat along the main stretch of road, but the Watergarden cafe was exceptional all by itself. Breakfast was included, and the menu had dozens of items for a traditional breakfast no matter what part of the world you are from (three Asian, three European, one or two Western style). I couldn't stay away from the muesli with fresh fruit, yogurt, and honey. The interesting part was that it was sesame based, not oats. Stuck in my teeth like nothing else, but it totally worth it.

Bonus: gecko in the lamp

These were more like dessert samosas than we expected, but they were so good that eating them was a zen-like experience. And I don't know what's in that brown sauce, but it is amazing.

No shortage of vegetarian entrees!

For our three days of diving, we went to Tulamben to dive the shelf and the Liberty wreck. It's always a good sign when your base of diving operations looks like this:

Past the pool is a set of stairs. At the foot of the stairs is the ocean.

The diving was fantastic! (For divers: 30ºC in most places, a 3mm suit was perfect, and visibility was 15-20 meters.) It was just the two of us and a dive master, who handled navigation and kept an eye on depth and time. The current was so mild that we barely had to swim for long periods of time, it was like a moving sidewalk slowly bringing us past all the coral, fish, worms, and shrimp. We were able to do very long dives, generally 40 minutes to an hour each.

I realized that it was the first time I wasn't nervous going in. I think I'm ready for an underwater camera.

Lunch at the dive resort was good, too. I wasn't sure how to eat it, but all the veggies were fresh and I'm reminded how good tempe can be when prepared by someone who knows what to do with it.

One memorable part of our dive was when we went into the half-open cargo area of the shipwreck and saw a great barracuda the size of my leg. The dive master gestured at my earrings (barracudas are known to be curious and occasionally mistake shiny things for prey), and we backed away slowly. I'm not sure how much we needed to be concerned, I've seen videos online of people getting nose to nose with this fish and it has no reaction, and there wasn't much light to make my jewelry sparkle, but better safe than sorry when the teeth are that big.

The triggerfish are definitely feeling their oats this time of year (egg-laying season). Very territorial. The dive master advised us that if we see one, to face it at all times while swimming slowly away. Apparently it'll hit you from behind if you give it a chance. If one comes at you, blast some air from your spare air source and that should discourage it. One swam right up to my fin before it was discouraged enough, but it was more exciting than terrifying because it wasn't going after my face. It wasn't a tiny thing, either, about the size of a throw pillow.

We also (finally!) saw an octopus. We didn't touch it, but we saw it hug a rock and scoot around to hide, changing colors and patterns the whole time. Definitely one of the highlights of the trip.


One night for dinner we went to a jazz bar/lounge named Vincent's. The architecture, like most buildings here, are open and airy. No air conditioning, but if a fan is on, that's enough.

We were a little surprised when we were led to a table straight out the other side, in a beautiful candlelit seating area just as large as the indoor bar and lounge.

I opted for a veggie-filled pastry, not quite as heavy as a calzone.

Husband ordered a pile of seafood. We have differing opinions on how delicious this looks.

Ubud

AquaMarine also made a trip to the Watergarden to pick us up when we checked out and brought us to our other hotel in the central region of Ubud.

We splurged a little and stayed at the ARMA Museum and Resort. It's breathtaking, but it still cost less than a regular hotel room in Manhattan. Money goes a long way in Bali.

Complimentary fruit basket! The furry one on the left is lychee, the scaly one on the right is snakefruit, but I can't tell you with certainty what the others are.

The resort grounds are enormous, and there is a lot to see. There's the museum of Balinese art, of course, but also a cafe, spa, temple, and elegant Thai restaurant. That's not counting the walkways, villas, ponds, gardens, and the dining area with a stage for performances.

Oh, the places you'll go. And the statues you'll see!

The view over the railing just outside our room

Even the stones in this wall have details.

To add to the atmosphere, there are strategically placed orchids in several trees.

The dining area; the stage is to the left.

Random monkey-and-buck-toothed-turtle statue at one of the many ponds.

Temple gate

Inside the temple

These structures are used for daily ceremonies.

So much detail!

The back door to the museum. Right, not even the main entrance. The back door. 

Random statue

Statue of somebody important just behind the museum

Statue inside the museum that is part of the building, not an exhibition.

Slightly alarming statue in front of another buiding

Statue in front of a cafe, but not done in the traditional Balinese style. It's a little Burton-esque, if you ask me.

The Thai restaurant

This concludes our tour of ARMA, and that doesn't even include the museum! It's quite a place.

Part 3: Fire, Monkeys, and Sightseeing