Credit cards

[dragon89]

I'm curious, are Canadian (or american for that matter) debit cards/credit cards etc. any good over there? Because if they aren't are you just supposed to carry around a bunch of cash or what? That much cash would seem a bit impractical ^^'

[Harisenbon]

It's all a matter of what you're used to. You can use credit cards (even foreign ones, credit cards are generally international) here, but they're not as widely accepted as cash.

Japan is a cash society, and carrying around hundreds of dollars is not really out of the oridnary. I'm strange in the fact that I generally only carry 200-300 dollars on me at any time. My wife generally has somewhere in the 500 dollar range, and she's a poor college student. :/

[Kates]

Restaurants and things tend to be pretty okay with accepting cards... but you'll find that souvenir shops and things when you travel might only accept cash.

It was really weird for me at first... since the Japanese have 100 and 500 yen coins (roughly $1 and $5)... so you could have a pound of change in your pocket and, being American, I was used to that totaling around $1... but it could easily have been around 3000 yen! XD I'd always under-estimate the amount of money I had in change, so I'd get more bills out of the ATM. XD

[Harisenbon]

I cleaned out a bowl of change and found well over 100 dollars. =) It's possible to lose a good chunk of change in the sofa, too.

[Binsento]

I really had to get used to the 1 yen coins. They seem pretty much useless in the beginning and i ended up with (what seemed like) hundreds of them.
Not only are they worth almost nothing, the coin itself actually represents it, haha
They are in fact pretty handy for convenient stores.

[Kates]

1 yen coins are as useful as the others, if you try to pay the exact amount. >_< If you keep paying for your Smart Savings McDonalds meal with a 500 yen coin, and keep getting all that change... no wonder the 1yen pile up!

Just take them all to the 100 Yen Shop and go crazy! XD

[WacKostRacKo]

me and my mates played poker reguarly with the 1 yen coins, they make pretty useful chips.

[skrhgh3b]

i'm pretty sure it costs more than one yen to make a one yen coin.... although it is a pretty cheap looking coin, isn't it? just compare it to the five-hundred yen coin. and while i'm looking at my japanese change, the question begs: why don't more coins have donut holes?