(no subject)
Well the year here in Japan is coming to an end...I had my final lectures for a couple of classes yesterday! Woot! And today was my last Tuesday in Japan for a while :( Heh heh. There's so much stuff I wish I had written about in here, but I've long forgotten a lot of it. Anyway...
The day I arrived in Tokyo my host mom took me down to the city hall for our part of town and I signed up for the national health service. Well, since I'm getting ready to leave, I had to go back today to make sure they didn't try to bill me after I leave. The thing is, since I'm a student, I get a student discount - they have student discounts for all kinds of things here and unlike in the US where it's like maybe a dollar, it's quite a bit of a discount here. All of last year I got the student discount which meant that I had to pay about $9/month for insurance, but for whatever reason, they charged me full price beginning this year, which is about $33/month. So we had to explain to them that I'm still a student and all that. Eventually they managed to fix it, but it took quite a while. I mean, it was their damn mistake and they didn't even say sorry for taking so long. Oh well.
Also, for some reason I got a tax form in the mail too. It wasn't actually a bill, but was just a form for you to figure out how much you owe and then fill it out yourself. Apparently I'm the first host student my host family has had that got anything about taxes. But I didn't work while I was here. So yeah...we had to tell them that too so I didn't get in trouble for not paying taxes. All in all it was an interesting morning and I learned a few words like 申告, 手続き, and 収入.
The day I arrived in Tokyo my host mom took me down to the city hall for our part of town and I signed up for the national health service. Well, since I'm getting ready to leave, I had to go back today to make sure they didn't try to bill me after I leave. The thing is, since I'm a student, I get a student discount - they have student discounts for all kinds of things here and unlike in the US where it's like maybe a dollar, it's quite a bit of a discount here. All of last year I got the student discount which meant that I had to pay about $9/month for insurance, but for whatever reason, they charged me full price beginning this year, which is about $33/month. So we had to explain to them that I'm still a student and all that. Eventually they managed to fix it, but it took quite a while. I mean, it was their damn mistake and they didn't even say sorry for taking so long. Oh well.
Also, for some reason I got a tax form in the mail too. It wasn't actually a bill, but was just a form for you to figure out how much you owe and then fill it out yourself. Apparently I'm the first host student my host family has had that got anything about taxes. But I didn't work while I was here. So yeah...we had to tell them that too so I didn't get in trouble for not paying taxes. All in all it was an interesting morning and I learned a few words like 申告, 手続き, and 収入.