Well back at work today after a nasty bout of the flu. Not the chep chep variety (one hopes). Rather pleased with myself as I managed to balance my Yen bank account with MSN Money down to the last 1 yen that I earned in interest. Unbeleivable how low the interest rates here are for having money in the bank. I think close to 0% is probably correct. The main reason for keeping the large amount in the bank account is that they bank by standard will charge 210Yen per cash withdrawel, however if you hold a certain amount in your account they will credit this back to you. (thats about a pound per transaction).

As someone who is still not used to carrying huge amounts of cash around I do tend to make more withdrawels than most, probably weekly now! In this odd sense I earn reverse interest by keeping the amount I do there. Bloody odd. Its also nice to have the buffer.

The other success was putting the drawstring back into my Nike excercise pants. They broke a few weeks back, but without a bobby/safety pin could not do it. One turned up with my dry cleaning the other day, and using a skill my dear mother taught us years ago I put it back in, good as new. Thanks mum, skill i never knew I would one day require, and saved me.

a) having to buy a new pair of shorts 35 pounds
b) The embarrassment of them falling down my legs whilst at the gym. – priceless.