Today, I visited the foreign press club (FCCJ) to pay my monthly dues.
Just before that, I was at the different floor of the same building to pick up my mail.
I rent a virtual office at ServCorp.
I’ll probably rent that place for one year and move out.
Having a Tokyo address doesn’t seem so helpful at the moment.
But I’ll wait for 6 months to make any judgements.
At FCCJ, the restaurant service company has changed and the operation has changed as well.
With the previous provider, we were not able to use the bar room until 11:30.
But we were paying for the rent and many of the members were very upset, including myself.
Good thing about the new provider is that they have opened the gate and we are able to use during the day and I can have a business meeting instead of renting the room downstairs on the 2nd floor without any surcharge.
Then I headed for Tokyo station.
The station itself was less crowded and I decided to have a lunch at the restaurant on B1 where I wanted to visit ever since it was opened.
It was the remake of the old restaurant car in the old train and served the meal that they used to.
It’s not cheap but it’s the quality of service you are receiving.
At 11:30, the restaurant is still empty but by the time I finished a slow lunch, yes, I do take slow lunch to pacify my mind every once in a while, the seats were packed with customers.
Even under the COVID-19 “self-restraint” rules, Japanese are busy going to work or doing something.
I have to admit, I’m one of the ones that not restraining and moving around.
You either die from not being able to work and gain money (the government isn’t subsidizing for companies like mine) or catch the virus.
As I have written in yesterday’s post, the average death rate is 1.34% in Japan.
I know it’s not just the death rate.
I had to move to Shinjuku, where there are many people.
I happen to meet an old friend who runs a bar/cafe and said hi.
It’s been a while I saw her and listened to her story.
She either receive a subsidy of 60,000 yen (approx. $580 USD) per day and shut down the operation after 8PM or elongate the work hours until 10PM or 11PM.
She took the choice of the latter.
It sure is hard to earn that money in 2 hours but the reason she and the owner decided, with the concent of other employees, was that, what about food that they have to throw out if it was left over?
The negative impact of that is worse.
They would have to pay more for the trash to be taken, lose opportunity of income.
It doesn’t matter about the employee pay since they would be working during their regular hours.
You have to either work and pay the salaries, rent, food, maintenance fee, utility, tax, etc.
Just 60,000 yen will not cover the loss for medium size cafes and up.
Not only that, large chains and franchise are not covered under this subsidizing benefits.
This is why many Japanese are working even under the government “asking” for “self-restraint”.
Everyone, please stay safe!
Good Luck!