Cash

Now in Brussels, sipping my second pint on a sunny boulevard, only after searching for half an hour for a bloody cash machine. Just one ATM in the whole of Brussels Midi, would you believe?! It simultaneously horrifies me and delights me to see a city's lack of access to cash.

It horrifies me because I'm so used to having no barrier between my material desire, and the item on sale. In England, they make paying for goods and services as painless as breathing, supposing one doesn't have emphysema. In Tokyo there are about three cash machines in the whole city. Two in Narita airport, which is 70 miles from central Tokyo, and one in Roppongi, in a Citibank, on the second floor of a suspiciously unassuming looking building.

It delights me however, to know that access to things one doesn't actually need...like forgettable kebabs at 3am, or taxi's 2 miles up the road...is barred through infrequent installations of cash dispensing machines.

Tokyo's inhabitants have to draw money out from their banks and...budget...*gasp*...until they can get to the bank again. Budgeting is an alien concept to me I doubt I will ever master. That's certainly not an admission of being in funds that never deplete...far from it. It's just in my nature to always spend more than my wage. Gordon would be proud of me, I guess I've done my bit for the country in that sense.

Frugalism should only be romanticised when it comes to convenience items. When it comes to having fun...like drinking..."put another round on the credit card...no way of knowing".