I forgot to mention that my phone has an IC card capability - called Felica. This isn’t exactly the newest thing for mobiles in Japan, but it’s the first phone I have had that uses it - and not many people I know here seem to use it. The advantage lies in the fact that the trains (and lately some buses and taxis) as well as many convenience stores all run off of IC cards in the greater Tokyo area. The transport system is called Suica, and the convenience store system is called Edy. My phone can interact with both. It should be noted that the buses and some taxis use a newer service called Pasmo - which can also work in Suica areas - but my phone does not work on that platform… yet.

As of this morning I am now using Mobile Suica for my commute and will shortly put my monthly commuter pass in my phone. The only thing I have to do to credit my phone is connect to the special Mobile Suica site with my phone and tell it to charge my credit card the amount I want added. Easy peasy, Japanesy.

It’s things like this that make me wonder how even though Japan is technically only 14-18 hours ahead of the US it can sometimes feel like it is tech(nolog)ically several years ahead of the US.