Wondering in Tokyo - the day before

I am flying off by the mid night flight from Haneda Airport and I have finished all my assignment in the morning. I told my host that I would not like to impose on him and I took off by myself back to my Hotel and I took a rest at the lobby chairs. I became restless as I sit and wait for the dinner appointment. I took off by taxi from my Hotel and reach the place of my next meeting well ahead of time. I have another one and a half hours before the dinner appointment.

I wonder around the area and finally found a seat at a coffee bar and ordered a coffee before I start to write this article.

Tokyo is a very big city but you can travel around by the sub-ways or taxis . If you travel around in a taxi , it will cost you about 10 times the fare of travelling by the sub-way. I wonder around many stores and I found that everything is expensive and more expensive than what we can buy in Malaysia at least more than 10 to 15 times. It is amazing how the Tokyo people can survive at this rate.

In Malaysia, we are talking about minimum wages or extension of retirement age from 55 to 60 but in Tokyo, the cost of living have raise the wage level automatically and due to the high wages, the employers are offering people to stay after their retirement age. In Japan, there is a big problem regarding sustainability in paying pensions. The mechanic is very simple. If the number of people contributing to the pension keep increasing , then it is easy to fund the paying out of the pension but if it is the other way, when paying out is more than the injection, finally , it would lead to a cash flow problem. The OUT is more than the IN is not sustainable.

This is what is happening in Japan. The younger generation is getting less as the population shrink but the life of the previous or generation is getting long and the funding of the pension is getting more and more serious. It is just like a Ponzi scheme with the older generation gets paid first while the later generations will face the problem. It is really scary unless the GDP growth is robust and the Government have current surplus to manage the gap which is getting wider and wider by the day , month or year.

I just came out of a family mart , a 711 and a department store which sells fruits and I could make myself to buy anything as it is exorbitantly high and there is no value for my money. Maybe, there is still value for the Tokyo people because they are paid 10 or more times salary than me. Maybe, if I get that kind of pay, I would be able to eat normally in Tokyo and think more like the Tokyo people.

It is amazing that tourist wants to come to such places to shop , eat or holiday, it is just too expensive to have FUN in Tokyo. If we have money and we do not know how to spend it, then you come to such places to buy up your funds while you are having FUN.

Again, to these Tokyo people, you are living in another world and hope you well.

Namaste.