100,000,000-Yen View

Posted on May 9th, 2011 in The Streets of Kobe | 0 comments

In case you’re wondering, 100 million yen is roughly equivalent to the American notion of a “Million Dollar View.” Actually, thanks to a strong yen and weak dollar, the hyaku-man doru view (the expression caught on in Japan, but was adapted to their number system) will cost you considerably more than a million U.S. dollars these days, and has for most of the past two years. When I first moved to Japan back in 2001, each dollar I brought with me bought about 120 yen, and now in May 2011 a buck only fetches a measly 81 yen. So today that view will actually cost you $1,234,567. And 90 cents. You can make the check payable to me. The view of East Kobe and across Osaka Bay is from my balcony.

Here’s a pseudo-panoramic of the same scene, actually just cropped to a 3:1 aspect ratio, so not technically a panoramic. Soon we will be heading into the tsuyu (梅雨 = plum rain ) season, in which it rains almost every day for a month or longer. As a result, I probably won’t be seeing this view for much of the later half of May and well into June.