More travel plans

* getting on my flight Tuesday morning my time, so I'll be out of office starting then, with occasional bouts of the internet. Will be bringing my main laptop instead of the netbook, because I'm not sure about internet access (though I'm pretty sure I'll have it for at least some of the days there :D)

(though -- ew -- I just downloaded Coconut Battery and apparently my poor abused battery is at 30% capacity. I think that's only enough for about an hour of regular use. Will need to buy a new battery at some point during my trip)

* going to go on a quick commit run on Monday. I don't think there are any urgent bugs that require attention, so I'll be concentrating on committing rather than writing patches of my own

* speaking of patches of my own, mmm, jQuery

* still waiting to hear back from family in the USA before I can figure out how to handle the California portion (will reply to comments as soon as they respond!).

* I packed yesterday :D I've never finished packing so early. I've never started packing so early, either! Trying to figure out whether my suitcase is too large, and whether I'll need some warmer clothes. It's most definitely not too small, hah.

* I have also discovered that you can (most likely) bring bamboo circulars on the plane. Will confirm at the checkin counter, and of course, will bring books. These bamboo circulars are cheap though, and the knitting it's on is uncomplicated, so worst case I can just take the needles out of the work and throw them away.

(It would make me sad and my hands itch, but well)

* will withdraw money from the bank on Monday! Have asked for smaller bills so um. Hopefully I don't get stuck with all hundreds.

* I still can't place how much a dollar is worth. Or five dollars. Or twenty. Or a hundred. Absolute converted value is easy, but how much would you need for, say, lunch or dinner?

Value of money

Thinking about money a bit more. You can't just do a simple currency conversion of how prices would be back home and expect the amount to make sense in the other currency.

For example: back during my first job, when I was eating out regularly, I'd spend about 150 to 250 pesos per meal (~3.25 USD to 5.5 USD). That range is about correct for a decent sit-down restaurant meal -- any more than that was probably something fancy like sushi or salmon or really really cheap steak. At that, I was probably spending a lot more than some of my officemates, because you can get still yummy and way cheaper food for as little as a third of the price.

And the thing is, I have no idea how much the same would cost in a big city in the US, but my assumption is: more in absolute cash value, than it would back home. If I wanted to eat at the same price as I do back home, I think I'd have to stick to just fast food (I'm not going to try to eat for the same price as back home though!)

Which is to say that absolute prices mean nothing; it's the relative value of money (relative to the expected salary, relative to the cost of goods in the area, etc) that is important to figuring out how much to budget for a trip, and on that I'm completely lost *G*

I used to try to gauge the relative value of money by trying to compare the prices of necessary items to luxury items. Like, the cost of a decent cheap dinner to a mid-range expensive dinner. Or the price of a sandwich to the price of a shirt, or a book.

That worked for me in Thailand, which was on balance a lot like the Philippines, but was not so useful in Japan, where the food seemed unnaturally expensive no matter where I looked especially in comparison to electronics. (This may have been because I was in Tokyo). So I've been trying by other means to figure out how much a sum of money is actually worth in practical terms when travelling to other places. In Hong Kong, as in Japan, food was expensive, but electronics were (relatively) cheap. In both cases, when looking at a menu, I wouldn't be able to tell whether the food was cheap or expensive.

Money is hard :)


Thought experiment:
( money in a puddle )

( menu prices )

I shall be with other people so at least I don't need to worry about figuring out tipping conventions. (Whether to tip, how much, etc)

Dinner on the 15th

We're doing dinner on the 15th; feel free to join us. Please comment so we can keep a head count *G*

Details:
* July 15, Thursday, 7:30
* Cafe Zitouna, at 1201 Sutter
* The neighborhood is Tendernob; the 19 Polk bus stops in front of it, which connects to Civic Center Bart. The 2 Clement and 3 Jackson also run by it, and those stop at (maybe) Montgomery Bart.