or How Much Is Too Much For a Cup of Pre-Breakfast Coffee?

One of the things I tend to not pay too much attention to is the exchange rate for the place I’m living relative to anywhere else in the world. The only times I think about it is when whatever company I’m working for has their head office elsewhere and we budget in that currency.

The other time I think about it is when I pay more than what I expect to pay for something.

This weekend, it was coffee.

To be fair, it is the largest cup of coffee I think I’ve ever had. It could be the largest cup in the history of the world. Or at least in the history of Japan. It wasn’t bottomless but it felt that way. It came in a fancy cup and even had little biscuits with it. It didn’t seem to matter that this was a cup I was having while I was waiting for the breakfast restaurant to open.

It was in a very pleasant setting in a nearby hotel. In itself, this does add a premium though not like what I expected. Including taxes.

On top of this, I was entertained by watching four different wedding parties have their photographs taken throughout the lobby area with not one instance of brides being in the same place. It was quite a logistical feat and I was suitably impressed.

Music softly played, there was laughter among some wedding guests, who having arrived early, were sitting in their finest kimonos in the lounge area too. They looked immaculate.

I’m not sure if the Japanese culture has a similar belief to the Chinese where brides change outfits to outwit the devil / kidnappers from taking her. Apparently this is also one of the purposes of bridesmaids, to act as a diversion. For the Japanese wedding parties I saw though, there were no bridesmaids and they were all in western style dresses. I was somewhat disappointed especially after seeing some of the guests.

Back to the coffee. As coffees go, it did the job and kept me conscious until breakfast. It wasn’t full of flavour and nor did it taste like what I imagine dirty dishwater would taste (I try not to imagine that too often). In short, it was a huge cup of ok coffee.

For the price of JPY1,600, USD15, AUD20, HKD120 – I guess I was paying for the show.

* Thanks to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers for the title to this post.