This is just a little tidbit and not even really a useful tip in the grand scale of things, but as it stands right now, the cheapest place to fill up your car anywhere in Japan is at a highway gasoline stand. Due to the sharp price rise of gasoline earlier this week, prices are now generally over 140 yen per liter (that’s $4.60 a gallon for regular gasoline! FUCK!). However, due to some provision, the gasoline stations you see at the highway rest stops all over Japan have a cap on the price per liter at 137 yen.
They (read: The MAN) are looking to close this loophole sometime within the next month, so if you happen to pass a gas station on the highway soon, it might make you happy to stop and fill up your tank (It will make me happy, at least. I love sticking it to The Man.)
BONUS TRIVIA
The price of gasoline in Japan can be broken down by the following formula:
- 30% of the money that you pay for gasoline is the actual cost of the refined dead dino juice
- 50% goes to taxes
- 20% is what’s left for the retailer to try and squeeze a profit from (and it’s suspected that at least half goes towards paying for the Minister of Transportation’s fleet of sleek black limousines. It pays to be top dog, baby.)
In addition, that sound you hear at the pump is:
- Money literally being sucked from your credit card (after all, who carries around that much cash?) at insane speeds, especially if you’re a dumbshit like me and insist on ????? (high octane gasoline)
- The Man and his band of wild Arab oil magnates sticking a fist right up your ass! That’s why the gas station attendants bow to you when you drive off – you just got FUCKED, kid!
This is one of the reasons why I wouldn’t buy a car in Japan unless absolutely forced to. The other two reasons are the cost of care taxes (shakken), and–as I live in Tokyo–the pure misery of being caught in Tokyo traffic in a four-wheeled vehicle, or other problems in a country where two lanes is considered a broad thoroughfare. Ergo, I drive a scooter, which gets 36 kilometers per liter, or about 85 mpg, only costs 1600 yen per year in taxes, and can dodge traffic jams by driving around them. Insurance is cheap, too.
Oh, I almost forgot reason #4: parking, which a scooter can do for free almost anywhere.
Sure, I can’t cruise for girls or take the family out for a jaunt on a scooter, but then again, I have no need for car-related uses like those. Meanwhile, I pay a lot less for my traveling without the headaches that car owners suffer in Japan.