While border control in the United States has become stricter year by year under the Trump Administration’s policies, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, or DHS, is implementing Trusted Traveler Programs, or TTP, to alleviate long waiting lines at U.S. airport security checkpoints by granting eligibility for fast lanes to relatively low-risk travelers. Since most of these programs, such as TSA PreCheck, are open only to U.S. citizens, non-U.S. citizens like me receive no benefits from them. The Global Entry Program, however, allows even non-U.S. citizens to qualify for expedited processing equivalent to TSA PreCheck, provided they are nationals of DHS-approved countries. Earlier this year, I saw a post on Facebook announcing that Japan had been added to the list of eligible countries. That prompted me to apply for the program. Being approved for Global Entry not only makes my travel within the United States more convenient; it also means receiving an official endorsement from the U.S. government that I am a trustworthy individual.
(more…)Category: American Lifestyle
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The Words of the Year 2023
It’s time to wrap up the words of this year. As I do every year at the end of the year, I’m looking back at what has happened to me and what I have encountered over the past year, and I’m listing them up in a few short words.
The words of 2023 are flight simulation, fitness, TOEIC, and voice recognition.
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Central Pacific Bank’s Aggravation
In the mailbox beneath my apartment, I found a letter from Central Pacific Bank, a Hawaiian bank I’ve had my account with for almost 15 years, stating that it had changed its policy for customers with Non-Resident Alien (NRA) status. According to the new policy, effective April 1 this year, the bank will deduct $20 from the monthly service charge on NRA customers’ accounts if they don’t keep at least $10,000 in total in their accounts.
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The Words of the Year 2020
It is time for me to look back at what I experienced this year and summarize it in some words, as I do it every year-end. This year, COVID-19 has affected a great deal to the lifestyle of people all over the world, including myself. I have been forced to stay home and work from home for most days of this year.
Despite such restricted situations, I encountered some new things. The words of this year are Synapusyu, the handgun, and computer programming.
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Revolution With Revolut
I live in Japan. I have bank accounts in Japan to get a monthly income and make regular payments. Besides, I have bank accounts in the United States and Hong Kong, keeping some of my money in different banks and currencies to minimize risk. I manage my assets in these countries because there are more investment options than in Japan.
A consideration is how to transfer the money you get in Japan to a foreign bank account. Wire transfers at a bank in Japan are expensive. I tried some online international money transfer services. All of these services require at least 2,000 JPY per transaction, so sending tens of thousands of JPY with them is costly.
Having two PayPal accounts can resolve this problem. I got two PayPal accounts with my different email addresses and linked one of the PayPal accounts to a debit card of the bank account in Japan, and the other to the bank account in the US. When money was credited to the Japan bank account, I logged in to the PayPal account linked to the debit card and sent money with the debit card to the PayPal account linked to the US bank account. Then I logged out and logged in to the other PayPal account, and I withdrew money credited to the account to the US bank account linked to the PayPal account. The fee is cheaper as long as you send a small amount of money. Unfortunately, you cannot send money from Japan to Hong Kong because if you live in Japan, your PayPal account doesn’t allow you to link bank accounts in Hong Kong.
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Prelude to WWIII
The second year of the Reiwa period began with a nightmare. More precisely, at the beginning of the year, nobody could predict what would be going on just two months later. I am talking about what the entire world is fighting against—COVID-19.
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