Sanxiu Yang comments

@mrjack "Oh and BTW 590,000 yen over 19 months .......must of traveled just about every day and no one noticed?"

I've been living in Japan for a total of 4 years, going on 5, and let me tell you that even public transportation such as trains, subways and buses are expensive here. In Japan, you pay by the distance you travel by train/subway/bus. Many people here don't own a car (like myself) and have to travel by train every day to work. I work at different schools. One way (~30 min.) for one was about 500 yen, so 1,000 yen per day. I know other people and some of my co-workers who transit for 1-2 hours every morning and every evening (and work 5-6 days/week).

590,000 yen over 19 months is 31,053 yen/month, 7,763 yen/week, or 1,294 yen/day (if they took the train 6 days/week, or 1,109 yen/day for 7 days/week)... So it isn't impossible at all here in Japan to spend this much over 19 months.

Sme people mentioned boycotting whale meat... The problem is, that if they're doing what they're doing with dolphins, there's no way to know what we're (and Japanese) are eating.

For dolphin meat, they sell it as other fish or exotic fish. People think they buy something safe when they actually buy the toxic dolphin meat and get poisoned unknowingly (even if environmentally biased, "The Cove" shows what happens when dolphin meat is consumed for an extended period of time).

I wonder if they are doing the same with whales... (I work and live in Japan.)