Kadena AB Commissary Guest Pass

Always wondered how to get those fabled Commissary Guest Passes for your visiting friends and family members? Well look no further! I have the instructions on how to do it right here. It is pretty straight forward and it is just a matter of creating a memorandum in the format and with the information they want. See Questions 3 & 4 for that information. If your sponsor is a military member, they shouldn't have any problem putting it all together. You will also need to submit a copy of the passport of the person(s) you are trying to get access for, specifically just the page with their photo/name. After you collect that, you can drop it off at Bldg. 99 or submit it via email. I always have submitted them via the email option, and I have got them back signed super fast. In fact my last one was back to me in 4 hours flat! Your guests don't have to be American or anything either, basically if the Base will give them a visitor pass, you should be able to get them a commissary pass as well. However, I believe the pass is only good for the Commissary on Kadena, so for the other military base's commissaries, you will have to find out those relevant processes out as well. Oh yea, I would also call the DSN number listed below to get the most update info on who actually signs the letter, so you don't have to worry about it getting kicked back because it have the wrong Commander/Director name on it. Enjoy!

Kadena AB Commissary Guest Pass Page 1

Kadena AB Commissary Guest Pass Page 2

Kadena AB Commissary Guest Pass Page 3

Community Bank ATM Withdraw Limits

I wanted to share this information with you all, since it just popped into my mind for some reason, and I think it is good to know information for new people coming to the island. The Community Bank’s ATM cash withdraw limit for a single transaction is $800. I know this because I ran into this issue when I was buying my cars and it sucked having to go to the ATM for a week just to get all the cash out I needed. I have USAA and I had a $600 daily ATM cash withdraw limit for like, ever. It has been a non-issue for years, but when we got to Okinawa, it became pretty lame to make that daily stop to the ATM to get a lot of cash out. I can only imagine if you moved off-base too, and having to get all that cash out you will need to cover all the expenses, it would take weeks! Well, I called USAA about this and they happily move my ATM cash limit up to $2000 per-day! I have been with them for years, but I am not really sure what they factored in when they did that limit increase, so hopefully other USAA members can do the same just as easily. Oh, why $2000? They asked me what limit I wanted, and I just blurted out an amount that seemed “reasonable” to me, and well I guess it was to them too.

So that is how I came to find out what the true hard cash limit at the Community Bank's ATM was $800, but no biggie, I just started a new transaction and keep taking cash out. Bingo!

2014 Road Tax Collection Schedule

***2016 UPDATE HERE***

It is that time of the year I guess to pay your road tax! This is an annual requirement and the payment timeframe is April 1^st through May 31^st. You can pay at your car insurance providers’ offices or at the local Japanese offices that handle such things. Or you can wait for all the relevant officials to come to the military base close to you and get everything done in one shot. However, I heard Kadena’s Road tax days are complete chaos and the lines are long, so I am going to do everything on my own. From what I found out, I will just go to my car insurance provider’s office at the USO on Kadena, pay the tax, then take everything to Foster to get the sticker. I heard there will be a wait for the sticker at Foster, but you will be waiting in your car, not standing around for hours like you would be during Kadena’s Road tax days. I will post an update to this process once I do it next week.

Also, I wanted to point out something about the road tax you have to pay, that I think most island newbie’s won’t know about when they buy their cars. You can tell about how much your annual road tax will be by seeing what plate is on the car. Reference the road tax hand-out below to find how much tax is due, by plate number. For example, I have a 500 and a 300 (under 4500cc) plated cars, so my total cost will be ¥26500 or about $265! If you have two 300 plated cars, you can see it is now starting to get expensive. So I put this information out for those families that are on a limited income, and didn’t know about the road tax fee structures when they first bought their cars. This can be quite financial shock to some and they may be wishing they knew this before. Combine the annual road taxes, your annual car insurance cost, the bi-annual JCI cost, and it is readily apparent that it is really expensive to drive here in Japan. Heaven forbid you took the 18 month financing option for your car on top of all that too! I suspect the lemon lot gets a little fuller after the road tax season, especially when families consider the costs involved, and find it isn’t worth it driving the bigger and/or the “fast and furious” type cars they may have.

2014 Road Tax Collection Schedule