Thanks to John for the following hint regarding the process of signing up to Paypal: Paypal was easy once I got it set up in English. The hardest part was finding Paypal's telephone number. As soon as I logged in in English, it switched to Japanese. I telephoned 03-6739-7360. The girl who answered spoke perfect English. She told me my default language was Japanese, which it probably is for everyone with a Japanese address. In less then a minute she set my default language to English and then it was easy.