SUICA card & buying yen
 

My friend is flying into Osaka, his first trip although he will be with a friend who has been there before. I saw an earlier post that the Suica is sold to tourists at Narita. Is it also available at Shin Osaka? Where do they sell them, and is there an expiration date?

Also, how convenient is it to obtain yen at ATMs at the post offices in Kyoto?

You are getting confused on multiple levels.

Suica is a fare card that is sold at all subway & train stations in the Tokyo area. At Narita Airport only, however, you can buy a special Suica card that also includea a 1-way trip on the Narita Express train to Tokyo, Shinagawa, Shinjuku, Yokohama, etc. The only advantage to this deal is that you save some money on the NEx fare.

Shin Osaka is a train station primarily serving Shinkansen lines.

Also, the easiest place to get money from an ATM is at the Osaka airport (KIX, presumably).

SUICA is only sold in Tokyo area. Equivalent for Kansai is called ICOCA. Both are preloaded travel pass that give you the convenience of not having to buy individual ticket for local (commuter) services (not valid for Shinkansen) and there is no fare advantage (discount). It's similar to London's Oyster card or Hong Kong's Octopus card. There is a point in buying SUICA + Narita Express combo ticket in Narita, as it gives discounted travel to Tokyo plus SUICA card. No such deal is available at KIX. If you are travelling extensivly over long distances, JR Pass is worth thinking about.

One correction = Shin-Osaka doesn't "primarily" serve Shinkansen lines, it is the Osaka station FOR Shinkansen lines. There are tons of non-Shinkansen lines that roll through there. It is "Shin-Osaka" to differentiate from "Osaka station," which is centrally located (Shin-Osaka is a bit outside the business center of the city) and does not contain the dedicated Shinkansen tracks.

Tell your friend to check out ICOCA cards generally. The Japanese companies that issue the SUICA and ICOCA cards were working to unify the systems so that ICOCA cards would work in Tokyo area and vice versa. In any event, they'll be useful in the Kobe-Osaka-Kyoto corridor.

Great advise given above....here is a more comprehensive explanation of the above IC smart cards

http://www.japanrail.com/JR_icsmartcards.html

Aloha!

It's easy to get yen from ATMs at both post offices and 7/11 stores in Japan. The 7/11 ATMs are actually a little more user-friendly than the post office ATMs, but neither is a burden. With either machine, you press the "English" option first.

The only thing with the post office ATMs is that you have to finalize your exchange by pushing a button that is not in English--the machine screen has (in English) something like "Push the button that looks like this" then has a picture of the button. It's the button on the far right of the 3 buttons available.