ダニエルの冒険

I went to the au shop again today and started going through all the forms to get a phone sorted out, but in the end they wouldn’t give me one as my alien registration has “short term” on it. This means I’ll be leaving some time within the next 90 days, and au won’t issue a contract to anyone who is here for less than 90 days. I left the shop a little deflated and decided to head right, instead of left towards home to burn some time. I knew the cinema was more or less that direction too so I wanted to find that, so I used the time for a walk in that general direction. I passed an enormous bookshop and headed in and walked around a bit. They had games, stationery, books, and books and more books. I exited through another door and entered into the open area of a very spacious mall. I walked past an au/DoCoMo/Softbank stand and decided to try my luck with the young girl there. (That sounds dodgy. I mean try my luck getting a phone). She had her hair dyed out and relatively heavy makeup. Kanbe-san was her name. Didn’t look lie she knew as much as the previous au employee and right I was! She was very helpful and trying her best, but this was the first time she’d done an application and didn’t understand how to fill in most of the fields. I had to correct her with some of her kanji and explain how credit card expiry dates word (first two digits are the month, love). We spent 2 hours talking about it, picking my plan and picking my phone, and finally started the registration process. I was constantly praying she wouldn’t find the little 90-day notice anywhere… and she didn’t! She asked that I come back in 30 minutes to see if it’s done, so I wandered next door.

I didn’t get much further than next door. It’s a small figure/model shop called “Treasure Hobby” and the owner was a serious Otaku. We spoke about all the figures for ages, comparing our favourite characters in Ikki Tousen, our favourite outfits for Asahina Mikuru and the origins of Fate/Stay Night. He gave me a small Mikuru figure (worth 315 yen) as a present after I spoke to him for about 20 minutes and I bought a 1000 yen 10cm pura-model (plastic model you assemble yourself) when leaving and said I’d direct any otaku friends I meet to his shop. Really nice guy — I’ll definitely go back to say hi again some time.

I went back to au after 35 minutes and the girl told me that it still wasn’t done so I went to “Cats Cafe” nextdoor and ate a beef burger with chips and some orange juice. I. LOVE. Japanese beef. Their steak is amazing in this country. They must give shiatsu massages to their cattle before bludgeoning them to death with negi. It was less than 1000 yen for the burger and chips and this is the type of restaurant where you wait at the door to be seated and have a buzzer button on your table for when you want a refill.

Anyway, after my meal I went back to au. This was over 3 hours from when I first spoke to the girl about wanting a phone. It was just about ready and I signed some more forms, though what they actually did I don’t know. I possibly just gave away my firstborn son to au by KDDI but I wasn’t going to spend an extra hour translating the paperwork. I got the phone anyway and it’s working great now! It’s a “simple” phone… maybe for older people, but that’s great for me seeing as I’m just a stupid foreigner anyway. よかったねー! (isn’t that nice!, in the most patronising voice you can imagine).

Getting home was a bit tricky. It was pitch black on some street with no lights (literally) and I dragged my feet a bit to make my presence a little bit better known to the cyclists. I headed in the general direction of the main road (248) and took a fairly random turn, praying I’d end up somewhere familiar and it actually led right to my door. It’s incredible how hard it is to see buildings here. This huge complex has always been behind my apartment but I can’t see it at all until I’m right beside it. It’s like Japan’s graphics card has very little memory so someone’s cut back the far clip plane back a lot. I wonder if anyone will get that metaphor at all, even with my helpful link.

I got back to the apartment anyway, gave home a call, then called some Japanese friends and ended up spending 20 minutes on the phone. Eek! I’m going to try to keep to mail (SMS equivalent) in future. I got a plan where I pay 1050 yen per month for 10,000 packets of data, which is my mail and internet sorted. Calls might be quite expensive though, as I’m paying the least per-month rate as I could get. I believe it works out at about €20 per month with free “texts”… same as at home. The only thing to be concerned about is the 120€ buy out for the contract. That being said, I paid a whopping 12€ for the phone itself so I’m not worried.

It’s interesting to notice my level of Japanese right now. I’m at the absolute minimum functionally. That sounds bad, but I mean I can function fine in normal society, just about. Sometimes things have to be explained, but just translated from “instruction manual Japanese” to “normal conversational Japanese” is enough for me to get it. The most important words being said to me, I’ve just learnt recently from various sources. Kaiyaku (解約) is cancelling a contract. Kishu (機種) is a model. They also use 本体 (hontai, “main part”) for this, but it’s a much more common word; Kanbe-san used Hontai to elaborate on Kishu.

Anyway, I’m pretty tired today, but it was the best day I’ve had yet, just because I got to speak to so many people in Japanese!