here is what the ever so important gaijin card looks like (its kind of blurry, because of the lamination) notice how mad i look in the picture, i kept smiling and then they eventually told me that i had to look straight faced...
getting my card means that i can start sorting out all of the exciting things in my life: phone bill, internet bill, water, gas, electricity...not looking forward to having to pay the first lot of those. which by the way are paid in cash! everything in this country is paid in cash, which i find so suprising since they are so much more technologically advanced. i will pay all of these bills, which come seperatly obviously, by walking down to my nearest 'conbini' convenience store mine happens to be 7-11. handing the teller the reciept i recieved in the mail that has a bar code on it. they scan the bar code then i pay, in cash, only choice. always having cash on hand is something that is going to take some getting used to.
but finally the most exciting news i finally got my keitai (cell phone)! and let me just say that was once interesting experience. left with quite a headache. if i ever thought that i knew anything about the japanese language, my confidence was crushed in this experience. i honestly thought we could have been from different planets, as i was talking to the sales lady.
first i had to choose a phone carrier, easiest part. i decided to just use the one that most of the other jets in this area, becasue they haven't had any problems with reception, which is the most important thing. next it was time to choose an actual phone. which was overwhelming as there were rows upon rows of phones, in every color, and they did lots of crazy things...watch tv, satelite capability, i don't even know what else. to narrow this down i had them show me which ones were billingual, i would like to understand my phone as much as possible. then i had them tell me which ones would be free with a 1 year contract. stil had quite a few left to choose from. ended up with a bright blue phone by sony, that plays music and
takes pictures that are comparable to my digital camera. hopefully i made the right choice, haha.
anyway, that was the easy part. next i had to try and negotiate my contract with the sales lady, this probably took about an hour. i understood most everything, including that i should choose the 2 year agreement, because the price is so much cheaper, that even if you pay a cancellation fee in the end it is less then paying the full price for only a year (it actually cut monthly costs in half). but there was one aspect that wasn't making much sense to me. it had to do with the internet capability of the phone, which is a feature i dont really use back home, but is neccissary here because that is how people send text messages. and evidently they text much more then calling. to explain how this part worked the sales lady eventually called the companies english translation help line and we got everything worked out (i think!).
in the end i got my phone, and it seems to be working. i ended up walking out and only paying about $8 for my charger and a bag full of thank you gifts, including a pillow, tissues, a fan, and a tote bag (you are always getting thank you gifts here). for some strange reason chargers are never included with your phone here. but thats all you have to pay for. with that being said though, i'm not exactly sure what my monthly payments are going to look like. but i'll see soon enough when i have to walk down to 711 and pay the bill, haha.
wow thats a lot of writing just about a cell phone, but it is just an examle of how long it takes to get some thing done...
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