The second day has come and gone. I sit here in my room tonight, unpacking my things (finally) and getting ready to sleep, in preparation for the Japanese Language Placement Test tomorrow. Due to the incredibly long length of my last post and the need for me to get to bed on time, this will be a much more abbreviated entry.
It all started this morning, with a somewhat restless sleep. The room was freezing cold and that made it difficult to rest. There is a space heater in the corner, but I feared it was broken, because every time I went to activate the device, it would kick on for a few moments and then turn off again. Anyway, I ended up waking about an hour before I wanted to, at about 6 A.M.. I spent the morning taking in the sights and sounds of early morning Japan outside on my balcony. It was incredibly peaceful. I headed back inside and took a shower. However, the room did not come equipped with a shower curtain, so the entire bathroom got wet. After getting out of the shower, I started a shopping list of things that I realized I would soon need, among them a shower curtain.
I spent most of the morning writing the last blog post you saw, until 10:00, which is when I was due to meet with Nahoko out in the common area just down the hall. I put on my winter coat, too, because by this time it was still cold and was in fact beginning to rain. Down the hall I went, where a couple of students were already congregating.
“Ohayo gozaimasu.” The morning greeting was heard for the second day. I returned it in kind.
I was standing around for a bit when one of the students approached me. He was of asian descent, but I couldn’t put my finger on where he might be from.
“Ah, hello! You are a student here too? I got in last night, how about you?”
It turned out that he was Dae Ki Lim, a Korean student studying the Japanese language and literature. His English was very good. He gave me a name card (kind of like a business card) with all his contact information, including a Skype name. In addition, he offered to come along with me if I ever decided to go out drinking. I think I may take him up on that some time. He asked me if I smoked, to which I replied no. We said our goodbyes and he went out the back door and lit a butt.
Nahoko came through the front door not five minutes later, a bit distressed for being a couple minutes late. I assured her it was OK. At this point, it was raining pretty hard, but that would not deter us. But before we were to go, I asked Nahoko if she could look at my heater, to see if I might have been doing it wrong. We made our way back to my room and she went over to the corner and took a look. Turns out, the gas valve was turned off the whole time, so no fuel was getting through. She turned the knob, turned the heater on, and this time it stayed on. I thanked her profusely. At least tonight I know that I will not freeze.
We went out the door to our jitensha parked behind the building. The first order of business was to buy a keitai denwa, which would most assuredly make communicating with people much easier. We pedaled a down the one way street away from the International House, down around a corner, and soon enough we came to a store that was a joint car mechanic/cell phone shop/bookstore. It was not like anything I had ever seen. Inside, Nahoko asked the clerk in the keitai section about buying a mobile phone. What we discovered was that this was an honest clerk. She told us that the prepaid phones there (i.e. requires no contract) didn’t have email support and could only text message other people on the same service. Since email on phones is incredibly important in Japan, the clerk suggested that we check out Soft Bank in the downtown section of Hirosaki. So off we pedaled until we reached the Soft Bank.
The shop here was dedicated completely to keitai. We took a seat at a desk with a sales representative, who brought out three prepaid phones they had available. One was a bit thicker than the others and colored white, while the other two were as thin as a Motorola Razr, but with a rotatable camera and a large, high resolution screen, perfect for reading lots of text (i.e. email). I decided that the black thin one would be good and we set about finalizing the transaction. Here comes the anti-climatic part. It turns out that I needed my honest-to-goodness gaijin card, not just the temporary one I had been issued yesterday. She apologized and suggested that I come back next week when I had the card. Nahoko looked a bit distraught, but I reassured her with a “daijyoubu desu,” it’s OK.
We decided the next best thing to moping around would be to hit up our next destination, opening up an account at the yuubinkoku, or post office. Now, post offices in Japan are not anything like the post offices in America. Japanese post offices are a combination parcel service and bank. They seem to be the preferred banking method, since they are government run (I think) and therefore can be used all over the entirety of Japan. The post office was just down the road from the Soft Bank, so we pedaled down to a large intersection and then made our way across. Inside the post office was a long counter which ran the length of the floor, with everyone working there wearing starched grey and orange uniforms. Nahoko and I spent the next hour or so (perhaps even more) setting up an account for me, which included an ATM card and nifty balance book I’ll explain a bit later. In addition, we got it set up so that my utilities for my room would be paid automatically with the funds in my account. The initial balance was zero, because I still had yet to convert my travelers checks over to yen. I learned that post offices did not change currency - for that we would need to head to a ginko, or bank. Yes, it seems confusing doesn’t it. Why do post offices have banks in them if there are stand-alone banks as well? There are differences between them but they seem to be beyond my comprehension at the moment. All I know is having a post office account makes my life easier than a bank would.
We pedaled back the direction we came from and it didn’t take long to reach the bank. A sign proudly proclaimed “MONEY CHANGER” underneath its Japanese equivalent. Inside we went. The place was a bit bigger than the post office, with a desk for currency exchange right there in front of the door. An extremely helpful bank teller helped me to fill out the form needed for exchange, after which I proceeded to sign all my travelers checks, which I will admit were somewhat numerous. The exchange rate at the bank was much better than anything I would have been able to get at home. At the bank, the exchange rate was 101円 to $1, whereas at home it was a bout 91円 to $1. I happily accepted the terms. After a short wait on seats, my money was given to me. The teller told me to be careful with that much money, to which I replied I was going back to the post office to deposit it.
Nahoko and I returned to the post office for the final time that day. But instead of going up to one of the tellers, we headed over to some ATM machines on the other side of the floor. Now, Japanese ATMs are really cool. Nahoko instructed me on how to deposit money into my account using my paper balance book. Apparently, there is a bar code on each page that allows one to directly insert the whole book with it open to the latest page being used. The ATM sucked up my balance book, after which Nahoko instructed me on which buttons to press. After a couple presses, we came to the depositing part. I took my money out of the envelope I received and placed the entire stack into a crevice in the machine. After I removed my hand, a small door shut over my cash and began counting it automatically. After a moment, my new balance was displayed and my balance book spat back out to me.
With that all done and taken care of, Nahoko and I found ourselves very hungry. She decided to take me to a place that sold gyudon, or beef bowl with rice. It is a type of fast food in Japan, but once we got there it didn’t seem very fast food like to me, not by the American definition anyway. We were led over to a table by a waitress/cashier, where we found menus and a pot of green tea awaiting us. I ordered a large bowl and Nahoko order a slightly smaller one. I was met a scant minute later with a bowl of thinly sliced beef on top of rice. A garnish of ginger and and soy sauce finished it off, and all of it was had for less than 500円. My first experience with eating out at a Japanese restaurant was a pleasant one.
After this, we decided to make the final arraignments at NTT for me to get Internet in my room. Off we pedaled for a while, down the streets and up a hill. We stopped at one intersection where the walking light was red, in the “do not walk” position, but there were no cars to be seen coming either way. However, Nahoko came to a complete stop and waited, along with some other people. This intrigued me, because in America we would have just crossed the street. Turns out, it is considered bad manners to cross a street if the light is not green and you are a pedestrian or on a bike. I told her that Americans would have just crossed anyway, which amazed her.
We arrived at NTT and went inside. Nahoko was in charge for most of this, explaining the difference between two plans. I went with one that cost 3,900円 a month, but the first two months were free, meaning I’d only be paying for three months before having to get the heck out of dodge. Turns out, when the bill is mailed to you, you can take it down to any convenience store and pay it as if you were buying a bag of chips. Very cool.
We decided to make one last trip for the day, to buy some of the items on the list that I had made earlier that morning. We stopped in at a place called “Joppal,” which in certain dialect of Japanese (I forget now) means “stubborn.” How’s that for a shop name? Turns out, this place was a small depaato, or department store. The best was I could describe this would be as a multi-level Wal-Mart, or perhaps even a mall, where all the items are arraigned by category but without walls between everything. Shoes flowed into a 100円 shop which flowed into an arcade and escalators tied everything together. We went to the 100円 shop and purchased all the goods I needed on the cheap. We wrapped up our day together with a picture outside the store. Nahoko revealed!
I pedaled home alone and decided to stop in at a konbini, or convenience store, called “sunKus.” I got myself some Coke, cold green tea and some pizza-flavored potato chips and biked back to the room in the damp evening air.
Next time I will be seeing Nahoko will be on Monday at 5:00 P.M., after an orientation session for campus life. I look forward to my next adventure through Hirosaki with her. But in the meantime that means that I will be on my own for the next few days. I hope I can find my way, but at the same time look forward to getting lost exploring the streets of Hirosaki. I hope you all enjoyed the post and I will be seeing you next time!
Jenkyoto Says:
