Shopping Spree

I finally got my bank book. Which meant, I was finally ready to get a keitai. And also, I thought, I would take a stroll through Akihabara. It was interesting, all around. I went out in the morning, and came back in the evening, and I had no idea where all the time has gone, except for about an hour and a half at SoftBank, and why my feet hurt so much. But I've took a nice photo, bought the first part of Death Note (which I'll probably be reading the next month or so), got a rice cooker in Don Quijote (now if only someone would tell me how it works!), collected a thousand flyers and promotional handkerchiefs (or whatever they are, I still haven't opened any), managed to do what I set out to do (buy a keitai, remember?), eat an oyakodon, forget about matcha cream mochi till home, down a can of pulpy apple juice from the vending machine (yummy!), look at maids, procure a bedsheet and a mug (tired of drinking water from a used PET bottle), and probably also something I managed to forget in the meantime.

Those who don't know about Akihabara should now really read the Wikipedia article. Really. Because explaining what I do takes quite a lot of time, even without explaining about all the rest of the world. It's explained already, more clearly and concisely than I could ever manage to do. Also, Google Images, there's loads on Akiba (and if someone now asks me what's Akiba, I'll smack them in VR) on the 'Net already. And it's a fun read, and funner look.

On my way back, I guess I thought five bags of Stuff wasn't enough, so I stopped by in Shibuya to pop into BicCamera and finally buy a computer. This blog post is a direct consequence - I'm writing on my own hardware! Yay!

As I said, the best laid plans and all that, so I couldn't get a huge iMac, and I didn't want to get the expensive MacBook Pro (oh, maybe I haven't said - macrumours talked about a defect in the nVidia chip, and also, it would leave me begging for rice in the foreseeable future). Thus I settled for the medium MacBook - I would have taken the best MacBook, were it not for the superficial observation that they didn't make the 250 Gb MacBooks in white - after I already color-coordinated all my other electronics! Rude.

So now I'm connected in our dorm's common room. My room's connection shouldn't be expected till about Thursday. It's a funny story, really: We got this magnetic card that goes into this machine where you have to swipe it, then feed the machine ¥1000 notes, and the internet connection costs ¥2750 per month, and the machine does not give change, but the remainder apparently carries over to the next month, and when you first do so, they ("They") will connect you in 3 work days, and last two days when I came back to my dorm I never had three ¥1000 notes, so despite my desire to pay in advance and have my connection ready when I finally get a computer, it backfired and now I have to wait.

This kind of leads me into another funny story: the one about how to get a mobile phone in Japan. Now, everyone I heard from says I should sign up for SoftBank, and not one of the two other major operators, or one of the apparent million of minor ones. Why that should be so, I have no idea, but simply by the logic everyone else was on SoftBank and my fees would be less if I followed suit, I followed suit. I was already twice checking out the mobile phones: once with my tutor on the first day in BicCamera (when I was all indecisive and stuff etc), once by myself when I thought I had finally decided (in a proper SoftBank place, but this time they refused me on the grounds I did not have my bank book yet), so third time's the charm, as they say. Besides a bank book (or a credit card - debit card is apparently no good), you also need your Alien Registration Card (or a certificate of the said Alien Card being In Procedure, since it takes about 3 weeks to make), and of course your passport. Also, I learned in the meantime that to take advantage of a monthly repayment plan for the mobile phone over 2 years, I'd need a 27 month visa. So I had to buy a mobile phone and actually pay for it. Which would be okay, but for the fact that the mobile phones are insanely expensive here. I bought my MacBook here because it's cheaper; I bought my keitai here because the ones used everywhere else won't work. The cheapest phone I could find costs about ¥17000; however, they informed me I better buy a charger as well, otherwise the phone is not usable (another ¥2000). I thought about iPhone, but whereas I remember Apple announcing its new price ($200, or $300 for more memory), the Japanese had other ideas, and it costs over ¥800000. Wow. So, the cheapest one for me.

So this time I picked, as I later thought, the worst place to finally Do It: I thought it was a SoftBank shop in Akiba, but it turned out to be a Yodobashi Camera pretending to be a SoftBank shop. Which is bad because I already have a bonus point card (with some bonus points!) in BicCamera; now I have a Yodobashi point card as well. (You get points on the point card by - what else - purchasing things, and then you can spend them on your next purchases as discounts). However, it seems I got off lightly - some people I talked to later said they took over 3 hours on a SoftBank chair. However, it seems they managed to find some weird discount that I missed (which apparently involves signing up for a more expensive plan, then canceling it by receiving a call in Japanese).

So that's it for today. I still have some bread left over from yesterday (bought 6 rather delicious slices for ¥350 or so, quite a bargain), one pack of natto to go with it, and there's still a bit of Pocari Sweat. I should be fine for today. And tomorrow... I don't know. See Shinjuku and Harajuku, maybe. Get a metro day pass, maybe. Maybe even go see some temples or sights or something. Dunno. If my feet stop hurting that much. If not, I guess I can space out in the common room watching cooking shows (which is what is almost always on telly).

Oh, one more thing: Mac rocks. A guy with another Mac came to the common room (the 3-hour-keitai one), and all the cables were taken (one of which by yours truly). It took about one minute to enable internet sharing on my machine and for him to connect to it, neither of us having done it before. Take that, Bill Gates!

Skype is installed, but I won't be using it till I'm in my own room. I did not buy a headset (Moniq should note here it's a perfect place to use the explicative construction). Also, by virtue of having a keitai, I can now be reached by email wherever I am (in theory at least, I haven't tested it yet, and there's also some setting up to do to make it even easier - for me, at least). The interested ones may ask me in a private email, please - I'm not naming any names here.

Except for Bill Gates, obviously.

See you soon, dear readers.

Welcome to the Office!

I managed to get to the konbini in time. Got a toothbrush that looks like it was designed for a tooth fairy, a tube of toothpaste that looks like it's made for her kid, a bottle of body shampoo and hair shampoo, both of which designed for stinky giants (well, they got some products right, at least), and a nikuman, which was designed just right for me. Yummy.

Went back home, grabbed a used blanket from the "I don't need it any more" pile, and crashed again. Some time in the middle of the night, my jetlag decided it was a good time for me to try out my shiny new dijikame. It's cute, but some options will have to wait till I can get a nice English manual. Then i fidgeted some more, slept some more, fidgeted again, and decided it's gotta be late already on the account of birds singing and sun shining, so I threw on some clothes and went to pick up my suitcase which had arrived while I was having fun spending money in Shibuya last night. In the end, I was grateful noone went katana-tonic on my ass for showering at 6 in the morning.

So, I wasted some more time lounging about, I ate some cold frankfurter soba, and went out. Frankfurter soba was not as bad as it seemed it might be, but nothing to write home about. And yet I did. How funny is that? Oh, and I drank a can of Calpis Soda. I decided I liked Calpis Soda quite a bit.

I was supposed to make an appearance in both my intended faculty, and in my research lab. So I thought going in the morning would prove advantageous. However, enter Shibuya, yet again. I wasted some three hours grabbing lunch (350-yen mountain veggie udon), chatting with the two udonya obaasans, changing my mind a lot, getting a map of Tokyo from a bookstore (damn the books in English are expensive! Algoritam, I take it back...), crossing the intersection about 6 times, trying and failing to buy a keitai, and finally getting repeatedly lost in Shibuya station. Once I managed to find the bloody Ginza line, it went quite smoothly, and I made my belated appearance at my faculty-to-be (FTB, for short). It was not really belated, because I could have come any time I wanted to (it's still the arrival week, noone expects anything serious, and even if, jetlag is a great excuse). Then the lab, where I met lots of people not wearing shoes. The lab fellows are a truly international bunch, we got Swedes, Koreans, Chinese, a Croatian, a Finn, apparently, and half a dozen (or a full one?) of other nationalities I can't remember just now. I'm pretty sure Ruben is not Chinese.

A researcher brought cookies which had nothing to do with her having had her birthday on Tuesday. They were... yummy as well. Like princess donuts. How do you even say that in English? "Princess donuts" somehow does not sound quite right.

I'm going home now. But I fear Shibuya will again stand in my way. The things girls jailbait wears in Shibuya...

AT (for "afterthought", "post scriptum" just does not work here): What's up with those oversized boots?

AT2: My wallet is scared. I spent so much just in 2 days...

Japan: the Beginning

I stink.

This little fact comes first just because it's been on my mind all day.

Let me rewind for just a bit, and make a proper intro. This is my travel blog, where I blog about different places I travel to. And I meant different - if I wanted to say "various", I would have done so. The first episode was Syria, some years ago. Nothing interesting happened in the meantime. This time, I'm in Japan. I got a scholarship to come here and stay for a spell, and I accepted. Today is still the same day that I landed on Narita Airport, one of two airports that service Tokyo. But don't be misled into thinking that it's a Tokyo airport - it takes about an hour with a fast train to get to the city. And you pass a lot of cities on the way.

The flight, including the transfer time, took from 9 am to 8 am, which comes down to about 16 hours. Then there's an hour of monkeying about the airport, waiting for your luggage (actually, waiting for a friend's luggage - I spotted mine the moment I walked up to the baggage snail, err, train), waiting in lines, doing paperwork...

Doing paperwork is extremely important in Japan, as I will discover... Make that "As I have discovered, and you are about to.". (I'm a programmer, I'm allowed to have two periods. (Don't quote this out of context.)) But the highlight of the airport experience was a guy whose job was, when a lot of people came to the immigration queue at the same time, to hold up a paper saying "The End of the Line" at the end of the line.

Having reached Tokyo, I followed instructions, and got a cab to my school. There I met my tutor, who took care of me for the better part of the day (which was mostly spent doing district office paperwork, post office paperwork, dormitory paperwork, insurance paperwork, and probably couple of other paperworks I forgot about). He was great and I'd never have managed without him. He speaks English.

In the process, we passed Shibuya couple of times. The intersection is really as amazing in real life as people tell you it is. And the Tokyo transport system is even more confusing than I imagined. I think I will have to take courses.

Speaking of which, I will have orientation courses. And I was told last year there was actually a course in how to get to the campus. Held on the campus. One month after the classes have started. My guide said that kind of thing is rather normal.

We also went to BicCamera, but I was too indecisive about my keitai. Their mobile phones are bloody huge, the smallest among them would be about the size of the biggest brick back home. I kid you not. You know, back where I used to live, people put their earpiece to their ears, and stretched their mouthpiece toward their mouths, and there would still be another unspannable two inches? Well, there's a two-inch gap here as well - but in the other direction. Anyway, I didn't yet get it, but I think I'll get a cheap one, that kind of reminds me of the Apple design. And it doesn't flip, pop, snap, or make any other hip-hoppy action. It's huge. But at least it's slender.

Unlike me. If you know me, you know I have a couple of grams extra (with "couple" being a metasyntactic variable, here meaning "four thousands or so). I'm a giant here :) But not as big I thought I would be. Not all Japanese are tiny, contrary to what you might have heard.

Anyway. In the afternoon, I crashed in my room. My room is some 13 spartan square meters large, and I guess I'm not getting an iMac as I thought, simply because it will not fit. I will elaborate graphically, once my camera is up and running.

It was a real dilemma: crash or shower. In the end, crashing won, by virtue of there being no soap or shampoo or towel to be found. (My luggage is still in transit, I hope it will arrive by the time I'm back from Manga Kissa...) But not by a large margin, as there was no bedding either. So, one short doze on a 2.5-inch mattress, I decided to check a) what time it was (8pm), b) what's up with my suitcase (nothing much), and c) if I can buy some basic toiletries, maybe even breakfast. So I went out, and then decided I want to get a camera ASAP (even while not quite knowing which computer I'm going to get), then I went to find a net cafe. Which is where you find me now, my devoted readers (I know it's only the first installment, but it's gotten a bit large, kind of to the point I recognise true dedication in those who managed not to quit by now).

So, I did buy a camera. In the end, I decided against Sony, but it took multiple arguments to sway me (no Mac support, no English translation, no standards...), and even that with difficulty. So I'm now a proud owner of Olympus 1060. Or I hope I am. I.e. I would love to still be a proud owner once I understand what it is precisely that I have bought. But it looked nice on the shelf.

Anyway, I'm off. I need to catch a konbini in the next 36 minutes, or my shower will wait another smelly day.