This is my gaijin car (alien registration card). Any foreigner who is staying in Japan for more than 90 days must get one of these. They used to fingerprint you for this, but have since scrapped that requirement.
You need this little card for just about everything here in Japan. If you want to get a mobile phone, join a gym, sign up for internet or even just get a video rental card, they will ask you for this. It's also really handy when you get stopped by the cops in the middle of the night. Cops regularly stop people who are out late at night, especially if they are on (potentially stolen) bikes, to check to see if they are on the up and up. If you get stopped and do not have your ID with you, you can expect to spend the night in the back of a paddy wagon.
I
just bought this today. It's my train pass, which gives me unlimited travel
between specified stations. Best of all, Nova pays for it!
Does it bother anyone else that there is more information on my train
pass than on my mandatory, government-issued ID card? I got this thing
in about 2 minutes. It took me two weeks to get the gaijin card. My lord,
does it take 14 days to glue my photo on and laminate it?
Seems awfully strange to me that you would be required to provide all this information for a simple train pass. I know the idea is that if it has lots of personal information, then no one else can use your card, but these things go through machines, not people. No one actually looks at your train pass unless you line up to show it to the transit officer. And even then, he just sticks it into a machine to read.
On my way to the Aoba-Ku ward office, I passed by a little park, which isn't all that common in Tokyo. It is a total waste of space, as you could easily fit about 50 people in there. Or if you choose to go by the Japanese way of measuring space, you could easily fit about 200 people in there.
The best way to describe Tokyo is "just crowded enough to get on your nerves." I suppose that is why they need the occasional bit of greenery and unoptimized space.
I thought this statue was kinda cool, but it must be scary as hell at night. You probably can't really tell from these pictures, but there is quite a bit of detail on these statues. If you stare long enough at one of their faces, I'm sure that you'd see it blink back at you...either that or bust out some great Coltrane joint.
Mizinocuchi station, Denen-Toshi line. This is the store where I bought my telephone from. It's a good 15 mintues away by train, but it was worth the trip here. A co-worker of mine recommended the place because the lady there speaks fluent English. What a relief. I normally wouldn't really mind muddling through a sale with my shoddy grasp of the Japanese language, but when it comes to things like signing contracts, I want a proper explanation.
It's weird the way the store works. See, space is really limited, so there is no storage space. All the phones are stored in a central warehouse, which will send a bicycle courier to each store, whenever a phone is sold. It sounds like an incredibly inefficient way to run a business, as customers must give them an hour or so to deliver the phone.
Luckily for me, there was an arcade just across the street from the store and I killed the time easily.
This is at Shibuya station, as I wait on the Yamanote line platform. This ad really caught my attention. It makes no sense...well, actually I think that I might have an idea as to what the ad is for, but it's perverse.
See, on the right hand side there is a picture of a nurse, a surgeon and a prisoner. Ok, fine. But then on the left hand side, you see the nurse and doctor in handcuffs, behind bars. Before you tell me that it's just an ad for a costume party, let me remind you that they do not celebrate Hallowe'en here.
NOW
guess what it is.
(note added later: this is actually an ad for a new restaurant called Alcatraz, where the wait staff dress up like in the photo. It's not some BDSM bawdy house, as I originally thought)
Ok, so here is a shot of my new cell phone. It only came in powder blue, so I didn't have much choice. There were other phones, but I chose this one because it was cheap and it has a little digital camera on the flip side of it.
In the next photo, you will see a little black ring on the bottom right of the phone. That's the camera lens. It's not the greatest camera, and if I really wanted a picture of anything, I would use my real digital camera, but having a digicam on your phone was so impressive that I just had to have it.
The phone has been equipped with some heavy-duty sound effects, mainly for the benefit of unsuspecting young women. You see, our friends the Japanese seem to have a bit of a voyeuristic side, and with technology like this in the hands of dirty old men, well, you can imagine what sort of mischief they could get into.
So, if you ever feel the brush of warm plastic and a loud *chaaak* sound, it probably means that you are going to end up on a website somewhere.
Tokyu Hands is a store that is probably best described as Ikea on steroids, minus the meatballs. They sell positively everything in this store, but it is pricey. You can get away with one of these lovely lamps I have photographed or about 7,000 JPY, which works out to be almost $100. Why would anyone pay $100 for a crappy little lamp that can't even light up a cubbyhole properly?
That's my friend Sam (another Nova prisoner) on the right, looking for a lamp to buy.
Again with the statues. This is in front of the east exit of Ikebukuro station, on the Yamanote line. I suppose that this is the equivalent of the Dog in Shibuya. I can't quite say for certain what these two people are doing, but I know it's not something you want shown on the Disney Channel. Then again, Ikebukuro is home to one of the largest red-light districts in all of Japan, so this shouldn't be too surprising.
If you turn 90 degrees to the left, you will see this. Yet another big video screen. These wonders have ceased to amaze me, since they are absolutely everywhere you look. On the screen right now is the number 1 song in Toyko. I am not sure what it is called, but it's kinda catchy. I came to the horrible realization yesterday that I am becoming familiar with the music here. I was actually humming along unconsciously to this tune while it was playing.
It's impossible to avoid. Everywhere you go, they are playing Top 40. In the supermarket, along the street (they have these weird speakers mounted on poles, along the sides of the streets. Look like air raid sirens), on the radio, just everywhere. I suppose that is how the assimilation begins.
Here's a picture of Sam and I. I have noticed that ever since I started teaching English, I have become incredibly talented in pointing out the obvious. But when you spend 8 hours a day helping people decide whether the man in the drawing is tall or not, it sorta seeps into your personality. Ironically, my actual English-speaking ablility is deteriorating.
Funny story: I actually burned my noodles today while making lunch. How did that happen? Noodles cook in water. And it wasn't like it was stuck to the bottom of the pot or anything, it was just seared black across the middle. At this point in the day, I decided that going out for dinner would be a good idea.
Sam lives around this area, so I made her choose a place to eat. She told me about a nice Italian restaurant near the station. As we approached the place, I was getting excited at the idea of a big bowl of pasta primavera with a huge side of cheesey garlic bread. Mmm.
There was, however, a bit of a setback. The place only had menus in Japanese. Great. Sam and I both whipped out our phrasebooks, but quickly found that there is no section that tells you how to order in an Italian restaurant when you can't read the menus. Crap. We both just ended up ordering spaghetti with tomato sauce.
For the low, low price of 300 JPY, I was able to become a member of an elite group: those who can rent videos. The staff there gave me a bit of a hard time at first about not having a land line, but eventually they let me get a membership with just my mobile phone number.
And if it really came down to it, I would have just made up a phone number to give them. I doubt they check, and even if they do, I can just play dumb...after all, I'm just a gaijin, right? What do you mean that isn't a valid phone number? I don't know where that extra digit came from, I'm new here.
They don't require a credit card to get a membership here, just that 300 JPY start up cost. I wonder if that is supposed to be a deposit or something? Anyway, I am thinking that just before I leave Japan, I might make a few rentals...you gotta love the honour system. =)
I am thinking about buying a DVD drive for my laptop so that I can watch movies in my room and not bother everyone else. They have better releases on DVD anyway.
Back in Canada, I had a choice of buying a laptop with a DVD drive or one without. Guess which one I picked? Oh well, I think that external drives go for under $100 here (so I am told, we shall see). There's no real rush to get it, I'll have to wait until I get paid anyway.
I was just thinking that I will need software to play the DVDs. And the sotware they will provide with the drive will no doubt be in Japanese. I suppose I could always get someone to download it for me off the net. I don't imagine that it will be too large in size.
Oh, in case you are wondering why these last two pictures look funny, it's because I took them with my webcam. Too lazy to get my digital camera out and fuss with all the wires and stuff. Ok, I am going to bed now. Goodnight.