Cell Phone
Mood:  not sure
Now Playing: Welcome to the Japanese 21st Century
Sunday afternoon my friends, Didik and Troy, accompanied me to the Vodaphone store and helped walk me through the steps of getting my first cell phone. What an experience.
My first sky mail message is totally in hiragana so of course I can't read it. hah.
No transaction in Japan is ever simple. I have learned to eat first and allot at least 2 hours when trying to complete any transaction in Japan. If it takes less than 2 hours, count yourself lucky. Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit but this seems to hold true a lot of times. It's made it much easier on my nerves to just expect a 2-hour time frame. The cell phone experience is no exception. There are papers to fill out and, of course, Didik and i can't read the hiragana and kanji so luckily our friend and diligent Japanese student, Troy, helps us read the forms. All the phone options are a bit overwhelming and Didik and Troy are giggling every time i say an emphatic "no" to anything that will bump up my monthly charges. Thank goodness Troy is here to help because the clerk knows very, very little English. We finally get all the paperwork filled out and the clerk is checking everything over and discovers that I have written my first name first. Good grief, that isn't allowed. He tears up the form and we start all over again and i carefully write out my name with LAST NAME FIRST. Why can't i remember that? Then i'm warned that even though i've filled out all the forms for automatic withdrawal from my bank that the bank probably won't accept them. Well that turns out to be true. All the forms are sent back to me weeks later and i have to take them down to the bank and go through another discussion with the bank manager. He explains all the "mistakes" that i made in filling out the form and insists that I go back to Vodaphone and fill out their forms again! Grrrrr. Realize, please, that i am riding my bike across town for each of these transactions and that I have to do this after school. Ah, well, that's just a small challenge of this wonderful opportunity of living in Japan. My cell phone has really come in handy when trying to find friends at a train station when we are all at different exits! hah. So it's been worth it.