Brian's Japan Adventure

December 29th, 2007

The Phone Is Off The Hook STILL

I slept in till around 9:30. My ankles are better, but my back still feels pretty messed up. Fortunately, I don’t think there are many places that are even open, much less worth visiting today. So today seems like a good day to get some things done around the house.

The first thing I did was re-read my cellphone manual.  Marc was complaining the other day about how he had used up most of his airtime minutes calling the USA. I told him my phone didn’t allow international calls, and he looked at me like I was crazy.   If his phone can do it, so should mine. So I re-read the instructions, typed in the Parents’ phone number and as always, it said “no connection.”  I am sure I have been doing it right, the instructions in the book are quite clear. Just on a hunch, I dial my brother’s house and it rang just fine. No one was home, but it worked. There is no restriction on my phone after all; it means that every time I have tried to call my parents, their phone has been off the hook. EVERY SINGLE TIME I TRIED IT WITH THAT PHONE. I actually believed that my phone couldn’t call the USA. For four months.

So here’s the plan. If you know my parents, or talk to them regularly in real life (you sure aren’t talking to them on the phone!) tell them to put the damn phone on the hook once in a while!!!   The thing is, I KNOW they aren’t trying to avoid MY calls. I, along with 99% of the rest of the world, am an innocent bystander.

Anyway, I played Civilization for a while, and it killed me pretty quickly this time. My neighbor, Tokugawa, decided he wanted my cities more than my technology and overran me with chariots. Scum!

Finishing my game, ah…prematurely, I decided maybe I should go to Happy Town and start buying groceries for the holiday.  I have found overall that I actually like riding the bicycle as long as it’s not raining, but one disadvantage that nobody can argue is the lack of cargo space. I can carry about two days’ worth of food in my basket on one trip to Happy Town.  A more-or-less four-day holiday means I have to go back for more tomorrow. Happy Town has signs today that say 1/1 – 1/3 on them, but other than that, I don’t know what they say. I’m playing it safe and assuming they say “will be closed.”  If I’m wrong, I’ll still end up eating all that food eventually.

Follow That Signal!

But I don’t go to Happy Town immediately.  For some reason, I slipped my Palm Pilot into my pocket as I left the house. I parked the bike at Happy Town and rode the bus to the big train station. I decided I would search for stray wireless signals. It’s easy with a Palm, you just walk around and look at the signal strength bar graph. Sure enough, I found a weak signal. I followed the signal walking in one direction or another until the signal grew in strength. Yes, I probably looked just a like a spy tracking a homing device in some old movie.

The signal led me to Seattle’s Best Coffee, a coffee shop in the west side of the station that I hadn’t even known existed in Japan until today.  I went in, bought a “Grande Cappuccino” for 390Y, and checked my email and a few news sites just to make sure it all worked. It did. I wouldn’t want to spend a great amount of time there, but it’s yet another backup Internet source if I even need one. And the coffee was pretty good too.

Looks Like Plastic Puke

Since I had pretty good luck with that, I decided to wander around downtown for a little while, since I was there anyway. I walked through Sky Mall 21, for the second time since I came to Japan. There are lots of little plastic food places in here, so I thought I’d check them out now that I am not afraid of plastic food anymore.  It all looked pretty gross, even set in plastic. I walked past the movie theater, although I was half way tempted to see either “I Am Legend” or “Alien Vs. Predator X” I didn’t catch the number on the AVP movie, although I am going to guess it’s still only at number two. 1000Y for a movie isn’t much worse than $8.50 in the States. I may still see one of them this week. It’ll be something different to do.

Not too far fro the end of Sky Mall 21 is Maruzen, the big bookstore. I still have that gift card I received at the Rotary Club meeting, so I went there and used it to buy two more books. There’s no way I can get all these books home, but what else can I do with a book club card other than buy books? I got Essays In Buddhism and A Haiku Life. They both look interesting. Then I hopped on the bus back to Happy Town, where I finally bought the groceries that were the original reason for leaving the house. Mostly I got a variety of noodle bowls. At least they come in umpteen types, and they are cheap enough that if I hate something I don’t mind dumping it.

Getting back to the apartment, it’s 4:30 right now. It’ll be dark soon, and I am done for the day. I think I need to take my revenge on Tokugawa tonight. Forget this “peaceful coexistence” crap. Tonight I am building tanks!

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This entry was posted on Saturday, December 29th, 2007 at 10:53 pm and is filed under Japan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.