Tim’s Ramblings

Long day today. It went by in a flash though. I mean….it’s hard to believe that they day is done. Crazy…

Anyway, it was a very early start as I headed over to my parent’s new apartment in Katsutadai in Chiba. I was at the station by 8am. From there I took 1 train to Shinagawa (10 minutes), then waited a bit over there to take another train to Funabashi (35 minutes). From there I had to take the Keikyu line, a local line, to Katsutadai (20 minutes because we caught the rapid). Then from there we hopped on a local bus for about 10 minutes. In all, it took from door to door a good 2 hours. Fun…

But I got there. The apartment is nice though small. It actually reminds me of my old apartment. The very very first one I ever had in Cleveland. That was pretty small too. But it’s nice. Mom has been fighting with bugs and dust and such for a while now but I’ve been told it’s gotten considerably better.

It’s a typical apartment complex. Lots of buildings and lots of people with a nice little shopping center literally around the corner which is nice. Oddly, there are ALOT of South Americans, mostly from Peru and some from Brazil there. Now, typically that won’t be bad. But apparently, because the shopping center around the corner has a beer vending machine, they will gather there to get drunk and then pass out on the ground outside the apartment and such. Not a good environment for families…..

Ah well. This is just temporary for the time being ayway. Maybe a year or two. We’ll see.

Anyway, after checking out the apartment and getting some of my laundry done there, we headed out to lunch and then to get a cel phone for dad and get one for me too under his name under a family plan. Getting these rental phones are a pain and pricey anyway. Of course we knew NOTHING of how cel phone contracts work here and it was a learning experience. Dad was being a bit difficult with the poor sales girl….not that she could do anything about it. Though, just like in the US, there’s a handling charge, and you have to pay extra for voice mail, and an extra for this and that and this and that… Yeah…as they say, “that’s how they get ya…”

But it’s ok. It’s just the way it is.

I’m still learning how to use the phone but I managed to change the OS into English so I can actually attempt to use it for real. Ha.

The phone was cheap. Dirt cheap. With the charger (which is separate…cute eh?) it came out to be 2700yen which is just about $23.50US. But this thing has god ring tones, can connect to the internet through NTT DoCoMo’s i-Mode. Has a very nice camera that can take pictures and movies. It’s a really nice phone under any circumstances. Granted there are phones costing $250+ too that can do even more. Buuuut I don’t need it THAT much…only when I’m here in Japan, so it’s no biggie.

Look, I have pictures too! Oh, and I have already put on a little charm just to personalize it a bit. I like that cat. :)

Pretty nice for a cheap ass phone eh?

Afterwards, we went back and had a nice dinner, then checked out a little summer festival for the apartment complex that was going on in the shopping center. Dancing and games and food and such. Lots of kids there too. Many girls around middle school age all wearing colorful yukata (thin kimono like dress for summer) too. Of course there were the midway games but there was one thing that caught my eye…. There were these kids playing that ring toss thing. And the sticks they were tossing to had various stuff on it like “toy” or “model air gun”(!) or “video game” and such. There was also a thing for videos. Of course, the prizes were on display too. This is literally like a setup out of the side of a van…was it legit? Sure. But not sure just how legit…. Case in point, I glance through the prizes and I saw VHS and DVD videos on display next to like a video game controler and such…but among closer inspection, they were all porn. Not like Emmanuel soft core porn…I’m talking hardcore porn. You could’t see anything but the spine of the DVD’s…but the title was pretty clear what it was.

Nice eh?

Ah well.

Anyway I will post pics of the festival later.

Tired though. Going to bed soon.

Tomorrow is K and my shopping extravaganza.

Woooooooooooooooooooo.

‘night!