The Truth – Cellphones

As an foreigner, I was very surprised by a lot of things when I came to Japan. Additionally, I think there are a lot of misconceptions about Japan, and for whatever it’s worth, I’m going to throw my two cents in.

While you may seen or heard about the sexy Japanese cell phones from sites like Gizmodo, this is what you can actually expect when you buy a cell phone here. There are several companies to go with, two of the major ones being Docomo and AU. With Docomo you have to actually pay for the phone itself which can cost upwards of $500 for an average looking phone you could get for free in the US. With AU, as far as I know, most phones come free with the plan which is why I went with them.

With almost every cell phone plan you only get about 20 minutes every month of talking time, with additional fees if you go over your limit. Furthermore, there are no nights and weekends plans with any of the carriers. As such, most people end up only using their phone for text messaging. In America, I was devoutly against sending text messages, but without the liberty of 450 minutes a month, one gets used to texting pretty fast.

My phone has a micro SD slot and a headphone piece so I can listen to music…but it won’t play MP3s. I have no idea why and it’s incredibly frustrating. It came with an installation CD for a program called Lismo, which is a proprietary music player. So, in order to listen to music on your phone you have to reconvert all of your MP3s into the Lismo file extension. However, the software will not install on any foreign computers. Pretty frustrating.

The phone I have is one of only a few bilingual capable phones, but there is still a great deal of Japanese on the phone as you get deeper into the menus.

On the pro side, it has a built in English-Japanese and Japanese-English translator which is extremely helpful for writing and deciphering emails. With the notepad function, I can also save new words that I want to remember. It will however only translate one word at a time so you need some basic knowledge of Japanese sentence structure in order to make sense of long emails.

One of the coolest features is the television and it’s completely free. On the downside however, it only gets about three channels and weird menus in Japanese pop up as you’re watching TV. Also, I’m not fluent so I don’t quite understand what’s happening on TV anyway.

Despite some pretty cool features, I’d probably jump at the chance to lose them in favor of my old 450 minute Verizon plan that I had in America.

The Truth – Karaoke

As an foreigner, I was very surprised by a lot of things when I came to Japan. Additionally, I think there are a lot of misconceptions about Japan, and for whatever it’s worth, I’m going to throw my two cents in.

Next to anime and sushi, karaoke is probably one of the first things that pop into your head when you think about Japan. I however was pleasantly surprised to find out how different it is from karaoke in America. Here, they don’t do it bars surrounded by a bunch of strangers, but rather in the more intimate setting of private rooms with your close friends.

Prices vary by how long and when you choose to go. Sometimes it’s $5 an hour on a weekday and other times it’s $30 from 12am to 5am with all you can drink. The rooms are usually cool looking and well decorated, but other times it looks like a musty grandma’s closet with a TV. It’s pretty much just the luck of the draw.

Aside from the normal price, you can also add “nomihodai” which means all you can drink. Of course the most obvious choice is with alcohol, but you can also get all-you-can-drink non-alcoholic beverages as well which consists of soda, tea, and slurpees. One note about the all-you-can-drink special is that if one person in the room gets it, everyone has to. During the few times that I went over summer break, we snuck in alcohol in backpacks which I highly recommend. The one time we got caught, they took the beer we were drinking but kept it ice cold for us at the front desk until we were done. Without hesitation we just opened up the rest we brought with no problems.

If you’re visiting here you have to experience karaoke at least once. Most of the signs you’ll see for it will be in katakana as opposed to English and will look like this: カラオケ. One of the major karaoke companies that can be found in major cities is called Big Echo. You may pay more there than anywhere else, but if you can’t read Japanese just look for that name. Also, don’t worry about the song selection. There are plenty of English songs. You can either ask the receptionist how to use the remote or just do some trial and error with the Japanese kanji.

The Truth – Robots

As an foreigner, I was very surprised by a lot of things when I came to Japan. Additionally, I think there are a lot of misconceptions about Japan, and for whatever it’s worth, I’m going to throw my two cents in.

I’ve been here for 6 months and counting and I still haven’t seen a damn robot.

Music: Myspace.com/TheNationalPool
Email: thenationalpool@gmail.com
Pictures: Flicker/TheNationalPool

Saturday Nights

One thing that really surprised me about Japan is that most people only go out on Saturday nights. There was one instance I remember that perfectly exemplifies this. In late Spring I was out on a beautiful Friday night with some ladies walking around the Sakuragichou area. It’s a great place to spend an evening with plenty of Izakaiyas, coffee shops, a nicely lit harbor area, and even a ferris wheel. Despite all of this, there was hardly anyone in sight.

When I asked why no one was out enjoying their weekend after a boring week of work, they didn’t really have a good answer other than that’s just the way it is. I suppose if you’re going to be spending an extended period of time in Japan and want to meet people it’s something to take into consideration.

Music: Myspace.com/TheNationalPool
Email: thenationalpool@gmail.com
Pictures: Flicker/TheNationalPool

The Truth – Deodorant In Japan

As an foreigner, I was very surprised by a lot of things when I came to Japan. Additionally, I think there are a lot of misconceptions about Japan, and for whatever it’s worth, I’m going to throw my two cents in.

With that said, lets talk about deodorant. Like most people, it’s not something that I ever took into consideration before. You just buy it, put it on, whatever. It’s deodorant. Who cares. But, from everything I’ve seen, they don’t really have any deodorant in Japan.

After scrounging through two grocery stores and asking every employee, I was able to find one weird ass roll-on thing for about 650 yen…that’s almost $7! Furthermore, even when doing the “Hey look! I’m putting deodorant on!” motion to show what I wanted since I didn’t know how to say it in Japanese, they had no idea what I wanted.

For the time being, I’m doing okay since my Dad sent a care package to me loaded with the Old Spice red deodorants that I’d gotten so used to. Pure Sport…Aqua Reef…you know what I’m talkin’ about. Also, I think I’ve got a good line on deodorant with someone who lives on the American base in Yokosuka so all should be well.

What tripped me out even more than the fact that deodorant is rare in Japan, is that I actually have an old roommate in America and after telling him this story I learned that he has never used deodorant and never stinks. After all my research before coming here, I had no idea. Comments…?

Music: Myspace.com/TheNationalPool
Email: thenationalpool@gmail.com
Pictures: Flicker/TheNationalPool

Trash

So it seems I have some free time today so I’m going make as many posts as I can stand. There are a few things that I’ve been meaning to write about but haven’t found the time yet. Surprisingly, trash is a very big deal in Japan so here’s the run down.

The above picture is the end result when you take out the trash from your house. It makes zero sense to me. Every day, the biggest black crowes I’ve ever seen in my life tear through the covering without fail and have a smogesborg. The crowes here have enormous beaks and I can only assume that they evolved that way from having to get into the trash over the years. Sometimes the bottom of the covering will be lined with chain links but it never really seems to do any good. I would’ve thought that perhaps somebody had seen a trash can at some point in their life but that’s just how they do it here.

There are also different days that each different kind of trash gets picked up. The categories are pretty difficult considering that plastics are lumped into the “Combustible” category, while plastic bottles are not. As a result, the hallway in my apartment was lined with trash for the first month I was in Japan.

Another issue is the trash cans in the street. Often they are nowhere to be found, or you can only find the trash can for aluminum cans or plastic bottles when you all you need is a regular trash can to throw something away. It’s pretty frustrating.

One thing that is actually kinda cool once you get used to it is that nobody throws their cigarette butts in the streets like in America. Although it was pretty difficult to get used to at first, it’s pretty nice to not see a bunch of cigs on the street everywhere you go. For 100yen you can buy pocket sized plastic pouches lined with aluminum to put your butts into. Some people take it another step further and buy a separate device where you actually ash into as you smoke which seems pretty pointless to me since it just blows away instantly anyway.

As far as trash goes, I think I covered just about everything. Word.

Music: Myspace.com/TheNationalPool
Email: thenationalpool@gmail.com
Pictures: Flicker/TheNationalPool