Monday, August 30, 2010

Busy Monday

We met our landlady for the first time, and after meeting her sister who speaks French and drives a BWM station wagon, we expected our landlady to be one of the swanky and fashionable Japanese ladies that crowd the street. Well, she turns out to be quite different.

She showed up at our door on foot, in khaki colored trousers with cut-out at the hem, a matching color blouse, long black gloves that goes almost to her armpits (Asian women, in general, are deathly afraid of tanning in the sun), black sneakers, a wide brim straw hat, and a brown backpack. In fact, she reminds me so much of a Japanese teacher with whom I used to teach during my JET days, very friendly and personable, outgoing, speaks quickly, and prone to outbursts of laughter. She says she was born right on the site where the apartment complex is standing as it used to be her parents' home. She grew up here in Yokohama and recently moved to Hokkaido because she likes the slow and relaxing life in the country side much better (and the weather is much cooler there). For a hobby, she does organic farming, canoe-making (yes, from scratch via carpentry - she's got pictures to prove it!!!), and climbs the tree house that she built, all of which are in Hokkaido. Add in a real estate business in Yokohama and traveling frequently between the 2 locations, she sounds nothing short of a superwoman, doesn't she?

After presenting our omiyage to our landlady (in Japan, it is customary to present a gift to put yourself in good grace of the people you meet, especially in the case of an ongoing and reciprocal professional relationship), she took us to the city ward to apply for our alien registration. The city ward gave us a temporary issue so that we can go on to get a bank account and other necessities that require alien registration info. Then our wonderfully helpful landlady took us to the bank to open a bank account, whereupon we learned we couldn't open a bank account without a phone number. We promptly returned to Yodobashi Camera to buy a phone.

This generic little phone looks innocent enough, but it set me back a humble 9,980yen (~ 120usd). Being one of the cheaper if not cheapest models (generic, like I said!), I was shocked to learn it actually retails for 23,515yen (~ 280usd)! The only reason why I got it for so cheap is that I had signed a 2 years contract with a "deluxe" plan with all the extra toppings possible (all of which I can cancel later by logging into my account online - phew!).

When I was in Japan last they still had those nifty promotions where you sign a 2 years contract and get a free phone like in the states, and upon inquiring what had changed I was told cellular network providers did away with the free phone promotions 2 years ago. Nowadays, a phone in Japan can cost upwards of 70,000yen (~850usd with the current rates) and I'm not even talking about an iPhone or Blackberry! Instead, to make up for the huge upfront phone cost, the monthly plans are much cheaper and basic plan with no extra options can cost as little as 980yen (~11usd) a month. This basic plan includes free texting within network, family plan subscribers talk for free 24/7, and same network talk for free between certain hours. So if you do the math, comparing getting a free phone and paying $60-70/month for 2 years with paying $280 for a phone and then $11/month for 2 years, you will actually end up saving a whole lot of money with the latter! I guess that was a good change after all.

At this point our landlady had to run to attend to her other matters so we saw her off with a deep bow expressing our gratefulness to her help. No really, we were very fortunate she was so willing to go out of her way to help us as most other landlords are more "hands-off." We returned by ourselves to the bank to set up a bank account. Hooray!!!

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