Its all down hill from here.... .
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Hello you lot, Yes it's that time again. The weeks are just flying by not long to go now until I need to think about returning to the UK. So what happened this week? On Monday I felt quite bad. I think that I was suffering from a touch of sunstroke from Sundays bid ride and not sleeping on Sunday night. Must remember to ware a hat next time I go out.
The crappy Neon light in the main room of my flat stopped working, well it just kept on trying to start and flashed all the time without ever coming on. Without that light my place is like a dark cave even in the middle of the day. And the idea that I should find another place came to mind. Tuesday morning as soon as I got in Toshiko-san ask if my light had been changed and it told her, "No!" Now in Japan you can't really say No, it's a bit like saying "F Off" in English. If you ask some if they have something and they don't they don't say, "No" Oh, No. They say, "Yes, we have some not" and even people like Reza who can speak Japanese adequately, finds it hard to figure out if they said yes or no. Toshiko-san phoned the agent herself and said that it would definitely be fixed sometime today. I thanked her. "Ari-gato" said I. At least one of my many problems was solved about work that day. But I don't care what people say about Linux, it is a crap OS for desk top PCs it might be great for website hosting. Just don't try and use it as an everyday PC where you want to do something like copy a TXT file from one PC to you're A drive. And never with a Japanese Keyboard, the whole thing is just a nightmare. When I got home the light had been fixed, yippy! Yet again I didn't sleep well; things kept going through my mind. How can I best help my customer when the company I works for doesn't seem to understand the problem. How do I get two opposed sided to communicate fluently?
The Shinjuku line was packed and you could see that tempers were starting to fray. I didn't enjoy that trip one bit, and decided that I must do something about the commute into work. Simon my brother sent me an email asking if he could come over to Japan and stay on my floor for a week or so. I told him yes but my place in Ichinoe is not very suitable to have guests. At work we had to go to NHK design studios to discuses another problem with some of our equipment. Again, I don't think it had anything to do with us but we had promised something and that didn't work. We didn't get out until gone 17:30 and must admit that I fell asleep in the car on the way back. I had to write another email trying to make the UK understand what the Japanese want, but I think I failed yet again to square the circle. Went home and slept like a log. Even forgot to set the alarm and woke up 30 mins late. Still got to work on time though, just had not to dordel. Saw the response about my email and Still see that the UK don't even beguine to understand anything about what the problem is. To cheer my self up I wrote to Kevin saying would it be possible to move out of my flat and find a place much closer and better. He said "Yes" and me and Reza looked on the web to see what was about. I should have got paid today but couldn't log on to my banks website to check. Bugger! Hope it is working tomorrow. It's getting to the end of the month and I need to pay some bills. Reza found a good website that had a maisonette that was about 30mins from the office so I phoned up about its availability and arranged to see the place on Friday morning. I went to walk around the area to see what it was like and liked what I saw. I didn't find the place though. When I got back to the office I tried phoning the UK office so that I could explain in person. Still don't think I made them understand the situation. That night I didn't sleep very well. I was starting to become a pattern.
I walked to the office to see how far it was and discovered that is was about the same distance as if I walked to Funabori Station instead of Ichinoe in the morning, about 25mins. If I took Bikey-san I bet I could do the journey in about 10 mins. Reza and I tried to find out why I cant access any of my Bank Websites and decided after looking on the web that it is a Bug with Windows XP and IE6! Only thing you can do to fix it is Reformat the HD and start again. Emailed my banks help address to see if there is anything less drastic to fix it but I doubt it. Glad I`m not running XP at home! Microsoft probably don't know about it because you cant access their secure site to report it! Classic Catch 22! First Linux and now Windows ... One day we might have an OS that actually work and is easy to use... but I don't think it wont be for a while yet.
That night I went into Roppongi again, partly because I wanted to drop off one of my cases at the office but also because I wanted to see some more of what Roppongi had to offer. I ended up going into Gas Panic, its always being advertised in all the English papers and its only 400Y a drink! To say that it wasn't my scene would be an understatement. I got care much for Rap at the best of times but they were playing the most Violent Cack you could imagine. It was actually making me sick just listening to it, some people there were enjoying it and even one couple were doing Salsa to the God Awful Cacophony. I drank my drink and left. I have been there for less then 20 mins and already had a headache! I thought about going home but decided just to go into the Hub Pub for a quick one, before heading back. Once I was back in more familiar surrounding and was listening to nice Non-Murder-Inducing stuff, I felt better. Watched an English couple have a snack there. It looked like that they were not enjoying them selves very much and couldn't quite get on with how different every thing was here. She seem to have her nose turned up at everything, and they were eating Cooked Fish! Hope I`m not like that too much. Got talking to a couple of Californians because one was drinking Newcastle Brown Ale and I asked what an American was doing drinking a bottle of Dog. He said it was because it was better then the crap you got in the US or Japan! No kidding! It wasn't too bad a night after that. Sunday morning I went to do my final shop at Heart Attack, boo hoo. I still cant find a direct way there. I ended up cycling along the cannel bank back to the Blue bridge and going the way I always do from there. Bought as many of their Pot Noodles as I though I could carry, well they are so cheep there. And a litre of what I thought was Orange Juice that turned out to be Orange Drink! It was only 98Y (49p) though!
Was back in Ichinoe before 6:00, this will be my last night here probably, ever! For tomorrow I will be in my new big light place in Takanwadai.
Cheers me dears. Paul Fincher. [Week 1] [Week 2] [Week 3] [Week 4] [Week 5] [Week 6] [Week 7] [Week 8] [Week 9] [Week10] [Afterwards] |
I asked at work if Hoshino-san (the accountant) could phone my agent and get the light fixed. I had to ask Toshiko-san to translate for me as Hoshino-san doesn't speak much English. I was promised that when I got home that night it would be fixed. It wasn't and I was very pissed. I didn't sleep very well either, what with everything at work and that light. But on Tuesday I didn't feel tired just a bit more pissed at some issues at work that I won't bother you with but I doubt that there is any hope over some things every being solved and it is getting me down. Had some success though, Paul B phoned me to say thanks for helping him out with an AUDIO.GPI file. He always calls me when I an eating lunch!
Was wide awake at around 4:30 and by five it was light enough for me to think about going for a cycle. It was a lovely morning and I cycled all the way down to Disney-land Tokyo crossing the Edogawa and cycling back on the other back. I did over 12 miles before I went to work. 
Friday morning I got up a bit earlier and went on the subway exactly like I was going to work but at Diamon I got off and took the Asakusa line down to Sengakuji, Exit 2A and only 1 minute late the lady from the letting agency turned up. We walked past the Sengakuji Temple and the flat was just a 2 min walk further down the road. It was 3 if not 4 times the size of my old place with two cooking rings and proper fridge with freezer, a balcony, Cable TV and Free internet service, and all for 137, 000 a month. I said yes, and gave the lady the deposit money almost straight away. Why didn't I do this a long time ago? I asked myself.
Saturday morning it was very clear and I cycled down to the Diamonds and Flowers
Ferris Wheel. 
In the afternoon I went for a cycle to drop Bikey-san off at the office and get the Subway back. I cycled through the Emperors Front garden and got stopped by a Koban (Policeman) who looked like a Bulldog. And Boy did he ever tell me off! So remember kids, don't cycle near the Emperors Front Garden!