Karaoke and keitai

I'll get to the title of the post later -- work before play.

Yesterday the girls and I took a trip to the ward office to do alien registration. Any foreigner in Japan who wishes to open a bank account or get a cell phone must have two forms of government identification, the easiest being a passport and alien registration certificate. The form wasn't hard and the staff spoke English, so things went smoothly. Our wait for the certificate is about four weeks, but other wards are faster and some of the gaijin boys are getting theirs in about two weeks. In the meantime, we're all given temporary certificates in order to start working on getting bank accounts and keitai (cell phones).

So we all went to a bank close to the dorm thinking we could finally put all our cash away, and have money wired in from the U.S. without too much hassle.

I'm breaking some copyright by using this.

For whatever reason that was not explained to us (in English), all bank patrons must have a hanko stamp with a person's name in characters in order to sign forms. I had an easy time with my three katakana and two kanji, but some of the other Americans had a harder time figuring out what to put. I'm excited to be getting one! It's just a cheap rubber stamp but I guess since it has my name on it that makes it cool.

But the day ended with some much needed super happy fun time!© We tried to meet up with some of the boys, but we couldn't find them at Shinjuku station, so we went karaoke on our own!

I realize in America karaoke is something you do in front of an audience at a bar, and most people can't fathom why the Japanese would ever want to do such a thing. In Japan (and Hawaii), groups are given private rooms in which to sing badly and drink. Karaoke establishments that I've seen so far are in tall buildings (the one in the photos was nine stories) and can host many parties at once. Ours also had a drink menu -- we could message the bar over the computer and get drinks sent up to us. But the girls didn't want to get smashed at the equivalent of $12/hour/room, and I'm still on cold medicine.

Today we managed to buy our keitai. Japanese cell phones are far more awesome and made of much more win than American cell phones, in case you didn't know. Flip phones, twisty screens, free television, standard internet/email, and more styles and colors than you really need. Tama, my wonderful airport guide, came with us to translate. I cannot even imagine what I'd have ended up with (or how much more money I might have spent) if she wasn't there to help. Natasha, Saniya, and I will be paying about $300 each for the entire four months we're here -- kind of steep, but the cancellation fee makes up more than half of that figure. No one wanted an ugly pre-paid phone ;)

I got a pretty little slider phone in "Elegant Pink." Could have had white or black, but PINK is the only way to go. It was one of only four models that has English, so if a lot of people get AU they'll probably have my phone. It's so cute!!! I have no idea how I'll go back to my American LG Fusic after this phone.

We lost half the group around lunchtime before cell phones were purchased. Apparently, the half of the group that didn't get phones lost someone at a train station and she hasn't come home yet. Something to look forward to for the next blog, I suppose.