Day 3 - Attempts to Use the Toilet Rinse and to Get a Cell Phone

As pictured in a previous post, the toilet here has several buttons and pictographs. I decided I'd try one of the rinse functions, since well, when else am I going to have a toilet with a rinse button? So I pressed the not-the-bidet option and the little sprinkler in the back extended toward the center of the toilet and proceeded to spray the inside rear of my PJ shirt! Apparently I wasn't sitting back far enough.

I quickly scooted back and got full experience (I think). Conclusion? Rinsing is overrated and uses too much tissue paper to dry off afterward. Oh...now that I think about it, there was an "dry" button too. Either way, I'm not sure this is something I'll be doing again. It's quite messy.


Later on, Koko came back to eat dinner and pick me up to get a cell phone in Roppongi, which is kind of like a cross between Times Square (with all the tourists and foreigners) and the Village (with all the bars and restaurants). Here are some pics:

Cart in the train station selling strawberry milk

(looked like pudding, though)

There are lots of vending machines in

Japan. This one is just for ice cream.

Rubberized grip at edge of platform
(Hello, MTA...I have a suggestion)

Koko on the subway. Most of those handles are
my height (!). Someone at the MTA should really
start reading this blog

We went to SoftBank to try to get iPhones. (Yes, I know...SoftBank...is not a bank, but a cell phone carrier. Don't ask me how they came up with this brilliant idea.) But we had to show one these combinations of documents/items:

with details here as to which additional documents are required. Since Koko's work visa was for only one year and the carrier required a two-year contract, we would have to pay $500 for the phone itself, and the entire bill for one year's usage up front. Then, the cost of the phone would be deducted in increments each month as a "discount."

Koko didn't want to pay up front because it would be impossible to explain this expense to accounting and, without a Japanese credit card, charging it on an American credit card would mean paying higher exchange rates. It looks like we we won't have phones for a little while, or at least, until we figure this out.

I looked into prepaid phones, but they expire after one year (360 days with SoftBank). It would be really annoying to have to get a new phone, with a new number.

I'm not crazy about the phone options at SoftBank, though. They're almost all flip phones, but they're huge. I don't know how this works, since Japanese people are not much bigger than I am (consequently, they have smallish hands too), but the size of the flip phones here makes it very difficult to flip them open with one hand. Besides, I thought cell phones were becoming smaller and more streamlined. Is SoftBank just trying to get rid of old stock?

The infamous SoftBank cell phone carrier

Cell phone charging station (not sure if it's free,
but if you're in a pinch, it could save a lot of stress)

Other thoughts

It took us a surprisingly long time to get from Minato-ku to Roppongi, since it's two stops away on the train (one stop for one train line, transfer, then another stop). We had to go down (or was it up?) 3-4 escalators and walk a bit to get to the train we were transferring to. Then we had to go another 3-4 flights in the other direction to get to street level. And repeat, in reverse, to go home. It reminded me of the walk between the 7 and the 1,2,3 trains at the Times Square station or the 53 St. station of the E train with that ridiculously long escalator--only with an even longer--albeit cleaner--distance.

Just as the Japanese drive on the left here, the subway escalator protocol is stand left, walk right (opposite of NY). I didn't see anyone standing on the wrong side like idiots, blocking the way for everyone (like in NY).  I heard the protocol in Osaka is similar to NY, though. Some subway corridors are marked with lanes and arrows, but some are "walk left" while others are "walk right."

Very organized subway corridors.
Some people breaking the rules here.

Stand left, walk right.

Bright orange hand-rails!

Red hand-rails on this one (so you know which level

of the subways's bowels you're on)

On one side of Roppongi is upscale shopping, companies like Google Japan and Ferrari, and foreign embassies.

Street level at the subway station in Roppongi,
with elevated highway above

I wonder what Roppongi looks like at Christmas.
Not sure what that Eiffel Tower thing is in the back

On the other is the more fun side--lots of little restaurants and bars, some clubs. But there was an element of sketchiness too. It was the first place where I noticed there being garbage on the street (tucked away in corners).

I also noticed was that there were Africans (not African-Americans) on random street corners, some by themselves, some talking with their fellow continent-men. It was kind of interesting, because in NY, if you see Africans hanging out on the sidewalks, they're usually sitting in front of counterfeit Coach bags. But these guys didn't have any merchandise on them, so I wondered why they were there.

They weren't trying to get from one place to another, like some of the Caucasians I saw, carrying groceries on their way home, or like the young Japanese people in front of bars/stores, giving out flyers. They were just there. Maybe they were bouncers? Or, like the counterfeit-bag sellers in Chinatown, carrying homemade catalogues of handbags that they could show you "out back"?




Ok, so based on some blogs I just read, the Africans' "merchandise out back" were women, as the Africans (mostly Nigerians, supposedly) were either owners of strip clubs or of hostess bars (where customers pay for girls to drink with them, with the implication that additional "services" are available). They could be very aggressive in acquiring you as a customer.

I'm glad I wasn't walking down that street by myself, though maybe they wouldn't be trying to sell to me so much as to Koko. So I guess this is a little like old-school Times Square.

Now I can see why Miho, my Japanese classmate from my TESOL (teaching ESL) class, had made a face when I said (mistakenly) that I'd be living near Roppongi: It's catered to partying tourists and expats, so it's prime for eating and drinking and souvenir-buying, but also for getting your drink spiked and getting robbed (esp. while drunk/drugged)--just like in any other big tourist city. Have fun, but keep your guard up.