Colour Your Life

After the Nato fiasco, we went back to the apartments and met Steve, from San Diego. He arrived about twenty minutes earlier. He seemed alright, quite loud, but what do you expect from an American. I thought how unwelcoming my first night was so we went out for a drink with him, back into Nash.

The next morning (cutting a long story short) I took Steve to the Ward Office so that he could register. He’s a very nice guy, quite similar in opinions and tastes to me. His favourite film is “Lost In Translation”*. After registering, we took the train down to Yokohama so that we could join the bank there. Yokohama town centre was massive, and we got completely lost. But we finally found the place.

In the bank, there wasn’t much hassle or complications. There was no talk about interest rates or any financial matters. The only thing the staff were really excited about was what colour our cards would be. I don’t think we were as excited about the choice as other customers may have been. I learnt from one of the girls downstairs that many Japanese women are desperate housewives to a point where the highlight of their day, week even, may involve choosing a colour for their bank card. We randomly chose green colours (melon soda and crocodile). Colour Your Life.

The rest of the day was spent looking around and unpacking. In the evening, Steve and I went to Saizeriya, a nearby Italian restaurant done in a Japanese style. It was the worst service so far in Japan. Everywhere else waitresses would fight between themselves to take your order. They’d all smile and ask if you’re OK. However, they just kept on ignoring us. About twenty minutes later, we decided to go and get drinks (free refills from a drinks bar for 120Yen – 60p!) and the waitress started talking to us in an angry tone. Another ten minutes passed and we finally got the attention of one. The same happened again when leaving. In the end, we left the money on the table and walked out. A waitress chased after us so we went back in and handed her the money from off the table where we left it. The food was very cheap and pretty good. Still, we decided that we wouldn’t be going back there. Not a good example of Japanese politeness.

*If you haven’t seen this film yet, it figures very heavily in a few blogs time, so I suggest renting it.