Yay for Keitais!

Finally! On Monday morning my Foreigner card finally came...which means I am allowed to do many things I wasn't allowed to do without one. For one, I'm now able to buy a car, whether used or new.

Another thing, which I actually did shortly right after we stopped by city hall, was get a Postal Office Bank Account. Along with my normal account, a postal office bank account will let me withdraw money from any postal office in Japan. My normal account is with JA (not sure what this stands for), but if I'm in places other than Hokkaido, my money won't really be accessible. I can also do banking with my Keitai (Cellphone), which brings me to my next subject.

In the afternoon, we headed to Asahikawa to finally get myself a high tech, 3rd generation Keitai. (I believe Canada and US are still in Generation 1.) Weeks before, my supervisor and I discussed which plans to get for about 3 days. We decided to go with Softbank (I think its Vodaphone), on their White Plan. The White Plan is really different that any other plan that I've had. In the end we decided to get the Double White Plan (Its actually W-White) because just 100 JPY more expensive than the White plan. Heres how it works, you get to phone people who are in Softbank for free from 1:00am - 9:00pm, outside of those times, it costs 10.5 JPY / 30secs. Mailing messages is about the same, except theres no time limit and your charged by message length when you message someone outside of Softbank. Anyway, rather than bore you with other details, I'll just concluded that my plan is about 3300 JPY/Month (approx. $30 CDN). Thats with paying for the phone monthly (over two years) and the Double White Plan. It should be noted that he phone I got is the 913SH from Sharp and is the latest model of Keitai Softbank has.

Anyway, the 913SH and other 3G (3rd generation) phones are pretty amazing in Japan. If all you owned was a phone and had a decent salary you could live off these phones in a main city (like Tokyo, Sapporo or even Asahikawa). You can use your phone as a wallet, you can pay for hotel room (by using your phone like a Pre-charged credit card), food at combinis, and public transportation, simply by swiping your phone over a sensor. Its nuts! If your bored and want to watch TV, you can (I can't yet, but apparently the service is coming to Kamikawa in a month, hence why I said "living in a main city"). Watched too much TV on your Keitai? Go buy yourself a Wii, PS2, PSP, PS3 or DS at Geo (pronounced Geh-Oh) with your Keitai. Lost your bank card? you don't need one, just swipe your Keitai over a sensor and you can log into your bank. Wanna get out of Tokyo? JAL and ANA take payments for plane tickets by Keitai. All these services require pre-charging your keitai with money. Its pretty incredible, whats being going on with cellphones in Japan.

But that doesn't even scratch the surface. Keitais are almost like your blackberries, but have even more functions. Everybody knows about cellphone cameras, but can your cellphone take a picture of a business card and read information from it? Then turn that information into a contact for your phone? Can your phone read 2D barcodes that can contain information such as websites, phone numbers, contacts, names? I finally figured out why theres no iPhone in Japan. Because the iPhone sucks compared to other phones here.

If all this sounds like I'm falling head over heels for Techno gadgets in Japan, its probably because I am. Keitais alone are reason not to live in North America or any other place. But then again I guess most of my friends are in Canada, so thats a pretty good reason to go back too. Maybe we should all move to Japan and then I'll be pretty happy!

Anyways, wanna end the Keitai verbal molestation, with saying that if your in Japan under Softbank, gimme a call anytime between 4:45pm and 9:00pm or text me at any time (except when I'm asleep). Actually if your in Japan gimme a shout anyway, we can atleast trade contact info. If your not and wanna cost me some money, I guess you could call my cellphone, though I would prefer if you guys signed up with Skype so I could talk to you guys cheaper :P. That ends my Keitai rant.

Anyway, we went to go look at a couple of used cars after we got my keitai all hooked up. I'm thinking about declining the sprinter for a car with 4WD. My supervisor has been telling me to get it just in case snow becomes really bad on the roads. Even though the Sprinter is cheap, its not worth the danger I might have in the winter time. As a side note, I'm sell my Mazda3 at home :(. I'm gonna miss that car. If anybody is interested, let me know.

We took a look at the normal white licence plate cars. They tend to be heavier and safer in the wintertime. One car that was of interest was a Honda Integra Type R(yes Honda, Japan doesn't have Acura). For 590 000 JPY, it was tempting, but it doesn't have 4WD and insurance will be might expensive, being a race car.

On returning to Kamikawa, I went to my supervisor's house to have Dinner, where we had Yakiniku, with fish, mutton and vegetables. We had plenty of beer to drink and got drunk pretty late in the night. Toby-san, who works at City Hall had his family and himself join us. We must of talked till 10pm. Then we went inside My Takahata-san's (My supervisor's) house and played Wii Tennis. After that it was home and sleep.

Today, was less excited, other than playing with my phone, I didn't do too much. Work was also dead due to the Obon-festival. Tomorrow will probably be the same :(. Anyway, gotta sleep soon, blog to you later!