The marathon: Knowing Tokyo

It always starts with a beautifull early morning breeze, most of the neighbourhood is empty, old people jogging around, who I believe wouldn't be a match for even the teens in my country. Some on sticks, some on wheels, others managed to even walk faster than me.


Unfortunately, kind of expensive living in tokyo, the yen won't keep up in your pocket for long and I ran out of cash, I didn't have enough from the begining anyways, It won't be an easy thing since the ATM machines are similar to the arcade ones, filled with japanese characters, lots of buttons, not only on the touch screen, but also on the board itself. I cant play the smart guy right now because it is related to money and without me knowing the japanese, I'm kinda screwed. Looked at a few convenient stores in the neighbourhood, no one managed to have machines that support english, wondering if sign language would help me explain to the salesman, but it was just gibberish enough to understand, in these situations, smile, bow, chant "arigato" "gozaimasu" "sumi massen" and just leave the store with style, The order of these words are not important, but it works anyways.


I was looking for domestic banks around the neighbourhood, there was one at the corner of the area, but for the bad luck, it was closed and will reopen in two hours time. I couldn't just go back to my room after all of this, There must be a simple ATM hidden somewhere, like the ones back in my country, the ones with number pads, small screens, and a camera that snaps your nose from whatever angle you look at it. Seven eleven, a popular mart not only in japan, but i've seen it in many of my visits to other countries. Now there is no doubt that it has an international ATM machine, and there it was!

Another issue was my mobile phone, It doesn't send or recieve calls, I was worried of my parents because they can't hear from me anymore. I asked about prepaid SIM cards for travellers, but sadly it wasn't available in japan. In order to get a sim card, you have to purchase a new phone that supports the sim card, and from that I would make local and international calls. Sadly, I've been into the branches around the neighbourhood, they were all sold out, no more of these prepaid phones. I was'nt ready to take the train yet, but it would be a great opportunity for practice. It was pretty hard to explain to the salesman because it is pretty rare to find a salesman with good english, but this time the sign language worked out. I managed to recieve an address of the branch that does the phone rent service, this service provides the phone with daily payments, additional to the call payments upon using.


The problem was the location of that branch, it was in an area a bit far from shinjuku, can be reached by train, not by subway. Eh.... Stations again! ticket machines drove me crazy this time, but this time I managed to find english supported machines which eased my trip over there. Whenever I hop on the train, I walways use the trackback with my map in my mind, since I dont understand which area, and most of the names seemed odd, I just save what I see, and replay the whole thing after getting what I want.

After 5 hours of trying to find a phone, I luckily borrrowed one from that branch in haraijuku. Here, there are no black berries, no nokias, no phones of what I saw in my country. It is mostly of the kind that flip-flops that have the screen on one pad, and the key board on another. Mostly samsung, sharp, and apple. After knowing the city and how to use the train, I'm just ready for the big tomorow, training in the hombu!