First Post of 2006

Wow, it's gonna be hard to remember to write "06" on all my forms at Nova! Especially since I still have trouble remembering what day it is.

Anyway, yeah, Happy New Year! It's taken me a while to get a new post up, partially because I was in Tokyo until very late on the 2nd, and partially because I've just been trying to process all of what went on. I spent about three hours in a coffee shop yesterday just writing down the things that happened there; not in any real detail, just enough to remind myself for later expounding.

Tokyo, and the day/night in Yokohama first, was so jammed full of sights, sounds, feelings, and emotion that it's almost impossible to begin to describe.

I will tell you this mini-adventure story about the night before we left:
I went over to the new apartment and turned in the necessary documents to reserve my spot in the apartment, and then decided to go to BIC Camera, Japan's Best Buy/four-story shopping extravaganza (seriously, who buys mp3 players, cell phones, wine, and ski equipment at the same store?) to look for a bigger memory card for my camera. The one I had came with the camera, and was a rather puny 16MB, so I decided to pick up a 512MB card for 8900yen($89). Feeling pretty good for not spending $145 on a 1GB card, I went to go look for a cheap mp3 player. Deciding that not spending the extra $50 did not justify a new toy, I went to the register to pay.

I waited in line, went to the counter, pulled out my money, put the money on the little money tray they have so no physical contact can accidentally happen, and the clerk rang up the order. Then he paused, hit another button, said something to a coworker, then picked up a big brass bell and rang it loudly for about five seconds. I was stunned. What do you do; grab him and make him stop, or just run away? I still don't speak enough Japanese to have any clue what they were doing. The guy put down the bell, looked at me and said, "It's all free."

What?

"It's all free. It's okay. No money." And hands me my 10,000yen note back.

So I spluttered "domo arigato," signed the receipt that apparently shows that I was the 3000th customer in that line that day, took my freshly sealed bag containing my apparently free memory card, and walked out of the store, half-expecting to hear alarms go off.

But no, I am now the proud owner of a FREE 512MB memory card, which I used to take almost 1oo pictures while in Tokyo. And I would've taken more, but my battery died just as I was going to take a picture of the Emperor.

Yeah, the Emperor of Japan. He and I are tight, he says to stop by sometime and he'll make tea. Right.

-thom in japan