Saturday, February 28, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.537
The snows reached eight feet high on the ground in a mountainous town
where I live, which is customary every winter here. I began to feel
suffocated and decided to get away for a few days. As I came across the
bargain price for a moderate hotel adjacent to Tokyo Disney Resort, I
took a trip there with my partner. Only after a couple of tunnels on the
bullet train, snow disappeared and a blue sky spread out. It was
already another world. We arrived at Tokyo station and found people
there weren’t bundled up, some of them were even without coats. We, on
the other hand, were wearing hooded down coats and I additionally had
long winter boots on. Winter in Tokyo was warm and it felt hot to us
whose bodies have been adjusted to the cold of our town. We were sweaty,
and I was walking around with my folding fan flapping. When you stay
away from a city life in a remote town and go back to the city after a
while, you notice a change in the world clearly. It happened to me this
time and I was surprised at the speed of changes. I saw many large
strollers inside the train that were obstacles to other passengers. It
was frequently a man who pushed a stroller. People wore mean, rough
clothes. I used to be annoyed so much every time at an all-you-can-eat
buffet restaurant by swarms of housewives and their shrieking children,
but not a single kid was spotted when I had lunch at one of those
restaurants. All those things were uncommon when I lived in the city.
Although women’s positions in Japanese society had stayed lowly no
matter how long and loudly clamored for improvement, the number of
housewives in Japan dramatically decreased so easily once the economy
continued to decline. It’s merely four years since I moved out of the
city, but with many things I had never seen before, I realized Japan has
changed. At a hotel where we stayed, there were many elegant guests
from Asian countries and less Japanese. It was supposed to be a decent
hotel, but a group of the guests staying in the rooms around ours were
noisy at the hallway. My partner had to call the front desk for
complaint. I tried to enjoy the stay at least for the value for what we
had paid that wasn’t a small amount to me. At the end of the trip, I was
exhausted by my own effort to get the trip pay our money. On our way
home, we waited in line for the train to Tokyo. When we got on, young
men cut in and snatched the seats. I was convinced Japan has become a
poor country…
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Hidemi’s Rambling No.536
As a two-year contract on my smartphone expires soon, I decided to
switch to a low-cost plan of a new phone company and to get a new
smartphone that can be used both in Japan and US. I had been looking
into the market for about six months and learned that choosing a plan
and a phone was really cumbersome nowadays. The price is changing almost
every week, the new feature is being added all the time, and the new
model is coming up one after the other. To keep up with that speed was
so hard for me. It would have been a lot easier if I hadn’t been a cheap
person. I would have just sat at the counter in a phone shop and gotten
whatever a salesperson recommended. Unfortunately I don’t trust a
salesperson and I’m not rich. I simply can’t satisfy myself unless I
find the best buy on my own and get it during a special promotion. That
required an enormous amount of research, patience, and energy, not to
mention time. After all, I got a satisfactory model and signed up for a
low-cost plan. The phone came with a USB charger, but I needed one more
for travel. The phone maker’s website told that its charger is
exclusively made and a mass-market charger can’t be used. I bought the
relatively-high-in-price charger that I still can’t see the difference
from a common charger, which makes me feel that I lost money. I started
using my new smartphone full of glee anyway. It’s bigger than my old one
and has a better view on the screen while I’m afraid if I don’t get a
good grip and drop it. I needed a case but couldn’t find one that
perfectly fits because it’s not a major model. Cool cases for iPhone are
everywhere and I now realized how popular it is. I settled on a
pouch-type iPhone case that had a bargain price, and squeezed my phone
into it. I mustered all my ideas and devices to get and use a new phone
at the lowest price. Looking back the long, troublesome process, I’m not
so sure if I saved money or it was costly in various ways…
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