haggling in Japan

after having resisted for years, i decided to enter the digital age and treat myself while in the hotspot of all such innovations and bought myself a digital camera (or digicame, in Japanese). i asked my savvy friend to meet me in Akihabara and that's when i found out: you can haggle the price of electronics here! i didn't believe it, but i saw it with my own eyes.　

we started in a shop where the guy explained everything about this one camera - the 2nd best on the market here　(i.e. not out in Europe for at least another year). their original price was around 37,000, but it was marked down as a special offer for around Y32,000, and they' then give you a credit of Y6,000 worth of points (which you could use to buy the memory card and case). my budget just for the camera was Y30,000, so that was fine by me. but AD1 was adamant we visit another shop.

in the second shop, we told them about the first shop's price, so the camera got reduced a bit more. i could get it for Y29,000 plus points (although slightly less). i was once again happy with that, but AD1 insisted we go to a third place. this was a major store, though, and here the price of the camera not marked down and was actually slightly more expensive, i believe, maybe Y39,000. it looked like a failure waiting to happen, but AD1 wanted to try anyway. and he did it! i left the shop with the camera, memory card and a case all for Y27,000! well done AD1!

odaiba

on my first full day in Japan, i met up with an old friend who'd come up all the way from southern Kagoshima! yeah to her! it was great seeing her, especially as it'd been 5 years since we'd last met, before i left Japan. anyway, we went to Odaiba, which i'd never been to, despite always hearing about it. it hadn't sounded all that interesting to me and i knew enough really cool places without needing anymore. i'm glad i never bothered, cos although i enjoyed my day, i didn't think it was that great overall.

old habits

it's becoming a bit of a habit now:　i land in Japan, check into my room at the weekly mansion, do a spot of wondering around to see what's new in Kawasaki and watch the latest Harry Potter the same night. it's like being home, really...

arrival

once i got out of the airport - completely painlessly this time around! - i took the train into town. as we left Narita airport itself, there were next to no people on the train but lots of lush rice paddies outside. i wanted to take a picture of them, but without moving away from my seat on the other side, and so, quite obviously, the camera in my keitai (mobile) didn't quite reach... so i got a picture of some empty seats with a speeding view outside. still, makes me think of Japan, although surreal (the emptiness, i mean).

house-sitter

one of my colleagues lives miles away from Geneva - in Fribourg, which is an hour and a half by train. at the moment, he's coming in every day because he's doing the teacher training i did a few years ago, meaning he's up very early and gets home reasonably late after a shattering day. it's been going on for 2 weeks and as i'm leaving today and live quite a bit closer to the big city, i thought we could do each other a mutual favour: he can stay at my place while i'm away and take care of the plants and the flat. so he got a quick one-hour tour of the place and how everything works last night, before heading back to Fribourg as he'd forgotten something there that he needed for today. let's hope he remembers how to get here...

less than a day

and i'll be in Japan... can't wait!

a fine example of idiocy

met this guy last night. he was pretty unbelievable. he was explaining why he'd broken up with his girlfriend. she was picky, he said. we asked him to define picky. ah, well, when he shaved, she insisted that he turn off the water while he wasn't using it. us girls looked at each other, then at him, and basically said it made sense. preserving the environment and all... his response: 'fuck the environment'. right. what an idiot. how would he like to be thrown into a pool of polluted water?

Super M. was pleasant, smart and funny.

it was a comment i got from this guy i met a couple of weeks back. i actually often talk about myself in the 3rd person (generally when i'm describing something stupid i did), so it was funny.

the dress

a couple of months back, i bought a dress. this doesn't happen very often. i'd worn it once at the opera, but had felt a bit uncomfortable, feeling it was way too revealing when, let's face it, it really isn't. so i decided i had to wear it on a normal occasion to get used to it. so i did.

Mr. J. and N. were chatting away at the bar when they saw me coming from afar. they smiled, went back to their conversation, then N. did a double take. Mr. J. continued talking until he realised N. wasn't paying attention and looked in my direction again, had a face that said 'yes, Super M. is there'... then looked again. you could see they were both flabbergasted. it was funny. 'you're wearing a dress!', said Mr. J. then they both told me how nice i looked. and for the rest of the evening, so did everyone else so by the time i left, i felt completely comfortable. mission accomplished!

thermal shock

it had been so hot these last few days that i thought the lake must have warmed up again after last week's cold spell. well, maybe not. 18°C was, as i discovered once i got into it, just as cold as it sounded. once i got swimming, it was fine, but i was really cold thereafter, despite the warmth. a whole hour later, back at the very hot office, i felt nice and cool, when i knew i was supposed to die of heat...

aching body

i don't use the mouse all that much, when i'm in front of a computer. i know all the shortcut keys, and use them as much as possible. except that on Monday, i had no choice, due to this thing i had to do for work and while i wasn't going as fast as i could have (experience has taught me something), i obviously still went too quickly for my poor hand tendons, which had seized up by the end of the day. RSI, welcome back. it went all the way up to my neck and my cervical bones hurt like hell. so i got myself an appointment with my physiotherapist to make it all better. except that while he fixed some things, the pain then travelled down to the lumbar region, so back in i went a few days later. he said i was weird and couldn't understand why putting some bones into place always dislodged others in my body. after treating me, he said i was good to go and not to come back. i was all up for that.

roundabout mid-day, my right knee decided it'd had enough of where it was and moved out of its joint a little. that hadn't happened to me in over 15 years. nothing could be done then, so i guessed nothing would really work now either, but i thought a bit of swimming might help. bad idea, apparently, as when i got out of the pool, putting my right foot down shot an electrical impulse through my leg. must have pinched a nerve somewhere. i thought i'd still be able to go and see my movie in the park that evening, but after a while, it became clear that that really wasn't a good idea. i could only hope that sleep might unpinch the nerve and somehow fix my knee... the first one worked, and while the knee's still not exactly as it should be, it's definitely a lot better than yesterday. fingers crossed, i'll be able to walk normally tomorrow. otherwise, i might have to go back in to see M., cos i'm not going to Japan in 10 days in this condition.

girls night out

i hadn't seen T. for a while and now that S. is back to being single, i thought it'd be nice if we met up, just the three of us. and it was great. complete girl-talk. i like these small meetings. and the weather had warmed up considerably since the very cool afternoon, so we were sitting on the terrace at the back of the cafe, which was really nice. then we tried our luck at the outdoor concert where Gong Linna, a traditional Chinese singer who is apparently likened to Bjork, was performing. it was...interesting. the 'soft' songs were great but the ones where she was loud were...a bit loud. still, it was an experience.

the dangers of helping out

i was coming home and on the way past the front door of the building, i saw Mrs. C. lurking around the entrance. i always talk to her if i can, cos she's old and apart from her son, she doesn't really have anyone to talk to, but when i don't have time, it's a pain, cos she's quite unstoppable when she wants to be - you'll have made your point, that you really have to leave, and she'll say 'ok, goodbye then' and as you walk away, she'll say 'but you know, that's what i was saying about...'

anyway, i parked my car in the garage, turned off the engine, but spent a few minutes inside, cos i had tons of things in the car and i had to gather them all. when i got out, Mrs. C. was standing in front of the garage. i said hello and asked her how she was, and she explained she had to get into her garage to get something but couldn't do it alone (she's in her 80s and uses a walker to get around). as i was laden with things, i asked if she would mind waiting 5 mns for me go drop them off at my place. of course not. unfortunately, while we were discussing things, i kind of forgot about where i was standing so when i closed my garage door, i banged my shoulder something terrible and frankly, all i wanted to do was leave her there alone.

when i got back, she fussed about my shoulder, which for some reason really annoyed me. i made light of it while we walked slowly to her garage and got the thing out. i carried it around despite her assertion that she could do it - let's face it, she had a walker to manage and i was empty handed. we took the lift to the 3rd floor and when we got in front of her door, she said she must give me a plant to thank me. i explained it wasn't necessary, but she insisted, so i had to tell her i had too many as it was and really couldn't deal with another one. which is totally true, but i also knew that it would take her another half an hour to choose a plant for me. she looked crestfallen, but once she'd opened her door and walked into her flat with me trailing behind with her thing, she rallied magnificently by saying that as i was there, i might as well have a look around the place. at this point, i had to tell her i was already late (which was kind of true) and really couldn't, after which i basically left to avoid any further brilliant ideas on her part.

a couple of days later, i got an email from her son, thanking me for helping his mother. then there were details about the TV problems the building has been having (he helps out the board a lot, so that was fine), after which he said that, as we both worked in Geneva, it'd be nice to have lunch sometime. and me thinking, no, really, it wouldn't. or rather, it would if he didn't have a thing for me. i really wouldn't feel comfortable. it was bad enough when we went to buy flowers to grow on the fence, which thankfully didn't last more than an hour and we had a specific purpose, but lunch... not happening. i'm pretty sure his mother put this new idea into his head, but apart from anything else, this guy must be a good 20 years older than me and we have nothing in common.

i haven't replied yet. i'm torn between following my friends' advice which was just say no (which seems a bit rude, despite the fact that i really don't owe this guy a thing) and another friend who said not to reply. originally, i was going to say lunch would never work out, but they all pointed out he was then bound to ask me out for dinner - although i think it'd be less hard for me to turn down his dinner invitation (which is clearly a come on of sorts) compared to turning down lunch (which is what friends normally have). i guess i'll just forget about it and hope he gets the message.

flowers

i met up with some old students yesterday. it was great to see them, especially outside class, as they're beginners and our conversations in English thus aren't that long. in the pub, we spoke French, so i got to know a lot more about what they all do, which was really interesting. and also, they had this massive bouquet for me: white stargazers and red roses. the nicest flowers i've got in a while. and very, very fragant...

too much of a good thing...

in the summer, there are lots of outdoor concerts in Geneva. they have a jazz series, a classical series and a more varied series (rock, pop, folk, reggae...) i try to go to at least one of the jazz concerts every year, cos it's generally very good and, it turns out, quite famous jazzpeople who play. so i went to see Scott Hamilton, a famous saxophonist. and yes, it was nice. but what with having been to three jazz concerts three weekends in a row, i wasn't actually in the best frame of mind: as it was, i was getting a bit tired of it. i hadn't thought it possible, but there you go. the concerts normally last an hour and a half, but 15 mns before the end, i'd just had too much and left.

warm lake

with the hot temperatures we've been having, i'd been wanting to go swimming in the lake for a while, but things had been working against me. however, i was determined, so today, i brought all my stuff with me (mind you, i'd also done that last week, but things, as i said, didn't work out). i took a one and a half hour break for lunch - enough time to get down to the lake, take a swim, lie on the raft in the middle of the water for a bit (long enough to get dry) and then back to the shore. it was a bit short but heavenly, as the water had reached a nice 22°C!

movie in the park

i was just supposed to meet up with a friend, on Friday night. we were probably going for drinks. but then, she reminded me of the newest 'event': movie in the park. so we went along to check it out, and we found ourselves in front of a huge inflatable screen (which, amusingly, deflated at one point, so it looked like a bowing marshmallow) with lots of people sitting on lounge chairs that you could rent for CHF5. the night's movie was 4 Weddings and A Funeral, which i'd seen many times already, but S. hadn't and the concept was fun so we decided to stay. we got ourselves some deck chairs, bumped into a few people we met and joined them. and what a great night! i don't think i'd ever watched a movie outdoors before. the moon was waxing, you could spot a few stars, the atmosphere was that of a picnic (which there had been for many people before the movie started). before the movie, they showed a short film, which was absolutely hilarious, and the atmosphere being as it was, the movie itself was funnier than i'd remembered. i hadn't actually planned on staying all the way through (it being free and having seen it so many times and being only in shorts and a t-shirt), but despite the 'cold' and everything else, i ended up staying cos i was having such a good time. i think i might go again tonight...

reception

when i got into work this morning, i was asked if i might be able to take care of some people who'd be coming at about 1.30pm. seen as my line manager was on holiday, the account manager off because it was Wednesday afternoon, the assistant gone because she was off to new adventures and the boss elsewhere at that particular time, i was the only one left. as my lunch plans had been cancelled, i didn't mind. but what was supposed to be an easy couple of hours manning the reception quickly became less so. first, we had room problems. no big deal and luckily, the way i sorted it out turned out to be the way it had originally been planned. then, lots of people calling about stuff i didn't know anything about, so i basically had to ask them to call back tomorrow or call someone else who did know the answers. and just as i'd switched off my computer and was about to leave, the phone rang again. i picked it up, hoping it'd just be a random enquiry, but of course, it was something i couldn't deal with without the files on the PC. and once that was up and running again, the information turned out to be incredibly difficult to find (mind you, not getting the right information to start off with didn't help). in the end, i had to ask the person if i could call her back tomorrow, and while i was searching every file i could think of for the answer, my boss came in asking me if i fancied calling the UK to sort out a panicking mother's 'missing' child (she wasn't really missing, the phone network just didn't work). we ended up switching our problems and finally solving them, by which time it was 5.30 (i was supposed to finish at 3pm). i switched the PC off again, telling myself i wouldn't answer if the phone rang again...which it luckily didn't.