Getting myself organised

Hi All,

Well I arrived ok into Japan; slightly problems with the luggage that Cathay Pacific would not accept the 55kg limit for the second leg that Qantas gives me for the first. Basically they wanted to charge over $800 but it all worked out by being a little inventive and I didnt have to pay anything.

I got to my house ok and dropped my things off then had to quickly go down the street to buy the bedding and sheets and things; good thing about Japan is they loves sets; so I brought a bedding set and covers set. Came back home set it all up and then went straight too sleep as I had not slept on the plane.

Lunch time the next day (Wednesday) I meet with a work colleague who helped me immensly with getting everything setup.

Council office:
The first stop was to go to the Council office to register myself as an Alien, then I also had to register my Inkan or Hanko (I will explain another day what that is).

Mobile Phone:
The next stop was to get a mobile phone (Japanese: Keitai). I had decided to go with NTT Docomo. They are the equivalent of Telstra in Japan. Any the work staff member was very good in helping with this and the translation.
Their were some problems because I wanted to use my own phone but the lady said it would cost ￥11,000 per month to use my own phone or ￥10,000 per month to buy the same phone from them. I decided to write everything down and think about it over night.
Yesterday I went back to a different Docomo store and they had a translator available, eventually they found another plan that I could go on that would only cost about ￥6,000 per month with my current phone.

Bank:
Next stop was the bank; again thanks so much to my work colleague this was extremely easy, maybe even disturbingly easy. The forms were completed and in progress within 1 hour and they will post everything out too me.
For those who might be interested I went with Shinsei Bank; they are smaller but their internet banking is in English and you can store money in your account in different currencies. Also their transfer fees are very low.
One of the problems with a small bank is very few ATMs; but with Shinsei you are able to use the machines from UFJ which is  a large bank in Japan for no fee.

Laptop:
Yesterday I went to Akihabara to get a laptop; now that was an adventure. I went too BIC Camera which is one of the 2 very large electronics stores in Japan (similar to Harvey Norman). They had a model on display that I liked and I asked to purchase it which they agreed, I also mentioned that I would be converting it to the English version of Windows which was ok. Then the hassles started, first they could not find the power adapter and their only option was to give me a discount and then ask me to buy an after market version which was ok for me. Then they could not find the box which I think then took about 30mins to find.
All in I think it took about 1.5 to 2 hours for all this to happen. But then just as I am about to pay he then says if I change windows to the English version I will not have any warranty; firstly this does not make sense because that is just software but anyway he would not budge. So I had no choice but to go somewhere else.

I went to the other big store Yodobashi Camera; I found what I wanted (Asus N55S) and was in and out of the store within 20mins.

But it is a Japanese layout keyboard with English and Japanese characters; that is fine I actually wanted it this way. But it is taking some time to adjust to the different layout because many of the keys are in a different place or I accidentally hit the English/Japanese switching button.


So today I am not doing a whole lot just getting things; just getting organised, setting up my laptop, going to Seiyu to buy things for my room etc.

Cya
Brad