Phones

One of the first things you need to get when you're going to live in Japan is a phone. After the important things like a bank account and foreign registration card of course....

I've had my phone for 2 days now and it has been very handy in allowing me to meet up with my friends without fear of relying on a designated meeting place. Shinjuku station is very big and should be a convenient place to meet up as many train lines go through it. However, the damn thing is a maze and its easy to get lost...

The phone didn't take too long to get, we just walked up to the shop opposite the local station and picked the colours we wanted and got a reasonable contract. I got an orange/yellow one and its pretty striking.

The best thing about it though is the little symbols you can send along with texts. In the UK you can only send smiley faces made up of mathematical symbols, but because these Japanese phones use HTML, you can send loads of different pictures. I like ending all of mine with a penguin. Just because I can.