Hello all,
I am writing to your from a Internet cafe. Why you may ask, well it has most certainly been an interesting day. Yesterday my PC broke, not broke as in smashed or irreversible damage, its that it wont charge anymore. So Today (yesterday if you want to be technical) I woke up a bit early and took an early train to Yokohama Station and went to big electronics store called Yodobashi Camera. I guess Yodobashi is like a Japanese Best Buy and it is more or less the biggest Japanese e-store along with another one called Bic Camera. Well getting back to my PC and much to my sadness it turns out Yodobashi was not able to do anything, they didn't even take the time to check if it was the cable or the PC. In hindsight i should have insisted the repair guy at least whip out a cable and check that at least but it was early i was half awake and worried i would be late for class. Its a bit of an annoyance having to do stuff like this in a foreign language. Especially Technical things like electronics require sort of Jargon and know how and in a secondary language it is difficult to understand all the details.
While Yodobashi didn`t really take the effort to look at my PC they did give me info to find Sony,the maker of my laptop; which was not far away from my dorm and school. After school I took a good 20 min walk to get to Sony and was seen right away as there was no one buy me and the technicians. The gentlemen who helped me first checked to see if it was the cable or the PC. He brought out from underneath the table another set of cables and plugged it into my PC and much to my relief all i need is a new set of cables. Perhaps the Japanese electricity shorted out my old ones but at least it didn't damage my PC. I can only imagine the price it would cost to fix something internal. Long story short he gave me the model number and told me yodobashi sells it for 12,000 yen and Sony themselves do not have any to sell. He even made a map for me on how to get to Yodobashi from the Sony shop. I only wish the service in America was this good.
From the Sony shop I actually went home to check the price and see if i could buy the Adapter online. 120 dollars seems a bit steep for a outlet plug but then again companies like Sony always charge heeps of money for replacement parts. I had dinner and decided to take a leisurely bike rider to Yodobashi which is two stops away by train. In Japan at night when riding a bike you are suppose to have a light of some sort on your bike. However mine does not have one at the moment. Aware of this a few of the Chinese friends alerted me that the police might stop me. However my theory is the police have better things to do than to make sure my bike has a light on it. My theory so far is working nice as the rest of my story will attest to this.
As I begin to tell you about my bike ride I have to admit to having little to no sense of directions. With that said, I started off in the right directions but inevitably I had to stop a police officer to get directions. I must have received directions from at least 6 police officers thought the night as the route from Kannai To Yokohama station crosses over a river and a set of highways that i could not figure out how to get around a number of times. Each time the police officer was helpful and kind and my lack of a light was not mentioned or notice.
I got to Yodobashi and found what could be a match for around 5000 yen, which is way better than the aforementioned 12,000. However my PC being American and everything in japan being Japaneses,the store worker did not know for sure if it was a match and we agreed i would come back tomorrow with the pc and they would check it for me．So now for the 100th time i am asking for directions from a police officer on how to get home. As he did not have a map on him he took me to the police station where several cops took the time to look at the map and give me precise directions. Of course my bike not having a light once again didn`t seem to bother no one. So now on my way I start to cross the bridge that separates Yokohama station where yodobashi is located, from my part of town. Much to my luck as i am peddling up the bridge. I try and change to a higher gear to peddle a little easier. The chain comes off the gears and now i am left with a immobile bike that I can push but cant peddle.
I push the bike to local koban (Police Station)where the police officer takes about 15 Min's to try and fix it on my behalf. Sadly This begins my journey of pushing my bike home. Along the way several other cops take a crack at it.
Even a cab driver tinkered with it as half way i tried to give up and take a taxi home. But i could not get my bike to fold and ended up giving up because he was saying stuff I didn`t understand.
So what should have been a small adventure and purchased wound up being a 3 hour long walk. So now, i sit in a cafe trying to relax as it has been a long day and the Internet is always a nice thing to use to get your mind off your problems. Unless your writing them of course...
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