Thursday 2 September 2010

I fucking love you Japan!

It's days like today, where Grandma could say anything, old men in yellow vests could yell at me for parking my bike in the wrong place, I could be forced to eat nothing but tsukemono all day and I would still love Japan today.

You know how everyone says "Japan is safety country!!" Well they are right, bad English and all.
I went for a run this morning with my little pink arm bag, (it's like a bum bag except it goes around your arm if that makes any sense...) inside it was the school keys, 10,000 yen, Ryota's credit card and some coins. And I dropped the fucker.
I only realised when I got to the pond that it wasn't in my bike basket and immediately went into panic mode at the possibility of cancelling credit cards and getting new school keys cut and all that crap. I cycled back over the way I'd come, scanning for the bright pink bugger but it was nowhere to be found. I was just about to burst into tears when I arrived at the school to a glorious little piece of paper flapping in the breeze taped to the school door. As soon as I saw it, I knew the 'safety country' theory was in practice. One of the guys from the asahi newspaper office next door had found it on the footpath and kept it for me. As I went and got it, panic sweat dripping down me, I was so fucking relieved I wanted to kiss him, despite the fact he's about 60 years old and incredibly repulsive on a normal day.

So thank you asahi shinbun geezer, if your paper wasn't so boring and impossible to read without a kanji dictionary, I'd buy a copy. And thank you Japan, thank you for not being overrun with junkies who would have used my credit card to snort some coke and then go on a spending spree! Thank you for being a safety country, please continue being a safety country for as ever long as I am here and still an air headed bimbo. Thank you thank you thank you!!!!

8 comments:

  1. Exactly! I feel the same way. God, it sucks to not live there anymore, where it's more safe than church! Lol.

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  2. well, that's one way to increase your heart rate!!

    i'm glad you got your bag back! i once left my purse on a bench at the local train station. i noticed almost as soon as the train started moving! thankfully i was on a local, so i got off at the next station, took a train back and i got to my bag just as two old ladies were considering taking it to the station master. i had about 5 man in my bag, i was so glad to get it back!

    then there was the time i drove off with my wallet on the top of the car....

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  3. Not all of Japan is safe! When I was working at Nova, I left my wallet in the toilet for all of 5 minutes. Ran back and it was gone...Take the money fine (sanman) but leave my gaijin card at least.

    However, I have lost many things on the train and all have been recovered safely. So basically, where there are japanese folks - you are safe but if its overrun by gaijin than hug everything close to you.

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  4. I have always had good luck with this kind of thing too.

    Once my friend left his mobile in a taxi and the next day we managed to track it down as the cab driver had handed it in (but didn`t know which passenger it might of belonged too)

    I also go a credit card back that I left in a machine. I was paranoid about that since at the time all my money was in the Aussie account connected to that- in Australia you would never see it again and be on the phone to the bank within a minute to cancel it.

    Another time I dropped an envelope with my rent and grocery money when I was a student- it had 100,000yen in it. And a lady ran after me down the street ( I had headphones on) yelling "gaikokujin-sama, gakokujin-sama....

    Glad you got it back!

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  5. Illahee - you were probably pregnant when the wallet on the car roof thing happened?? High percentage getting that right though seeing as you have been pregnant more than not the last five years.

    I have had both good and bad experiences. I wonder if I left Granny K on a park bench people would return her....

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  6. Glad you got your stuff back and sorry it wasn't the local hottie who returned it but here's hoping for if there's a next time... I do recall a running/losing a bike key incident :P

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  7. When I visited Japan last year, I left a bag full of cameras on a train that was headed far south. Not only was my bag still on the train once they managed to locate which one it was, but it was delivered back to me safely with nothing missing. I was beyond relieved and appreciative!

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  8. My PIL's were not so lucky just last month. FIL left his um...purse... at a ramen restaurant. Remembered it after they went to their next stop of errands and went back to see if it was still there. It wasn't. They had just gone to the bank before going to the restaurant and had withdrawn their money for the month and all of their bank stuff was in it as well. They stopped the bank cards and Then they went to the police. The police found his purse but the money was gone however the cards were left.

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