105yen Shop

I LOVE THEM.

Supposedly 100 yen, but 5 yen for tax.

Well, most of the products may not be made in Japan, but some are. The most famous one would be Daiso. There's a 5 storey Daiso shop near Denden town. It's a great landmark to know that you're going the right way from Namba Parks to Denden town XD

There's another store in Namba station which focuses on "zakka"-ish stuff. Some of their products are 500 yen though. Then, another store I found today is the store above. This also focuses on "zakka"-ish stuff. But all of the items are 105 yen. I bought a very very very cute bowl there. So cheap. Some of the stuff are the same as what I found at another 105 yen shop, Seria.



For example, above: chopsticks, bowl, mat, glass = 420 yen. Well, they don't look expensive, but they don't look too cheap either.

EZNabiWalk

The nice GPS function on my phone is the EZNabiWalk. You pick a point where you want to go to, and then say you want to go there from your current position. It will adjust the direction where you're facing is automatically. Though... if you're at a round place with lots of street branches, and it looks all the same, you won't know that you're going the wrong way until after awhile. It updates fast, but not too fast at some times. See the blue dots? It tracked me from GPS and that's where I went out of the path... ^_^;

Love it. Costs 210 yen per month. Maybe I should continue it if I plan to walk around a lot.



Well, the station was very quiet and there were barely people. Pretty confusing.

Train Ticket Part 1

There are loooots of different train tickets in Japan, since there are lots of different train companies here. First time I come here, I knew nothing but the usual small one trip ticket that you buy whenever you want to ride the train. Then there are the:


- Special 1 day ticket (unlimited one day trip, discounted)
- JR-pass (only applies for tourists though, discounted)
- prepaid ticket (surutto Kansai, can be used almost anywhere in Kansai, no discount though)
- 回数券カード (buy 10 get 11 trips, discounted)
- 定期券 (Periodical unlimited ticket, eg. unlimited monthly, for a certain path, discounted)
- Pitapa (Like Suica? may be discounted?)

And the way to use it is interesting. Well, normally you slide the card through. And when you don't have enough credit to get out of the station, you can top it up at the machine near the station. But there's also time when you can put 2 cards in. One time I use it from the airport. I can only buy it halfway till my destination. But luckily I have this 回数券カード so I slide the 2 cards in together at my destination! No need to go out and buy another ticket~


I wish I'm in Tokyo so I can just use my phone. But this is Osaka. A bit different, only JR works with phone. I'm still not sure which one's the best for me. As I have to take 2 different trains everyday. Currently using the 回数券カード. Is thinking of using Pitapa, but Pitapa only discounts the subway, which won't do much good for me =( Nothing to lose, though. I can just use it only for subways. There's the credit card version and the normal version. And to process it takes few weeks... =_=;

Run & Walk (KDDI AU)

One feature that I find interesting when browsing for mobile phones was this one. It's like iPod x Nike thing, I guess. Monitoring where you run and measure the distance through GPS. I doesn't seem that good, I seem to be going through buildings... =_=; But not bad. I almost got lost this morning. It was raining and I didn't feel like checking the map. Haha...

You can check your jogging (or cycling, if you pay monthly fee) from the phone or from PC. From the PC website, you can replay your running track. It's fun to see. Actually, I decided to run because I got this feature on my phone =d I forgot to take the pics from the phone. Will add them later.

And luckily, I found a really nice pair of shoes. Puma. Original price was 8800yen. I got it for 3990. I really like it XD

There's another feature that uses GPS that I find cool. Will blog it when I use it again next time. It's not like all of the features are only available in Japan, but still, my phone was much less hi-tech than this, hehe.

Car / Motorcycle

Saw this today. Taken from my phone camera. 1 person drives and 2 people sit on the back. See there's even a rose and a luggage? I really love the bikes here. Though I don't think I'd like to own/ride one. But they look so nice~

Remembering the Prefecture?

Just watched this on TV. You can watch it on the web. Interesting way to remember those names. Though I only caught the Hokkaidou (pokka pokka?) and Miyage (souvenir) one. Wonder when will the next one come out.

AU Mobile Phone

Next thing after getting a bank account, is to get a mobile phone. After visiting Docomo shop and AU shop (didn't see a phone I like from Softbank except iPhone and they're expensive), decided to go for the free phone from AU. So I visited the shop the next afternoon after I got my bank account.

It was quite a pleasant experience. Everything Japanese and contracts and plan explanations... I only need to bring passport, bank book, alien registration proof and money. I chose Sony Ericsson's RE since it's the most advanced phone out of the free ones. To get it free, what I had to do was to enroll in extra services. So I had to pay for an extra of 5000 yen ish. I couldn't understand the detail fully, but sort of 2500 extra for 2 months. It seems reasonable, so I took it. It still costs less than 10,000yen, and it has GPS, 1seg, Osaifu Keitai, which are what I want.

So the lady there explained it to me one by one. One of the services I had to apply was either a manga/music shop or a credit card. I thought it wouldn't be too bad to get a Japanese credit card. So I chose the free credit card. But apparently I couldn't have one since I haven't got my actual alien card. But... if I actually got my card already, seems like it's so easy to get a credit card here... o_o;; I can cancel those extra services next week.


I was there for more than an hour I guess. It does take time. I only have to paid 945 yen for the AC adaptor. Weirdly, they sell adaptors separately. All AU phones have same adaptor I guess...? My bill will then be deducted from my bank account. But I will need to pay the first 1-2 months from konbini since it takes time to process. Oh, you can choose your last 4 digits by paying an extra 300yen. Nice! And off I go home with my new phone and some little bonuses from the shop. That blue thing is an odor cleaner? The mickey is a phone sticker? And not sure what's in the orange box.