The story of my phone...

I didn’t talk about my phone during the TOKYO blog posts, because I felt it deserved a special mention in its own entry.

Typically, Japanese phones are quite different to UK phones. Many people before I came to Japan told me they were from the future - a lot more advanced than the UK phones. I don’t believe that to be true - they just have different features, and the Japanese want to use them for different things.

Japanese phones are often a little thicker and bigger than the phones we like in the UK - gadgets and features take priority over size and design. Most of the JETs had to wait for a mobile phone until they got their foreign registration card, then they could choose any fancy phone they wanted. I however was lucky in a sense. My Japanese office helpers and supervisor wanted me to have a phone as soon as possible so I had a means of contact. I was able to get a Pay as you Go, basic mobile.

It’s quite a nice mobile don’t get me wrong - it has these cool little glowing images that flash when I get a call or receive an email, but it does look a little basic and big. There are slimmer and cooler phones, the style of which I typically hunger for back in the UK.

Once my phone was upgraded to a contract, the phone wasn’t - and I was a little annoyed when people started getting incredibly cool phones that could watch TV, take excellent photos, make coffee, recite Pi to 436 figures etc. etc.

Now I am a little grateful for such basic features. In all the rush and panic from missing the train on the Sunday, I ‘accidently’ left my phone on the train we took to Fukushima, which then departed to Sendai - a big city about 1-2 hours away from where I live.

I rang Japan Railways to see if they could find my phone. The following day I rang again and they told me that it was being kept at Sendai station! It hadn’t been stolen or anything! It was sent to me and I now have it back! Japan is typically a very honest country. I have heard stories of laptops being left on trains and then being returned to their owners safe and sound!

Another similiar story involved David(JoeyD) who left his phone on the night bus on the way down to Tokyo. He has a much fancier phone. We rang the night bus company up the day after and sure enough his phone was still there and was promptly returned to him when he got back on to go back to Yamagata! This is certainly one of Japan’s finer points! Old phone or new, cheap or expensive, a phone would be nicked as soon as you left it in the England!