The Twilight Zone

I don't get it. I just don't get it. A year and a half ago, after having moved from one end of Tokyo to the other, I had to reregister my address with the local council and the national public health insurance scheme. I did this on the very day I moved and was told that my new health insurance card would be issued to me with the updated information. In the meantime, I was told, if I needed to charge any medical services to the insurance scheme, I was to use my current health insurance card. So I did. Twice.

I recently got a letter from the former insurance office (near where I used to live) instructing me that I have to refund them 8,000 yen for services I charged to their office after having moved. Today, I called up my current local insurance office and told them about the letter that was sent to me from the former office, and said that seeing as I was already properly reregistered with the current office at the time I incurred those fees, I thought that I wouldn't have to pay up. Not so, apparently.

The following is the essence of the phone call I had with a person from the local insurance office earlier today.

[Bureaucrat] You need to pay the other office the requested fees.

[Me - perplexed] Why?

[Bureaucrat] Because we won't be able to reimburse you until you pay the insurance scheme the outstanding amount.

[Me - perplexed] Huh? But I thought I was covered?

[Bureaucrat] You were. You were properly registered with this local insurance office at the time you incurred the fees at the former insurance office. However, at the time you incurred the fees, you had that former insurance office listed on your insurance card, and they paid the fees on your behalf.

[Me - perplexed] But when I called the insurance office at the time, I was instructed to use that old card until the new card was issued. It took you 6 months to issue the new card, and I couldn't wait that long to get treatment.

[Bureaucrat] That's correct.

[Me - perplexed] But you're going to make me pay anyway?

[Bureaucrat] Yes.

[Me - perplexed] But it's a national health scheme. The other office is 20 minutes away by train. Why can't you just resolve it internally?

[Bureaucrat] ... (pause) ... Please pay the amount by the stipulated deadline.

[Me - perplexed] But hang on. I don't understand. I reregistered on the very day I moved, I was covered at the time I incurred the costs, I confirmed that I was still allowed to use the insurance card, I used the insurance card, and yet I am still be asked to pay the amount of money.

[Bureaucrat] Yes, but you clearly don't understand. We're going to reimburse you. It's ok.

[Me - perplexed] So you want me to reimburse the insurance scheme in order for you to then reimburse me?

[Bureaucrat] Exactly!

(Intellingent observers will note that Kallun is still perplexed by the logic)

[Me - perplexed] And this doesn't strike you as strange?

[Bureaucrat] ... (pause) ... Please pay the amount by the stipulated deadline.

[Me - perplexed] How about this? How about I forgive your debt to me, and you forgive my debt to you, and we call it even?

[Bureaucrat] But you're going to get your money back. All you have to do is go an pay the amount, get a receipt, then bring your bank account details and the receipt into the office, and fill in the paperwork, and then we will reimburse you.

[Me - perplexed] And who is going to be responsible for paying the fees?

[Bureaucrat] What fees?

[Me - perplexed] The fees I'm going to incur when I have to withdraw money via an ATM in order to pay the amount, and the costs I'm going to incur in order to get to your office, and the time I'm going to waste in order to complete the entire procedure.

[Bureaucrat] ... (pause) ... Oh. Well... we won't be reimbursing you for that.

[Me - perplexed] So, tell me if my understanding is correct - essentially, I abided by the rules, I did what you told me to do, I used the card as instructed, and now I'm going to have to pay you for something you should have paid for in the first place only to then have you reimburse me for it less the transaction and other miscellaneous costs?

[Bureaucrat] ... (pause) ... Please pay the amount by the stipulated deadline.

At this point, Kallun is sure he can hear the theme music to the Twilight Zone ringing in his ears.

I'M BACK...

...and how better to do so than with a post about a phallus. As my very humble contribution to the debate re: theories about skyscrapers and their phallic symbolism, I submit an artistic representation of the soon-to-be-opened "Cocoon Tower" in Tokyo.

Well might one argue that the graphic depiction of the design is simply innocent, and that I am decidedly perverse, but I think the following photo of a poster I saw on the train this morning advertising said phallus (and adjacent gonad) highlights my point - the graphic designers clearly have a wicked sense of humour.


I mean, seriously, why else would you advertise the opening of a new building by presenting its image horizontally if you were not trying to be a smartarse?

It gets marginally better, though. As I was trying to send this image from my Japanese mobile phone (with which I took the offending photograph) to my computer in order to upload it onto the blog, I was prompted with two menu options/messages. The first screen (on the left), provides the option of attaching the photo to an email (to then be sent to my computer). The second poorly translated screen message (on the right), though, points out in a double entendre-esque way that my photo of the phallic building might not be sent because the "other phone may not play as the size is large".


















Needless to say, this kept me amused most of the day... clearly, I have no life.

Starbucks - Act 2

[Scene] I'm at Starbucks, standing in line behind a gaggle of giggling schoolgirls with no concept of volume, waiting to order. Having finished ordering, they exit stage left, and I step up to the register.

[Starbucks Dude] Hi. Welcome to Starbucks.
[Me] Hi. Can I have a cappuccino, please.
[Starbucks Dude] Certainly. Is that to have here or to take away?
[Me] To have here, please.
[Starbucks Dude] I'm sorry, but I'm afraid you can't - all the seats and tables are taken.
[Me, teeth firmly gritted] Well, then, I guess I'll have to have it to take away, won't I.
[Starbucks Dude] Are you sure?

In the darker recesses of my mind, I proceeded to commit horrible, unspeakable violence against Starbucks Dude...

The Starbucks Spasm

I was fortunate enough to be a witness today to a new dance that I have appropriately named the "Starbucks Spasm".

I'll explain the moves, so that you too can bust a move the next time you're off to get a hit of caffeine.

The man sitting on the couch next to mine took off his shoes - I'm not sure if it's important for the effective performance of the dance, but if at all possible, you should also probably try to mismatch the colour of the socks as best you can... the man who performed the dance today had a clever and attractive mix of neon pink and navy blue... each a different styles of sock too, of course.

Step two apparently involved throwing each foot up onto each armrest of the chair opposite the one you're sitting in, much like a woman would place her feet in stirrups before giving birth. I assume step three involves gyrating your hips and rotating your neck in clockwise and counterclockwise directions respectively, because the guy started what seemed to be a mid air yoga routine... or at least that's what I thought it was until I realised that his impressive 50 year old contortions matched the timing of the moderate-tempo Spanish music that was playing over the sound system. At this point, I concluded that it was either a clever new dance or an impressively elaborate epileptic fit.

I doubt it'll be a dance crazy that'll take the world by storm, but then I was wrong about the Macarena too...

A Considered Reflection
on a Considerable Period of Time

This post is a manifestation of a confluence of events - the end of 2007, my 1000th day in Japan, and my not having anything better to do. It seems to me to be an apt time to reflect on my time in Japan in general, and on 2007 specifically.

One of the more notable events of the year, I think, was that on March 20, I was living in a concrete box with a double-glazed window that could generously (and reluctantly) be described as a dormitory room; and on March 21, I was not. My move to an apartment on the other side of Tokyo was not simply a geographic relocation, it was a fundamental improvement in my standard of living.

Whereas before, when I was living in my concrete box, I would be awoken from my slumber by the melodious sounds of metal grinding against metal when the 6:02 morning train rumbled past my window; now, the only sound, if any, is the squeaking of rust wheels of the walkers used by the grandmas in my 'hood' to perambulate impatiently back and forth in front of the store on the 1st floor of my apartment building, waiting for it to open.

Whereas before, when I was living in my concrete box, I had to remind myself to close the curtains before getting out of the shower so as not to give the students in the high school directly opposite my window (on the other side of the train tracks) an unexpected biology lesson in gaijin genitalia; in my new apartment, I found myself one day looking out the window at the old lady in the building opposite mine looking back at my recently showered, wet and naked body, and it occurred to me that I should probably buy some curtains and then keep them closed.

Life is a learning curve, I have since discovered, and the occasional accidental expose of naked flesh makes it all the more interesting.

Something else I learnt (sans the exposure of naked flesh) was always to measure the width of the hallway into the living room before ordering a 2 seater couch. This lesson derived from my realisation that I am, in fact, utterly incapable of manipulating the fabric of time and space in order to bend the corporeal world (namely my narrow hallway) by the sheer force of my will. My creative mind lurched into action, and I conjured up the fantastical solution of energetically hurling the couch out the window of the building opposite mine and through the curtainless window of mine. However, after considered reflection, I arrived at the rather sensible conclusion that rocking up at the house of the old lady I had exposed myself to not a few days earlier, only to then ask her to if I could eject a couch out of her window, would be a considerably big ask...

Part 2 to follow tomorrow.

There's a storm a-brewing!

Typhoon No. 9 is about to hit Tokyo - but it's ok, because I have my snorkel, my floaties, my flippers and a nifty little swimming costume prepared.

Presumably, there were eight other typhoons this season, but they clearly weren't as bad-ass as this one, because this is the only one that caused my company to start issuing warning bulletins to us by email. If we don't receive any more bulletins, we can assume one of three things:

(1) that the danger has passed, and that we're all going to be ok;
(2) that the management don't want to alarm us, and to keep us working and make as much money out of us for as long as possible before we get blown away to the four edges of the world; or
(3) that the typhoon has already affected the internet servers for all of Japan (it happened not too long ago with an earthquake), all 'imminent impact' warning emails have failed, and we're all doomed, DOOMED I SAY!

Now I sit here blowing up my floaties - waiting, blowing, waiting, blowing...

Curious Cuff Links

I was at a upmarket clothes store the other day, buying a shirt, and I went over to the display case to look at their cuff links. They had three pairs, each with a picture and a title to go with each picture.

The first set had a picture of a muffler and a beaver.
It said "Muff" and "Beaver".

The second set had a picture of a donkey and a little boy. It said "Donkey" and "Dick".

The third set had a picture of a puppy and a lady model. It said "Doggy" and "Style".

The sales assistant couldn't work out why I broke out into a fit of laughter...

People of the Polka-dotted Persuasion

Measles, measles everywhere, and not a spot to be seen...

It is to the eternal regret of my mother that I was never fortunate enough to contract measles or chicken pox as a child. Try as she might to 'socialise' me with the neighbourhood kids (each of whom were scratching, blotchy messes), her little boy's immune system was ever-so strong, and curiously insusceptible to the contagious trials and tribulations of other little boys and girls.

With my now advanced age, my immune system (my defense against the mercurial temperament of mother nature and her occasional tantrums direct at my person) has taken a battering of late through a combination of self-induced insomnia and sustained, yet moderated, self-abuse of the alcoholic variety.

And so it is that I, with my less-than-perfect immune system, find myself in a city that is now in the midst of an outbreak of measles on many of the campuses of its many universities... while some might call this a curious coincidence, I'm inclined to attribute it to the continued collusion of the malevolent fates conspiring against me... Supporting my theory of a damnable and malicious cosmic force, I am further aided by the evidence that whilst other universities have shutdown, mine has done little more than send out a half-hearted email to students (of which I was apparently not on the mailing list, and had to have it forwarded to me by a friend) urging those inflicted with polka-dots to stay at home... the rest of us, I assume, can be damned...

It smells like snow...

It's past midnight, and I'm balancing precariously on my window sill, laptop in its rightful place on top of my lap, feet resting on a slippery balcony railing, with a rum and coke in one hand and trying to type an instant message to Aunty M with the other. I am doing this because I was told that it was going to snow tonight/Sunday, and so I sit here, defying gravity, common sense and risking the possible onset of deep vein thrombosis, in the freezing cold, waiting to see some snow flakes.

It's not like I wouldn't be able to see them. Should they ever happen to float down, there is enough ambient neon light from the nearby shopping district to illuminate the heavens to give it a light bluish/purplish tinge.

While I wait, I thought I'd post some photos from my time in Australia, my spontaneous trip to Osaka and just some random pictures from the infuriatingly incessant light show that is my local shopping district. I have too much to write about and not nearly enough time to do it all at the moment, but I will get there eventually.

---There is something quintessentially Australian
about a country vista with a portable dunny---


---Australia's answer to Hogwarts... but prettier---


---Osaka Castle---


----3 steps to being "so happy" - (1) relax, (2) feel yourself,
and finally (3) enjoy yourself----


---The local red light district---




---Problem gamblers watching problem gamblers---

Photos from around town