Watch Batteries and Police Offices

So today was a good day for me! Prepare for long windedness. I know the title seems a bit ominious right? Totally not. First off today I had no classes, so I allowed myself the luxury of sleeping in until 10 am. Which was lovely, and warm, and involved good dreams that I can unfortunately no longer remember. But best of all today was cleaning day. Like ultra cleaning day. I think I washed just about every piece of clothing that I own plus sheets and towels. I've been saving up change for weeks. And it's been warm enough the past week 40-50 degrees that I felt comfortable with pulling the clothes line down inside and putting it back up on the balcony. I can't tell you how happy that makes me. The balcony clothesline is about 2x's as long as the one in my room was. Anyway lots of laundry done, floors mopped and swept, etc. Then I was having Jenna & Young Eun over for a Sukiyaki dinner so I needed to run out to the store and buy some more beef because I was afraid what I had wouldn't be enough.

Now I've been looking for my camera for about a week. I took it with me to see Gyung Mi's entrance ceremony (she passed the entrance exams for Shodai!)and took a few pictures. Then I went to Wing Bay to do some shopping and then I came back to the dorm. I remember looking for Amanda's hair clips in my purse when I got on the bus because I was afraid that I had dropped them somewhere so I ended up pulling half the stuff I owned out of the purse before I found them. I must not've put my camera back in or something because when I went looking for it a couple of days later it was gone! I thought 'maybe I took it out and put it on my desk or something' but it wasn't there. And it wasn't mixed in with all my clothes either (sorry I hate doing laundry with that shitty indoor clothes line). I began to be afraid that I had lost it.

While I was cleaning up I found my watch, the battery of which had gone dead in Tokyo so I had shoved it into my carry-on luggage and forgotten about it. I also found some pictures I'd had made in the Akihabara Yodobashi Camera store and all the gifts I bought for the KY folks in Tokyo. So I thought, what the heck let me get it all together and take it to the post office with me when I go to buy the meat. So I did. Obviously.
First stop was the post office halfway down the hill. I was nervous about it because a. I didn't have a box, b. I didn't know if I had to fill out a customs form or even how the Japanese form worked, and c. I was worried they might not still be open. The local branches close early and have weird weekend hours. So usually I have to go to the main branch which is halfway down to the canal and takes about 45 min to get there. However the entire thing turned out to be really painless (except in the wallet area). The lady at the counter was very nice & helped me pick out a box (100 yen) to put everything into, then she packed it all in there for me, sealed it up, etc. And the customs form was (thankfully) in Japanese & english so it was easy for me to fill out. Then she added it all up and I shelled out 3000 yen ($28) for mailing and I was done.

Next stop was the grocery store where I bought an extra clothes line & clothes pins (I have no idea where half of mine went!) and also the beef which was thankfully on sale along with some other items. They were having a 100 yen sale so you could buy milk for 100 yen (not kind I normally buy), and the meat was 100 yen for 100 grams. After that I had a great idea for dessert and went over to the bakery that rents space from Nagasakiya. It's called Nishimura Family Bakery and I bought some strawberry shortcakes from them. Totemo Oishikatta yo.

Then I ran across the street because Mao said there was a watch shop in the building there and they could replace the battery for me. Very efficient and quick service! The man inside had me sit down and I watched him quickly pop open the back, check the battery to make sure it was really dead, and then replace it. Cost me 1000 yen, but that's about how much I paid the last time to get it done at the jewelry shop in the mall. As I was leaving I noticed that the bus company's office was in that same building and I thought 'what the heck, maybe they've seen my camera'. After extensive back and forth (in my case) in bad japanese I was able to determine that yes somebody had turned in my camera but no they didn't have it. Yesterday they had transfered it to the police station. Not the Kouban (police stand) next door to their office but to the actual police station that was halfway up the hill on the way back to my dorm. I was very frustrated obviously.

So I set off in search of the police station. You must understand that a Japanese police station has like... no english. At all. Street signs, store signs, yeah they have english, the police station. Nope. Not at all. So I walk in there, this hot, sweaty looking foreigner who looks extremely confused. I had no idea where I was supposed to go inside this building. Thankfully one of the police ladies took pity on me and we muddled out that I had lost my camera on the bus. She led me over to their 'lost and found' department where i muddled through with another guy about exactly what I lost, and where, and what it looked like, and who I was and where I lived, etc. I had to fill out a weird form. Then the guy asked me to sit down. About 30 seconds later he holds up my camera and asks me if it's mine. Of course it's mine! I just explained in detail about it & even told him how much it cost. Duh. Then I had to fill out another form that said I had received my stuff back. Thank you Japan . Only in Japan could you lose something that expensive on a public bus and have somebody turn it back in to the proper authorities. I am so thankful to whoever found it and turned it in. I hope they have good luck for the next month. Lol.

So in summary, I got a lot of stuff done, a lot of errands run, property was returned, and I got to see the inside of a Japanese police station without being arrested. :)