June 28, 2007

“Hello”.

Someone said behind me on my way to a supermarket. I thought he was on the cell phone and I ignored him. He said “Isn’t it Tigger and Pooh?” and he smiled to me. Oh, he was talking about my bag. Yes, the pattern on my bag is Tigger and Pooh. I apologised to him, “I’m sorry that I thought you were on the phone”. He said “I like Tigger and Pooh...”, and he kept talking about the story of Tigger and Pooh. After a small conversation, he asked me “Are you a foreigner?” So, I answered “yes, from Japan.” He laughed and said, “You’re not planning to go back to Japan by train.” He actually asked me “Are you going home?” Ha hahaha... This time, I excused him to say “I thought you asked me ‘Are you a foreigner?’ ”. He said he is also a foreigner. I didn’t recognise it and asked where he was from. He said “Irish”. I see.

Since I’ve arrived here, I had only formal conversation with people in English and he is the first one who talked to me not for business. Though he smelled with alcohol and tobacco and didn’t look like Bill Murray (Joke), it is nice to have a friendly conversation.

June 27, 2007

I went to library for a PC with free Internet access. Today, I had two hours before my reservation for using it, so I looked around the library. It is a huge library. I found Shakespeare’s writings and audio books. Yes, it is nice to read and listen to Shakespeare’s works during my stay in his country. Maybe next time :)

I kept walking in the library. There is a “Language & Literature” section. This seems to be interesting. There are many language-learning books from all over the world. I found about 100 or more Japanese books. There’re also picture books, textbooks for learning English, travel guidebooks, novels and even mangas (comic books). The good point is that there is a huge variety. The bad point is that these books seem aimlessly gathered. These might be donated by Japanese who had left here. I found three copies of the same book titled “It’s fun to live in England” by a Japanese author. I also found a book titled “I’d like to live in Italy” written in Japanese. Who would read this book in Manchester??

June 26, 2007

It was fine today. After 12 days, this is the first day there is no shower the whole day through.

For solving the problem about water and electricity, I went to the state agent office of renting my place. I really appreciate their efforts that I could start to use my property by shortcut procedures. However, they let me know a different postal address. In England, postcode alone can identify the building. So, postcode plus a room number can usually identify my property. When I called an electricity company, however, the telephone operator said “I’m sorry, but I can’t find your property with your postcode and address”. WHERE am I living?? Their recommendation was to ask the landlord. I visited the state agent and they called to the landlord, but she also didn’t know about the correct address. WHO knows it? Anyway, I left my cell phone number and they will get back to me when they can find the correct address.

The maintenance person who was scheduled to come yesterday came here today. They promised to call my cell phone before their coming, but they called me after that. I was at library when I receive their phone call. Anyway, they had an extra key and came into my place and fixed some places. Things are not on schedule, but anyway there’s progress.

June 25, 2007

Things to do today are: call to BT, a water company and an electricity company.

I’m good at dealing with this kind of work in Japan. I could finish these three calls within 30 minutes, but here, I started at 9:40am and finished at 3:00pm. Actually it’s not finished yet. Everything takes much longer time than I estimate. Just making three calls takes such long time.

First of all, I started to call BT. My first priority is Internet access. Now there’s neither telephone line nor ADSL. So, I have to use my cell phone to call BT. They have a free call number, but the announcement said it requires normal charge from cell phone. Anyway I had no choice and waited someone picking up my call. The automatic voice message kept telling me “Sorry to keep waiting. Our line is very busy”. After 5 minutes wait, a person picked up my call. I said “I’d like to use telephone line and broadband service”. He said, “Do you want to use telephone line and broad band service?” I said “yes”. “I’ll connect this line to the section for telephone and broadband. Would you wait for a second?” I had no choice to say “yes”. Again I needed to wait under automatic voice message. After a while, I heard “1 minute remaining” warning from my cell phone. Does BT cost me during my waiting time? My first airtime is 10 pounds (2,400 yen), and this is the first call from my cell phone. Before I finish my calculation about the telephone fee, the line was cut off. And I was at home with no charged cell phone. The first 10 pounds charge helped me know only that I called a different section of BT. What a waste of time and money…

Anyway I have to re-charge my cell phone I have two more offices to call. By the way, how much money do I need to re-charge for finishing all three procedures? With 10 pounds, I didn’t even start the procedures.

I went out for re-charging and decided to use BT public phone. Then I can use free call. Telephone box isn’t comfortable, but it’s better than wasting my cell phone airtime. I have to repeat the same procedure again and I kept waiting under automatic voice message. Finally I reached an adviser. She was very kind. I’d already checked my broadband plan, so all the procedures finished. If I didn’t misunderstand, my broadband will be activated on the next Monday. It’s earlier than I expected. However, I doubt it a bit, because of the fact that a maintenance person is scheduled to come to check my place today but he’s not come yet. Even if the broadband engineer doesn’t come on next Monday, I shouldn’t be disappointed.

Two other calls to water and electricity companies, they have other problems. I’ll describe about this after solving the problems. Now that I use water and electricity without a problem, it’s not urgent so far.

June 24, 2007

TV arrives today! My place is furnished, but there was no TV. My life is becoming better day by day. Still I don’t have Internet access. My current access is from an Internet café or a library. It’s not convenient, but better than nothing. It may take three weeks for getting Internet access at home…. I’ll call BT (British Telecom) tomorrow. I also need to call a water company and an electricity company. I can use the utility now, but I should let them know I started to use the utilities from Thursday. I’m not sure who will pay the fee before I started to live here.

I have to pay water, electricity, TV, and council tax besides house rent fee. I didn’t know about council tax, but it’s about 100 pounds per month. Payment for TV license is also mandatory. If I use BT broadband service, telephone fee and broadband fee are also necessary…

June 23, 2007

It’s rainy season in Japan. It’s not called rainy season here, but every day there’s sudden shower. The weather in Manchester is easy to change.

At last, I got a library card and I could use Internet at library. The best thing is it’s free! The problem is I can’t write Japanese. Hope Internet access at my place will be active as soon as possible.

June 22, 2007

Before coming here, I was suffering for discarding my belongings. So, I decided not to buy things anymore, but now I do shopping again. Life is such a waste of time and money?
As I mentioned, people are very kind here. My frustration is that I don’t understand 100% what they say.
I could manage to make a contract for renting apartment. I made a phone call to the utility company for starting procedures. And usually things work without a big problem, however, I feel that I can’t say with no problem.
I also feel I can’t say 100% what I’d like to say. I went to shopping and took a look at cups. I actually didn’t do anything, but one of cups fell down and broke. It happened next to me, so I felt it might be my fault. I waited someone came. A lady came and she told me “it’s no problem. It’s usual things to happen.” Yes, she is very kind and I wasn’t blamed. BUT, I really didn’t do anything. HOWEVER, for avoiding her confusion, I just kept saying “I’m sorry”. Well, things go no problem, but I feel uncomfortable. This is my frustration in foreign country.