Day 9 Tuesday 17th August 2010
Now we’ve reached the point where we have to do some official paperwork so we went to the Kyoto court to sign up for the house.
Now we’ve reached the point where we have to do some official paperwork so we went to the Kyoto court to sign up for the house.
Shuffled paper for an hour.
This culminated in a bizarre episode.
This culminated in a bizarre episode.
For some reason you need to pay some fee to some paperpusher for some obscure reason that remains unclear. Its only Y500 so no big deal. Except......they don't take cash. or credit cards. or cheques or any other thing you or I would regard as currency. The financial instrument of choice is a stamp. A postage stamp thing just like on a letter. Now it isn’t used for mailing anything, but it’s a kind of receipt that shows this fee has been paid. OK then. Where do we get one of these stamps?
Easy.
Easy.
Go down 2 floors, 3rd door on the right, ask the woman in there for a stamp. Give her Y500.
So off we go, expecting another bureaucrat in an office that has a sign that says "obscure fee stamp department" or some shit like that.
So off we go, expecting another bureaucrat in an office that has a sign that says "obscure fee stamp department" or some shit like that.
Instead it turns out to be a lolly shop. Yes lollies. And chocolate and even noodles.
Behind the counter is a standard 70 something year old Japanese grandma.
What the......this can’t be right.
Shizuka, being Japanese, is ahead of me in this game.
Instead of loudly exclaiming "you've got to be fucking joking" (as I was about to), she just asks grandma for a Y500 stamp. "Sure" says grandma and hands over the stamp.
Back to the papershuffling department, stick the stamp on the small mountain of paperwork and we're done. One house bought.
Instead of loudly exclaiming "you've got to be fucking joking" (as I was about to), she just asks grandma for a Y500 stamp. "Sure" says grandma and hands over the stamp.
Back to the papershuffling department, stick the stamp on the small mountain of paperwork and we're done. One house bought.
 |
| Stamps. Better than money. |
On the way home we went to a work clothes shop . As you know, in japan they have cool working clothes, overalls, jackets etc. Thought to myself, I'll get a cool work jacket. Old dude who runs the place tells me I need a 5L size. Which he doesn’t have because the biggest size he sells is 4L. Apparently, I'm the biggest person ever to enter his shop. So I try 4L. It’s OK except for the sleeves, which are too short. He suggests I go on a diet. I enquire as to how the fuck will a diet make my arms shorter? He concedes that Perhaps it won’t.
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