Sunday (01/06/03)
I woke up a little…jaded. I was moving into my flat today which was a bit exciting but I was shattered. And before check out I had to get all my crap together and fit it into my suitcases. Surely not too difficult as, apart from the camcorder, it all came in them. You'd think so anyway.
My nearest station is "Koshigaya", Elin is coming to the same station and Steve is one stop earlier at "Shin Koshigaya". I had always thought "shin" meant evil[A] but I guess that's wrong. Anyway, we have to change lines at Shin Koshigaya so Elin and I go to a café whilst our housing person from Shane (Junko) shows Steve to his flat. I have a nice iced coffee because it is a bit hot but I need the caffeine. Badly. The thing is, when I say change trains, I mean it. It isn't just the train and line we change, it's a different company so we need a totally separate ticket for one stop! It's actually really annoying and we have to walk across the road to get into ANOTHER station[B] too. I guess this is privatisation in action. Fight it!
After Elin is shown her flat (and we decide to meet at the station at 4) and Junko has sorted her out briefly (she gave me the thumbs up from her balcony so she must be OK with it) I am taken to mine. Its not too far, and I am welcomed by the old tenant - Iain and his girlfriend Yoriko. They give me the lowdown on the place and some of the little things that are particular to it. Once Junko has gone, Iain fills me in on a few other things about Japan and stuff whilst Yoriko looks a bit bored. He has left Shane after 8 months and is off to Sapporo (might remember from the world cup - indoor stadium where we beat Argentina) on the north island to open a pub with a few mates. Sounds pretty long term to me!
Once they have gone, at about 1, I really regret organising that meeting with Elin at 4 because I just
want to sleep and I have no alarm clock to wake me up.
I go off to meet Elin and actually see her in the McDonalds so I pop in (though don't buy anything). She has had a brief look around already and wants to go to the next station (Shin/Minami Koshigaya) to get a hairdryer. I wasn't going to do that so I walked around Koshigaya for a bit and then went home.
---All lettered footnotes were written in 2015---
A. Shin usually means new and it seems it was used to differentiate the two main Osaka stations when the bullet train, or “shin”kansen started operating to Osaka. It seems to be used in a few places in a similar way.↩
B. We had come through on the "JR" line which was the state railway company until 1987 and needed to use the TOBU lines. Being able to buy one ticket for a journey is called through ticketing and had not been introduced at this point. Ticketing did get smarter in the time I was there with pre-paid cards and then electronic tickets like oyster becoming more prevalent. It was not long until you could pay using your phone (which is part of the reason why I am confused at the innovation of NFC when it has been around for a while) but I never did this as I preferred keeping things separate. I think you could through ticket in terms of having a single ticket on the private lines but the fare was still two separate ones.↩
I woke up a little…jaded. I was moving into my flat today which was a bit exciting but I was shattered. And before check out I had to get all my crap together and fit it into my suitcases. Surely not too difficult as, apart from the camcorder, it all came in them. You'd think so anyway.
My nearest station is "Koshigaya", Elin is coming to the same station and Steve is one stop earlier at "Shin Koshigaya". I had always thought "shin" meant evil[A] but I guess that's wrong. Anyway, we have to change lines at Shin Koshigaya so Elin and I go to a café whilst our housing person from Shane (Junko) shows Steve to his flat. I have a nice iced coffee because it is a bit hot but I need the caffeine. Badly. The thing is, when I say change trains, I mean it. It isn't just the train and line we change, it's a different company so we need a totally separate ticket for one stop! It's actually really annoying and we have to walk across the road to get into ANOTHER station[B] too. I guess this is privatisation in action. Fight it!
After Elin is shown her flat (and we decide to meet at the station at 4) and Junko has sorted her out briefly (she gave me the thumbs up from her balcony so she must be OK with it) I am taken to mine. Its not too far, and I am welcomed by the old tenant - Iain and his girlfriend Yoriko. They give me the lowdown on the place and some of the little things that are particular to it. Once Junko has gone, Iain fills me in on a few other things about Japan and stuff whilst Yoriko looks a bit bored. He has left Shane after 8 months and is off to Sapporo (might remember from the world cup - indoor stadium where we beat Argentina) on the north island to open a pub with a few mates. Sounds pretty long term to me!
Once they have gone, at about 1, I really regret organising that meeting with Elin at 4 because I just
want to sleep and I have no alarm clock to wake me up.
I go off to meet Elin and actually see her in the McDonalds so I pop in (though don't buy anything). She has had a brief look around already and wants to go to the next station (Shin/Minami Koshigaya) to get a hairdryer. I wasn't going to do that so I walked around Koshigaya for a bit and then went home.
---All lettered footnotes were written in 2015---
A. Shin usually means new and it seems it was used to differentiate the two main Osaka stations when the bullet train, or “shin”kansen started operating to Osaka. It seems to be used in a few places in a similar way.↩
B. We had come through on the "JR" line which was the state railway company until 1987 and needed to use the TOBU lines. Being able to buy one ticket for a journey is called through ticketing and had not been introduced at this point. Ticketing did get smarter in the time I was there with pre-paid cards and then electronic tickets like oyster becoming more prevalent. It was not long until you could pay using your phone (which is part of the reason why I am confused at the innovation of NFC when it has been around for a while) but I never did this as I preferred keeping things separate. I think you could through ticket in terms of having a single ticket on the private lines but the fare was still two separate ones.↩
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