Keitai Konfusion

I got a bank account today. Pretty simple. I like how the cash card (ATM card) comes in 32 different colors and I get to choose one. I chose Dreamy Purple. Very pretty. Should come in 10 days so I will be able to pay my next month`s rent in time. I can bank online too in English. Woot!

But there is no woot! for the keitai denwa. My cell phone.

Japanese cell phones kick the asses of American cell phones anyday. Even my fancy pink Motorola Razr`s bum gets beaten by the OLD-SCHOOL vodafone model that I have.

2 megapixel camera and the capability to play music. I have a 32mb memory card already built in.

But it`s the contract and the usage of the phone that get`s me - seriously, I do not know how to use this damn thing. It took me 20 minutes to figure out how to change my ring tone. Doesn`t help that the manual is not in english. And I didn`t sign up for this email thing so I don`t have a phone email? Not very helpful, because in order to text (or send a `Long Mail` or a `Sky Mail`) to someone outside the Softbank Network, you can`t use a number, you have to use the email?

Pah! This is so complicated. Right now, I sorta have buyers remorse - I sorta wished I had just plunked down the money for the cheapest and simplest cell phone and done pre-paid. Oh well. I signed a contract for 26 months and they don`t have one year so I have to pay a cancellation fee, which is the equivalent of how much my phone would have cost anyways. I think once I get the ball rolling on this keitai thing, I won`t regret getting a contract. Either way, I would have to pay for a cell so I might as well get the contract along with it to get all the goodies without having to go crazy paying so much. Then again, pre-paid would limit me but oh well. Thing is, pre-paid in London was simple because it was just texting, here it is a TOTALLY different story. They have cell phones that turn into miniature tv`s.

You win some, you lose some. Whatever. Not like I am really paying for it.

So as I was waiting for my cell phone to get activated, I wandered into this store called Inobun. Heaven - it is like a combination of Anthropologie and Kate`s Paperie.

I attached my cell phone charms - the one that Maki gave me and the one with a little bell and a dog from Fushimi Inari Taisha - to my cell phone on the bus back to school. I now jingle.