land of constant paperwork
the journal of Michael Werneburg
twenty-seven years and one million words
My day started with a trek to "mouth of the gully" to drop off my suit at a dry cleaners. They call this place the land of the rising sun, but I'm beginning to think the emblem should be paperwork*. The dry cleaner's was an excellent case in point. I lucked into a 50% discount on suits, fine. But to even drop off my suit I had to join their "members' club". So, I set about filling in the application, and got through about half my address before I couldn't remember any more. This satisfied the person behind the counter, so I was off to the rest of my day.
Which meant going to the 7-11 to print some documents Mari had scanned in Toronto and uploaded to a service that 7-11 operates. Which they say "convenience store", they really mean it. From an email on my phone, I hand-punched in the digits and one by one the pages slid out. I'd given them only a 3/5 for print quality but given that again, I was printing something scanned on the other side of the world from a convenience store when I otherwise have no access to a printer: yay!
I then took one of the forms to the Minato City Hall (where, 13.5 years ago, Mari and I were married) and submitted a request for .. another piece of paper. This paper would be required, along with a form Mari completed in Canada and that I had printed at the 7-11, plus a form I have in my possession (as yet unfilled) to apply for the house we're trying to rent. I'm already aware that there will be a supplementary form required, as my employer doesn't do something that's fairly common here - take on their employee's home rental. They do that because it's some kind of tax thing, I'm told.
From there I decided to track down the tree for which Mari and I donated the funds with Minato when we lived there. I would say I was half successful: I found the thing, but I wouldn't call it a tree.
"tree"
It turns out it's not a tree, but a type of hibiscus called a "Rose of Sharon". Hopefully I'll see it in bloom some day, now that I know where it is.
From there I decided to see if I could find a new wallet, as I've dropped a bill on this trip (someone recovered it for me) and likely did so on the previous trip here as well (though that was not recovered). Mari had said that "Muji" had some good wallets, so I walked to their location in Ginza. They didn't have anything on which I wanted to spend as much money as they were asking, so I doubled back and went to Bic Camera. Where I found something suitable for carrying cards and cash. Because it has the cards next to each other rather than stacked, I've found I can tap the whole wallet as I enter/exit the train station, which is an unexpected plus.
Then it was back to "mouth of the gully" for my only warm meal of the day, then a bit of fruitless hunting for household goods, and then to a grocery store where I bought - among other things I'd missed the day before - dish soap and hand soap.
*By counter-example on the paperwork: I had to register a credit card with the company with whom I'm parking my Canadian phone number. They sent me a form to fill in, but when I explained that I had no printer or scanner and couldn't complete the process, they allowed me to phone in the details.