Yesterday myself and Saita-san went to get me an Alien Registration card, and then to the bank to get an account there, so that maybe I can receive my salary and get internet access or something, yaknow.
So Alien card went down without much of a hitch. The forms were all in Japanese, which didn't make good sense to me, but which I've come to expect. On the bright side, I'm getting damned good at signing my name in Katakana.
The bank was a whole other story. No one there spoke any english at all, so Saita-san was acting as a translator for me. Every question the bank-clerk-girl asked, he would translate into english. Whats funny is how many questions involved either Disney, Winnie the Pooh, or Hello Kitty.
Ever diligent, Saita-san translated all the questions to english, often with a very large smile:
"Would you like a Disney land themed check book, or a Hello Kitty themed check book?" (talk about a dilemma)
"For your web-banking interface, would you like Piglet, Eeyore or Winnie the Pooh themes?" (Eeyore, of course)
"We have special Piglet debit cards, and Mickey Mouse visa cards, are you interested?" (I'm afraid not)...
We had to do it all twice as well, because it turns out my birth year (1989) was both the year of the glorious Japanese emperor Heisei 1 and the year of the glorious Japanese emperor Showa 64. Damnit.