Catch up on stories from the past week (and beyond) at the Slashdot story archive

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
User Journal

Journal lingqi's Journal: Janurary 16th, 2003 7

Journal by lingqi

Janurary 16th, 2003 (6:38pm):

Still catching up...

First a small quick thing; for those of you who have never seen "Grave of the Fireflies," you should. Now, for those who have watched it, some (non-spoiler) comments: I have heard from places that this movie should have / could have been done live-action. I personally believe that by doing it via anime the artists had complete control over every bit of emotion that came out of the characters, which would only be achievable with highly talented (young, noless) actors / actresses. Like several others (like, say, Dragonball - which I am still in shock over the fact thay they are making live action ones) would actually work out better in the anime-form.

The not-so-good thing is that we watched this movie on the morning before Mishella left, hence adding to the general sort of depressedness that was already looming.

Now, to be brutally honest nothing exciting has happened this week at all (In fact I havn't actually begun to recount the stuff that went on during this week yet). However some fairly important stuff were done, so still.

Tuesday was the "big day," in effect. I bought a english version of the "Rules of the Road" book for 1000 yen from the local JAF (Japan Auto Federation). JAF in Saitama is off the miyahara (å®®åZY) station which is one stop north of omiya (åå®®) on the takasaki (éåZ) line. Another JAF is actually in Takasaki (needless to say at the end of the takasaki-line, just don't that the ones that stop short), but it's more expensive so go to miyahara instead.

JAF was about 10 minutes walking from the station. It was not difficult to find, nor the transaction particularly difficult. However, it is worth noting that they provide not-so-good-quality driving maps. I skipped them because I have GPS on the car, though.

After that I had to pick up the shako-shome (èSåè¼æZ) from the Police Station. Kumagaya station is quite a distance from pretty much every station out there - even the closest (requiring a change to the chichibu-line at kumagaya) is some kilometer and half from the station itself.

Much debate later, I rode my bicycle from Gyoda to the Kumagaya police station, which is about sever kilometers away. The entire trip took 24 minutes - faster than I have thought. The police was very nice was well; the entire process took maybe 2 minutes - almost anti-climatic since it was a relatively long journey to the place.

Afterwards, I made a stop at the Kumagaya City Hall to get an "proof of residence." This is necessary for the application of the driver's license - literally for the proof that you are living in the address which you specify; I do not know why a simple utilities bill would not have sufficed.

At any rate, since I am a forigner (å-å½ä), instead of the standard "proof of residence" I need a "ç(TM)éOEåZYç¥èè¼äé...è¼æZæ," toroku-genpyo-kisai-jiko-shyome-shyo or somesuch. Cost 200 yen, so cough it up (i.e. don't forget to bring it).

After that, the shako-shome (from police station) gets handed to the car dealer, and they will work on the registration. Takes about 2-3 days for the registration. The insurance company has said that driver's license is not necessary for insurance (unbelievable!) - but expect the premium to break the bank... Apparently driving history in the US does not count toward discounts here. sigh.

Lastly, on the "rule of the road," I noticed that many rules go like "You can not do such and such, unless it is unavoidable, or you are at certain places, or you have attemped to the best of your ability, etc." I hope this is not how they write laws.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Janurary 16th, 2003 More

Janurary 16th, 2003

Comments Filter:
  • I must have missed the part in your journal where you mention why you are buying a car. It seems you've been able to get around fairly well using the train and other public transportation.

    Will the car save you money in the long run? Your description of getting the car seems very slow and very expensive.

    By the way, what's the gas price there?

    Thanks for the interesting journal.
    • gas is around 90 yen a liter, i cant do that in american money or in gallons cuz im canadian and we do it in canadian dollars and liters.
  • Have you seen the japanese version of who wants to be a millionare yet? I think that might be an interesting topic for your journal.
    • first of all - please feel free to addon whatever you feel approporiate.

      I have channel-flipped and saw (very briefly) the said show (who want to be a billion-yen-owner-person or somesuch), but I did not watch it in particular...

      As far as I can recall the said show is everywhere - but always (well, maybe UK has more than a million dollars worth) less than the US amount.

      There was a story a while back that in Tailand's version (final price about 30,000 US equivalent?) somebody mis-connected the video hookups so that the answers are all displayed on the woman's screen and she went all the way to the top.

      They retracted the prize, though. kechin-bo desu ne. (stupid lameless filter won't let me post unicode; bah-humbug)
      • top japanese prize is about 80k US dollars or 120k Canadian Dollars.... Kinda sad

        10 million yen.

        and the show, they spend most of the time just building up the tension after the person says final answer... up to like 3 minutes of waiting and a commercial break in there too.
        • and the show, they spend most of the time just building up the tension after the person says final answer... up to like 3 minutes of waiting and a commercial break in there too.


          haha... yeah... they do that. However, all of us who watched a bunch of DragonBall(Z) can tell you, 3 minute's nuthin compared to watching the two guys staring menacingly at eachother only to delay the fighting to next episode...

  • Your tale of getting all the necessary papers in order to buy a car amused me. I rememember all of the elaborate rigamarole required to get a student train pass, buy a textbook, etc. when I was in college there. So many forms that need to be stamped by so many people, and everyone just assumes that everyone knows this is how it must be done. U.S. bureaucracies can be bad (e.g. DMV), but there just seem to be so many more things like this in Japan.

Slashdot Top Deals

The use of anthropomorphic terminology when dealing with computing systems is a symptom of professional immaturity. -- Edsger Dijkstra

Close