7th day - Ginza and getting a phone

Hey, sorry for not posting anything for a few days!
Our classes have just started and we are still deciding which courses are suitable and which are not.

On the 7th day, we went with some students from WIC and Niji no Kai (two international meetup groups) to a government office to sort out our health insurance and other necessary admin necessities.
It was really great to have the help of the Waseda students to do this as it would have been a nightmare without them!
We started off really early in the morning so we were finished around 12pm.

Amy and I decided to go to get a phone afterwards as we knew we had the rest of the day free. We had already been in Japan for a week and not being able to contact people back at home was getting me down so I really wanted to buy a Japanese phone as soon as possible! It seemed that whenever we appeared to have a free day some event would come up so we couldn't go, thus we decided to grab this opportunity to get a phone!

We chose Ginza as our shopping destination as we knew there were English speaking staff in the Softbank store. We weren't trying to avoid speaking Japanese but Japanese phone contracts are so complicated and when you are spending money you don't want to make any mistakes! 

Ginza is a luxurious shopping district in Tokyo. It is full of luxury brand shops like Chanel etc. So if you are looking to see where the other half spend their time. Or want to have a day of luxury then Ginza is probably the place to go.

We first went into softbank and the women who helped us was really great! It was so odd because there were so many coincidences, she had lived in England for most of her life and had lived just roads down from places where both me and Amy have lived in the past!

We hadn't made our minds up so we had a look in a few other shops but eventually returned back to the Softbank store - she had given us a special walkie-talkie like device so we would know when she was next free which was helpful. She ended up spending hours with us helping us choosing the right phones for what we wanted. The service was great and there were even complimentary drinks.

By the time we had made our decisions and completed our phone set ups and contracts it was already dark so we got to see Ginza both in the day and at night.

Sorry for the quality of the night photos!

We went straight back to Shinjuku after we had finished purchasing our phones as it was surprisingly late. 

Back in Shinjuku we went for a quick meal. We had donburi (rice with a topping) and miso soup.

The food was cheap and tasty and was served really quickly - just what we needed after the long day.

The way to order in this restaurant was interesting. You select the meal that you want and then pay using cash, card or a suica card (similar to an oyster card but can be used to pay with vending machines), then a ticket is printed out for you which you give to the waiter/waitress. There are quite a few restaurants in Japan that use this method of ordering. 

Overall it was a pretty productive day, sorting out a Japanese phone number as a foreigner is really frustrating so I was glad to have finally done it. I hope to cover Japanese mobiles in more detail in a future post but for now I'll see you later!