Darlo's World

The long wait is finally over, we have the internet!

Not that blogable whatnots are going to get more interesting I’m afraid. With this pending exam and my future hanging in the balance, studying has taken up the vast majority of my time here. Saying that, in these last few days I’ve been less active, finding myself getting easily distracted by the wild antics of the animals outside; the magpies, squirrel and cat. Top this off with a swollen index finger (caused by excessive studying I say) and a constant need to walk across town to buy orange juice from Tesco (I could go to a closer Sainsbury’s Local but I’d be paying an extra quid for the same amount of juice), and I’m left with a situation where things could go tits up very quickly.

That being the case, you could easily think that me getting the internet at home is a bad thing as it will lead to more distractions and procrastination (such as writing this blog entry). But thing is, I already had access to the internet from home as we JUST reach the university’s wireless connection. However that comes with a couple of conditions. First of all I can’t go on any website because sometimes certain sites aren’t “appropriate for a university” (like the BBC … ooh … so raunchy). Secondly the signal is weaker than Goldfish Scooping paper, so you keep disconnected at crucial moments like trying to find the reading of a Japanese character because none of your dozen or so textbooks have the foggiest. And the main pain in the arse is how you get online. In order for me to access the internet, I had to have my laptop on a small table next to my chest of drawers facing a wall, and I had to be crouched on hands and knees on top of the drawers. Not ideal.

The internet itself we got a really good deal on. It’s with O2, meaning we had to have a BT landline. Originally we were going to go with Virgin, but since we were outside of their fibre optic zone we could only get their £30 odd pound a month plan (internet and phone) with speeds of up to 3 Meg (don’t be fooled, that’s Megabits NOT Megabytes). Virgin also seem to have a nasty habit of telling all their new customers that unless they already have a BT line then they would be charged £120 (ish) by BT for a new line. This isn’t the case. You only need to pay that if your phoneline has been completely disconnected, and apparently that only happens if the line goes unused for around a year or so. Easy way to check is to stick a phone in the socket and see if you have a dial tone. If you have the tone, chances are very high you don’t have to pay.

Cheeky virgins. *chuckle*

Anyway, O2 do their home broadband in the form of a ‘Takeaway Box’ which you buy from a retailer after checking how the coverage is in your area, for £30. On one particular day however, during a promotional period when the box was only £15, a member of staff at the Carphone Warehouse offered to just give me one for free. Being a very scepticle and untrustworthy person I had to know where the catch was, but there wasn’t one. Just by having a box (which comes with the router etc) doesn’t comit you to anything, and you can take it back within 30 days if you change your mind. So I wander out of the shop with a £30 piece of equipment and a rather confused expression on my face.

This is where the deal gets really good. When we signed up for O2 we were given two treats. The first was a promotional 2 months free, and the second was a credit on the account for £30 for the price of the box (of course I didn’t mention I was given the equipement free). The package we’re on costs £12.23 a month, or if you are an O2 mobile customer (even PAYG if you top up £10 every 3 months) it’s £7.34. I’m a vodafone man due to a free calls offer with the family, but O2 give Sim Cards away on their website, and I’d certainly top up that much for the sake of cheaper internet. All in all this means that with the exception of the BT Line Rental of £12 (ish) a month, we’re getting our first 6 months free (12 month contract).

But wait, there’s a little bit more. O2′s free simcards also come with a range of offers on them and one of them caught my eye; O2 Your Country. With this offer, if you top up over a tenner in a month you get free international calls. Given that I’d be doing this every three months, I could use those calls to get in touch with friends in Japan and say hi. And that’s exactly what I did the other day. Just after it rolled past midnight I was on the phone to a very, VERY shocked Japanese friend of mine was really wasn’t expecting a phone call at breakfast time.

And so there we have it. I really didn’t mean to sound like an advert for O2, but let’s face it they’re not bad. That being said, this is only day 1.

Today a friend and I took a(nother) last trip to my beloved Nippombashi and DenDen town, in a quest to fill in some gaps of various manga series and such before heading off home. Stopping in Shinsaibashi on the way, we stopped off at the Mandarake for a quick nose. Though I mainly raided the shops supply of cheap さよなら絶望先生 (Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Goodbye Mr Despair), I managed to score two bargains for the Nintendo DS.

狼と香辛料 (Ookami to Koushinryou, Wolf and Spice (refferred to as Spice and Wolf in the UK)), is an anime I first saw at the Leeds Anime Society. I was mainly entranced by it’s storyline that wasn’t set in Japan, but old Europe, and the fact that it uses early economics and trading as a continual baseline. ¬_¬ Yeah that may sound dull and boring to you, but shush, it was great. So not only did I manage to find a copy of the game (that I didn’t know even existed), but I found a special edition box set. I just checked the Spice & Wolf website to find it has a price of 7,770 yen (£54.33), however I paid a measly 2,940 yen (£20.56). I’ve just opened the box and found a ‘Horo voice in a bag’, an audio CD, and of course the game itself. Not bad.

My other bargain was partially based on something I bought yesterday (but forgot to blog about). There are two Higurashi (yeah I know, lately I haven’t shut up about the series) games on the DS which I’ve been wanting to get since I first noticed them back in September, but they were just too expensive. Well yesterday after dropping a 13.8kg box of books at the post office (which will take about 3 months to reach the UK), I found a copy of the second game at a reasonable price (with a 200 yen coupon I had) of 2,280 yen (£15.94), so scooped it up.

Fast forward to today where I find the special edition (Angel Mort) boxed version of the second game for a meagre 1,890 yen (£13.22). The cheapest I’d seen this edition was in the region of 5,000-6,000 yen (£34.96-£41.95), so let’s open her up and see what she holds inside …

We have the game (of course), a framed Shion & Mion card in an Angel Mort stamp card (might take a while for me to read what it says inside >_<), 2 Angel Mort coasters (one written in English: “Dear Customer, Welcome to my cafe. How lucky you are to have chanced upon this place. A place that will make your dreams come true. Have you found your favourite angel? If not, don’t worry. Keep visiting us, and you’ll find your one and only. Please enjoy yourself to the full. We are here to serve you. From, shop owner”), 2 sticker cards, an Angel Mort flanel/hand towel, a paper Angel Mort apron, and an Angel Mort Drama CD. Quite a haul really. You can see a picture of what’s inside on this forum page, though for some reason they got an extra amulet thingy.

So in buying this I was left with the predicament of having two of the same game. My choices were simple. I could either keep both games, try and sell one on to a friend (or eBay), or try and take the more expensive one back to the shop. Despite not knowing how refunds were conducted in Japan or if any etiquette was needed on my part, I opted for the last option.

After quickly looking up the vocabulary for returning something to a shop 返送 (hensou) and refund 払い戻し (haraimodoshi), I headed to the shop (open 24-7, or as is said in Japanese 4-6 (四六時中, shirokujichuu, open around the clock, 4 x 6 = 24)) with the game, the receipt, and what I hoped was the same carrier bag.

Normally in the UK getting a refund isn’t a very simple process. Well, I guess it is (as long as you’re not a prick to whoever’s serving you), but normally the shop will want you to fill in a form, give your address, wait for a manager and so on and so on. With this in mind I was somewhats apprehensive about the whole thing, especially as I still take a good 10 minutes or so writing out my address. When I approached the counter I explained that “I bought the game yesterday as a birthday present for my friend, but he already had it so I wanted to return it” (my usual blatant returning product lie ಠ_ಠ). The staff member then popped to the back and returned with another member of staff. She then checked the amount with me and returned my money with a smile. No paper to fill in, no signatures to sign, that was it … done.

I think I’ll be leaving these two games for the plane trip back, but in the mean time, here’s what I bought today (these will be added to The List at some point, along with the ones I bought that day we went to the Mother Cafe.

• DS Games
• ひぐらしのなく頃に絆第一巻・想　エンジェルモートお持ち帰りBOX
• 狼と香辛料　ボクとホロの一年　初回限定版

• Music CD
• Moment by Vivian or Kazuma

• Sound Novels (games)
• うみねこのなくの頃に　第一話 (also came with a very funky metal bookmark
• うみねこのなくの頃に　第二話
• うみねこのなくの頃に　第三話 (I already had this, but couldn’t remember which of the three I didn’t have)

• Manga
• Genshiken – book 6 (series complete)
• Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei – books 10 to 16 (series complete … for now)
• The Meloncholy of Haruhi Suzumiya – book 5 and a one off special anthology
• Love Hina – book 0
• Akihabara Ichiman Chanel (1 off)
• Higurashi – the remaining books from the 罪滅し編 (tsumihoroboshi hen)
• Higurashi – the remaining book from the 宵越し編 (yoigoshi hen)
• Higurashi – コンプエース編 (comp ace hen)
• Higurashi – Book 1 of 5 of the 語咄し編 コミックアンソロジー (cohanashi hen comic anthology)