Darlo's World

Last July I sent a less than pleasant email to Tenpin, a bowling operator that has a branch here in Telford, about it’s shoddy and expensive way of booking and trying to contact individual locations. For those of you who still have what you believe to be the local phone number for the bowling alley (01952-290100), I’m afraid to tell you that it changed some time ago to a less than local rate 0871 873 2450 (10p per minute from a BT landline). Now in my original complaint back in July I was informed I’d be getting some free bowling passes, but they never arrived.

Booking over the phone also incurs a £1.50 booking fee which strikes me (no pun intended) as kind of strange. Perhaps if the sales team you spoke to were in a proper office somewhere and that £1.50 went towards running that I guess it would be somewhats understandable (bare in mind I didn’t say reasonable). However rather than speaking to a different location, you’re just talking to a staff member a few metres away from the reception desk; in the case of Telford they’re in a nice warm little room away from customers and enjoy acting snooty to other staff members who they believe they are ‘above’. At least this was the case a couple of years ago when I worked there.

So let’s come forward to last night. I went bowling with my brother, sister, and a group of their mates. For the same unlimited bowling, they had paid £11 each (plus the telephone booking fee) by paying in advance, whereas me and my sister, who did not book in advance, paid just £9. I didn’t know the ins-and-outs of their booking, and thought they’d booked two lanes next to each other for five people (hence me and my sister paying seperately), so a total of 7 people were playing. This wasn’t the case though. The group looked at the total price paid (£73) and compared it to the £9 me and my sister had paid so presumed the full groups entry had been paid.

When our game stopped prematurely we were rudely approached by a member of staff demanding to know who hadn’t paid. Since he wasn’t wearing a name tag I’ll just call him Lanky Larry, or rather, think of Dave Gorman but with glasses, skinny and stretched out (sorry Dave). The group explained to him that everyone had paid and it was during this explanation that I realised what had happened. The manager, not wearing a name badge but since he wasn’t a fan of paying attention and seemed to have the attention span of a gnat I’ll refer to him as Timmy Turner, then came over to add his two pennies. He said that he could make everything completely fair by charging me and my sister an extra £2 each; yes his idea of a ’special bespoke offer’ was to charge extra. Then he sauntered off after seeing something sparkly (well that’s how it seemed), so we then just paid for the extra person taking the total to £82.

When I was working there staff didn’t seem to last very long, managers too, and I can only presume that it’s still that way as no one seemed to have much of a clue about anything. The girl at the bar didn’t know about offers on drinks and had to go ask, Lanky Larry didn’t know how to do much of anything on the desk without running off and asking, even the manager didn’t know that you could perform certain actions right at the lane without the need to run up to reception (which was often unmanned) such as changing names. The only staff member who had a clue was the technician who had been there for years.

But the best staff member for shere stupidity and bone-idleness was the guy in the kitchen. Sporting a pair of glasses and a level of education to rival that of 18th century pile of grass, good old Winston Bennett (no name badge) told us with utmost certainty that there was no mayonnaise in the kitchen. At the same time, one group member was asking the same question to the manager and was offered a choice of normal or garlic mayo. Oddly enough when we’d ran out of mayo and went to the kitchen for more, Winston Bennett still denied there being any mayo on the premesis, despite us showing him the empty punnett.

The staff, sorry, the vast majority of the staff at TenPin are a joke, but truth be told this is how it’s been since the company took over. I was told that back when it was still the Telford Superbowl the staff were treated a lot better and thus took more care and attention in their jobs, meaning customers were treated a lot better. However it seems that Essenden, the owners of TenPin are only after your money and couldn’t care less about how they get it (though that’s not surprising when you look at the Board of Directors and see only one person who mentions any bowling experience). While I was there I was tempted to ask about recent Mystery Bowler results, but thought it might cause too many headaches while people ran around asking other staff members what one was.

Folks if you’re going to be going to Telford’s TenPin anytime soon (truth be told I’ve not been to other locations, they might be better), don’t expect anything great, no wait, don’t expect anything average. Go in with low hopes and you’ll find you won’t be dissapointed.

Once again I leave this open to comments, so if you’ve had crappy service or even (by chance of a miracle) good service jot something down. If by chance anyone from Tenpin or Essenden see this you are also welcome to add any comments.

Today is Valentine’s Day, a day in which couples get sappier and singles get whinier, generally speaking that is. Being one of the latter it did mean that I was free to enjoy my day without the social obligations of meeting the missus. But that doesn’t mean I completely missed out on the tradition.

In Japan the tradition (in a nut-shell) is for girls to give chocolate to boys. There’re two kinds of chocolate depending on who you’re giving it to, and I don’t mean with nuts or without … although reading between the lines it probably does. First is 義理チョコ (girichoko) which you’d give to someone you feel you have a social obligation toward. This might be your boss, teacher, dorm manager, but not only people ’socially higher’ than you, you might choose to give some to your friends and so on.

On the flip side to this is 本命チョコ (honmeichoko) which you’d give to your boyfriend, lover, husband or a boy that you fancy. Don’t worry girls, boys will come to return the favour next month on White Day, and for guys who got no chocolate, we can all get together and celebrate the Korean Black Day in April, but more on those days as they come.

My plan for today involved a trip to 日本橋 (Nippombashi) and Denden Town. If you remember my previous blogs it’s an area that’s known as the 秋葉原 (Akihabara) or Osaka, with plenty of manga and anime related stores, cafes and … stuff. So we headed downstairs (in the lift) and were greeted by the dorm manager. His wife had bought a small piece of chocolate for all the dorm residents (male dorm don’t forget). How kind of her; clearly this was girichoko (especially since it was her husband who gave it to us).

This wasn’t the only chocolate I received this year though. During the week some of my friends who frequent the Ajisai room had brought in their own home-made chocolate and biscuits and shared them around. Delish!

As usual Nippombashi was tons of fun and rumaging around the second hand book shops I found plenty of cheap manga, starting as low as 10 yen (about 8 pence by today’s exchange rate). As per usual DVD’s are expensive, though some stores here were considerably cheaper than the status-quo, and walking past the doujinshi covers you could see the usual ‘dripping’ images. Funnily enough afterwards I was talking with another friend about whether doujins are rated on some sort of ‘drip-scale’ or ‘dripometer’. Don’t get me wrong however, I did spot some of a non-sexual nature, and had I been interested in the series may have considered buying.

After my friend headed off home I stayed around for a walk and a wander. I was actually surprised how close Namba was to the area and ended up eating lunch at a Matsuya near Namba Parks. Though 95% of the time my self-navigatory skills are spot on without the use of a map, the cloudy day and the fact I’d spun in a few circles nosing around and exploring this new area meant I had no direction which way was North, and thus was a bit muddled. However (as all great men say at some point in their lives) I was not lost, I could have turned around and gone back the exact same way I had come from (something I usually find odd that people don’t do when they are ‘lost’), but prefer the fun way of walking and hoping until eventually passing out.

Thankfully I didn’t faint, but instead found a familliar sight in the distance. It was a large arcade (sega arcade I think), that I’d passed on the way. Keeping this to my right hand side I kept on walking and soon found myself on familiar ground.

On my way I found myself drawn to a particular retailer. The small table-top store was selling Monopoly … Osaka Edition! Now I can’t remember if my familly (we’re competitive when it comes to Monopoly) had asked me to buy one in Japan, but me here staring the the Osakan version of Monopoly took my by complete surprise! The only thing stopping me from buying it was the price of 4500 yen (£33.97 by today’s exchange rate). Even now I’m still umming and ahhing about it. I guess I’ve still got some time left here so I don’t need to make a rush decision about it.

To get to Nippombashi it cost me 230 yen (£1.74) on the underground, but me being me, the stubborn money saving twazzerk, thought “nuts to that” and walked home. Quite ironic when you consider my Monopoly incident. The walk (which according to google is just over 3 and a half miles) took somewhere between 1.5 and 2.5 hours. Due to complications with a watch and a phone call, I really don’t know.

It was actually on the way home that I made my biggest cock-up of the day, possibly the week (or longer >_<). When things are put ‘on sale’ in Japan, they might be marketed by a number of prices rather than the one you actually pay. To be fair this isn’t something that’s exclusive to Japan, just think of the times in shops you’ve seen £10 in huge letting next to something expensive only to look at the very small ‘off’ next to it. Well todays balls up was quite simple. I saw a sign saying 800 yen (£6.04) and jeans. Due to an unfortunate split in one of my pairs of bottoms I’ve been left juggling between a few pairs as of late.

Anyway, after nosing through the rail which was out the front of the store, I eventually found a pair that matched my size. Smiling like an idiot at the thought of picking up a bargain, I take my new jeans into the store and head for the desk. Something struck me the moment I entered the shop, and it wasn’t the low signage by the door. This was a nice looking shop, the kind where it looks like all they need to do is sell one thing in order to cover all their overheads, the kind of shop I never (like to) enter!

Being served by two very well dressed well mannered young men felt somewhats off-putting, me standing their in an old work-uniform coat, a University club jumper and jeans that … well, they’re almost as holy as the Pope. When it came for me to pay I stuttered and stammered. I had misread the sign outside, and the jeans were 800 yen off, not 800 yen. A total of 2800 yen (£21.14) for the jeans was paid, 2000 yen over what this idiot had thought they were. To be fair (trying to justify stupidity is something that can seldom be done well, but I’ll give it a go) even at 2800 yen, compared to other shops I’ve been here they were pretty cheap. A lot of people may say that Uni-Qlo is Japan’s cheapest clothing store, and about as close to Primark (oh beloved Primark) as you can get, but in my eye it’s still expensive. Perhaps it’s all these years of buying Tesco and Asda jeans that have conditioned my mind.

Oh, and yes Nippombashi has maid cafes … no, I haven’t been in one … yet. ¬_¬

After spending a good portion of time working on my Kanji in Context material this morning (and afternoon), I went out for a walk to stretch my legs and get some food (being Sunday, you know the drill). I’d also read somewhere that sitting down for too long can cause piles (hemorrhoids), which, pardon the pun, can be a real pain in the ass.

Going no where in particular, with no real goal in mind, I wandered around the area of Umeda between the main town area and my home. Having a browse around various shops and looking in (non residential) windows, something hit me. Well, two things if you count a bicycle that got me in the back of the leg because I wasn’t paying attention.

When compared to prices of things back home, Japan is rather odd. Generally speaking, things can be classified as two kinds of prices (even second hand goods); “really expensive” and “just about normal”, with the rare anomaly of an actual cheap thing. It’s only recently since the high price of the yen (円高) kicked in that I started to notice that what I thought was cheap wasn’t actually inexpensive, it just looked that way next to it’s top class counterpart.

Looking back at my numerous visits to the 100 yen shop, the 99 yen shop, or buying from the 100 yen menu at McDonalds, I realise that I was neither getting ripped off nor getting a bargain (bar the exception of a few awesome finds at the 100 yen shop). Even going to our favourite ‘cheap’ watering hole, it occured to me last night that paying roughly £2.80 was a bit more than usual compared to back home. However, compare that with what appears to be the average price of a beer at £4 to £5 and it instantly looks like a bargain.

Since last week the price of the yen has come down a scoshie bit (no where near to how it was when we first got here mind you), but I’ve really been wanting to squeeze the pennies … or should I say ‘yennies’.

It’s a holiday from Uni this week as new University Konan students take their entrance exams. Good luck folks. Though the break is always well received, I’m not a big fan of time away from University here. Not only because it means not getting food at the dorm (this holiday isn’t a national holiday, which means we get food … well yesterday was), but because it takes me away from chances and opportunities to practice speaking. I did try to start up a conversation twice today with perfect strangers, and it went just as I expected it … very badly. Thankfully not too badly to get me deported, but a lot of confusion on both of our parts (and extreme shock from one guy) led to a very fast exit on both sides.

Anyone remember The Beets? Damn Disney breaking them up T_T