japan hates me.

the fall of the exchange rate

at least i got a prepaid phone (finally) with the help of rajiv, another guy i've met through fashion. he works in the corporate world here, and does some fashion design for the rock-themed label random. so getting a contract was out of the question because they're all for a year, and if you break it you pay something like a $200 penalty. but yeah, the process of getting a cellphone is pretty painless, you go to a vodafone store, tell them you want a prepaid phone, give them your passport and home address, give them money, wait for an hour and a half and you have a phone! the interesting thing is, i went to a store before and just asked how much the phones were (you only get to choose two) and they quoted me ¥4000 and ¥10000 (i've read accounts on expat websites that quote the same prices). when rajiv asked in japanese he got the quotes ¥2500 and ¥6500. i thought foreigner-pricing (or cannot-speak-japanese-tax) wouldn't happen in japan, but apparently i was wrong. oh and about the phones- the two phones that you can use with the prepaid plan are:

as if the cellphone envy wasn't punishment enough for being a 'gaijin' (foreigner), they give you the option of a crappy stick phone (no one in japan uses a stick phone, everything is flip or slide open) or a super bright yellow flip-phone... so everyone can point and laugh at the gaijin with their shitty cellphones. i'm not bitter haha... but it is funny.

i went to a fashion party last night at club garden in roppongi, it was quiet so some of us left early and ended up at a japanese parapara club, alife. so yes, parapara was entertaining for the first 10 minutes, but 5 hours of it was a bit too much for me. and i really don't like trance, sorry.