Accepting that I had lost my phone in a foreign country, I went back upstairs and found it immediately upon walking back into the room. I'd just dropped it under my bag. I went back down and apologized for wasting the receptionists time, but they wouldn't accept it.
The morale of the story being that there was no shortage of help, and that I was a big dummy.
The owner of my $50 a night hotel picked us up where I was stuck, insisting we take our skis with us. The next morning he took my keys and insisted we go skiing, and he would take care of getting the car out. He said it would be about $50 (rough conversion from yen) to pay for a tow out with the resort’s groomer. All in all he probably spent 6 hours helping me. The bill was actually $100 (still much cheaper than I actually expected), but he would only accept $50 since that’s what he told me earlier. His wife also called the GPS manufacturer and complained.
We (wife and me) had a, now hilarious, run through Melbourne Chasing my iPhone which was ‘stolen’ when we were in a restaurant ; we used the Apple find my phone feature and the phone kept moving all through Melbourne. We had told hotel staff to open up a room we ‘knew’ it was in (luckily they did not), we chased a truck, etc etc. It was in our hotel room, under my bag all that time; I set the stolen sound so it must have made a hell of a fuss; it was making alarm sounds until it was empty. Apple find my phone was absolutely worthless in Melbourne, not sure if it improved but it was fun after; I did not know I would or could run this many miles for a phone. Definitely alcohol as a sober me would’ve probably just emailed the insurance and got a new phone.
Edit; sorry, I always berate people for the word friends (because people use the word for people they have met once and say crap like; I invited 1000 close friends to my wedding etc) and now I do it myself; I have 1 friend and a bunch of ‘personal acquaintances’ in Melbourne.
Every now and again I get a feeling of nostalgia for the Scotland, and I have to say reading that reminded me so strongly of being there it was unreal.
You could be from anywhere, but it's fascinating what even a single word of slang or dialect will trigger memories and emotions.
That reminds me of when I was on a work trip, my wife came with me, but went sightseeing on the weekdays. One day she had gone to Versailles, and wasn't back by the time I got to the hotel after work. After waiting a reasonable amount of time, I called her cell phone and heard it ringing and just about died of anxiety. Fortunately, her phone wasn't left in the room, she was in the hallway, seconds away from opening the door.
> I was steaming after a night of karaoke and somewhere between the bar, taxi and my hotel, I'd lost my phone.
I lived there, worked there. I once dated a girl who turned out to have mental health issues. She probably had a sociopathic disorder; often she would just walk into a store and steal groceries. She had money, in fact she was doing very well financially. And yet she stole.
The other time, she came back with a bike she stole from a JR station. She kept it for a few days and then left it somewhere. When necessary, she stole again, again and again.
Japan is strange in many ways. Bikes are registered and have something like a "number plate" (that's a sticker on the frame). I have experienced several police checks myself. I was stopped with my bike every time the police was doing random checks. The police checked the registration and asked me many questions - I guess because of racial profiling (Japan is a very racist country). Why am I telling this? This girl was also stopped a few times with the stolen bikes, but she had this "thing" where she could keep a cool head in such situations and lie/convince people easily. She never felt any consequences for her actions.
To make it short; It was a horrible time dating her. Thank God this "relationship" didn't last too long.
I’m not sure I would go so far as to say that. Of course you have a lot of them in absolute terms in a country of 110M people, but relatively I think they’re doing pretty well.
Is there some kind of HN Japanese article trend recently?
In any case I appreciate the culture of getting lost stuff returned in Japan much more than “magical” conbinis.
The article mentions money so I’ll add my anecdote. Many years ago as a student we had a going away party for some friends who were returning to the US. Someone had a “genius” plan to beat the jet lag. Since their flight was early in the morning we planned an all nighter so they would catch one of the first planes to the airport, board the plane and sleep the entire flight, waking up back in the US “refreshed”.
About half though the night and after way too many drinks I got sick. It was well past last train so my friends hailed me a cab back to my host family’s house about an hour away in suburban Kokobunji. The next thing I know I’m passed out in the back seat of the taxi and my parents wake me up, pay the $100 cab fare and help me into the house.
I wake up the next morning with a stiff hangover to find so much stuff missing, but most importantly my wallet. It had all the important stuff: a couple hundred in yen, my train pass, my ID cards, and most importantly, my residence card. My stomach sank thinking how I’d get it back.
Later that day as I was recovering the taxi driver came by the house and returned my wallet —- everything intact. I offered all the cash I had but he refused to take it. I cannot imagine he would make such a trip back out that far to return some stupid gaijin’s stuff. It left a permanent memory of people’s generosity.
On the flip side, a Japanese friend of mine and I would practice English. He was always interested in US slang, particularly swear words, which he never quite got right. I’ll always remember the day he nailed it.
He got $500 from his grandparents as a present for graduating high school and entering Waseda University. He called me up and says “I lost my wallet, I got the wallet back but fuuuck man, they took the money.”