Updates in Osaka

March 23:

We went to the Toyonaka City Hall to settle our Alien Foreigner's registration (外国人登録証), we spent a 3 minutes on the Hankyuu (阪急) Train to travel from Hotarugaike (蛍池) to Okamachi (岡町). This was the first time I am stepping on the platform of Japan's train station after watching and seeing so many TV and Minna No Nihongo videos. Really excited, as you may know, there are different types of train in Japan, 普通、準急、急行、特急 etc. All will be arriving on the same platform at different times. We will have to check the time properly and the train arrives PUNCTUALLY on the dot!

3 minutes have passed and we found ourselves at Okamachi Station Entrance. We walked our way to the City Hall and during the journey we stumbled upon a mini shopping street. There I also found a Shrine and took plenty of photos there.

Finally we arrived at the City Hall, the friendly staffs assisted us with the Foreigner's registration process and gave us useful information packs. The lady at the counter was also very considerate that she spoke so slowly so that we could understand. We took our temporary pass in about 5 to 10 minutes and we left for Mitsubishi Tokyo UFJ Bank (三菱東京UFJ銀行) to open our accounts.

Here comes a 'mini adventure' with the Japanese.

The people at the counter was not able to speak English, well it was more or less expected. So I tried my very best to speak with them in my lack-of-practice Japanese, with my barely adequate listening skills to follow their procedures. There was some hindrance here, they need a document to certify that we are really living at the place we are living at. We didn't have that, so we were directed to the counter and told that we should get a form of certification from the City Hall again and come back. Well, WE WALKED BACK TO CITY HALL and took bought the documents and walked back to the bank. All the things sort of went well after that, the only thing is that I did not have an inkan (印鑑) which is compulsory for Japanese to replace their signatures. The banker is kind enough to accept my signature and told me to get an inkan next time when we come. All things settled and we went to settle our lunch. It was already 3:50pm.

After that we made our way to a shopping street at Ishibashi (Walk near to Hotarugaike) and had our late lunch over there. We went into a food shop named Matsumise.

The food ordering system was quite cute there, the workers do not take orders but we order using the food-ordering machine:

After that, we were given a receipt and we will pass the receipt to them and they will prepare the food for us. It is quite efficient and fast and it could really manage large crowd. =) In less than 5 minutes, the food is ready red hot on the table:

Well, within 10 minutes, the meal became:

After that, we went back to our home and had a nice rest.