Life anywhere is full of little problems that we have to deal with… the little headaches of daily life. *sigh*
Last week while we were away in South Korea,my Japanese iPhone was turned off and stowed carefully in the bottom of my backpack. When we travel, my US phone which has free data and text messages… and $0.20/minute calling (ala our T-Mobile plan) is what I use. In retrospect, I probably could have gotten by with just the T-Mobile phone for these two years in Japan, and not gotten a Japanese phone at all… but I thought (at the time) that I would need a phone for calling here in Japan. So I have been carrying two phones… my US Samsung phone for communicating back home, and an iPhone for use here.
Anyway… When we got back to Tokyo, I turned on my iPhone and it immediately said it needed to do an update. Ok… I have done a couple of updates in the past few months, and all went smoothly. This time, however, after a few minutes, my phone said that it needed to be plugged into iTunes because the update had failed. Long story short, my Japanese iPhone failed to update, and though I have tried numerous things, numerous times (suggested by the IT people at my husband’s office, and from websites found on Google), it just will not update. It just gives me error codes.
So, today I went to the SoftBank Store — my cell service provider, and the place I bought the phone. “Eigo ga wakarimasu ka?” I said, and before I even got the words out, the guy at the counter crossed his wrists into an X, and said, “Eigo no” (“English no.”) I still tried to talk to him, and showed him my phone, and told him the update failed. He seemed to know the word “update”, took the phone from me and turned it on. Then he handed it back and said “Apple su-to-a” and handed me a map — which was written entirely in Japanese.
Well… next stop, the Apple Store. I hope I have better luck finding someone who can speak English with me. I am still learning Japanese, and I am sorry I can’t communicate better than this… I really am trying.
As I said… I know life is full of these kind of little problems, but it would be so much easier if I could speak Japanese. I’m enjoying this time living in Japan… It is just that some days are more difficult than others.
Four Years in Japan ... and now Three Years in London 