The Swimming Keitai

I hate cell phones. I do not deny their convenience but I still hate them. I think they are warping mine and following generations. When I started university folks walked around and talked to each other, actually smiled at passers by. When I left university, the second you stepped out of building you could hear the dozens of phone flipping open so those folks could talk about what they wore as they walked the 10 minutes to their next class.

Cell phones make me sad. The line between need and want when it comes to cellphones has become this big gray void. What happened to just planning ahead, having a backup plan. We as a species and society have survived without them....and yet some of my friends are baffled at my disgust for them. Here and in Japan.

In Japan they are called keitai's.

Any given time you ride a train in in this country there is a sure fine bet you will find folks texting rather than reading, or just looking out the window. A huge market in this country is for little charms that hang off the damn things. Seriously, I've seen high school students with at least twenty of these buggers hanging off the phone.

The new I-phone that just got introduced int he states is a joke. Just among my english speaking friends an average phone has the ability to capture at least a 6.0 megapixel picture, take a video, buy music off the internet, play music, text, and cure hunger.

So on January 15th last year i bought one. After listening to my friends complain about all the hidden charges for the first six months we were here....a new promotional plan was introduced by a competing company. Even with my great distaste for the cell phone, not even i could pass up a 25$ a month contract.

I found myself playing with all the gadgets and features. I downloaded "What a Wonderful World" by Louis Armstrong and made it my ringtone, I played with a virtual dog (this just made me sadder and want a real one more), took pictures, texted small pictures instead of words to prove i was clever. :|O

Two weekends ago in Hakuba myself and two friends were walking back after trip to an onsen (hot spring). We had witnessed an epic day of riding/skiing and the hot water just felt too good. While walking back I was neither drunk, nor tired, nor distracted nor drugged. Yet somehow, as I walked...looking at the ground as I did so....I stepped into a 2 foot deep trench.

These trenches line most streets and roads. Some are covered, some are not...the simply carry to run off water from up to down. This particular trench was rushing ice cold water. No exaggeration. So I hopped out, quite fast, told the boys it was ok to laugh because I indeed had just walked into a hole. Something fit more for Monty Python than my skinny butt.

About thirty minutes later I realized that my three week old keitai was not in my possession. We went back to look for it. Find it we did not. The next and last day of out Hakuba trip i decided to sniff around and see if I couldn't secure some solid suggestions for backpacking this summer. Plus there were some cool Olympic sites that I wanted to check out and the crowds on the mountain had gotten to me.

So as I walked down a hill, marveling at the beautiful day, I happened to pass my place of blunder from the night before. And wouldn't you know it....there in a clear pool of water was my phone.

I dried it off, charged it up and low and behold it works. That is, everything but the 1, 2 and 3 buttons. And because I got her during a promotional event...and new one is going to cost me about $200 bones.

I hate cell phones.

:)