Cable TV

Think buying a car is tough here in Japan? Try subscribing to cable TV... It has taken almost a month to get the cable box delivered to our home. Our housing agent told us to just give Sky Perfect TV a call and we would have cable... yeah, right.

Last month I called Sky Perfect TV, surprisingly they had an english speaking operator who was kind enough to send me the application forms for cable TV. Managed to fill them up and submit the forms, only to be told later that at Gotenyama House, where we live, it's not Sky Perfect TV that services the apartment, it's Sky Perfect TV Hikari.

Fine.

Called up Hikari, which doesn't have an english operator, so I had to leave my number and wait for them to call back. Several phone calls and a week later I get the Hikari application forms... in japanese. Undeterred, I had my secretary fill them out. Only to find out after she faxed it to them, that these were old forms. Industrious and helpful, if a bit slow, she managed to get a new set of forms, filled them out and faxed it to Hikari.

So last Saturday promptly at 9am, I get the cable set-top box delivered to the apartment. Only to find all the instructions in Japanese and even if it were in english, one would need a Phd from MIT to plug the damn set in...

So, I called Hikari again, left a message, waited for a call from an english operator, who arranged for an english speaking technician to call me yesterday night.

Received the call at 7.30pm, following his instructions I started plugging wires and cables into the cursed set-top box. Sweat streaming from my brow wondering why they don't invent robots to do this... Turned on the telly, went through the menu-setup (all in Japanese), just as we were about to finish the installation procedure...

the technician said: 'excuse me sir, its coming to 8pm'
'thanks, but I've had dinner so do I scroll up to line 4 or line 5?'

the technican said: ''I have to end the phone call at 8pm'
'why we're almost there... line 4 or 5?'

the technician said: 'We stop work at 8pm'
'dude, we're almost there, frickin line 4 or 5?'

the technician said: 'I will call again tomorrow at 730pm'
'are you mental? seriously 5 more minutes'

the techncian said: 'all our phonelines cut off at 8pm'
'If you hang up, I'm gonna cut off your bal..'

click.