I Lost my Phone in Japan

LERK [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0) or CC BY-SA 2.1 jp (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.1/jp/deed.en)], via Wikimedia Commons

So I was back in Japan again last week and I am pleased to report that it is still quite Japanese. I live in mortal fear of Japan becoming westernised in some way and my first check is to see how westernised it has become while I was away. I can report that the westernisation continues to encroach but it’s having a hard time of it.



My trip, only 6 days, has consisted of a few business meetings and a few social meetings and a very little period of being a tourist. In all, I would rate the trip as approximately 8 out of 10, the major negative factor being the absence of a bullfrog.

As is now traditional in Japan, I lost my iPhone. This involved taxis, alcohol and a slightly hilarious return of the phone 2 days later. None of this is unusual in any way, I have done it many times before, but I must relate certain points of this little adventure as they are, to my western perceptions, slightly incredible.


One of my missions of this trip was to relive some glory days of my visits at that playground of fun known as Shimbashi. Shimbashi is a fairly central Tokyo suburb that has, as yet, not been corrupted by the apparent desire of every other inner Tokyo locality to turn itself into a bleak version of Singapore. Those of you that contend that Singapore is already bleak have my agreement, but there is something even more dispiriting when another country is trying to copy it.

So my opinion of Singapore is not high. Singapore seems determined to disinfect anything that shows any sign of life, to straighten anything that seems crooked and to trim anything that may be even slightly overgrown. The result is a sterile and unlovely environment that dedicates itself to steel, glass and concrete, with tiny patches of perfectly manicured green rectangles distributed according to a complex, but highly logical formula. Ridiculous place.

Sadly, far too much of Tokyo already seems to be lurching in the same direction, with Omotesando and Shiodome possibly leading the way. Roppongi remains dodgy and filled with foreigners that will rip you off at the slightest provocation, but Roppongi also contains places like MidTown and Roppongi Hills that draw straight from the Singapore playbook.

These places are full of “modern” versions of Japanese and other cuisines. They probably have as many Italian restaurants as Japanese ones. They also house a disproportionate number of those execrable “fusion” restaurants. Dreadful places, where a chef with insufficient skills to cook proper Japanese food, but a social network that ensures his success, proclaims his restaurant to be a “fusion” of Japanese and some other cuisine, usually French. This means that you can get neither Japanese nor French food at such places.

The restaurants tend to be full of neatly dressed Japanese residents pretending to be Western by displaying their prowess with a knife and fork, while overpaid expatriates compare watches, drink foreign beer and sneer at their attempts. Add to the mix the few tourists that find their way to such places, usually moderately wealthy, moderately overweight and moderately well travelled and the crowd is complete. The tourists tend not to notice anyone else as they are excited about being in the “real Japan”.

Am I sounding cynical? I suspect I am.

Shimbashi remains almost isolated as an inner Tokyo suburb that remains quintessentially Japanese. There are more tourists than there were a few years ago, but precious few expats. (The categorization of expats deserves a blog post all of its own, but suffice to say that the expats in Shimbashi tend to be those chaps that are reasonably well paid and hold reasonably good positions, but have been in Japan for some time. The overpaid bankers and insurers tend to gravitate toward Roppongi or, if they are feeling especially adventurous, to Akasaka). Shimbashi is known amongst Tokyo Japanese as “Oyaji Town”, oyaji being a slightly pejorative word for middle aged man.

Shimbashi proudly boasts a number of tiny yakitori shops along the railway line that seem to consist of a gas burner, some tiny tables and chairs and several sheets of tarpaulin. Then there are the izakaya surrounding the station for a few blocks, that serve delicious food and cheap alcohol to an audience that is around 70% male and about 70% over 50. It’s a wonderful place.

I met with some friends there on Friday night after work and we made our way to Nebuta (https://www.nebuta.or.jp/) – I’m providing the website, but note that the ‘English’ version of the website is a straight google translation. And it shows.

I have spent many happy hours in Nebuta over the past several years, eating basashi (raw horse meat), kujira (whale) and omakase sashimi (recommended sashimi). The staff speak only Japanese but are universally helpful and delighted to have a foreigner in their midst.

About 8-10 of us gathered at Nebuta and after some food, some beer, quite a lot of nihonshu (sake) and a wide variety of lies about how wonderfully we are all doing, somebody suggested that karaoke would be a splendid idea. I cannot identify that someone and I suspect nobody else can either. The decision to move to a next place (known as ni-ji-kai in Japan) appears to come over the group all at once. There is never any debate about where to go, the group just decides to go.

We did lose some members between Nebuta and karaoke, but we gained some when we got to karaoke, so that was alright.

I sang incredibly well, drank quite a lot of shochu (a type of spirit) and ate a little more. I would present you with some video footage of my singing, but there appears to have been a dreadful problem with everyone’s phone. When I saw the videos a few days later, it seemed that my singing was dreadful and I distinctly remember being quite delighted with my rendition of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” in particular.

After a few hours of karaoke, there was once again a group decision that we should go to a club called “The Third”. Once again we lost a few team members and gained a few and although we lost more than we gained and our numbers were still at about eight by now, with maybe three remaining from the original group.

“The Third” (pronounced “za saado”) deserves not merely a separate blog post, but several books dedicated to it. I will summarise by saying that I am absolutely confident that it is not anything like what you are thinking. It looks as though it may have been preserved around 1973 and indeed it was established around that time. It requires prospective customers to climb 5 flights of stairs, there being no elevators. The staff consist or “Master”, Master’s wife and Master’s sister. Forty something years ago, when they established the club, they were young, slim and vibrant. Today they are slightly older, slim and vibrant.

Master was thrilled to see me (of course) and his wife (or possibly his sister, I can never tell which is which) fetched my ‘keep bottle’, a Japanese whiskey that I can never quite remember after leaving. The bottle was my 16th bottle at the club and this seemed to be a source of some hilarity for everyone in attendance. We finished that bottle and made a decent dent in the 17th bottle before leaving.

As I say, there is much to be said about The Third and I am tempted to regale you with stories of Master’s renditions of Hotel California accompanied by a Japanese graphic designer telling us that it’s a Rovery Prace (such a rovery prace). I could continue that there is prenty of loom at za Hoteru Carifornya, but that would be going too far.

I could regale you with stories of Master passing his no 1 guitar to me and insisting that I play the four chords that comprise “Stand by me” while he played lead and his wife (or possibly his sister) provided the vocals. I could regale you with stories of the thunderous applause that followed this.
I will skip all of this however and move on to our departure, a point at which someone suggested that ramen would be a fine choice and tonkotsu ramen would be a perfect choice. We made our way to the preferred ramen shop and while the trip was perhaps 500 metres, it did take us some time to arrive. A cleansing ale, a bowl of steaming hot ramen and I was ready to call it a night.

Some of my colleagues continued on, but being a man who values moderation over all things, I decided to call it a night and summonsed a taxi. Well that is to say my colleagues summonsed a taxi, while I stood swaying in a high breeze that did not appear to affect anyone else.

I was sad that my night was ending, but pleased that I had displayed sufficient self-discipline to finish the night at 10pm or 10:30pm. Peering blearily at my phone and seeing it displaying the time as 4am merely convinced me that my phone was malfunctioning.

If you have not yet visited Japan, you may find my story above slightly incredible and wonder how much is exaggeration. If you have visited Japan once or twice, you are more likely to believe it and start wondering how you can enjoy such a night as well. If you have lived in Japan for a time, you will regard the whole story as typical to the point of being slightly banal. Nonetheless, to all of you I say, it all happened as I told it. I say this, because I want to emphasise that what happened next is what *really* happened, I have not made up anything at all.

My taxi driver became confused about the location of my hotel and with my usual aplomb (after having drunk a sufficient amount to kill a large bull) I pulled my iPhone from my pocket and began directing him in bad Japanese. We arrived at a location sufficiently close and I disembarked with a sharp word for his poor navigation and made my way to the hotel.

About 8 or 10 steps later, I realised that my iPhone was not on my person. Panic ensued and I rushed back to where the taxi once was to find it had gone. I then rushed toward the hotel but started to think that maybe the taxi was there after all and ran back to where the taxi was. I fell over. I got up. I stood indecisively wondering in which direction I should run, decided on both and fell over again when a nice, but equally drunken man decided to help me up. Then we both fell over.

Eventually I did make it back to the hotel where my laptop was awaiting. A few frantic messages later ("are you there Eddy?" Eddy!" "Where are you?") and my good friend Fast Eddy advised that he was indeed still there and had I changed my mind and decided to join them?

“No, you fool. I have lost my phone!”

Fast Eddy being a polite chap did not point out that the person that lost his phone is more of a fool than the chap still out drinking with his friends. A rejoinder that, while truthful, may well have caused more problems than it solved. Instead he asked me whether I had kept the receipt so that he could call the taxi company.

This, I opined, was a brilliant idea and set about rummaging through my belongings. Sadly, I discovered that, as usual, I had disposed of the receipt shortly after climbing out of the taxi. Rather forlornly I told him so.

Eddy suggested I “hang on” and I assumed that meant he needed to get another drink. It seems though that Fast Eddy was spending his time as an amateur sleuth and about 20 minutes after telling me to hang on, he sent me a photograph of the taxi driver. I shit you not.

When I had fallen into the taxi they had summonsed, Fast Eddy had noticed the name of the taxi company and of course he noticed the make and model of the vehicle. Another friend that was with us, Lady Gaga, had observed the region to which the taxi belonged. From this they were able to established the details of the actual taxi driver, find his photo online and send it to me to confirm that this was indeed him.

My own recollection was limited to the fact that I had probably caught a taxi. I could not have even told you what colour it was.

Nonetheless, my colleagues (while in yet another den of drunkenness and iniquity) were able to establish the details of the taxi, the personal details of the driver (married with two daughters) and the name of the company he worked for. Oddly they couldn’t find the phone number of the taxi company.
You too may find this odd dear reader, but I present this as further evidence that odd things occur in Japan on a regular basis.

A few drunken minutes later, the astonishing idea that I may have put the receipt in my pocket occurred to me and I began rummaging through my jeans (I am in the habit of removing my clothing within a few seconds of entering the hotel room). Here indeed was my receipt although it had numbers in various places that all may have been the phone number. I decided that the best way would be to send Fast Eddy and Lady Gaga a photo of the receipt and decided I would fetch my phone to do so.

Those of you paying attention will recognise the flaw in this plan.

Eventually I struck upon the idea of photographing the receipt with my laptop and after some fumbling managed to do so. About to send it, I realised I was clearly both drunk and naked in the background of the photo and decided that a retake might be in order. I also noticed a cut on one eye and wondered briefly if I had been in a fight. I don’t recall one, so I expect it happened while I was falling over.

Throughout all of this I was also tracking my phone on my laptop as it made its way steadily to points far from my hotel and steadily reduced its charge from 20% to 15% to 10% to nothing. By the time I had figured out how to photograph the receipt without either my state of intoxication or nudity, the battery was flat.

My laptop, for reasons that I am sure must have something to do with being in Japan, insisted only on presenting me with a mirror image of the receipt, but I sent it anyway hoping that someone would be sober enough to read it.

It was at this time that I felt a short nap would be in order and passed out.

When I regained consciousness, a small team of gnomes had established their headquarters between and slightly behind my ears. The gnomes suspected there may be gold in the vicinity and had set up a mining operation that included some heavy earthmoving equipment. It was operating at full blast.

Another set of gnomes (the interior decorators I guess) had decided to pretty the place up a little by installing carpet on my tongue and seeing if they couldn’t do something about the moisture in my mouth. I suspect they were admiring how nicely it had dried out at about the time I reached the bathroom, stuck my head under the faucet and drank around 12 litres of water.

There were a number of messages from Eddy that had arrived telling me that the taxi company was not answering, that he had lost the receipt, that he had found the receipt, that he had called the wrong number, that he had called the right number and why wasn’t I answering?

It seems that by the time Fast Eddy had gotten through to the taxi company, the driver had clocked off for the night and had, quite sensibly, turned off his phone to get some sleep. They assured Fast Eddy that the driver would call back when he woke up.

Later that day, Fast Eddy told me that they had indeed called him back and that he had presented the phone to a small police station in Harajuku. The small police station told us they had passed it on to a larger police station in Harajuku. Content that my phone was in a safe place, Fast Eddy and I considered our alternatives, noted that we had been invited to a housewarming party and decided that some serious drinking was called for.

That was Saturday.

On Sunday I awoke bright and early at 7am so that I could get to the police station early. After a shower I felt that a quick nap was called for and about 11am I headed off to the police station.
Japanese police are like everyone else in Japan. Polite and frustrating. The police took my details, had me fill out a form, asked me a lot of questions about the phone, my home country, my flights, my pets, how many watches I owned and so on. There were two of them, presumably because on a job as big as this, one would not suffice. Eventually they came back together and, on the verge of tears, informed me that the phone was not to be found. Seriously, they were more upset than I was to the point where I felt that I needed to comfort them a little.

My dodgy Japanese suggested to me that they had decided that I had lost the phone in Shimbashi and while that was indeed true, the driver would have driven some distance before he noticed it. I tried to convey this and our conversation was interesting but uninformative. Japanese speakers are in the habit of exclaiming regularly with the use of only one vowel; aaaaa! Or oooo! Or uuuuu! And most frequently eeeeeh! These exclamations occurred regular and encouraged me to persist, but no progress was made.

I had not wanted to bother Fast Eddy with all this and so I made a desperate attempt to resolve the situation myself before reaching for my iPhone to call him.

Those of you paying attention will recognise the flaw in this plan.

Undeterred, I decided a strategic retreat was in order and made my way to a nearby internet café where I corresponded with Fast Eddy. He wrote me a note in Japanese that explained the situation in detail and clutching this in my hand, I went back to the police station.

The two policemen that had served me before were still there and greeted me as an old friend. I gave them the note and they read it one at a time and then read it together. They shook their heads collectively and sucked air between their teeth. They called over a senior officer who also read the note, shook his head and sucked air between his teeth. They looked at me mournfully, as one would look at a condemned prisoner who has turned out to be a really nice chap, but must be executed anyway.

Suddenly one of the younger ones exclaimed with a vowel (I can’t remember which one, but I suspect aaaa!) and rushed off to the back of the office.

Minutes later he returned with my iPhone and a look of unmitigated delight. I thanked him and his colleague and the senior guy. They thanked me and then I thanked them and then they thanked me. The room was filled with joy. I stuck my hand out to shake their hands and, as one, the two junior guys looked toward the senior guy who smiled benignly and nodded. Permission thus granted, they shook my hand.

This was the fifth or sixth time I have lost my iPhone in Japan. I have also lost my iPad twice. None of the previous ones involved quite so much falling over or congratulations as this one and I suspect it will become one of those treasured memories that I reflect on in my dotage.

I have resolved to take greater care of my phone in future, but I have a sinking feeling that I will one day be writing again about this subject. My advice to you is to either take good care of your belongings or make friends with Fast Eddy.