Overcharge
On Friday, I went to the local post office just up the street. And when I say local, I MEAN local. It's basically a small, orange box, and the staff have to refer to laminated sheets of paper for postage fees.
While they were working out my postage fees for the day, one of the staff (with whom I go skiing every year on the town ski trips, random side note) said something to the lady working my window, and they both did an "Oh, yeah!" thing, then started turning the back room upside-down looking for something. The skiing guy came up to the window and said to me, "Return, return." I'd been in a few days before as well, and I thought whatever it was I had tried to send a few days ago had been returned, which put me in a bit of a panic, because what I had mailed earlier in the week had to do with my soon-to-be-due tax return.
Skiing guy found what they were looking for and came over to the window to hand it over to me. You know what it ended up being? A little plastic bag labeled with my name, containing 130yen (about $1.30) that they had overcharged me on my prior letters. They had overcharged me, and put aside the money to give back to me the next time I came in.
How cute is this town?!
Stuff like this has happened pretty often recently. The day before, I had been walking around my neighborhood taking pictures of the flowering trees, and an elderly man I'd never seen before came out of his house to offer to cut a small branch off one of the flowering trees so I could take it home! I declined his offer, but he went ahead and walked with me a little ways, chatting the whole time. Another man who lives in the area was out walking his dog, and when he reached us, he went ahead and stopped to chat for a few minutes too!
A week or two ago, I was walking home from my far junior high school, and one of my 5th grade elementary students drove by with her grandmother. They stopped the car, the student introduced her grandmother to me, and they chatted with me for a few seconds. They drove on ahead, but stopped the car again. When I reached them, the grandmother reached through the open car window and handed me some candies and a pack of gum she'd had sitting in one of the cupholders, apologizing that she didn't have more to give me, but hoped that the candies and gum would give me a little energy to climb the hill I was coming to!
How cute is that?!
This was the same elementary student that I ran into in a local store just a few days before, and while her mom shopped, she stopped and talked to me for a full 10-minutes (in Japanese, of course, so I should probably say, talked AT me)! She wouldn't let her mother leave the store before she introduced us, because she was worried we hadn't met each other yet.
The same day I met the elementary school student and her grandmother, not 5 minutes earlier further back on the same road, I had heard someone yelling my name. I looked around and saw a mini-van coming up behind me. One of my 1st year junior high boys was hanging out of the window calling my name and waving. His mom pulled the car over to say hi. She said she heard I was leaving Japan and asked when. I said in a few months, and she said, "Oh, well, we'll definitely see you before then, so see you later!" She and her husband own and operate a local restaurant that I LOVE, so her statement was true enough! Her son continued to wave at me from his open window as they drove away.
Another day recently, I was on my bike at the 4-way stoplight near my house and heard a small child's voice yelling, "Mandy-sensei, Mandy-sensei!" I looked behind me, and driving towards me was the wife of a local Buddhist monk with whom I'm good friends, and her 8-year old son, hanging almost half-way out of the car window, the way dogs do, waving frantically, with the biggest, goofiest grin on his face. Unfortunately their light turned green, so they had to keep driving, but as they drove around the corner, the wife shouted, "I'll call you later!" in English as the son continued to shout good-bye.
Seriously, how cute is this town?!
While they were working out my postage fees for the day, one of the staff (with whom I go skiing every year on the town ski trips, random side note) said something to the lady working my window, and they both did an "Oh, yeah!" thing, then started turning the back room upside-down looking for something. The skiing guy came up to the window and said to me, "Return, return." I'd been in a few days before as well, and I thought whatever it was I had tried to send a few days ago had been returned, which put me in a bit of a panic, because what I had mailed earlier in the week had to do with my soon-to-be-due tax return.
Skiing guy found what they were looking for and came over to the window to hand it over to me. You know what it ended up being? A little plastic bag labeled with my name, containing 130yen (about $1.30) that they had overcharged me on my prior letters. They had overcharged me, and put aside the money to give back to me the next time I came in.
How cute is this town?!
Stuff like this has happened pretty often recently. The day before, I had been walking around my neighborhood taking pictures of the flowering trees, and an elderly man I'd never seen before came out of his house to offer to cut a small branch off one of the flowering trees so I could take it home! I declined his offer, but he went ahead and walked with me a little ways, chatting the whole time. Another man who lives in the area was out walking his dog, and when he reached us, he went ahead and stopped to chat for a few minutes too!
A week or two ago, I was walking home from my far junior high school, and one of my 5th grade elementary students drove by with her grandmother. They stopped the car, the student introduced her grandmother to me, and they chatted with me for a few seconds. They drove on ahead, but stopped the car again. When I reached them, the grandmother reached through the open car window and handed me some candies and a pack of gum she'd had sitting in one of the cupholders, apologizing that she didn't have more to give me, but hoped that the candies and gum would give me a little energy to climb the hill I was coming to!
How cute is that?!
This was the same elementary student that I ran into in a local store just a few days before, and while her mom shopped, she stopped and talked to me for a full 10-minutes (in Japanese, of course, so I should probably say, talked AT me)! She wouldn't let her mother leave the store before she introduced us, because she was worried we hadn't met each other yet.
The same day I met the elementary school student and her grandmother, not 5 minutes earlier further back on the same road, I had heard someone yelling my name. I looked around and saw a mini-van coming up behind me. One of my 1st year junior high boys was hanging out of the window calling my name and waving. His mom pulled the car over to say hi. She said she heard I was leaving Japan and asked when. I said in a few months, and she said, "Oh, well, we'll definitely see you before then, so see you later!" She and her husband own and operate a local restaurant that I LOVE, so her statement was true enough! Her son continued to wave at me from his open window as they drove away.
Another day recently, I was on my bike at the 4-way stoplight near my house and heard a small child's voice yelling, "Mandy-sensei, Mandy-sensei!" I looked behind me, and driving towards me was the wife of a local Buddhist monk with whom I'm good friends, and her 8-year old son, hanging almost half-way out of the car window, the way dogs do, waving frantically, with the biggest, goofiest grin on his face. Unfortunately their light turned green, so they had to keep driving, but as they drove around the corner, the wife shouted, "I'll call you later!" in English as the son continued to shout good-bye.
Seriously, how cute is this town?!
posted by Mandy | 9:39 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home