[Japan: Land of wonders] My water supply (almost) got disconnected experience

I’m sure a lot of people on the internet already share with you how great Japan is. But let see it from my point of view. I can tell you one thing. I  did not named my Japan experiences' entry “Japan: Land of wonders” because it’s full of wonderful things, it's more like the opposite.

If I were to elaborate on all what-the-f*** experiences I have in this country, I would be as long as a novel. So today I’ll just talk about something you probably haven’t seen anyone talk about yet, what happen when you don’t pay your bill properly in Japan.

Before I start bashing about how fucked up the system in this country could be, let me make something clear here first:

1.It’s my fault for being negligence and ignored my bill to this point. I admit that and I will not blame anyone for that. But the purpose of writing this entry is to elaborate how the system works.

2.I come from Thailand; classified as a developing country. Where things are very fucked up and never go your way. So I was expecting something good, reasonable and efficient from a country that called itself “developed country”. I don’t know if I am expecting too much because I have no experience of living in other countries except these two, so I don’t know if my view is biased.

October 2014:

Things started 4 months after I moved into my new place. Before this, I lived in the school dorm, so I didn’t have to handle any kind of bills, as it was included in my rent. The first 4 months passed by normally, I don’t have any problem. Although I was a little bit curious about my bills because nothing was delivered. My internet, my water supply bill, none. Only my electricity bills appeared in my letterbox that is attached to the door every month. So I thought “Hmm… probably because the water bill will be delivered only once every 2 months that’s why it’s not here yet.” I didn’t take any action until that one very sad day…

When my internet got disconnected.

I called NTT (my internet provider) to talk (more like to war) with them for hours. I told them they never send me any shit how do they expect me to pay. And then after a long session of me yelling at a Japanese cc girl who keeps on apologizing, we discovered that I actually have 2 mailboxes. One is the letterbox attached to my door and the other one is a mailbox on the first floor. OK. This was my fault. I know. I should have known I have 2 mailboxes, that was stupid. BUT this was what happened.

1.My electricity bill managed to be delivered every month so I thought things were fine. (I found out later on that the electricity bill guy has to come up to my room to check the electricity meter, so he just dropped the bill there)

2.The 1^st floor mailboxes are full of dust and spider webs. I thought it was not in use as other rooms’ boxes look abandoned too.

So that ended with an oops! moment. I hung up the phone and wiped off my 1^st floor mailbox. There were dozens of bill inside. I classified them a bit and just took the whole pile to the nearest convenience store. Bills paid. Internet worked. Done.

January 2015:

I check my 1^st floor mailbox from time to time because I know now that everything except the electricity bill will go there and I paid my bill when I found one. So on the 20^th of January, I checked my mailbox as usual, but this time what I found was very interesting. It’s the “Water supply disconnection Notice” (給水停止予定のお知らせ)

So they said I didn’t pay for my Sep-Oct water bill. That means I probably missed some bills from that big stack I took to 7-11. And they will disconnect my water supply after the 23^rd of January. It was the 20^th when I found out. I went into full throttle panic mode and search my whole house for any sign of water bill but I found none that is actually usable. The only thing I found is some stupid receipt-like notice That cannot be use to pay. They’re basically just notices saying you have some unpaid bills.

Let me explain to you a bit on how does Japanese bills and notices from service companies like electricity, water and gas look like. There are 3 types that they will send you regularly (If you don’t pay the bill like I did lol)

1.     Your monthly bill. A little bit thicker and harder than normal paper. Comes with barcode that can be used to pay at convenient stores.

2.     A receipt-like long and slim paper notice which its only function is to tell you that you are in debt. Nothing more than that. Pretty much useless. (Already tried to use it for payment, didn’t happen)

3.     A postcard notice. (I don't have photo for this one) The text inside is sealed with sticker, after you peeled the sticker off you can read inside. Sometime it has barcode inside, but most of the time, it’s just a normal notice.

What I found was the number 2, stupid receipt-like notices, so I can’t really do anything. And the Disconnection notice said, if you have your monthly bill (Number 1), you should go pay now, but they didn’t tell me what should I do if I don’t have. (Such a descriptive and useful notice, don’t you think?) So I decided to call them. Luckily Yokohama Waterworks Bureau call center opens 24 hours. (It’s very rare to find this kind of call center in Japan; most of them only operate during daytime) The CC girl told me that she would have the person in charge of my case call me next morning. And the guy called me. He said he would send me a new monthly bill with barcode that I could pay with right at that time. (It was in the morning of 21^st of Jan) So I just waited.

But until late night of the 22^nd, nothing was delivered. I was kinda worried because 23^rd is the deadline so I called the Call Center again. It was amazing, in a bad way. Let me show you what happened:

Me: The monthly bill that you said you had sent me has not arrived yet. Do you know when will it be delivered? Because the notice said my water supply will be disconnected tomorrow already

CC: We are very sorry for your inconvenience. There’re some technical problems with our system and your monthly bill that was sent out yesterday will reach your house next week. (WOW we’re in the same district, did they send my bill with pigeons or something?)

Me: Oh… ok. So what should I do then.

CC: Again. We are very sorry. But you don’t have to worry because your water supply definitely will not be disconnected during January.

Me: Oh… can I ask one question then. If the bill got delivered already and I still won’t go to pay, when will the water supply be disconnected? (I’m just trying to prepare for the worst-case scenario here)

CC: Ah…We are very sorry but we do not know the exact date for water disconnection. The only thing we can tell you is you water supply will definitely be ok during January, but once it’s February, we cannot tell anymore, it can be disconnected whenever during February.

That was very comforting. They don’t even know when will ‘they’ disconnect my water supply. Worst case, if the bill never came and I waited until February, I have to live my life worrying and not knowing when will I won’t have water to shower anymore. Make me feel like I’m living in a jungle with no phone signal.

I don’t understand how they work together if their information are not in sync at all. Or are ‘they’ who control my water supply some god or unknown alien and these people are just call centers who only talk about what ‘they’ allow them to? Lol They talked as if they are separate entities.

It’s not as if I’m trying to be a drama queen or anything. I don’t mind that much about the system being full of shit and fucked up in many ways. I just can’t help but be curious as to why these entities are not improving their system. They are doing things so inefficiently it’s ridiculous. Let me point something out here.

1. Why do they keep sending me barcode-less notices. If they already have to print out the notice to send to me, might as well just put a barcode on one. So your debtees can go pay their debt immediately. Not like this. All the notices they sent me just referred me back to the first paper I got. Do they really think I’m gonna keep that if I haven’t paid for this long? I don’t see the point of not printing barcode on. It’s just plainly inefficient.

2. I already paid for my Nov-Dec water bill. And there’s no trace that I have unpaid amount on that bill, so I thought I have none. I actually think it’s wiser to make it cumulative. Business-wise, you get your money faster. Less process because you don’t have to keep sending notices for old bill, just cumulate. There’s no disadvantage for this except the fact that the bill is too expensive to be paid together, which I think I irrelevant in this case. If that’s too hard for the system, then just attached 2 bills together and send again. Or if that’s still impossible at least just put a notice on my Nov-Dec bill. They just send a separate notice for everything. This is a waste of paper, waste of process, waste of labor and time, most importantly, very bothersome for your clients.

Like I said in the beginning, I don’t know if I’m just expecting too much from Japan. Japanese are known for their systematic nature and I thought they are systematic, efficient and lean. But this. This country, in reality, is full of unnecessary processes and documents that most of them, until this day, I still cannot find the answer as to why they exist. 

We all know processes and documents cost tremendous amount of money, consume a lot of time and make people crazy. But in this digitalize world, Japan is actually more paper-based than my less developed and fucked up country. Lol that’s just sad.

Lesson Learned: For water bill, you can pay as late as 3 months after your usage. For example, for Sep-Oct bill, you can pay as late as End of January and you will still be fine.

[REVIEW] DHC Miretto Ekisu - the JAPANESE hair growth supplement

In Japan, there are a lot of supplements. A lot of brand that you might have heard of like DHC or Fancl, which have their own cosmetic line, are one of the leaders in beauty supplements market. If I want to talk about the hit and the miss or analyze this market it would probably gonna take me ages, and because I am not an expert in chemistry or supplementary goods, I think I’m just gonna talk about what I have experienced.

Usually, I don’t take these pills or vitamins or whatever. In my country, Thailand, it is very dangerous and there’re a lot of fake supplements that could kill you. So my interest in this kind of stuffs only started after I arrived in Japan, where the food and drug administration is way better and at least trustable. Since the beginning of October 2014, I have been taking a supplement called ‘Miretto Ekisu’ by DHC. According to the package, it will help grow and nourish your hair so it’s longer, healthy and shiny.

*Caution*

Since I am no pharmacist, all the data you will see down here are from the internet. I researched them as I wrote. So I apologize in advance for any inaccuracy if happens, and you can leave comment down below to help me correct it!

What is Miretto Ekisu?

This is a rough translation of the description of Miretto Ekisu from DHC site:

Miretto Ekisu consist of Millet Extract, Puerarin, selenium (Selenium is incorporated in a small cluster of important proteins, each of which plays a critical role in our health) and other vitamins. Millet is rich with an amino acid that helps synthesis/create Keratin and had been use widely in Europe for a long time. Miretto Ekisu is suitable for people who want to be confident about their hairstyles or people who encounter stress and fatigue but want to protect your hair to be healthy and shiny.

In my country, we don’t have millet. So while I was writing this entry in Thai I did Wikipedia-ed it so I will share that information here too. 

What is Millet? (According to Wikipedia)

Millets are a group of highly variable small-seeded grasses, widely grown around the world as cereal crops. Millets are important crops in the semi-arid tropics of Asia and Africa. There are a lot of varieties of millet. In United States, it is mostly grown for bird seed.

In Nutritional aspects, Millets are very similar to wheat and maze in terms of protein content but Millets have more amino acid that are good for your body. Also, Millets are relatively rich in iron and phosphorus so Millets are often used in healthy cereal and food. On top of that, Millets are high in calcium which is good for your bone and teeth. 

Label:

These are contents inside 3 miretto ekisu pills which is the recommended consumption amount for 1 day. I translated this from the Japanese label with some help of Google translate.

3 pills of Miretto Ekisu is equal to 1200mg and has 6.9 kcal.

Millet Extract 240 mg

Pueraria Merifica powder (0.2% Puerarin) 12mg

Vitamin E(d--α- tocopherol)  60mg 

Vitamin B1 3 mg 

Vitamin B2 0.6mg 

Vitamin B6 3mg

Pantothenic acid (Vitamin b5) 27.6 mg

Selenium 12μg　

How to take Miretto Ekisu?

According to the label, you can take miretto ekisu whenever you want. There is no specific instruction of taking it before/after meal, so usually I take it before I go to bed. The prescribed amount is 3 pills per day.

Results:

Let me start by comparing how slow my hair grow without the help of any supplement. This is how much my hair grows in a year.

I did not use anything except shampoo, conditioner and some hair oils. And i didn't cut my hair at all. As you can see, my hair did grew, even though in my opinion it's pretty slow consider a year has passed. 

So i started taking Miretto Ekisu since the first week of October 14 untill today, 24th of January 2015. That's roughly 4 months. I did not take supplement relating to hair other than this.

Let me show you the difference with photos.

It's amazing right? And that's on the 27th of November, which was only 2 months after I start taking it. 

So as you can see this is the progress in each month. I didn't cut my hair at all during this time too.

Side Effect:

Hair:

I'm sorry if my hair looks messed up. That's because of my hair dye in the first picture, it didn't really recover from that so this is not a side effect from Miretto Ekisu. I've heard of some hair growth supplements that can grow your hair fast, but make your hair thinner and weak. For Miretto Ekisu, I think my hair has no change, it's not better or worse.

Body:

There's no side effect written on the packaging and I don't see any bad side effects happening because of this. My body feels fairly normal. My daily diet and workouts were the same throughout the whole 4 months and i do not gain or loss weight significantly. From what i have heard, some of DHC's supplements are advised to not be taken continuously for longer than 3 months, but this one has no such sign.

Extra Benefit:

Since Millet which is the main component for this supplement seems to have Amino acids that helps create Keratin, Miretto Ekisu is also very good for your nails. Keratin is a protein that make up the outer layer of your skin so it is needed by both your hail and nails, so it enhances both at the same time. This benefit is not written on any site or even on the package though.

So, for me, during this 4 months, my nails had become stronger, i can put on nail polishes longer and more often without the top layer of my nails falling off.

Conclusion:

It's amazing! at least it works for me very well.  I think my hair had grown longer in this 4 months than the whole year. I am very impressed eventhough my hair is not getting any healthier or shinier but as long as it grows I am more than happy.

Score:

Effectiveness 5/5

Price 4/5 

[REVIEW] Fresh: Dare to bare Sugar Lip Ritual

Hi! I haven’t been updating in this blog for a while, lately I have been using my Facebook page as a blog and start updating things there instead. But I think the format of a real blog is more flexible in writing stories. So I will start using this blog again for the English version of my blog. (Thai version available in my FB page) If you are interested in my updates and lifestyle in Japan you can give my FB page a like! Or you can contact me through, twitter and Instagram too!

So, today I’m going to talk about the Fresh: Dare to bare Sugar lip ritual kit. This kit is one of the holiday sets Fresh offered. It’s one of the things that I got during last year holiday sales. (My blog entry on Holiday Sales Shopping on my FB in both Thai and English here) I got it from Sephora Thailand at the price of 1800 Baht or roughly 55 US dollars. 

(Photo from Sephora site)

This kit included:

1.Sugar lip serum advanced therapy

2.Sugar lip polish 

3.Sugar Advance therapy lip treatment

4.Sugar lip treatment SPF15 #Rose 

5.Sugar Shine Lip treatment 

Worth your money?:

I have calculated the proportionate size and price of this set compare to the full-size product size and price according to the Table below. For the full-size products detail, I got in from Sephora US site. (I apologize for the currency, because I bought it in Thai Baht so I decided to use Thai Baht here.)

I weighted the Kit prices according to the full-size product prices so it reflects the true price as the price of products in the kit materially varies. The table I want you guys to look at is the green one. Averagely, the size of each product inside this kit is about 50% of the full-size one and the price you paid for them is roughly 45% of the full-size price.  Basically, you are buying at only 5% cheaper than normal price. Nonetheless, this is very good for trying out Fresh products, as you don’t need to invest in each of these products separately.

Briefly about Fresh:

According to their sites “Fresh is pure beauty. Dedicated to natural ingredients, rich textures, and addictive scents, Fresh offers a sensorial experience like none other.” It was founded in 1991. They have a lot of skin care products. On Sephora US site, these are their best-selling products.

The lip treatment included in this kit is at number 2. All the products in the Kit are made in France by Guerlain. So because of this and the prices, I’ll say Fresh is a high-end skin care brand. 

Packaging:

It’s mesmerising. I’m really happy with the quality of these tiny packages, as a lot of brand did not pay much attention to these as much as they do with their full-size ones. But Fresh, to put it simply, just shrinks the full-size one into this mini size product. It looks totally the same! And the functions are the same too. The packages are strong and durable despite being tiny. The lip balm packaging is not just a normal pull in and out package but the lid has a spiral lock that makes it close tightly. Definitely no problem of lid falling out in your bag. All the other products have very nice and tight lids too. Not to mention that the designs are just simply cute.

Review:

1.Sugar lip serum advanced therapy

This is the most expensive product in this kit, and of course one of the most popular lip care products of Fresh. I’ve heard good things so I was really excited the first day I got this kit. I tried it on that night, topped with my routine deep moist gloss, But what happened to me the next morning was that my lip burst out as if bees has stung it and the skin around it were peeling off. I don’t know if it was just bad timing because it is winter, or I’m just allergic to the product so I keep on using it anyway. A week after, there was no pain, no peeling, but the damages after the first burst out were still there.

This product claims to help nourish and improve the definition on and around the lips while visibly smoothing fine lines for fuller, younger-looking lips. After using it for a while, I think it definitely does what it claims. I have less fine lines and the lines I still have are visibly fuller. My lip looks smooth and plump, which I totally love.

2.Sugar lip polish

This is basically just a lip scrub. The scrub beads are very small it doesn’t hurt your lip at all so it is very good for sensitive skin. And although the beads are tiny, it still performs very well, it wipes off all the dry patches and leaves my lip feeling moisturized. However, I think price-wise, it’s a little bit expensive for a scrub. Before I got this I was using Lush Mint Julip lip scrub. It’s cheaper and has bigger beads, so, with a hint of mint smell, I feel fresher and cleaner after use. So in a way, it’s up to preferences. If you prefer a gentle way to scrub your lip, I think this Fresh Sugar lip polish might work for you better.

3.Sugar Advance therapy lip treatment

The lips in this kit are just tiny! I had a hard time finding it today because I left it on my messy laptop desk. I am currently using this everyday while I use my laptop because its moisturizing effect lasts longer than other normal lip balm I was using. And I think it nourishes my lip at the same time too. Some of the cheap lip balms I owned just create an oily layer on my lip so it will not dehydrate but nothing more. But this one, even when I wiped it off because I eat something, my lip still looks like it was nourished. Overall, I really like this lip treatment.

 4.Sugar lip treatment SPF15 #Rose

To my own surprise, I like this one the best out of everything in this kit. I own a lot of colored lip balms, my favorite until I found this one was Dior lip glow, one of the most renowned lip balm on the internet, and this one trumps Dior! I really like the formula of this lip because it is totally like a moisturizing untinted lip balm. It moisturizes my lip very nicely the whole day (Dior lip glow can keeps me hydrate for half a day but this!) and I don’t feel uncomfortable having it on my lip at all. 

The perk of this lip balm for me is that it doesn’t dry off into white chunks. I found that many times after I applied my lipstick for more than 4 hours, it will dry out into white patches that clings to the inner part of my lip. I really hate that and I still cannot find way to solve this problem. It happens even with Dior Lip Glow, but not for this one. I can keep on re-applying and it still looks fabulous too!

Also, I think the color is also just perfect for a healthy natural look. I have a swatches here of Fresh lip treatment in comparison with Dior Lip Glow and Revlon Balm Stain. Just to show you guys that Fresh lip treatment pigmentation, is more than Dior but less than balm stain. I think it’s well-balanced and my lip look very bright and healthy with this color.

5.Sugar Shine Lip treatment

To be honest, I didn’t really give this one a try. I am an anti lip-gloss girl. I hate glossy things. With lip gloss, When the wind blows, my hair sticks to my mouth, it looks disgusting like you just had fried chicken but didn’t wipe off your mouth, and on top of that it does not look natural at all. So this one, I will pass. However, I did try it to see the formula, it is very sticky like honey and very hard to remove because of the stickiness too.

Overall:

I like the performance of all products in this kit but I’m definitely not a fan of their prices. It’s a high-end brand that is a little bit to high-end for me. Although it performs well but I think there’re great and cheaper things out there that can do similar things. So I probably won’t repurchase anything except the tinted balm.

Score:

Quality 4/5

Worth your money 3/5

Price 2.5/5