The Post Office is definitely my bete noir, although the staff are generally very pleasant. With my utter lack of Japanese language and their lack of English, we have some interesting run-ins.

The most recent involved me posting two parcels and Japan Post cancelling all parcel post to the UK and Europe the following day. Fair enough. But it took four visits and 21 days before the parcels were returned. On one visit a staff member suggested phoning me to save me waiting; I had to point to the translation device to point out the flaw in his argument.

So, after copious amounts of paperwork, the parcels are returned. And my refund (the equivalent of £40)? They wanted to pay me in stamps …. but since I can’t post parcels these are useless! Cash? No chance .. even though cash is king in Japan, with 76% transactions in cash. They asked for me to produce a passbook; most banks (but not ours) use passbooks. It’s like being in the 1980’s! I produced my bank card but that revealed another difficulty. Joint bank accounts are illegal here although our bank did issue another card for me to use.

I did my best to convey that i was grateful to the staff but I thought the PO systems were dire … they nodded & gave me free tissues! I haven’t yet cried in them though.

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