Yokohama JR Station, originally uploaded by julesberry2001.

We'd heard stories of the lengths that phone companies go to in order to delay cancellation of a phone contact, so at the weekend James headed to Yokobashi Camera Softbank desk prepared for the worst. He needn't have worried. This is Japan. He was served in 3 minutes by a young woman who seemed so sad to be cancelling the contract, but did so immediately, and with no fee. It was such shockingly good service that we left feeling we would gladly sign up again, should they produce an attractive deal some time.

jules was too distracted with the second part of James' cunning plan to notice her sweet iphone 3G connectivity was being plundered....

I already blogged Widney, our new pet, and the first part of James' cunning plan. The second part was even more cunning. He was aware that a new iphone was about to come out with a new flashy camera that would no doubt seduce his wife, which would mess up all his cleverly laid plans. So when, after yet another very wet mountain walk, she expressed interest in an ipsy wipsy waterproof, cold proof, shockproof pink camera, he feigned fascination and gladly handed over the two and a bit 10,000¥ notes required to pay for it (despite being a new model it was on sale). It is a Sony TX5 - and it even takes photos underwater - and took several of the photos I blogged from our latest mountain trip as well as the photo above (see here for my flickr set from the camera.)