Today was a first for me in Japan. I got new glasses. I found a place in Akihabara that had English speaking staff to assist me. After about a half hour I finally found some frames I liked that were reasonably priced and was directed to the eye exam. The guy performing the tests didn't speak English, so one of the staff translated for us. Fortunately I can read some of the Japanese characters, since the eye chart was not the Roman alphabet. But there were more tests. The first was a screen with two rectangles, one colored red and the other green. Within each rectangle were numbers of various sizes. While I looked through the lenses they would get sharper or blurry with each turn of the dial. Then there was the screen that featured a circle with several dots in the middle. Again the dials were turned and lenses flipped for me to decide which looks better. Ichiban. Niban. Ichiban. Niban. I always hate this part. Which is better, the first lens or the second one? Number one or number two. After awhile they just look the same or the difference is so minute I just can't tell. The third test was like the face of a clock with long line extending out from the center. I was to look at the lines and state which look thinner or thicker. This one was tough. I would say which numbers looked different and the guy would turn the dials and the lines became sharper and others would get thinner. This went on for awhile and then the other eye. I don't know how long I was there, we had to do the left eye twice because the suggested lens was just off.
Finally he got the right prescription and pulled out some sample glasses so I could test them out. I put them on and they were weak. The guy thought my present glasses were too strong so he weakened them for me. Lame. So after convincing them I want strong glasses he made some adjustments the lenses seemed right. Then it was time to pick out which lenses I wanted, just how thin did I want? After about 20 minutes I got the second thinnest and lightest for an extra twenty bucks. The grand total was about a hundred U.S. Not too shabby, but let's just hope the glasses don't make me cross eyed. One more thing. After walking around I passed the shop again as I headed toward the train station. The guy who checked my eyes was out front with a megaphone rapping. I imagine he was trying to get customers to come in but it left me a lil unsettled. Maybe that's the norm for Japan.
