Bike Shop

I drive past this bike shop every day to and from work and it never fails to impress with the quantity of bikes they have outside the shop alone.

I Want This at Home 2

I get an e-mail from the company that leases my car, it’s time for service. I pick a time and place, a man in a suit picks up the car and returns it two hours later. It's good as magic, I didn’t have to know what service was needed or when and I didn’t have to spend any time waiting around at the dealership.

HHR

I found an HHR (I worked on this seat) in Japan...but at the Lexus dealership?

Video Tour Part 1

So I got board driving home from work and decided I could make a video tour of my life in Japan. This part is about driving to and from the office. Excuse the bugs on the window and the shakiness of the videos, I was concentrating more on my driving than on holding the camera steady.

Clip 1: Listening to War and Peace on the way to work as I enter the toll road, Sanage Green Road.
Clip 2: On the way home from work driving through the nearly 2km tunnel along Sanage Green Road.
Clip 3: Entering a more urban area about 4km from my apartment
Clip 4: Passing through Kamiyoshiro Interchange
Clip 5: My neighborhood

Hang Out Your Car Window Day

On my way to work this morning along Sanage Green road I spotted what I thought was a dog hanging out a car window.As I got closer I realized that it was actually a person hanging out of the car.
For the entire 8km stretch of the curvy high speed road the man hung out the window for what appeared to be a photo shoot of the red car. When a line of cars waiting to pass accumulated the photographer's car would pull over and let them pass.
On my way home I was horrified to see this child also hanging out of a car window and started to wonder what was going on.

Animal Crossing 2

Kid Bus

It's a bus with ears...and a tail.

Rest Areas

The Rest Areas along the toll roads in Japan are attractions within themselves. In addition to the expected amenities they also have convenient stores, food vendors, restaurants, gas stations, souvenirs, and probably other things that I haven't noticed or can't understand. Travelers take frequent and leisurely stops so the Rest Areas are always crowded and lively.

Name this Car

This car is parked out in front of an apartment building down the street. The closest I can get is a Bentley Continental, the wheels and windows match, but the front and read ends are wrong.

Traffic Jams

Traffic Jams in Japan are long and I've yet to experience one with a clear cause. I have only seen one accident since I arrived and it was a single car which was not causing a backup. According to my GPS this particular Traffic Jam was a bit under 13km long. People tell stories of 60km Traffic Jams.

Hearse

Japanese Hearse

I Want This at Home

Full service gas stations come complete with window cleaning and a Thank You bow on the way out.

Shoshinsha and Koreisha Marks

Mystery solved! These stickers show up on cars everywhere I drive in Japan. At one rest area I even saw parking spaces marked with the teardrop mark on the left. The Shoshinsha mark must displayed by elderly drivers and the Koreisha mark by first year drivers - law requires this.

Shoshinsha Koreisha

Street Sign

So given the curve radius you should calculate a safe speed?

Too Cute

This Mini Cooper belongs to my neighbors and while I wouldn't want to own one I think this one is just too cute.It is particularly fun when when they park it sideways in front of their garage.

And what are you going to do with that car?

I've found the speed limits here to be quite slow. The highest speed limit I have seen here is 80km/hr and the highest speed I encounter on my way to work is 50km/hr*, and that's on the toll road. What someone is going to do with a Lamborghini here is a mystery to me.
*And most people are driving 100km/hr plus.
80km/hr=49.7mph
50km/hr=31mph

Motorcyclists

Almost everyday I spot a Japanese motorcyclist doing something absurd. Today's example is this cyclist who despite the rain isn't detoured from riding and has chosen not to wear rain gear.

Postal Delivery Vehicle

My mail is, presumably, delivered by this vehicle, the postal service motorcycle.

Animal Crossing

Driving Difficulties

I'm often asked if it's been hard to adjust to driving on the left side of the road. The hardest part is getting over hitting the windshield whippers instead of the turn signal, having the steering wheel on the right side of the vehicle makes staying on the correct side of the road easy (knock on wood). Three of the hardest things about driving in Japan are illustrated below. First it gets dark really early, second motorcycles are always passing on the shoulder or between lanes of traffic, third people don't have a problem parking switching on the emergency flashers and parking any car on any street at any time.