I'm the proud new owner of a 1998 Toyota Sprinter - never heard of it before? Me neither. It's essentially a Corolla - only 50k miles! It will work for the next few years, I'm sure. Plus - I only paid $1000 for it. Well, and then the several other fees associated with having a car in Japan. $300 for COMPULSORY Japanese Insurance, another $300 for strongly suggested additional living-in-Tokyo insurance, and I haven't yet been hit with the fee required for the road tax and registration. That comes on Tuesday when I can actually pick up the title and registration. Everything takes about 2 days to do in Tokyo what would take maybe two hours in the states. It took me two days to get a cell phone, two days to buy and register the car, two days to get my drivers license in hand, and don't even get me going on the ridiculous banking system here. You'd think a country that is so incredibly technologically advanced, and financially intertwined with the U.S. would be a little more accommodating to us Americans who just want to put in an honest day's work, and have consistent access to our money. Have I mentioned that no one takes U.S. issued credit cards here, and that I CAN'T get a Japanese bank account or credit card because I don't have an alien registration card? So, I've been carrying around the equivalent of $1500 CASH for the past week! I'm going to be severely bummed if I'm ever mugged here.
Back to driving. This is a completely new and stressful experience for me. I've never driven on the "wrong" side of the road, nor "right" side of the car before. My previous European and Asian experiences have taken me to lands where driving is on the right side of the road. I drove back from Yokota (about 1-1/2 hours) on the freeway and Tokyo roads. I survived, and only turned on the windshield wipers instead of my turn signal about 3 times. I succeeded in finding where I currently live without too much trouble, thanks to all of the walking that we've been doing. Although I passed the Japanese written driving test, don't even for a sec
ond believe that I actually REMEMBER all of the things I was tested on. The solid white and yellow lines, the dashed lines, the triangles in the road, the kanji on the road signs, and most confusingly - the signals with both red circles AND green arrows. The tester told us that all we had to remember was "think left, think left"....
ond believe that I actually REMEMBER all of the things I was tested on. The solid white and yellow lines, the dashed lines, the triangles in the road, the kanji on the road signs, and most confusingly - the signals with both red circles AND green arrows. The tester told us that all we had to remember was "think left, think left"....
We saw our new home for the first time today! All of our stuff arrives on Monday - so next week will be extremely painful trying to fit all of our big American stuff in. It's a nice Western-style townhome in a decent neighborhood, and it even has a dishwasher! It's 3 levels - the top floor has a room that will be my study and a small terrace. I'm having stair rails installed on the outside, though. The stairs are a bit steep for David and I'm afraid he may fall in a rush to get outside. Each boy (including Joseph, our manny) will have their own room! My favorite item? The Japanese heated toilet seat/bidet in the downstairs bathroom! Yay!
It will take us, yes, two days to move in...
Ja Mata...
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