human error

Another visit come and gone…sigh. It’s tough having visitors from home, I always get a little homesick when they leave. Momma left for Tokyo this morning, Matt’s at work and now I’m here, on my own in the apartment and it feels empty : (

Yesterday we hired a car and headed north. It was so beautiful, kinda what I imagine Newfoundland to look like. Steep, jagged cliffs with crashing waves. It also looks a little bit like the Oregon coast. Funny how we always compare to places we’ve visited before.

We went to the northern tip of the island where you can see small towns with typhoon weathered houses. It’s low season right now so all of the tourist sites are quiet and there is very little traffic. On the way there we stopped at Paradise Beach...

for some Okinawan Soba...

It’s so wonderful to finally have our driver’s licenses!

Getting a Japanese licenses or obtaining anything to do with the government requires a lot of patience. We can’t get international drivers licenses because we live in Japan so we need to get Japanese drivers licenses. First we needed to go to the Wards office to change our address and pay about $3.00 for a piece of paper stating our address. Then we needed to pay for a translation of our current drivers licenses, about $30. This needed to be done in a neighbouring city which meant taking the monorail for a few stops then jumping into a cab for the remainder of the journey. After that we headed to the licensing bureau for the final stage…or so we thought. We entered the building and went to the first window we could find, window #1. The fellow kindly pointed us down the hall to window #12 where a disgruntled gentleman went over our documents with a fine toothed comb. I could feel he really wanted to find a missing document so he could send us away to get to more important matters but the only thing he found was that Matt’s photos were too big so we quickly found a photo lab around the corner.

We handed over the correct sized photos and took a seat with other soon to be drivers. As we sat down we looked around the room and felt as though we were back in time. How could such a technically advanced country have such old government offices? Some of the machines looked like they were from the 50’s. The ceilings were stained with what looked like coffee and the numbers above the counters were held up with whatever string or rope they could find at the time. Some of the numbers on the wall were held up with silver electricians tape while others had multi coloured tacks. There were coiled extension cords dangling from the ceiling and file folders and papers everywhere.

The man sorted through our documents, entered all the necessary digits into the ancient computer then called us over. “Ok, now you must go to window #5, #3, #1, #10 and #13” we took note and headed to #5 where we paid about $40. Then we headed to #3 where we had our eyes tested, after that we headed to window #1 where a kind lady proofread our documents and sealed them with a stamp. Then we went to #10 where we had our photos taken and then we finally made it to lucky #13. We were so happy, we had finally made it!

We handed over our documents and the smiling lady showed is a piece of paper. She circled the numbers “13:10” and said “lecture”. After everything we went through we were required to sit through a half hour lecture about rules of the road. The lectures only take place Monday to Friday at 13:10, It was about 16:30 at that time so we had to wait another week to go back : ( Fine, we understand the importance of attending a quick lecture, I’m sure it would be very informative, especially for foreigners driving in Japan BUT the whole thing is in Japanese!! The lady kind of shrugged her shoulders and agreed with our disappointment but this was the last requirement, the very last document for our approval. I can’t complain, it’s far easier for English and Canadian people to obtain drivers licenses than Americans, unfortunately they have to take an actual drivers examination!.

So, we went to the Japanese driving lecture on Monday afternoon. After a minor detour of wrong numbered windows we finally found where we were supposed to go and it was something. We walked up to the second floor where we were greeted with glossy 20 x 24 inch colour photo prints of car crashes.

Yes indeed, welcome to the final stage of getting your drivers license. Here’s a photo of the entrance to the lecture room, if you look towards the right of the door you will see a demolished automobile with blood smeared on the hood. Please drive safely and congratulations!

The lecture probably would have been informative had I understood but then again, maybe not. The young Japanese guy sitting next to me had a severe case of bus head while the guy in front of me kept looking down at the desk and cracking his knuckles. Over to the left I kept hearing people whispering to each other and a girl sitting far right near the front was looking at her phone probably surfing the net or texting one of her friends. Matt kept looking at the man giving the lecture, his eyebrows were furrowed as he struggled to understand even a few words. In the end he managed to understand the words “human error”, because it was said in English, and a few numbers here and there.

When the man finished his lecture, there was applause and then he started calling out peoples names. We had to go to the front where he kindly handed us our new licenses and bowed. So it’s official we now have our licenses! Woo hoo! We went home and celebrated with gin and tonics.

Momma’s visit was really nice. She treated us very well with her cooking and I have new clothes!!! Yay!!! I can finally wear pants to work and free my legs and butt from the discomfort of nylons. The weather was pretty grey at the start of momma's stay but it ended with beautiful sunny skies. The temperature has dropped a fair bit as well but it’s really comfortable. I expect we’ll be warmer clothes during December and January but nothing compared to Tokyo or Toronto.

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Listening to Grizzly Bear – Yellow House