they live too fast! [8/23/2007]

Last night I had my first opportunity to drive in Japan.  I had invited Naritomi-sensei for dinner, but Dino wanted to take her out by way of thanks for everything that she's done for him, so the three of us met at my apartment.  Naritomi-sensei apparently had planned from the get-go for me to get some practice in driving in Japan before I got my own car on Sept 3rd (incidentally also the first day of classes), and so we all piled into her red 2004 Subaru Forrester to head to one of her favorite restaurants.  Isn't it pretty?



The foray had a slightly uncomfortable start, as the exit to Naritomi's parking lot is kind of narrow and bounged on one side by a fence jutting out toward my left side.  Unfortunately since I had only just gotten in the car I was not very sure where the left side of the car WAS, so I simply took it verrry slowly turning out onto our itty-bitty little road.  Of course Naritomi has an automatic, which is quite fortunate considering I have never driven a manual.  Would anyone care to help me out with that once I get back stateside?  I feel like it's an important skill to have.

Wending my way through our little back streets through a slalom of cars parked along a road that is essentially one and a half cars wide was also interesting, but I made it without any hiccups.

Once out onto more open road it was smooth sailing all the way more or less.  Not once did I accidentally turn into the wrong lane of traffic, although I must confess to turning the wipers on once when I went to make a left turn.  Oops.

It was quite strange at first to be on the right side of the car, but I'd say that I adjusted fairly quickly.  When I asked Naritomi how my distance was in relation to the side of the road she said it was "perfect", so I guess no worries.  Going in reverse, however, is QUITE AWKWARD, and will certainly take more getting used to.  I kept looking over my right shoulder, and it took some time before I realized that was not correct.

Also worthy of mention are the roads in Japan.  While narrow, they are also lots of fun!!  Japan is very mountainous, as I am sure you were all no-doubt aware, and so the roads are very windy with all sorts of fun hills.  There is a little mini-mountain complete with twisty road right in the middle of Oshima as well, which is pretty cool.  I am excited to get my car, which I will tell you more about when I actually have it and can take a few pictures.

One last thing: before i get all sorts of emails telling me to "drive safely" and to "not go crazy on the mountain roads"... I'm not some kind of reckless fool people!  Just because I said I said the roads were fun does not mean I'm going to be zipping around on them at reckless speeds.  Jiminy Christmas...

Oh, we also ended up naming Naritomi's car: Georgie, short for Curious George.  The car is red, his shirt is red... and she has a Curious George plush hanging from the inside of her windshield.  Perfect, eh?

space boy love (is in danger!) from the FUTURE,

-greg.

ps: i am aware that four people max will understand my closing to this letter and have fully accepted the confusion of everyone else as a consequence of that.