I got my Japanese driver’s license!! As in, it is actually in my wallet right now and I just need a car to drive. The dealer also put up the Duet I saw yesterday… so there it is above. Now I ask: how can a car that cute be driveable?
This officially marks my graduation from driving school. YES!!
Of course, this was the easy part. The hard part is passing the written exam, which is a great show of how well one is able to memorize information too dense to access in the split seconds one has while driving. We are, in fact, being tested on how theoretically well we will drive AFTER we were tested on how well we actually drive.
I’m sure it makes as much sense to you as to me!
Anyway, the test wasn’t that hard. Like I said, the only problems I had were taking turns at the speed a normal person would take them, which was apparently too fast (I just can’t win in this metric system…). We had six 2km courses that we had to memorize, and were told we would drive ONE of the courses for our final test. It turns out all the instructors knew what days meant which tests anyway, so the students were all privy to the matter.
Now I just have to pass the written test… which, if the permit test was any indication, will be freaking impossibly hard. I guess I should start studying or something.
In other news! My house is never ever going to be clean again! :-(
Let’s start with Saturday.
Saturday’s event was described to me as an “oyster party” at the house of some artist who made stuff out of wood. Being quite fond of shellfish and woodworking, I eagerly agreed to attend. Upon arriving with some people, I found that it was eating oysters, etc. in the barn/workshop of a freaking amazing artist. He had just come back from a show in Tokyo and it was a welcome back party they were holding. Here is that amazing artist’s not-so-amazing website. A friend of his built him a custom planer that lets him do some crazy stuff with wood… it was quite amazing stuff.
Speaking of the guy who built the crazy planer, his wife is one of the most amazing bakers I have ever encountered. She made THE best apple pie I have ever eaten. We found out she has a mail-order cake subscription service, and thus decided to found the Kushiro Cake Club to gather and enjoy her cakes (also because we cannot reason ourselves into affording the cake subscription on our own separately).
On Sunday, I had to take my driver’s permit test. I also let a friend stay over my house Saturday night, so I was being an awful host and letting her wander town herself that day. Anyway, the actual driving bit was straight forward. The written portion, however, was some awfully sick joke. It consisted entirely of 50 true/false questions, but the questions are worded so trickily that it was more of a test of your semantic comprehension, rather than an on-your-feet understanding of the driving regulations. Here’s an example: When you’re approaching a pedestrian crosswalk with people crossing, you’re supposed to stop in front of it, and at the stop line if there is one. If the question is phrased: “You should slow down when there is a pedestrian crosswalk with people crossing,” that is false because it does not mention the stopping, even though it is true that you slow down before you stop. Did I mention you had to get 45 out of 50 correct?
Another question asked about fuel economy and I swear that shit was not even in the section of the book we were supposed to be tested on.
Later that day, I rejoined my guest and we went to a live band event at the usual bar/cafe/live hall. We saw most of the band boys from Halloween there. They dropped the polite speech this time so we were just chilling and talking about random stuff. One of the band boys from last time was playing with his band. They were pretty hilarious… real showmen, complete with ridiculous getups, hilarious songs, an upright bass, an unplanned call from dad, and a kazoo.
Today, I visited a school for the first time. It’s right down the street from my house, but that did not stop nature from making me freaking cold by the time I biked there. It’s on the lower end in terms of academic performance, but the kids are nice (and enthusiastic in their own way), and the teachers are super friendly. A bunch of them live right next to me, so we’ll have to go out for kaitenzushi or something.
After that, I rode all the freaking way to driving school… and drove on the Real Streets. Man, was I glad I enrolled in driving school right then. I really need someone sitting next to me telling me what the heck I’m doing wrong and reminding me to STAY ON THE GODDAMNED LEFT SIDE OF THE ROAD. After completing the circuit, I realized that I did not check my left blindspot a single time during the entire excursion, and would thus have nearly side-swiped half a dozen bikers, had it been a good day for biking (luckily for them, it was not).
And finally, when I got home, I found a postcard from an awesome recently-retired professor in my mailbox. I’ll have to send him some pictures of that artist’s stuff, because I’m sure he’d appreciate it.
Second day at the driving school. I met the teacher who will be in charge of me for most of the time. It’s been a while since I last operated a car, and it’s been never since I’ve operated one on the opposite side of the road. Everything is reversed in a Japanese car… except the pedals, thank bloody goodness. So while I did not mistake accelerator for break, I DID try to turn with the aid of my windshield wipers on a few occasions. It’d only happen when I got TOO comfortable with driving and let my guard down, so I guess the solution is to be uptight all the frigging time until I unlearn how to drive in my own home country.
Some things I noticed:
- I am too used to my old Camry with the shit breaking and acceleration. The instructor kept wondering why I took fricking forever to speed up and slow down… because my car at home had about 2 horsepowers and fingernails against a chalkboard for breaks.
- The “steering wheel” is called the “handle”… what the heck is up with that?
- Speaking of which, I have been using the steering wheel wrong for my entire life! …Okay, 6 months. I never thought about how I turned it, as long as I got around a corner without hitting anything, but now the guy is making me think about how I’m turning it and as a result, I am hitting more things.
- NO ONE EVER TOLD ME THERE WAS SUCH A HUGE BLIND SPOT IN FRONT OF THE CAR.
- Still can’t estimate meters for crap. Have to convert to yards and I’m not good with yards either.
On the bright side! One of the instructors did a little calculating for me… apparently, I could test for my license learner’s permit as early as November 9th, supposing I am Freaking Excellent at driving.
Thus, the old goal is revitalized: let’s frigging rock this shit.
You may recall that I had signed up for Japanese driving school, in the hopes that I will be able to operate a car for more than the one year my international driver’s permit will allow. The orientation was this evening. I went in bleary-eyed and expectationless, and came out… slightly confused.
I wandered in 10 minutes before the orientation was scheduled to begin, carrying my hat, a purse, and a laptop backpack like some sort of wayward traveler looking for directions. I didn’t really know what I was supposed to do, so I stood around awkwardly and made other people in the lobby nervous for a while. Then I spotted the girl who had helped me sign up the other day so quickly waddled over to get her to tell me what the heck was going on. I got my picture taken, eyes checked (say-the-direction-the-C-is-pointing kinda thing), and then headed upstairs with four other new students.
Then I took the most arbitrary multiple choice test I have ever seen. We were subjected to a battery of continue-the-pattern, which-number-is-bigger, pick-the-random-shape-you-like-for-no-reason, what-does-the-inkblot-look-like tests… all timed. One of the tests was speed-writing the letter “A” over and over again… as neatly as you can. I unfortunately have horrible writing, but I hope a lifetime of occasionally writing a capital A helped me somewhat. Another test asked us to pick one picture we liked and one we disliked out of four… I have no idea what the point of that could be. Maybe people who enjoy angular butterflies are worse drivers than those who like well-rounded butterflies? Anyway, then we came upon the questions that were actually IN Japanese… and I began to use the “I don’t know” option a whole freaking lot.
I guess the whole point of the test was to show that 1) you have some sort of acceptable reaction time, 2) you have common sense, 3) you will not have some sort of emotional breakdown that will make you use the car as a weapon of doom, and 4) you don’t have crazy aspirations to drive through a children’s baseball game while drunk.
Afterwards, we got a fancy box full of textbooks and stuff. We have a “class textbook” and a “driving textbook” depending on whether we are driving or going to class on a particular day. I don’t really understand how we’re supposed to use the “driving textbook” if we’re actually driving, but I guess life is not worth living without SOME mysteries.
The instructor (a jolly looking, sort of rotund fellow) then gave us a run-down of the course. 12 hours on-facilities driving and 19 hours real-world driving, with 26 hours of classroom time. We have 9 months to complete the course, but he said some people have been able to do it in 2-3 weeks (they clearly had no life outside of driving school, jeebus).
Then we got a little tour of the first floor of the place. There’s this whole complex card-reader / punch-card-esque folder system… which I hope I still remember tomorrow.
After that, we went back to the classroom for some class time. Another instructor came in and basically read several pages of the textbook FOR us. Quite a few Japanese people I’ve spoken to talk as if they had stuffed gauze in their cheeks and are too lazy to pick up the slack and enunciate. This man talked like that, so my comprehension rate dropped 10% when he was talking. He spent a very long time explaining the difference between the Japanese words “kuruma” and “jidousha” (sorta like comparing “car” vs. “automobile”). Basically, we’re driving frickin’ jidousha up in here.
We then went through all the responsibilities of driving, how to secure a child into a child seat, what sort of footwear should not be worn while driving, etc. Then we watched a short video about driving that basically repeated everything the guy said, except for the whole car vs. automobile bit. The video is exactly what you’d expect from a driving school video. I guess it is kinda interesting that there is no cultural gap in the incredibly boring and cheesy instructional video department.
Then 8pm creeped up and our 3 hours of having our brains numbed were finally up. The jolly dude from earlier showed me and this other girl how to use the computerized scheduling system, so I scheduled me some drive time Friday and Saturday. Then I tried to ask how the classroom time scheduling worked, but I guess it was closing time, because they just told me to come talk with them tomorrow. So I guess I’m driving tomorrow evening. Sometime before then, I have to learn what everything I may need to handle tomorrow is called in Japanese.
I signed up for Japanese driving school today. You have no idea how much this pains me and my bank account.
I CAN drive and have an American license (from the proud state of Massholechusetts), but the Japanese government ain’t digging that I’ve only had it for two months in America (yes, I was a lazy, lazy bastard. Don’t be like me, kids). Plus, it’s angry diplomatically upset that America won’t let Japanese license holders drive there (though I think we have a point here: Japanese drivers scare the bejeezus out of me).
So now I have to go through 26 hours of classroom time and 31 hours of driving time. BLEEEARRGHH. And did I mention this is all in Japanese? BLEEEEEARRRRRRRRGH!
On the bright side, there is going to be a Halloween party on Sunday and I am going to dress up as the protagonist of xkcd… AKA, a stick figure (a vaguely disguised reason to use glow sticks and pose ridiculously, I must admit).
