My Ride

This past Saturday I drove over to Japanese Wal-Mart and bought myself a bicycle.  I had it delivered to my house yesterday.  And if you're thinking "Big deal, it can't be that hard, surely store clerks speak some English, right?" you would be WRONG.  In Tokyo, maybe.  Here in Ota, store clerks, delivery men and waiters do not, as a rule, speak any English.  So I had our Japanese teacher review the words for "please deliver" with me and talk me through the bicycle purchasing process and then off I went.  Between the nice store clerk, my still-limited knowledge of Japanese and some charades I pulled it off.  (For the record, that's how most of our communication goes down these days.)

Anyway, my new bicycle is a standard Japanese model.  It has a key, lights (powered by my pedaling, of course), a bell and a basket.  Baskets are pretty standard on Japanese bikes  because, wait for it... bikes are actually a legitimate mode of transportation here.   As in you need a basket so you have a place to put your groceries.  And as a legitimate mode of transportation all bicycles must be registered with the government....I didn't realize that until after I bought it but fortunately when you buy a new one the store does it for you.  When I was buying it I just obediently wrote down my contact info. wherever she told me to....apparently one of the times I was "registering" it.

Here in Ota cars are more popular than they are in other places in Japan.  Chad is bringing his home today and I will be acquiring one in the future (although it will be hard to top the excitment of getting my bicycle).  So I'd say about 75% of the people riding bikes around here are teenagers and seniors.  (That is another fun aspect of driving, by the way....dodging little old Japanese ladies on bicycles.)  However, I plan to ride my bike as much as possible--I've already been to the post office twice on it.   Unfortunately I have no photos of me on my new ride because the other house photographer doesn't get home until after dark.....so this is all I've got....

the lock is funny, it just puts a bar through the spokes so
the wheel won't turn