Cars

For the last year or so I've been driving around Japan on my international drivers license which has been great as far as I'm concerned - $25 bucks and a picture apparently qualifies me to drive in over 46 countries no questions asked. But that only lasts for one year and mine expired back in March. Usually, to get a Japanese drivers license once must undergo a written test (in notoriously poor/ambiguous English), a driving test (that people fail on average 5 times) and finally an eye test. So generally it takes a long time and multiple tries to pass.

Fortunately, as an Australian citizen I can skip over the written and driving test and just do the eye test to obtain my license. I don't know why... but I'm not exactly complaining about it! However, even as an Australian citizen there are still a few bureaucratic hoops to jump through, such as; proving when my license was first issued, proving I had my license in my country for 3 months before coming to Japan and proving I'm a man because it doesn't actually state that on my license. All easily dealt with but they need original documents which must be sent from Australia etc. It's all quite bothersome.

So after I finally had everything and got the day off work to go in I went to meet my fate.

The day begins at 6:30am. The license centre is located in such a place that it is extremely difficult to catch public transport there ... so I didn't. I had to write my name on a list at 9:00am to have an interview at 1:00pm so after wasting four hours I was taken to a small room and questioned. Then waited. Then had a picture taken. Then waited. Finally getting my licence at 4:00pm. A process that in total took about 40 minutes was some how stretched out to 7 hours. Go figure.

In any case, my picture isn't awful and at least I'm not driving illegally anymore. It must be noted though that while I was driving illegally I was also driving exceptionally safely and now that I have my license I can feel myself slacking a little...

My car changed a while ago from the blue one I may have posted here a while ago to a light purple (dare I say lavender) car. It's a better car in all regards as it has things like central locking and power windows but the fact that it is the WORST POSSIBLE COLOUR FOR A CAR is a bit of a downer for me. Nevertheless, it is what it is so I'll have to deal with it.

Look out Japan!