I got my act together a little late on Monday. By the time I saw Kuniko off at the door, cleaned up, had breakfast, and got dressed it was nearly 11 o’clock in the morning. My plan was to head to the Japanese equivalent of the DMV to look at the practice course and maybe, if there were just a few people, take a crack at getting a Japanese driver’s license.
I don’t need a license. Generally, if I can’t get there by train then I don’t really need to get there. Unless you live out in the country (or have friends/relatives that do) or unless your job requires it, there is no reason to have a driver’s license in Japan.
But, there are a couple of reasons why I’m going to try and get it. The big one is that I feel bad that anytime we drive anywhere, Kuniko is the one who has to drive. Sometimes that can get old, and especially if we take a long roadtrip it would be helpful. Also, if there was an emergency, I could drive her or someone else to the hospital. Of course, in an emergency I would probably go ahead and do that license or not.
Another less important reason is that her dad wants me to get a license. I’m not sure why – maybe he expects that in a husband and wife relationship, the man should be driving. I don’t know, exactly, but every time we go over there, he asks me how the license is coming along. Maybe driving a car is some kind of status thing, here.
Anyway, getting a license is no easy trick, especially for a foreigner. First, there’s no such thing as a learner’s permit, so people in Japan need to go to a school with a closed course to learn to drive. Nobody ever learns from their relatives – you can’t drive legally without a license, so you need to use a closed course.
In my case I’ll just be transferring my California license over to Japan, but since things are a little different here (right hand drive, etc) I need to take both a written and a practical exam. The written test is just 10 true/false questions in English, but the practical exam is a driving test on a closed course. The test is legendary among foreigners in Japan, and it is not unusual for people to fail the test five to eight times before passing. Somewhere along the way the test gradually turned from a realistic test of your skills in a driving situation to a set of things you have to memorize and do in a particular order to pass.
For example, you need to remember to walk around the car and look for children or animals underneath before the exam begins, look both ways for imaginary traffic before you get in the car, and then make various adjustments of the handbrake, mirrors, and seat before you get started. If you forget to do one of these, you fail. There are 20 places on the course where you are expected to signal a turn, and if you miss one, fail. If you don’t check your mirrors in the proper order while making a lane change, you fail. You get the point.
I found a website that describes all the things that you should watch out for the exam. The biggest complaint is that it really doesn’t test your skills at all – it’s just having a test for the sake of having a test. I’ve found that is a pretty common trend in Japan. They love tests here.
So how do all these kids getting their licenses deal with this overly strict driving test? They don’t take it. There is an option to take a one month driving course at a licensed school, and students passing that do not have to take the driving test at the DMV. They do have to pay around $3,000 though.
I got to the driver’s license center around noon, and asked lots of questions of the people there. The gist of it was, that foreigners can only apply for a license between 9:30 and 10:00 a.m., and since it was too late I was out of luck. The good news was that when I arrived they had just closed the course to cars, so I could walk through the course and check it out.
I tried very hard to ask permission, but in the end I couldn’t find anyone who might be able to give it. So, I just walked out there with some other people and pretended that someone told me it was OK. The course was big – really big. I walked through most of it and there weren’t any surprises. They had an intersection with a traffic light, a couple of hills, and even some fake train tracks and a train crossing signal that would occasionally ring as if a train was coming.
After reviewing the area carefully, I headed on back home. It wasn’t long before Kuniko got home from work. I cooked up stuffed green peppers for dinner, and after dinner we both did a little studying. I found out that the optional training for my new job was not really optional – thanks to a little miscommunication with my supervisor. She is usually pretty good at English but she made a little verbal mistake and had me thinking that I had Tuesday off. Turns out I’ll need to go into southern Osaka again for a three-hour training session. So, I won’t be able to try for my driver’s license on Tuesday. That leaves Wednesday and Thursday to give it a shot.
In the evening we went over to the movie theater for a late show, and saw our first movie in a very long time. We saw Superman Returns, since I was a big fan of the movies when I was a kid. It was pretty good – a fun movie, although it was pretty loud. On our way to the movie we bumped into a bunch of my ex-students from Takanan, a group of around five girls. They were all dressed up for a shopping trip, and they looked much older than they appear at school in their uniforms without makeup. They were out kind of late for students, too – suspicious behavior!
We stopped in at Starbucks to buy a drink to take into the movies, and we spotted an ex-coworker of mine from Takasago Minami, Fujimaru sensei, sitting with a younger female teacher that used to teach at the school a year ago, Watanabe sensei. It looked like some kind of date, so Kuniko and I stayed away because we didn’t want to interfere. Actually, Fujimaru sensei is married, so it seemed like a risky move to being hanging out with a young, single teacher at night in a public place like Starbucks – especially after we had just seen some of his students walking by.
We got our drinks, but the guy who gave them to us indicated that the straws were over there – pointing to a table right next to where Fujimaru sensei was sitting. Oh, well – sorry man. I went over and got the straws, and had no choice but to saw hello. He smiled uneasily at me, and Watanabe sensei said hello and seemed really smiley and bubbly as usual. We got out of there as soon as we could, but Fujimaru sensei really looked busted.
We got home late, late, late, and then headed right to bed. Tomorrow we’ll be meeting up for the big date for Matsuo in the evening. I’ve got training in the afternoon and my long trip to Osaka south. I hope it’s at least entertaining.
