Adventures in Isahaya

"You can't stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes" - Winnie the Pooh

自分の写真
名前:
場所: Burnt Hills, New York, United States

I'm a SAHM to a little girl born October 2003, a little boy born August 2006 and another little boy born January 2012.

木曜日, 10月 28, 2004

More on driving

Because that's the kind of girl I am...

Most of the roads are barely big enough for one car, much less two. They are also full of blind curves and tight turns. The nice thing is that there are mirrors on those curves and turns so you can see anyone that might be coming at you. I have become QUITE addicted to the mirrors. It's going to be very hard to not look for those back in the states.

Our car has GPS. We have seen many that do. It's not 100% useful because it's in Japanese...well, not 100% useful for us. One thing it does have is most of the map symbols (like the town hall and post offices) and all of the Toyota dealerships. (It's a Hertz/Toyota rental vehicle.)

We have no cruise control...which kinda sucks, especially since these long, windy roads tend to all have limits of about 40 kmph and just beg for you to not obey that. Most people don't and I haven't, but today one of the most winding of them all was riddled with men on motorcycles labelled "Police" so I figure I need to do better.

The other thing is these CRAZY people on scooters. They drive between the lanes of cars, up the shoulders, EVERYWHERE. I think they all have death wishes and it's SO hard to keep an eye out for them.

Also, we saw a riced out car yesterday at San-Ai (the department store down the street). It was a little boxy thing (like most cars here) and had very low skirts with maybe an inch or two of clearance all the way around. That alone cracked me up because the streets here are HORRIBLE - uneven, bumpy and hard to maneuver in a normal car - and the San-Ai parking lot is worse. This guy must have been barely coasting along trying not to damage his car. Then he had a huge spoiler on the back. As if he could really get that little poor aerodynamic vehicle up to speeds necessary to require a spoiler. I had to laugh...and take a picture. I'll get it posted with some others hopefully in the very near future.