Drive in Japan? Yes I can!

Hello everyone.

Today's blog topic: drivers licenses. Specifically, Japanese driver's licenses. Even more specifically, MY Japanese driver's license.

Some of you will recall, during our last stay in Japan about 4 years ago, that I jubilantly acquired my Japanese driver's license on my first try (Not an easy feat. It's not the written test that gets you--it's the hands-on driving portion. Yowch.). And while I don't want to toot my own proverbial horn, I am a pretty sane driver, both in California and here in Japan.

My Japanese drivers license expired last December, on my birthday. But I was in California, so this was no big whoop.

However, once Bob accepted his current job, I knew the need to drive during this stay in Japan may arise.

I would need to renew.

Or--shudder--endure the whole testing process again.

And so off we went this morning--driver's license renewal a shining goal for the day.

A 15 minute walk to our closest subway station.

A 15 minute subway ride to Kyoto Station.

A 20 minute ride on another train line to Nagaokakyo Station.

A 20 minute bus ride to the end of the line at Menkyo Shikenjyo Mae.....

To end up--POOF--at the Japanese equivalent to the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles. Just making sure y'all got that...)

The Kyoto "DMV", as I like to affectionately call it, is housed in a sprawling gray cement building. To the immediate sides are parking areas. Behind it, the driving test course--basically, a set of city streets in miniature. Short streets with working traffic signals, strategically placed stop signs and cleverly situated speed limits, bridges, underpasses, overpasses and straightaways.

And inside the building, utter license magic. Or mayhem. Or both. I have not yet decided.

The first floor is mostly sectioned off into numbered windows and a dizzying array of side doors and hallways, all of it festooned with informational signs, largely in Japanese.

However, the first floor was not our destination. Our first stop was window 8 on the second floor. There Bob perused the kanji-laden signs atop baskets of forms, finally deciding on a white and orange form, upon which he wrote our new and old addresses in Japan. While he did this, I organized the other materials I'd need: my expired Japanese license, my current California license, my passport, my receipt for my Alien Registration Card (lovingly nicknamed "gaijin card" by most of us foreigners), and a strange green paper from our local ward office that, as far as I could see, proved I lived in Japan.

The clock struck 1pm (the second floor offices we needed were only open from 8:30-10:30am and from 1:00-3:30pm).

All around us grim faced drivers license seekers pressed in towards the windows. When our turn came, I handed my miscellaneous stack to a trim older man in a crisply pressed blue uniform shirt. With Bob translating beside me, the man sifted through my papers, and pulled aside my passport, my Japanese drivers license the orange and white form and the green ward office paper, passing the rest of the pile back to me. He then motioned for us to step aside.

About 10 minutes later, a new man at another window called my name, and handed me a clipped stack of papers, my Japanese driver's license on top. My new task: to go downstairs and navigate between a slew of numbered windows, and then return to the second floor, hopefully victorious.

And so, off we toddled, to the first window to pay 2000 yen, then to the next window, where they gave me an eye test (which, in it's speed and simplicity, seemed to prove only that my eyes were open and could focus), then to a third window to pay 3800 yen more, and finally up some stairs, around a corner, outside, up a ramp and back inside to window 8 on the THIRD floor, where I was given a red plastic tab with the number "28" upon it.

Holding tightly to my mysterious number 28, I returned to window 8 on the second floor, where I turned in my pile of stamped and signed receipts and received back my passport-- only to turn around and hear my name being called. One photograph later, I was told to return to the third floor, room 6.

Here is where the story gets even better. For after shuffling around for an hour in lines on 3 different floors and standing at 5 or 6 different windows, I suddenly found myself in front of...

a classroom.

Yes, the final requirement for me to renew my driver's license--to attend a mandatory 2 hour lecture on traffic safety.

In Japanese.

Bob, smirking the entire time, walked me to the classroom door. He was gracious enough to stop smirking while getting me a bottle of cold green tea, but then continued his smirking as he slunk away, leaving me in seat number 28 in a large classroom, surrounded by men and women easily 20 years younger than I. Men and women, might I add, much more prepared for a Japanese traffic lecture--namely because they were Japanese people who clearly understood everything being said. Whether they wanted to or not (and from the silently slouched bodies and nodding heads around me, they did NOT).

The class was spaced out nicely: lecture-film-break-lecture-film-lecture-film-leave. The lecturer--an older Japanese man with an easy smile on his face--spoke quickly but clearly, and used hand gestures to great effect, at least for me. I may not be able to read a newspaper and I may need a bit of help in navigating bureaucratic ins and outs. But put me face to face with another human and I can usually muddle my way into comprehension. Especially if hand gestures are involved.

Keeping my eyes glued to the lecturer's waving hands and listening intently to find the words I DID know, I got the jist of the 2 hours:

1. Don't use a cell phone when you are driving. Put the ringer on silent and leave it alone. Even at stop lights.

2. Don't use a cell phone even when you are on a bicycle or walking down the street. (he illustrated several dramatic accidents with his hands)

3. Don't drive in a hurry. Stay calm. (he acted out a fairly convincing example of mild road rage).

4. Always expect bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, pedestrians and other cars to pop out at you from any and all hidden pockets. From the accompanying video, I ascertained that all these hazards became even more hazardous, and prevalent, at night, or in the rain.

5. Scan the road while driving. Scan, scan, scan.

6. Accidents are nasty and to be avoided (this last tidbit I gleaned from the final video, which featured scenes of accidents (bodies and most blood removed or digitized)).

The lecturer said a few parting words. Then 2 other somber DMV employees came in holding a stack of licenses and papers. I was handed a final paper, to which was stapled my expired license. One more trip to the second floor window 8 to trade the paper for my new license and voila!

I am once again legal to drive in Japan.

When we finally made it home--back along the path of buses, trains and walking--it was 6:30pm---about 8 hours after we began our quest.

And while the day had the desired outcome for me--namely, my license--I fear the cost of today's adventure may be high.

As we unlocked our front door and came in, Bob muttered "No WAY am I going to renew my license. That was NUTS".

We'll see Bob. We'll see.