Hello friends, Dogentricks.com here.
How are you. Thanks for reading. Today, I came to Starbucks in downtown Oita in hopes of getting some revisions of my short story done, but unfortunately discovered I suck at writing today.
So, let’s spend some time writing about random things such as my great life. First off, answers to questions that I’ve been receiving through e-mails and such for the past few weeks.
Yes, it is a brand new, Kawasaki Ninja 250 R. The bike, license place registration, boots, jacket, gloves, helmet, bike cover, primary insurance, secondary insurance, and tax all together came out to $6,000 (which includes a $300 dollar discount from the dealership, nice). All in all I’d say it was a pretty good deal. Unforunately I now have no money and will be eating nothing but tuna and spaghetti for the next two months.
In terms of registration, an inkan (basically a formal little stamp with my name written in Japanese), a copy of my alien registration form (not the card), and $6,000 cash was required. The dealer said I’d probably get turned down for a loan because I just came to Japan and because I’m a foreigner. Yay discrimination! They did not check to see if I have a motorcycle license or an international drivers permit. This was my experience with buying a motorcycle in Japan.
Now, let’s see what you need to have as a foreigner in order to legally drive in Japan. To drive anything, you’re going to need to have a license of some sort. For example, in order to drive a car, you’re going to need to have a car license from your own country. Thus, in order to drive a motorcycle in Japan, you’re going to need a motorcycle license from your own country. On top of that, you’ll need to have either an international drivers permit or an International drivers license. An international license is basically a card that you can use almost anywhere for an extended period of time. It takes a considerable amount of time to acquire one, and from what I understand, special lessons from the DMV. A international permit, on the other hand, is a one year free pass that you can use basically anywhere, regardless if you’ve never drove in a foreign country. You buy them at AAA centers for about fifteen bucks. I have a standard license as well as a motorcycle license, so when I received my international drivers permit, they stamped the car and motorcycle sections. This means that I can drive a motorcycle or car in Japan, without restrictions, for one year. Once that year runs up, I am SOL(OL). This means that during the next 330 days, I need to acquire a standard Japanese car and motorcycle license by passing the ridiculous Japanese driving test. Once I have those in my possession, I can drive around Japan at my leisure.
In order to drive on the highway in Japan, you have to pay—and it’s quite expensive. That is, if you don’t have an ETC card. ETC cards are essentially frequent driver passes that come in the form of Japanese credit cards. Unfortunately, when you reach the toll gate, you don’t give the person working their your card, but need to have an approximately two hundred dollar device set up in your car or motorcycle to relay the information automatically to the gate. If you have all the right things (ETC card, ETC machine, money in your bank account), you can ride all day for about 10 bucks…only on weekends. Gas is much more expensive than in America, but having a motorcycle that gets 60 miles a gallon helps quite a bit. In addition to the motorcycle, I bought my predecessors mini car for 200 dollars, which is a riot. lol. It’s basically a mini cooper without any horsepower…at all. Imagine a smart car, only not smart. Right, a super plain, tiny, lifeless car.
Both cars and motorcycles require two forms of insurance. Combined, my insurance came to a grand total of about 600 dollars a year, which I think is quite reasonable.
On days when it’s not pouring, I ride the motorcycle to save money. Right, that’s a lie–I ride the motorcycle becauseiTSAWESOME!!! I’ve put about 1000 kilometers on it so far and had the standard 1K oil change. It runs absolutely fantastic and I have to say its pretty damn fun to ride a shiny black motorcycle around the city. My good friend, Yuuto, who lives about an hour from my house, also rides and owns the white Kawasaki Zephyr seen in the pictures below. We’ve had a few riding sessions so far, including through a volcano range and the flashing night city. I promise it’s every bit as fun as it sounds.
Of course, the most fun is when someone pulls up next to me and gives the thumbs up at the new bike. I open the mirrored visor to reveal my identity and typically scare the bejesus out of everyone at the intersection. There’s few enough foreigners out here to make a scene, and next to none that ride motorcycles around the city. ROFL@THAT.
I apologize for the extremely poor structure and word choice in this post—I wrote it while hyped up on starbucks and under the curious eyes of about seven Japanese people.
Train hard.