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Because this is Japan, passing the riding test is not the final step in getting a motorcycle license. As many disappointed license hopefuls will find out, when you finally hear those magic words “congratulations, you’ve passed”, you’re still not quite there; there are still two steps left. The final step is exactly as you would assume happens in any country around the globe: You have to go through a bit of paperwork to actually get a new license certificate with a Motorcycle endorsement on it. The penultimate step, however, is Pure Japan (TM): You have to go to motorcycle school after you have passed your motorcycle test.

The School

In Tokyo, at least, the motorcycle school is 3 hours, and the police contract it out to local riding schools (who actually give out most of the licenses in Japan — very few people get their licenses by taking their test from the police). After passing your test, you are presented with a list of riding schools. Pick one near you and the police give you a coupon for the 3-hour riding school there. The school that I chose, for its proximity to my house, separates the school into 3 50-minute segments.

Segment 1: Motorcycle Simulator

The company that makes this simulator would actually have a pretty good side business going if they decided to make controllers for arcade games. The three of us plus the instructor rode on a very realistic motorcycle through a very unrealistic town — the most peril-fraught town in existence, with cars, bicyclists, and pedestrians doing the most idiotic things imaginable. It was really no wonder that every third vehicle in this town seemed to be a speeding ambulance! The simulation actually seemed to be designed to make you have accidents. When I pulled up behind a bus, the instructor said “Just go around”. “No; if I go around, someone is going to step out from behind the bus and I’m going to hit them.” “Just do it.” [vrooom] “Oh. look at that, someone stepped out from behind the bus and I hit them.” “See, that’s why you shouldn’t pass stopped buses.”

The instructor himself demonstrated that it was not possible to get through the simulation without at least one accident. He rode through that town like a pro, expertly dodging seemingly-blind cyclists, ball-chasing children running into the streets, etc., until a car appeared out of nowhere and wiped him out. When we put it in super-slow-motion replay, we found that the car had been in a park, hiding behind some trees ready to start moving when it saw him.

Segment 2: The videos

This was 50 minutes of driving license instructional videos, and they didn’t seem to care which ones they showed us, as long as they showed 50 minutes’ worth (There were 2 videos chosen at random, the second of which was unceremoniously stopped when the clock hit 3:30:00).

The videos were exactly as you would expect. Some guy comes on the screen: “Hi! I’m some aging retired soccer player! I helped lead Japan to victory in some soccer contest! Do you know, on the soccer pitch, there are rules and manners to be followed, and if I don’t follow them, I could get a yellow card, or even a red card! Well, do you know what else has rules and manners that you have to follow?” At this point, everyone in the room was giddy with anticipation. What could the mystery activity, filled with rules and manners, referred to in this driving license instructional video, be? Could it be checkers? Marriage? Luckily, he broke the suspense by reaching into his shirt pocket (from which he’d previously produced the yellow cards and red cards) and producing his driving license. “It’s having a driving license!” This only bothered me a bit, as there are actually almost no rules or manners associated with the simple act of having a driving license.

Segment 3: Riding

Ah, the fun part.  My two classmates were both seasoned riders who had to get their licenses because they’d finally been caught riding without a license.  With this in mind, the instructor pushed us pretty hard, and it was a challenging 50 minutes of riding.  Don’t get me wrong; I can easily ride for 50 minutes, but that is on the roads where you’re pretty much going straight most of the time.  This instructor probably didn’t want anybody to get bored, so we certainly were not going straight:  Letter-S, Crank Course, Number-8, Slalom, Balance Beam,  U-Turns, Letter-V, Slalom while going around a corner.  Then the same thing going the other direction.  Then the same thing with one hand.  All this while avoiding all of the cars and bike drivers that were just taking their first lessons.  Really fun, but really challenging.

Anyway.  This was on Thursday.  Friday morning I went and picked up my new license card, and now I am fully licensed.

For those who don’t read Japanese.. These are driving directions, one of which is “Make a U-Turn in front of the Setagaya Police Station”

Found this little gem on Japan Today:

CHIBA — Police on Wednesday arrested a man for making 512 false emergency calls to police in one day in December last year. Police believe the suspect has made more than 3,000 crank calls since last June.

Cool, I didn’t think that most Japanese folks were up to making crank calls; it is excellent to see someone revive this lost art. So, which was it? Was it “Is your takoyaki maker running? Well you’d better go catch it!”? Perhaps it was “Have you got Prince Akishino in a can? Well you’d better let him out!”. I hope it was my personal favourite: “‘Hello, is Hiroshi there?’ ‘Wrong Number [click]‘ ‘Hello, this is Hiroshi, any messages?’”.

I’m giddy with anticipation! Which timeless classic did our intrepid dialer use to confuse and amuse the police?

Mamoru Suzuki, 30, who is a part-time worker at a local agent for the Yomiuri newspaper in Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture, was charged with making 512 crank calls to police from 7 a.m. to 11:35 p.m. on Dec 2, shouting “Shut up” and then hanging up.

Ah yes, the old “Shut up!” gag. Pure comedy gold.

Note.. I’m writing this for the interest of friends and family who are curious about how stuff works in Japan, but also in the hopes of helping people out if they are searching for info about motorcycle licensing in Japan…

Almost 3 years ago, when I converted my Canadian driving license to a Japanese one, I was told that if I wanted to convert my Motorcycle endorsement at the same time, it would take longer and cost more cash. “Nah, don’t bother. When am I ever going to ride a motorcycle?”

Well, I suppose I should never say never. About a year and a half ago, I bought a little auto-shift scooter for zipping around Tokyo (legal on a car license), and when it went to the big bike yard in the sky, I bought a manual-shift moped to replace it. Between the two bikes, I have done over 13,000km in and around Tokyo, but I realized that I would like a bit more. After all, it would be nice to strap a tent, sleeping bag, and chair to the back of a bike, leave Tokyo on a sunny Friday afternoon, and just see where the weekend takes me. This would be.. well, problematic at best on my 50cc bike, so it was time to investigate getting licensed for a bigger bike.

License Categories
Japanese motorcycle licenses are divided into 4 categories:

• Moped (Gentsuki): Up to 50cc. Separate license or included in a car license. Speed limit 30 km/h, must stay in left-most lane, can not do a direct right turn at many intersections.
• Small Bike (Kogata): Up to 125cc. Speed limit 50 km/h.
• Medium Bike (Futsuu, formerly Chuugata): Up to 400cc. Up to 250cc does not require yearly inspections.
• Large Bike (Oogata): Anything over 400cc.

I decided to go for the Chuugata license.. Those bikes are big enough to get me out of the city, without being so big as to be prohibitively expensive to buy or operate. Not only that, but the exam is not nearly as rigorous as the Oogata exam.

Contents of the Exam
To use a martial arts analogy, the test has both kata (how you drive in general) and waza (specific techniques that you must demonstrate). For the mid-size bike test, the techniques are as follows:

• Balance Beam (Ipponbashi): A balance beam 15 meters long and 20 centimeters wide. You must stop less than 2 meters before getting on the balance beam (so you can’t take a run at it) and you must take more than 7 seconds to cross it (so you can’t just speed across). Falling off or putting your feet down fails the test.
• Slalom: 5 cones spaced 3 meters apart. Slalom through them in under 8 seconds. Touching a cone fails the test.
• Crank Course: Two sharp left turns followed by two sharp right turns. Touching a pylon fails the test.
• S-Curve: Left turn, right curve, left curve, left turn. Touching a pylon fails the test.
• Emergency Stop: Stop from 45 km/h (by law only 40 km/h but the way the test is set up necessitates 45 or even 50).
• Uphill Start: An uphill start on a 10-degree slope. This doesn’t sound like much but that bike feels really heavy.

As for the driving part, it’s just regular driving around their track, set up so they can see you change lanes, turn right and left, use a traffic light and stop signs, etc.

The procedure at Fuchuu
I went to Fuchu Driving License Test Centre.. The other choice for Tokyo residents is Samezu (near Shinagawa). Fuchu is more convenient to my apartment and my office so I went there. Anyway, the procedure is very simple and casual. Make sure that your test voucher has 4600 yen worth of stamps (purchased from the stamp counter on the 1st floor). Take the test voucher up to the driving examination room on the 2nd floor, trade it for a green paper that your examiner will write on. Take the green paper out to the bike track, write your name, address, and phone number on the back, hand it and your car license to the examiner. Sit around and wait until your turn. While the guy before you is being told why he failed, you get to take the bike for one lap around the perimeter of the course to get used to its handling. Come back to the starting gate, wait for the examiner to tell you you can go.

My specific test experiences

• Test 1: Fell off the ipponbashi. This was my only time having trouble with any of the techniques.
• Tests 2, 3, 4: My riding was not genki enough. It’s hard to describe genki; best that I can do is “the opposite of listless.” Basically they wanted me to accelerate harder, drive faster, and brake harder. Believe me, I have no problems accelerating or driving fast, as a look at my unfortunate Japan Traffic Violation History will confirm. But this test course is small, about 100 meters from one end to the other. And nothing in my nature or my driving training will let me roll out of a turn, see a red light 50 meters ahead, and accelerate for it. So it took a long time to psych myself up for driving fast in this artificial situation.
• Tests 5, 6, 7, 8: Got over the genki driving problem, failed here for a variety of reasons. “Incorrect turn/lane change procedure”, “Toe pointed too far out on gear shift”, “Used brakes after entering a curve”. A common theme here was also “wide left turns” (Japan is left-driving, so left turns are the tight ones).
• Tests 9 and 10: Had these in the bag, then got excited when I knew I’d passed and made stupid mistakes. For test 9, it was stopping with my right foot down (instead of the left) while parking; for test 10 it was forgetting my genki driving after passing the last challenge, the uphill start.
• Test 11: Finally passed!

Miscellaneous Advice

• People often say that you should expect to pass your bike test in 3-5 tries. Given the percentage of people that I saw passing at Fuchuu, I would say that I am right on par with my 11 tries, as less than 10% of people would pass on any given day. Keep this in mind when deciding to take the tests, rather than going to riding school (which will pass you upon graduation). All in all, this was still cheaper than riding school, but it took a lot of time. I was lucky to have an office that is not so far from the testing centre, an understanding boss, and a moped for getting me there and back more quickly than public transit.
• There is an official system of demerit points, etc., but at Fuchu this seems to not really be in use. You are either good enough to pass or not, where “good enough to pass” is defined as “not having made any mistakes.”
• In the same vein, officially you are supposed to be allowed to continue the test as long as you have not done anything classes as an automatic fail (hitting a pylon, putting your feet down on the balance beam, stalling, etc.). However, in reality, you will be stopped mid-test and told to return to the starting gate if the examiner sees no way that you will pass. The farther you get, the better you did.
• If you have never had a bike license in Japan before, you will not get your license right away upon passing the test. Rather, you will be given a list of several driving schools. Pick one in your area and you will get a coupon for a 3-hour class there. After you have taken that class you can go back and get your license.
• For foreigners: This whole process requires decent Japanese knowledge. If you are hopeless at Japanese, bring along a friend, or consider doing riding school (also available in English and other languages) instead.

Well, that’s it. Anybody who sees this and would like to ask anything in particular, feel free to email me or leave me a comment in this blog. I can’t claim to be an expert, but I have now seen a great number of riding tests so maybe I can help explain something…

From Japan Today:

TOKYO — The average retail price of regular gasoline in Japan came to 154.30 yen per liter as of Monday, down 0.70 yen from two weeks earlier, the Oil Information Center said Wednesday.

So, nobody said a darned thing when gas shot up from the high 130s/low 140s to 155 a few weeks back, but when it dropped 3/4 of a yen, boy howdy is that good news!

I’m glad that my fuel economy is over 80 mpg…

Japanese to English, as translated by Cookie Monster:

From Japan Today:

TOKYO — A 16-year-old boy arrested Saturday after attacking five people and injuring two of them with kitchen knives on a Tokyo street has told police that he had “some relationship problems,” investigative sources said Sunday.

So let me get this straight. Buddy’s having trouble with his girl, so he decides to impress her by going on a stabbing spree. But here’s the thing. Even if she is actually the kind of girl who is impressed by a man on a stabbing spree (and if she is, he sure knows how to pick ‘em), the guy couldn’t even get it right! I mean, he only attacked 5 people, and only 2 were actually injured?

You know you’re a loser when you fail at going on a stabbing spree to impress your girl…

Somehow, the Narita Express always manages to evoke the same blend of feelings from me.

For the uninitiated, Narita Airport is about an hour outside of Tokyo. There are of course many different ways to get to and from the airport, all with their own merits and drawbacks, but really it comes down to “where in the city are you?”. Airport Limousine Bus is great for people who live in Minato, Chiyoda, Shinjuku, etc. For those who live in the Northeast, Keisei Skyliner is for you. And, for the Shinjuku/Ikebukuro/Omiya crowd, there is Narita Express.

The Narita Express runs alongside the Yamanote Line from Ikebukuro down to Shinagawa or so, and then comes back up underground to Tokyo Station, before heading East and following the Sobu line out of the city. Now, I am fully aware that no country in the world puts its most expensive real estate right along the train tracks, but somehow the Narita Express is especially drab. The thing is, you should be excited to be on the Narita Express! You are, after all, leaving for some sort of trip. Maybe you are going home to visit family. Perhaps you are off to seal some business deal. You could be going to rendezvous with a special someone in some tropical destination. Or, on the other hand, you could be heading the other direction, glad to be back in Tokyo, looking forward to seeing friends again after a couple weeks away, or at the very least, looking forward to your nice comfortable futon after traveling for hours.

But the Narita Express is so depressing that it completely prevents any of these emotions from surfacing. All you can think of is the drabness of the surrounding buildings, the harried commuters that you see in other trains and on other platforms, the farmers out in the field struggling to finish a day’s work. Even the coffee, served from a pushcart in the aisle, seems drab and boring and lifeless and depressing. Oh, you get a flash of trees and nature — maybe 5 or 10 minutes’ worth — but there’s no time to let that sink in, as by then you are already in the phase of planning out what you will need to do once you get to the airport.

I wish I knew what the answer was. A trip should not start out or finish up that way!

Well, the folks at Tokyo Times posted a story about a fun party trick sold for Japanese salarymen to be the life of the party. It’s a costume kit called “Harro! Gaijin-san” that includes a fake pointy nose and stick-on round blue eyes.

I’m actually pretty thick-skinned about stuff like this, but I really do wonder how long a similar product would last in the west: the “Konnechuwa! Mr. Nip” kit that includes big fake buck-teeth and slanty-eyed glasses…

Any foreigner who has been here long enough will undoubtedly be familiar with the “Here in Japan…” speech. The speech is a little lecture given to foreigners by people in some sort of authority, always in response to some violation of the rules or societal norms. I have two problems with the speech:

1) First of all, the pedant in me is bothered because the speech is just plain incorrect. “Here in Japan, people don’t jaywalk!” (Well, I’m here in Japan. I’m a person. And I’ve just been caught jaywalking.)

2) More seriously, there is the unspoken belief on the lecturer’s part that whoever has committed the transgression has done so because he is foreign (rather than simply because of human nature), and that a Japanese person would never commit the same act. I’ve heard “Here in Japan, people obey the speed limit!” (which is of course why every police motorcycle in the country is outfitted with radar) ; “Here in Japan, everyone returns their rental DVDs on time!” (which is why video stores have late return policies) , and even “Here in Japan, we make a reservation when we want to go to the data centre!”

Anyway, the reason I posted this was to write about the best “Here in Japan…” I have ever heard. What was even more surprising was that the recipient was Japanese. I was at the Fuchu License Centre Motorcycle Test Track waiting for my own motorcycle test, and I heard the examiner berating some poor fellow who had just failed his license test by getting too close to the edge of the S-Curve, a pylon-lined curvy path that you have to navigate without hitting a pylon. This fellow had apparently been licensed to ride in the States, and was testing to get a Japanese license. The examiner shouted at him.. “Oh. So they gave you a license in the States, did they? Well let me tell you something… Here in Japan, WE DON’T KNOCK OVER PYLONS WHEN WE DO THE S-CURVE ON OUR MOTORCYCLES!”.

Guess he got told!