Driving

I forgot to put something on here about drivers' licenses. I got mine. Finally. Last Thursday, I took the morning to head to the licensing centre to go through the process. It took about 3 hours, but in the end I know have a Japanese license. That is not such a big deal, as kiwis get to simply swap licenses over without having to sit tests, etc. The Americans on the other hand...

The big news is that I have a full motorbike license. And that is something that no-one else managed to achieve. Anything over a 400cc bike normally requires people to sit a practical test, which in usual Japanese style is very picky. It includes riding slowly over a "bridge" (a 10cm wide piece of wood), swerving through cones, braking test, etc. The story goes that people who take the test normally fail for the first 4-5 times. The normal way around it is to spend about USD 3000 to attend a school that teaches you how to pass the test (I mean how to ride correctly) over the course of about 40 hours of instruction.

But Kiwis are apparently well-trained enough to be trusted with a full license without sitting the test. So I have my license, to the chagrin of the other guys at work who have had to go through the school...