I had never intended to have a car in Japan, though. I was actually really excited when I got a job in Japan, because I thought it meant that I wouldn’t have to invest in or borrow a car to get to work. Now, in Osaka, of course you can get by without a car. My friends and I traveled around Kyoto and Osaka with relative ease by train and subway, and I only went in a car about four times total in one semester.
Those four times, though, gave me a horrible impression of driving in Japan. It’s not that the Japanese are bad drivers, but I constantly got the impression that all of them were picking up some radio signal telling them “You can totally back up now! That guy will stop!” or “Well, of course you can turn right here even though you can’t see at all!” and I, having my internal radio set to Channel Gaijin, couldn’t hear it.
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