A hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicleAnd this:
My amazing car....which is now owned by Meg. MEG YOU BETTER BE NICE TO IT!Japanese electrical engineers are fantastic. They make things like this:
My husband's favorite toy.
My husband's favorite toy.There are even great Japanese civil engineers. I mean, they build skyscrapers that can withstand earthquakes. Down the street from me they are filling in the ocean so they have more land to build on. They move inconvenient rivers out of the way. They even built an island specifically to hold an airport! (Well ok, maybe that's a bad example, since that island and its airport are sinking into the ocean).
But....
Japanese traffic engineering SUCKS.
They hide stoplights in trees. They build narrow roads. They expect alleys to contain two-way traffic. They do not time their lights, so a single light can back traffic up for miles. They have no parking rules...sidewalks, the middle of the road, driveways, walls...they're all fair game. They like blind intersections. They build dead end roads with walls on either side, so it takes a fifty-one point turn to get the car turned around again. Roads rarely connect destinations. Sometimes they go in circles. Sometimes the stoplight will be red...with green arrows pointing in every direction. Sometimes they build telephone poles in the middle of the road. Sometimes they build poles or walls for fun, just to see if Americans will hit them.
They drive on the wrong side of the road. Except for when they drive on the right side of the road that is. The paint the lines so the lanes are too narrow...resulting in lanes that are merely suggestions. They don't have highways. Sometimes they build turn lanes...with no road to turn onto. But they rarely build turn lanes where they are needed. There are stoplights where there aren't intersections or crosswalks. There are only stop signs at about every third intersection.
And best of all...they don't use street names. Addresses are secret codes only known by the postman, and landmarks are required to drive to another location. These directions are usually along the lines of:
Take the first right. It's an alley.
Then turn left at the brown building. There is a green sign over the door.
Turn by the park. There will be some trees.
Park by the fence. Not the wall...Americans aren't allowed to park by the wall.
Walk down the street 100 yards.
You should see a building with a Japanese sign that has three characters and the first one looks like a fish. That's the one.
It takes a lot of luck to get where we want to be when we want to be there. Alive.
Next time, I'm taking one of these:
F-15
But....
Japanese traffic engineering SUCKS.
They hide stoplights in trees. They build narrow roads. They expect alleys to contain two-way traffic. They do not time their lights, so a single light can back traffic up for miles. They have no parking rules...sidewalks, the middle of the road, driveways, walls...they're all fair game. They like blind intersections. They build dead end roads with walls on either side, so it takes a fifty-one point turn to get the car turned around again. Roads rarely connect destinations. Sometimes they go in circles. Sometimes the stoplight will be red...with green arrows pointing in every direction. Sometimes they build telephone poles in the middle of the road. Sometimes they build poles or walls for fun, just to see if Americans will hit them.
They drive on the wrong side of the road. Except for when they drive on the right side of the road that is. The paint the lines so the lanes are too narrow...resulting in lanes that are merely suggestions. They don't have highways. Sometimes they build turn lanes...with no road to turn onto. But they rarely build turn lanes where they are needed. There are stoplights where there aren't intersections or crosswalks. There are only stop signs at about every third intersection.
And best of all...they don't use street names. Addresses are secret codes only known by the postman, and landmarks are required to drive to another location. These directions are usually along the lines of:
Take the first right. It's an alley.
Then turn left at the brown building. There is a green sign over the door.
Turn by the park. There will be some trees.
Park by the fence. Not the wall...Americans aren't allowed to park by the wall.
Walk down the street 100 yards.
You should see a building with a Japanese sign that has three characters and the first one looks like a fish. That's the one.
It takes a lot of luck to get where we want to be when we want to be there. Alive.
Next time, I'm taking one of these:
F-15
1 comment:
Japan sounds liek a nightmare for someone like me. I can't read a map, or follow directions. I get lost in my own city, where I have lived forever. I can't imagine myself in a city where the streets have no name...Hey, didn't write a song about that? U2 must've spenttime in Japan...
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