Totoro Burger

Aside from driving on the left side of the road, there are a few things that the Japanese do differently over here on the island.

• For one, old people put stickers on the back of their cars indicating that they are old. Not handicap stickers, old-people stickers. I find this to be quite useful useful: It allows one to know when a little extra space cushion might come in handy and makes one a little more compassionate when someone is driving 20 km/h in a 50 km/h zone. Out in the inaka (boondocks) though, everyone is old and pretty much every car on the road has one of these stickers, so their existence is in a way not too much more than a reminder that you’re in the sticks.

Pictured above: old person sticker. They come in a few other designs that you can choose from and they’re sold in the 100 yen stores (the Japanese equivalent of dollar stores)

• The Japanese will never have their headlights on during the day, no matter how cloudy it is or how hard it is raining. The only exception is when driving through the wormhole tunnels. If you have your headlights on during the day to be “safe”, old men will look at you like you are a pussy.
• Aside from my own car, you’ll be hard-pressed to find anybody driving playing music loudly.
• Cars stopped at red lights during the night will usually turn their headlights off as a courtesy to drivers in front of them.
• Green lights are called blue lights and I’m not sure why.
• 99.999% of all people take the time to back into parking spaces rather than just pulling in. Teens, moms, dads, grannies, gandpappies, clowns, dogs, deer, everyone. After doing this for a while diving into spots headfirst feels sort of glutinous/lazy.

all for now.