I was delighted with my new bike. Of course, it was not really a ‘new’ bike, since I bought it second hand—but that made it even more special. I had been in Japan a mere six days and managed to find the perfect bike through Craigslist, with a basket and two locks, for just $60. And I had the perfect home for it: a covered parking spot in the bicycle garage in the building where I was living in downtown Tokyo, at no extra cost.
But within a few days, my delight was overtaken with frustration. My frustration came in three flavors: 1) bureaucratic vinaigrette 2) peppery policies 3) pumpkin parking
Let me explain…
Bureaucratic vinaigrette
The sweet sense of having a new bike was rapidly soured by having to get the bike registered, something that needed to be done before I could even use the bike. But to do this I first had to have a government issued Gaijin identification card (a card for foreigners who live in Japan for more than 3 months). To get this ID card, I had to wait in line at a local city ward office for over 3 hours just to get a processing number—this was after I figured out how to get the proper sized photos plus proof of residency– and then wait for close to another hour until my number was called. With my ID paperwork in hand, I then trekked to a bike registry station several blocks away where I presented it along with my passport, bike serial number, previous owner’s bike registration, and a small fee. Finally, I was handed a sheet of paper with a registration. This was to be my ticket to enter the next level of aggravation.
Peppery Policies
You MUST NOT bike: with an umbrella, while on a phone, alongside another bike, at night without a light, with two people on a bike, while drunk
You MUST: bike only on the street side of the sidewalk, carry your registration with you at all times
The biggest hassle is created by the first rule—especially when you are braving the monsoon season in Japan, which runs throughout the month of June (the middle of the Spring semester in Japan). However, I managed to ride with an umbrella (seeing many others do the same) and never got stopped.
Pumpkin parking
Here’s where I tell the story of how my bike suddenly turned into a pumpkin after I parked it (and secured it with both locks) near school. Well, it didn’t really turn into a pumpkin, it just disappeared entirely. But first I need to explain about the bike ban on campus.
Imagine my surprise the first time I rode my bike to class and discovered that bicycles are not allowed on campus. They are really not allowed—you cannot even walk a bike onto campus, nor park it on or anywhere on or even near the perimeter of the campus. In a city where nearly half the population gets around by bicycle, it is astounding that a college campus would ban bikes!
As a result of the lack of bike parking on or near campus, I was forced to park my bike on a city street two blocks from campus. In this case, ‘park’ means lock the bike without attaching it to anything and leave it standing on the sidewalk near the curb (there are no bike racks on the street except in a few paid bike parking stations). Every couple of days I would find a note written in Japanese on a red sticker wrapped around the handle of my bike. I received four of these notes over a ten day period. The notes stated that there was no bike parking in the area where I left my bike. I figured that there was no need to be concerned – after all, what could they do? I was convinced that they couldn’t track me down, since I inadvertently entered an incorrect address on my registration.
Three days after collecting the fourth red sticker, I returned to the parking place after classes one afternoon to find that my bike had disappeared. There were plenty of other bikes in the same area—just not mine. Could I have parked it somewhere else and promptly forgot? I was rather dismayed to consider that my bike had been stolen, knowing how little theft occurs in Japan. I reported the missing bike to the police at the station near my house. After more than a week had passed with no clue about what happened to my bike, a Japanese friend suggested that I contact the bicycle detention center in the Chioda Ward (where bikes impounded in that section of the city are stored). The good news was that they had my bike; the bad news was that I would have travel to an obscure location in a distant part of the city and pay a hefty fine to get it back. A young man working there dutifully took my registration number and escorted me to my bike (still secured with both locks). The bike was slightly wet from rain. As the young man proceeded to wipe it down with a little white cloth, my anger dissipated and I thanked him.
So now I know to beware of little red stickers, and I am still left with the predicament of where to park my bike. I have started to park it a couple of blocks away in a different ward, which also puts it further away from the metro station (bike parking is especially problematic near metro stations). We’ll see if I can avoid the red stickers this way.
Despite the bad tastes that this experience left me with, I still am delighted with my bike and I don’t regret buying it. But I will never understand why a college would make it so difficult for its students to commute by bike.
