First Ride in Japan, Navi, and Photo Mapping
Posted At: Fri 16 May 2008	Posted By: Derek Nobuyuki信幸 Wallace
Categories:Motorcycling , life , Video , Video Blogging Podcasting , japan
	Leave A Comment

 Bike Home ZZR400 start: Play Now

May 15th, I went to pick up my motorcycle.

Finally, after 2 years without riding motorcycles since I moved to Japan, I am back in the saddle.

Last year in April of 2007, we started this adventure with our strange journey out to JAF.

JAF is the Japan Automobile Federation and they are a road-side assistance, etc.. service like AAA, CAA, BCAA, etc…

Joey, Sone, Misaki, and I took the journey out to find a JAF branch. For some reason this ended up being in the middle of the nowhere next to the Osaka Harbour.

With JAF, we had to present our Canadian/Australian/etc… Driver’s Licenses for inspection.
After turning over our licenses, we settled in at a nearby cafe for some lunch.
It was one of these strange retro (by on purpose) cafes… truly bimyou蠕ｮ螯�

After our odd lunch, we headed back to the JAF office to pick up translations of our driver’s licenses.
JAF ( in a reciprocal agreement between the Japanese Government and governments of some other countries)
has detailed information about the licensing programs in regions of numerous foreign countries.
I got one describing my license and the meaning of Class 5 and Class 6 (Full Car + Full Motorcycle) from my home jurisdiction.

Step 1 was finally completed.

Yet Another day, we had to head out to Kadoma (the city in North Osaka prefecture where a driver testing centre was).
Unfortunately, I forgot something at home and had to go back to get it; Sone and Joey went ahead to the testing centre
where I met up with them about half an hour late.

Of course, lots of forms to fill out here… but if you are going there… remember there is a special line/counter JUST for foreign license conversions.
You definitely want to skip reception and everything else and go to that counter.

Basically, we spent the entire morning waiting.
Head over to a donburi place to get something for lunch, then
headed back to the testing centre to wait some more.

After countless arguing, disagreeing, etc…
The license people would not accept Sone or my application due to technicalities.
And only accepted Joey’s after having to manually count individual days and add them up.

Here’s what you need.

1.) 90 days in your home country as shown on your passport. If you have a relatively new passport, this is a problem!

2.) 90 days in your home country as being licensed. Most licenses only have the issue date of that version of your license…
not how long you’ve been licensed for.

3.) You need those two sets of 90 days to be the SAME 90 days!

Joey managed to get his car license from small bike license (up to 125cc).

Sone didn’t get his license because it’s a HUGE hassle to get the required information from Canada.

I returned to Canada for 3 1/2 weeks in May 2007 where I could get the required information plus show more “IN CANADA while licensed” days.
I returned back to the license centre again in June 2007; to resubmit with more paperwork from Canada.
While I didn’t need to rewrite my application since it was on file (and my file, i mean paper files),
I still needed to wait around all day for them to process things.
After, I had to get the official photo taken (in addition to the one you provide them for your application)
and listen to a short lecture that i didn’t understand.

But finally, I got my car + middle-bike (up to 400cc) license.

You can do an upgrade test to open bike class… but 400cc is generally enough in japan.

Last week (7May2008), I purchased a Kawasaki ZZR400.
This thing is big and heavy (about 200kg)

On May 15, 2008, I got back in the saddle again for the first time in 2 years.

My first impressions…. omoi (heavy)!
after two years, i need practice with my throttle control..
the throttle is certainly a lot more sensitive than the ZZR250

I started to take a video…

but unfortunately, after 17 seconds i accidentally turned it off….

and there I was making a video, talking to the camera while on the bike, etc..
only to discover the camera had turned off.

First, I tried to ride slowly around the quiet neighbourhood of the bike shop.
After I started to get used to it, I started to head home.

I had written out directions I got my NaviTime (search keyword: 繝翫ン繧ｿ繧､繝�)

If you’re not familiar with Japanese streets, most of them do not have street names. However, many intersections have names.

I wrote my directions using Intersection Names…. only to find out that only 30% of the turns I had written actually had signs with the intersection names… and other times I couldn’t see those signs until I was already in the wrong lane…
So, a few times I turned too late or too early.

Once I got into the minami area, it was not so bad; riding down midosuji, I had a better idea of where I was.

Travelling from the outskirts of the city into the northern downtown core was a breath of fresh air; the speeds start to pick up as i travelled along the riverside road.

Once I reached the Northern downtown everything slowed down a lot.
Stop and go traffic is quite difficult and every car (especially taxis) always stopped within 80cm from my bike.

I’m not at the point where I can start lane splitting with the heavy bike.
Definitely need to get more used to the bike, it’s weight, and it’s power first.

Getting lost is quite the problem in Japan.
I can see why nearly EVERY car has navigation in it.
Might be worth checking out in the future, getting a bike navi unit

Speaking of navigation, mapping and whatnot, i’ve been experimenting with geocoded photos and googlemaps. However, google’s picasa web has launched a new feature recently where they put the photos directly on the map.

Check it out: http://media.derekwallace.com/map

If you’re not familiar with geocoding… you inject GPS data into the IPTC/EXIF meta . In this case I take photos with my Casio Exilim Mobile Phone which then tags the photos since mobile phones have Navi and GPS in them.