The Long Arm of the Law

The long arm of the Law

So without incident I have been driving in Japan. We the help of the navigation lady in the computer I have journeyed to visit Bryan , driven to Mt. Fuji, and even taken the family to Disneyland…..brings back memories. So the other day I am driving down the highway and begin to exit to the appropriate street to get to my hotel. Now the speed limit on the highway is 80 KM per hour and most people drive faster, just like in the states. So as I take the exit I have slowed down a bit but was still going like 60 KMH. At this point I see a guy sitting in a chair on the median wildly waving at me with a little orange flag. As I pass him I look a couple of hundred feet ahead and there are two police officers waving me to pull over and pull up to where they were. Uh-Oh !! I was in trouble as the official speed limit for the exit ramps is like 30 KMH….so I was like double that. As I pulled up and rolled down my window one of the officers came up to my window and began to speak very fast in an irritated voice….”gobla..hasa.konachi…wacchi..gause a mas” or something like that….as you know I speak no Japanese. He sounded really serious and mad however. I answered him with ..”HI” which means yes in Japanese….but I didn’t know what else to say. So I pulled out my international driver’s license and handed it to him. He took it and looked at it and looked up and said…”blah..blah “wachi..hookey.gause a mas” …that’s probably not a direct quote either, but again he was not a happy camper. Again I smiled and answered “ HI” and gave him my Texas License. Now this confused him and he stood there for a moment with an angry look on his face. After a moment I smiled and introduced myself in Japanese which I can do but can’t spell. Then he looked back at me and a very dejected look came over his face as he handed me all my stuff back and spoke the only two words of English he obviously knew…..seat belt. So assuming he was asking about it, I pulled the seat belt up from my chest and said…”HI” . He then, looking even more beaten, mumbled something and pointed down the road and waved for me to go. I told him thank you in Japanese and drove away. I love this country.

Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th……

Well another country is now is serious trouble. As of a few days ago I rented a car and am now driving in Japan. Yes….. now parents in a country other than the U.S. have a reason to keep their children off the streets. The first problem is that the steering wheel is on the wrong side of the car along with driving on the wrong side of the road. At least so far I haven’t hit anyone. The opposite side of the road thing takes some getting used to and I don’t understand what some of the signs mean, but I have never been one to let not knowing how to do something stop me….so here I go. As the days have gone by and my confidence behind the wheel here has grown, I decided to drive to Hitachi to visit with Bryan and pick up Luanne and Tyler. Now to get to Hitachi from Yokohama, you have to drive through the middle to Tokyo! Highways in Japan are quite narrow and usually only have 2 lanes with exits and highway splits on whatever side of the road had room for them. So I started about 4:00 in the afternoon driving….let me recap here……..new driver in Japan, on the wrong side of the road, driving though Tokyo rush hour on Friday the 13th……what could go wrong ? I mean I had the navigation computer in the car, so what if I couldn’t understand the Japanese it spoke, I would just read the screen. What a plan! So I get out of Yokohama and into Tokyo and sure enough the highway was a parking lot with more cars than I have ever seen. I manage to get through the traffic pretty well when the nice lady on the computer began going nuts. I don’t know what she was saying but she sounded really serious and wouldn’t shut up. I tried several buttons on the computer ( all in Japanese ) but there was no volume or silent button. So I decide that I needed music to drown out the voice of the computer lady. So I plug the IPOD into the auxiliary of the radio and problem solved?......nope…the computer just played the computer lady ( who I have now named Nuyomi the Navigation Lady ) at the same volume as the music. But at least it helped me ignore whatever warning she was giving me. Now before I began this trip I got money for the weekend in crisp new Japanese bills, so as I approached one of the toll booths I thought no problem. Well MOST of the cars in Japan have an ETC ( toll tag ) in their cars so they can zip through the booth without stopping. They have 1 lane set up for those people like me who have no card and need to pay in cash. Of course that lane of the toll booth is over two lanes ….that was fun. When I got to the toll window I realized that the computer lady was trying to tell me that the toll booths don’t like making change, and they prefer that you have the ETC card. I smiled and told the attendant who spoke enough English to tell me they didn’t really make change that he could either do that or let me go…..and he found the change. I then smiled again and told him how happy his efforts would make the toll attendant at the next booth……he failed to see the logic in that I think. So I again got out into traffic having now successfully restructured the revenue policy of the Japan toll system, and I was now happy enough to begin singing with the radio. I eventually made it out of Tokyo and me and “Nuyomi the Navigation Lady” are going down the road harmonizing ( ? ) to Boston, Foreigner and Deep Purple. I managed to make the trip to Bryan’s house in about 3 hours and actually found his house from memory without the help of the computer. Next I will take on the drive to Mt Fuji……..If we never return you will know where to come look for us. I love this country.

On Frozen Won

On Frozen Won – My time in Korea

So the Korean money is the Won. A Dollar will get you 1200 won so you feel really rich when you handle their money. The down side is that when you hear that lunch is 12,000 Won, you feel faint for a second. Now the second part of the title is that it is REALLY cold here. I am talking about North Pole cold and as a native of Texas I simply was not prepared for this weather.

The first thing I notice is that these people CAN’T drive. I got into a cab for the 40 minute ride to the hotel from the airport and let me tell you that I thought the time of my departure from this world had arrived. My cab driver, who I refer to as Mario Andretti, started off by swerving at another cab driver standing close to the curb because he didn’t like him. Then Mario sped through traffic running two red lights getting onto the expressway. From my observation it seems that the traffic signs and lights are more like guidelines…. “For reference only”. As we turned onto the expressway there were people (walking) crossing the road with the light that said “OK to walk”. Well whoever put that light up has never met Mario! It was NOT OK to walk as he wove through them and honked as he gestured with a minimum of fingers, if you understand. I informed him that I was not in a real hurry …thinking that might prolong my life. “Yes Sir, No Problem Sir” he said as he accelerated even faster onto the freeway. I literally didn’t have the nerve to look at the dash to see how fast we were going, but it was the equivalent of 85 -90 MPH at least. He passed cars across all lanes, and even used the shoulder of the road to go around one car ( a real thrill ) I must mention however that most of the cars were not only driving the same way, but some were passing us ! It was like the INDY 500 on acid. I decided right there to practice praying….don’t know if that’s how I made it but I think so. All I could think about was that at some point I would have to take a taxi back to the airport. Yikes !

Who taught these people how to drive?

I came here because the company in Japan uses an aircraft company in Korea to produce detail parts for the frames being built in Japan. I came here because the frames must hit a certain date and that means that the Korean details could not be late. So off I go again , deeper into this than ever…so while I won’t mention company names, here is what we have. A big company in Seattle orders airplane parts from my company in Dallas who orders frames from a company in Japan who orders details for those frames from a company in Korea. Confused yet? It did get worse as I had to go to a small shop that the Korean company uses to paint the details. I just love this business! Ever wonder why airplanes cost so much? Overall Korea was a nice place, kind of like New Mexico with cities tucked around mountains…..except the cities all have millions of people. This current assignment is so much fun for a 30 year aircraft guy like me. Getting to travel all around and visit with other people from other countries that have been in the same industry, just in another country, well it’s just awesome. Truly the aircraft business is the same across all cultures.

MT. FUJI

It is beginning to get wild here now. The project we are working is really in full swing. We are making this company work 7 days a week, so we are coming in to support each day as well. So Sunday before last was a day where I and my two local employees decided to take the afternoon off. We decided to drive to Mt. Fuji as we do have a car. It is about a 90 minute drive and we stopped along the way to eat dinner. As we ate we noticed some clouds coming in and were disappointed that we would not be able to see it clearly. As we were finished eating we noticed that the clouds were lifting a bit and so we quickly paid and made a mad dash to the car. We then drove the rest of the way ( 20 mins ) and arrived about 30 mins prior to sunset. Of course we didn’t drive up to it; however there was a nice spot with a parking lot and lots of room to look. It’s not like you had to be right next to it to see it. I will simply tell you that I think it was the most incredible thing I have ever seen. Clearly Madeline Murray O’Hare never saw Mt. Fuji! Anyone who could look at this and still be an atheist needs a swift kick. It was awesome because the sun was going down and while we stood there until it got dark we saw the sky around the mountain turning orange. The orange sky around this 14,000 ft elevation mountain half covered in snow was simply awesome. Now as we stood there we all realized that we drove to this spot from the office without going by the hotel and none of the three of us had our cameras. Then we all reach for the trusty cell phones, which of course have a camera…..whoops, wait …..we all have prepaid phones and not all prepaid phones have cameras. Well none of ours did. So here we are in Japan, with more cameras per capita than any where else in the world, and we three dummies are without cameras. We had a seriously good laugh out of that. But I will tell you that I am now almost glad we didn’t as I will never forget that image in my mind. There was a small city at the base of the mountain, with a huge lake to one side and this mammoth mountain towering over everything. Half way up reaching all the way to the top was snow covering it. As it got dark the snow actually kind of lit up the mountain itself. Nobody talked much, we just stood there looking. I thought to myself how awesome creations of God are, and how lucky I was to be there at that moment, even without a camera. Take that Madeline!!!

Room Service in the Hall

Since I arrived in Yokohama I was told that on some days you could see Mt Fuji. For the first four weeks I had my doubts. Then the last few days before I left I got up each day to see Mt Fuji each morning as I left the hotel. The hotel was an odd shape and the halls had doors to the rooms on one side and big glass windows on the other side. From the room there was a great view of the bay, and going into the hallway you had a great view of the city. So about a week before I left to come home at Thanksgiving I open my door to leave for work and there it was. Mt Fuji is about 30-40 miles from Yokohama and that monring was clear enough to see it very clear. Over the next couple of mornings I came to expect this incredible sight. It was about 1/3 covered in snow and was inspiring to say the least. So two days before I left to come home another man from my company and I were on the way home and talked about how nice it would look at sunset. ( We were both on the same floor of the hotel on the 19th floor) So as we walked to our rooms we saw the sun setting behing the mountian. Then I noted what a shame it was that the hotel had no restuarant that had the Mt Fuji view. Then the idea! We could order room service and pull chairs from our rooms and eat in the hallway. So we then called another guy working on the project who was in another hotel and told him to come over for this dinner idea. So we ordered 3 dinners from room service and in just a few minutes here came three rolling carts with white linen table cloths. I thanked the guys who delivered them and said to leave them in the hall. Then when they left we pulled out chairs and turned the three carts to the big glass window and proceeded to eat our meal. Well in a few moments another hotel guy came down the hall and asked " is everything alright ? ...you are eating in the hall " We pointed out the window and said "Mt Fuji" He looked troubled and walked away. Then a manager of some kind came down the hall and asked again if everything was alright. We again answered that we were fine and were enjoying the view of Mt Fuji. He knew my name ( for some reason ) and said " Mr. Snow we don't usally allow our guests to eat in the hallway " I looked back and told him " well then I really do appreciate your allowing us to" He then looked down for a few seconds, then looked back and said " Certianly Sir " We continued eating, enjoying our meal when we noticed that another cart was coming down the hall. The manager sent a guy up with a cart of tea, coffee, more bread, and anything else he thought we would need. He stood there until we finished eating and each went our seperate ways. I fully expect when I return to the hotel for there to be signs that say "no food in the hallway" I will keep you posted.

Sweet Potatoes

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Last Sunday I went with a group from Taga Church of Christ to the farm land of one of its members. There were 12 rows of sweet potatoes that needed to be dug up from the ground. There were 8 of us including Bryan and his girlfriend Minako. When we got there we started a fire in a pit that burned as we dug up the potatoes. Then about half way through we all picked out a few to wrap in foil and bury in the coals of the fire. Then when we finished digging all the potatoes we took a break and went over to the fire. After letting them cool, we each broke open the potatoes and ate them. There was one type that had a purple type meat inside and was sweet, but the yellow meated potato was just like eating from the thanksgiving bowl. It didn't need butter, brown sugar or anything.....delicious! This is a tradtion in Japan and for Taga church as well. They all told stories of last year and the year before. It stuck me that the Church of Christ is the same here as it is at home. A bunch of people looking for an excuse to eat. Sorry couldn't resist that. I'm talking about people helping other people, and as I was digging up these potatoes I realized something. God intends for us to be involved in the life of other people. Of course this was right after I thought why am I not at my hotel by the indoor pool ? Several people there that day couldn't speak English and I speak very little Japanese. But during this time no translation was needed as we all were focused on helping that church memeber harvest his crop. I was working with a lady who was a friend of the Taga minister ( spoke no engllish ) and we dug potatoes and threw dirt at the others. Another woman there was 92 years old, and she out worked us all! When we took a break to eat the potatoes she got onto everyone for stopping. She as well needed no translator to communicate how much she enjoyed what she was doing and how much she loved all of us for helping. I thought that as I was doing this some group at Woodland West was making visits or doing the Trunk or Treat or something nobody knew about. The location didn't matter, what did matter was that God's people are involved in the life of others. Too serious here....sorry I will write something funnier next time.