JACKO IN CANADA

Shannon and I are now living the Canadian lifestyle and to prove it I’ve included a few choice banal photos.

After the initial scare of almost not being allowed on the plane in Manchester by the flight operators as I didn’t have a return ticket, things have settled down over here in Vancouver.

I’ve been relaxing, watching the Euros (which has been pleasantly entertaining without the disappointment and ominous foreboding of England’s exit at the QF stage on penalties), visiting local breweries for beer and wine tasting and going to some vintage car parade near Lake Okanagan. Yep, things are moving along nicely over here. Just need to get this damn visa now, which we’ve been waiting what seems like ages now.

Hope you are all doing well wherever you are and send me some mail so that I don’t feel like I’m the over side of the world.

Check out the random pictures of our travels around Vancouver, the house, the wineries, the Delorean from ‘Back to the Future’, Shannon’s birthday and some dude with a dog.

Peace out,

Jacko

Blogarama

Well it's been a long time. Too bloody long if you ask me. Well seen as though everyone else has been off making their little blog sites look much better than mine I thought I'd better come back hard and have a few interesting things for people to look at. So basically I chose to upload lots of videos to various sites and get them to link to this site. Just in case I can embarrass anybody out there. So take a look through the soapbox videos. You can flick through them using the arrows. Also, check out the couple of Youtube videos. This blog thing is catching on. There are so many little gadgets and stuff you can add to your site these days. You just need to go on the hunt.

Also, I have a little story to tell. This time about bloody minded police and officials in this land of 'we hate gaijins' Japan. On Thursday 19th January I was riding my scooter back from the school where I work in Uji city to Kyoto where I live. On the way I was pulled over by a police blockade and informed that I was going over the speed limit for a 50cc scooter. Apparently I was going 50kmph which is about 30mph and by law in Japan you are only allowed to go 30kmph. What bloody use this would be I don't know? You can run 20kmph on a treadmill at the gym! Also everybody knows that this is just an unwritten law that you can travel upto 60kmph on them. Well not when the police need to line their coffers with a few Yen so that they can retire on a nice little earner when they leave the force. Anyhow I'm digressing a little. So the officer informed me that I needed to come back to the police station where they were based with my international driving licence, which I did the next day.

At Christmas I had just got a new international driving permit that was valid until January 2008. I did this so that I could continue riding my scooter which I had bought in September 2006, which comes in very handy for getting to school in a much quicker time than public transport. The next day I went to a police station near my home as I thought it might save me having to go all the way to Fushimi. The police officer there exchanged conversations with some people at Fushimi police station and I was informed that it was necessary for me to go all the way down there on my scooter. So off I went. I got there at just after 10am after giving my documents and waiting for about 2 hours I got called into the office where I was told that I was driving without a valid licence. Apparently in Japan they brought in a law in 2003 that states you can not live in Japan for more than one year and use the IDP even if you have a valid one. The police therefore informed me that I was not allowed to ride my scooter back to my house and that I needed to change my licence to a Japanese one. Well, 'bummer!' is what I thought but I also thought hey this ain't my country so I'll just get on with it.

The following Tuesday I went to get all the documents which the police informed me I needed to get a Japanese licence. This included a translation of my UK driving licence so that the Unten Menkyo Shikenjo (driving test centre) can give me the equivalent Japanese licence. It costs 3000 Yen (about £12.50). So I ended up finally getting there and then being told that they wouldn't accept my UK paper driving licence as it was too tatty. I had lost one of the sections off it as it was 12 years old and had been in my wallet all that time. I realized I'd probably lost it at the police station so I went back there. They told me that it was probably in the bin by now if it had been there. I was pretty pissed off by this moment so I ended up going outside and stealing or should I say reclaiming back my scooter which was still outside the police station. I didn't want them to see me though so I was in part disguise: I put my hood up and left my gray coat around the corner and then crept to the corner of the car park and wheeled it away.

I had got back my scooter but I didn't have a licence. I went back the following non-work day to the test centre to see if I could try again with a different person. However, eventually the licence came back to me and the woman who on the first day had told me to bring someone Japanese back with me appeared. I was really hacked off now. I phoned the British Consulate in Osaka and got them to liaise with the test centre. All to no avail. The woman at the British Consulate was Japanese and you could tell she probably just ran through the motions. So... I was informed that I would have to get the new UK photo card licence which would take about a month to send off and get. I was very annoyed as my UK paper licence was still legal to drive with in the UK but again this is their country so let them get on with their bureaucracy and rules...

A few weeks later my new UK licence arrived. Weh-hey! Off I went again to the test centre on my non-work day. The problem was now I had a different licence with a different issue date so I had to go and get a new translation again costing 3000 Yen. But I was secure in the knowledge that this time they couldn't turn me away. So I went on the same route and got to the counter at the test centre with the same sour-faced people as before in the same dirty old horrible building. The place reminded me of an old hospital, full of miserable old people just waiting to pass their lives away. This time however I was making good progress. I had waited there for around 3hrs after I had given them my documents. A sure fire sign in Japan that things were going ok. A woman eventually appeared and told me I needed to go downstairs and get some photos done for the licence. Ok another 700 Yen but what the heck. This licence will be worth it.

On returning upstairs I was called over by the same guy who had talked to the embassy, Yano-san, my nemisis. He started warbling on again at me and eventually told me as I had had a traffic violation in January and it was very serious as I had not been riding with a valid licence that it was now 'Outo' for me to apply for a Japanese licence. I nearly hit the roof. I said is this some kind of a joke. Is the Japanese Beadle waiting around the corner ready to reveal this has all just been a wind up? Yano-san just kept repeating 'Kore wa Outo!', 'Kore wa OUTO!' I wanted to kill this guy. He obviously took so much pleasure from telling a gaijin that again they couldn't have their licence. Apparently 60% of foreign applicants get turned away on their first visits to the centres in Japan. But I'd been back there 3 bloody times and wasted god knows how much time and money on trying to get a sodding licence. The bloody police had even sent me there to get one. The brass-faced cheek of it all. So anyhow I still explored all the avenues open to me with the British Consulate and also a good website called http://www.japandriverslicense.com/ However, there was no way out. I even went to a different test centre in Kadomashi in Osaka. You are meant to only go to the one where you are registered as a an 'alien'. I told them in Osaka that I had just moved but not updated my gaijin card. But again here a nice lady explained to me it wouldn't matter where I went the result would be the same.

So now I am riding my bike 50km per day to school and back. Its keeping me fit and I'm determined not to catch the train with all the sour-faced robots heading off to do their 12hr shifts plus overtime mundane office jobs. Sometimes Japan drives me crazy! Oh! By the way does anyone need a scooter?