The Bills

I got caught speeding the other day and I'm now left with a 12000 yen fine. That translates into roughly 60 quid or 100 US. Yeah, I was pretty gutted about it, and nervous too. When the guy pulled me over I was really weak at the knees, mainly because of my shaky Japanese, but also because I wasn't sure what exactly was going to happen. The guy who fined me was cool enough though, even if he did have bad breath. I kind of knew what to expect because Aki has already had two speeding fines this year and I was with her on one of those occasions. It's just a case of sitting in the back of a truck looking like you're sorry for driving at 35 miles per hour on an empty road. I'm off to the post office this afternoon to pay it.



This shot shows a big cloud coming in over the Shirakami mountain range, as seen from Dake at the foot of Iwaki mountain. I took it on Saturday when I was on my 'round-the-mountain' bike trip.

Also, if you're interested in the winter sports culture of Northern Japan I've linked a new blog that I found recently. It's called Low Pressure Lover and the photos and movies section features an ex JET that some folks might recognise from a year or two ago. Looking through it yesterday got me pining again. Anyway, I won't be getting excited by low pressure systems for a good couple of months yet. The temperature here is still over twenty and doesn't look set to drop until next week at least. For those of you who are interested at all in Japan's weather systems, here's a brief.

I've also got to send off for my new passport today. That's another sixty notes as well.