Still driving with one eye open after all these years.
As I said before. Working on-base has pretty much taken away the need to drive out in town but today I had to make the lunch-time trek up to Kadena Air Force Base to run some errands. When I left the front gate of Camp Foster, I was instantly taken aback, "OMFG! I can't believe how narrow these street lanes are!" and then thought, "Woah. Did I really just think that? I need to get out more!"
I was in mini-shock. My mid-sized sedan (mid-sized in the US - large here) seemingly ate up the entire lane's width. They fit three lanes into what we would expect to be a two-laned road (6 all together. 3 going north and 3 going south with a median in between.)Today I stayed in the middle lane because the traffic was moving nicely but every time I passed a car I caught myself squinting shut my right eye. Now I have no problems staying in my tiny lane but cars are ALWAYS going into your lane to dodge the hundreds of cars illegally parked on the side of the road (super skinny shoulder so the car juts way out into the lane) and scooters and motorcyclists weave in and out of traffic that is already squeezed tightly together. Then there are the taxi drivers who constantly cut people off in a reckless manner to get to customers waiting on the side of the road. Driving is very stressful here. I can't even imagine how people deal with driving vans or SUVs - oh let alone the dump trucks.
But you know what you will NEVER see on the roads? Large MAC trucks - semis. There just aren't any like we would see on the highways of the US. There is no room for them whatsoever.
Needless to say I made it back safely. The traffic gods were on my side today.
I was in mini-shock. My mid-sized sedan (mid-sized in the US - large here) seemingly ate up the entire lane's width. They fit three lanes into what we would expect to be a two-laned road (6 all together. 3 going north and 3 going south with a median in between.)Today I stayed in the middle lane because the traffic was moving nicely but every time I passed a car I caught myself squinting shut my right eye. Now I have no problems staying in my tiny lane but cars are ALWAYS going into your lane to dodge the hundreds of cars illegally parked on the side of the road (super skinny shoulder so the car juts way out into the lane) and scooters and motorcyclists weave in and out of traffic that is already squeezed tightly together. Then there are the taxi drivers who constantly cut people off in a reckless manner to get to customers waiting on the side of the road. Driving is very stressful here. I can't even imagine how people deal with driving vans or SUVs - oh let alone the dump trucks.
But you know what you will NEVER see on the roads? Large MAC trucks - semis. There just aren't any like we would see on the highways of the US. There is no room for them whatsoever.
Needless to say I made it back safely. The traffic gods were on my side today.
Comments