The Bicycle

Anyone who's been reading mine and Kelly's blogs the past few weeks has probably been noticing a bit of a depressing tone. So here's a lighthearted story for you all.

As most of you know, I ride my bicycle every day to work. It's about a twenty-five minute ride which I do twice a day, once there and once back. The road I ride on is not in the greatest of shape which has taken a severe toll on my tires, brakes, and the overall quality of the ride. When we first got here, I bought a light blue bike. I rode it for a year and the brakes had really deterioriated, almost to the point where they didn't really work anymore. Then one day last August, that bike was parked at Tatebori train station and I lost my bike key. I walked around for a few days without it, but that wouldn't last long because I needed to go to work. So I had two options. The first was to take the bike somewhere and get the lock removed and then buy a new lock. The second was to buy a new bike. The brakes were so bad on that bike that I decided to go with option 2.

After buying a new bike (a much better one might I add) I left the old one at Tatebori for a few weeks until once when I went to the station, I noticed a sticker saying that the bike needed to be removed. Apparently they keep track of which bikes never go anywhere. So I walked it home, not an easy task since the lock keeps the back wheel from turning thereby forcing you to carry the back of the bike. But I got it there. A few weeks later, I decided to go take the lock off of the bike just in case we ever had a guest and needed an extra bike. I got it off and left it outside our apartment by our storage bin. There it sat for three months until...

The day we left to go to Australia for Christmas I was waiting for the cab that would take us to the station and noticed the bike was gone. Someone had stolen it. Oh well. It was of no use to me. If they needed it, then so be it. Good luck stopping.

So that was that. Until today when I got to work one of the English teachers told me that the police had called and said they had recovered my stolen bicycle. (Note: When you purchase a bicycle in Japan, you have to register it with your name, address, phone number and workplace.) At first I was like, "What are you talking about? I rode my bike to school this morning." Then I realized what it was. So the police came to visit me at my school to have my verify if it was my bike. It was.

The main police officer, who spoke decent English, asked me a few questions about the bike including but not limited to: "What day was the bicycle stolen? What time was it stolen? What was the exact date that you last saw the bicycle? What time did you see it?" I obviously didn't know the answer to any of the questions so I just made up some answers that seemed logical. Then I had to go to class, but they needed me to fill out a report. So these two police officers waited for me the entire 50 minutes I was in class. It's kind of comforting to know that Fuji City is so safe that two patrol officers can sit in the conference room of a school for 50 minutes waiting on a foreigner to come write a report about a bike that was stolen 7 months ago.

So I go to the conference room and as soon as I walk in the main guy asks me if I can speak Japanese. I gave the answer I always give to that question. "Sukoshi." (A little bit.) So we sit there for 30 minutes talking in mixed Japanese and English all about this stolen bicycle and the details of where I had it parked and what direction it was facing and how I hadn't put it in our storage room because I had a table in there. Finally we get the details all worked out and I stamp the paper with my hanko to confirm its accuracy. Then the officer gives me a little lecture about how when something is stolen in Japan, it should be reported immediately so they can catch the person. "Sumimasen." I say.

Finally they get up to leave...and here's the best part...they gave me the bicycle back! Seriously?! What do I want with that bicycle? I'm leaving Japan in 20 days and now all of a sudden I have an extra bicycle to deal with. And I can't ride it anywhere because the brakes are broken. So now it's sitting at my school still with no lock. The plan is to take it to a recycle shop where hopefully I can get some money for it. But I can't help but thinking, if the guy who stole it really wanted the bike so bad, why not let him keep it? It's been his for 7 months after all.

Anyway, that's a great example of the crazy things that can happen any day here in Japan.