Red bike

Despite how hilly Japan is, bicycles are a really popular mode of transportation.

Usually, there aren't parking spots for cars around train stations, so commuters will bike to the station.  Older school kids will bike to school, rather than being ferried back and forth by parents or a school bus.

I finally got one today.

It's coincidentally about the same color as my car back home.  It's an ordinary single-speed bike.

I got it at a bike shop in Wing Town Mall, near the dormitories where I stayed last time.  I had hoped to pay less than ¥10,000 ($89), but this was close enough.

Japanese addresses don't usually list a street.  They list prefecture, municipality, ward  or "ku"(of large cities, like Tokyo), town or "cho",  neighborhood, block number and building number. The town I'm in is Hane-cho (羽根町, which literally means "Wing Town".  These towns are just part of the address, not an administrative unit like the Town of Fox Crossing is.

I had to register the bike when I bought it -- my name and address, and I used the school's phone number since I haven't got mine sorted out yet.

Theoretically, when I'm out on my bike, a policeman can stop me and ask to see the registration.  This is because bicycles are among the rare items that are regularly stolen in Japan, along with umbrellas.  If an office worker misses his last train home, he might "borrow" one of the bikes left at the station to get home.

There are anecdotes of foreigners being harassed by police by being regularly stopped and asked for their bike registration, much more often than anyone else would be.  I had a bike when I lived in Tochigi and this never happened to me.  My bet is that it varies by place and foreigner.

Since foreigners are more likely to buy a bike at a "sayonara" sale or from a friend, and not go through the process of re-registering the bike, it's more likely that the police will find an unregistered bike that way.  Even if a bike is truly abandoned, it's considered theft to take it.  Also, in some prefectures (like Aichi, where I am), the owner must cancel their registration and the new owner must register the bike, so it's a bit of a hassle for the seller, too.

Since bikes are more likely to be stolen, they come with built in locks.

Here is the lock open.  You can't lose your keys when your bike is unlocked -- the key won't come out!

Here is the bike locked -- the bar goes through the spokes, so the rear tire can't move or be removed.  Oddly, people will leave things in their bike baskets, fully expecting them to be there when they get back, but still lock the actual bike.

Before I ride my bike to school, I'll have to get a parking sticker for it from the school.  I think this is to prevent students from abandoning bikes at the school when they leave, and to keep them from riding stolen/abandoned/improperly registered bikes.

Some things that it's illegal to do with a bicycle:

• Ride holding an umbrella
• Have a passenger, unless it's a child in a child seat.
• Have earbud in or headphones on while riding.
• Have a blood alcohol level higher than 0%.
• Make a one step right hand turn, like cars do.  Bikes must do a two-step right hand turn, like pedestrians do.  

Even if I walk my bike up and down the steeper hills, there is enough flat road that it will make shopping so much easier than walking.