A day downtown

Amanda spent the night at my place, so that we could head to the Japanese Language Proficiency Test site together the next morning.

We met up earlier in the day and spent the day wandering downtown,

ate out, and got lots shopping done.

We wandered by the cinema at the mall, and since the James Bond was going to be starting soon, we decided to go in to watch. I rarely go to the movies in Japan...I think this may have been only the third time in the little over 2 years I've been here!

Despite feeling a little under the weather (lost my voice, and coughing...) it was a fun day out!

On our drive home from Nagasaki city, we witnessed a motorcycle accident happen right in front of us!

The car ahead of me made a right-hand turn, cutting off the motorcycle coming down in the opposite direction. In order to avoid a collision, the motorcycle swerved and ended up falling of his bike, rolling over 6 or 7 times before stopping limp in the middle of the road. The bike, continued to slide along the road stopping a good 10 meters away. The car that was responsible for this just drove away!!

We pulled over, along with 2 other cars. The man on the motorcycle wasn’t wearing any body protective gear and as a result had ripped up his pants and had huge scraps all over his legs. Surprisingly, he was conscious but seemed in shock. He was lucky to have been wearing a helmet. I helped him to the side of the road while the two other guys went to pick up the motorcycle that was blocking traffic. This is a time when I really wished I could speak Japanese well!!

We waited around for a while for the ambulance and police to arrive. When they arrived, one of the police officers came to get a statement. When the police officers arrived, they asked who saw what had happened and both men who had stopped to help pointed to us. We had been in a position to see the whole thing happen. I could see the look of ‘oh no…they’re foreigners..’ briefly flash across his face as we approached us. He spoke very slowly, articulating very clearly at first. Once Amanda answered his first few questions in her excellent Japanese, I could see the look of relief on his face. It is a good thing that Amanda could express herself well. He took down all the information they needed, then after watching the man go off in the ambulance, we continued our way home.

Watching the man fly off his motorcycle like he did made me realize just how dangerous riding one of those things is……as cool as they look, they really don’t provide any protection..!

David, please be careful!!!