Tuesday, November 18--Adventures in Parking

Due to a time crunch between my Japanese class and an English lesson this afternoon, I had to park for the first time in a public parking lot at the train station. Sometimes new things can be stressful, especially if you are tackling something outside your comfort level, but you wouldn't think something as simple as parking could cause so much anxiety, or require so many TUMS. Unfortunately, I have two shortcomings that come into play here. One, the only part of my driving test I failed (in the U.S. and Japan) was backing into a parking spot. Two, I do not read or speak Japanese (yet). It will soon become obvious why these two hurdles loomed so large before me today.

I never really thought of a parking place as a luxury before. It’s just one of those things I always took for granted. I had a dry, spacious garage at home. At work, there was a large parking lot with wide aisles and wide spaces. When I went shopping, each store had its own lot, and my choice of parking spot depended on how many steps I wanted to log on my pedometer. I imagine that the Japanese would be appalled by all the acreage we Americans devote to parking. There is no such wastefulness here!

We have one parking spot in front of our home, which requires superb parallel parking skills so as not to scrape the brick walls surrounding three sides of the slot. Jim parks here, since he drives to work each day. Because I take the train more often than driving, I park in a rented space about three blocks from the house—the yearly rent is about double that of my first apartment. (The lot contains about 20 spaces—you do the math. Whoever owns that little corner of the neighborhood must be laughing all the way to the bank.)

As for parking anywhere else…don’t count on it. Only the largest stores actually have parking lots. The mall has a parking garage, but they charge you to park there. If you’d like to patronize the local shops found up and down nearly every street in Japan, you’re either going to have to walk there, or fork out some serious cash for a space in a public parking lot. Time out…I know the mental picture you have of a public parking lot. You are thinking about those massive commuter lots we have in the States, or at least something the size of the Walmart lot (which doesn’t seem that big until you have to park in the last row on a crowded Saturday afternoon). Scale down. Further. Keep going. Despite the huge billboards, and the giant colorful “P” signs (some abbreviations are universal), most public lots in our area have around 10 parking spots. The first time I saw all that advertising, I drove by expecting a lot the size of a couple football fields. I had to drive by twice before I actually saw the lot, which was more the size of a tennis court. Whoa. Reality check. The secret to making lots that small…micro parking spaces and aisles that are only one and a half times the width (not length!) of a car. The only way you’ll ever get your car out of the lot is if you back into the space when you get there. If you pull into the slot, you’ll have to wait for every other car to leave to have a chance of escaping.

The Japanese are marvels of ingenuity, and their parking lots are no exception. Aside from the engineering involved in designing a lot whose layout does not exceed the physical steering capabilities of today’s automobiles, they have figured out a way to keep drivers honest. There is no feeding of the parking meter here. You can’t mooch off of anyone else’s leftover time, or overstay your quarter’s worth and hope the meter maid doesn’t catch you. You pay for the time you used the spot, or you can’t leave! When you back into your chosen spot, your tires cross over a metal speed bump-like contraption in the middle of the parking space. Within three or four minutes (they do give you time to adjust if you didn’t back in straight--remember, I failed this part of the driving test, so rest assured that I used almost all of my wiggle time) the speed bump thing rises until it touches the undercarriage of your car. Now you are trapped, unless you’re willing to risk ripping the back axle off. The only way to get out is to pay the machine (no parking lot attendants). When you are done running errands and return to the lot, you punch your space number into the machine, it calculates your arrival and departure times, and charges you accordingly (a cheap lot gives you 20 minutes for 100 yen). Once you have put your yen in the machine, it will lower the speed bump under your car, and you are free to go. Quite clever, really. My issue here is that my native language is English, and even though the machine's buttons are clearly marked and a pleasant voice guides you through each step of the process, she speaks only Japanese. I was not at all confident that I would be able to push the buttons in the correct sequence to pay my car's bail. Once I found the start button though (just keep pushing buttons, one will eventually do something), flashing lights guided me through the rest of the process, I paid my 700 yen, and Squeakers was free to leave.

So now my next question is this…is there a backup generator in case of a power outage? It could get very expensive if you have to wait for the power to be restored before you can retrieve your car...