Saturday, September 5--Settling up, part 1

I couldn’t understand why I had to go to the post office to pay my speeding ticket.  Wouldn’t the police station, or courthouse, or even city hall make more sense?  Apparently, Japan’s post office includes a bank.  Not exactly sure how or why it has been set up like this, but at least the reason I’m going there makes a little more sense now.

Anyway, after asking around, I found the location and hours of the Yokosuka branch of the post office, and made Jim agree to lunch at a restaurant near there today so I wouldn’t have to go by myself to pay my ticket.  (In case you’re wondering, I confessed to the ticket last night as soon as he walked in the door.  Not that I would have tried to hide it anyway, but I certainly wanted him to hear it from me before his boss gets a copy and says something about it.)

Walked up to what appeared to be an information desk in the post office, and with a hang-dog look showed the clerk my ticket and some yen.  He informed me that you can’t pay a ticket on Saturday, only Monday through Friday when the bank portion of the post office is open.

Darn.  Now I’ll have to go back during the week without reinforcements.