snowdude

For me I already had a Japanese driving license for a car so it was simple when I passed my bike test they gave me a paper saying I had passed. The examiner then took those of us who had passed into the test centre showed us where to hand in our paper, photo and existing license and said wait until our names are called. Then we collected our new license. Was many years ago about 15 years to be exact so I dont remember the exact order but I do clearly remember getting our new licenses with ogata added to it on the day, no returning on a seperate day.

You take it at the test centre, and yes if you pass you get it there and then.

Mostly grapes and peaches.

Yes they do. The government hand out subsidies to Yamanashi to erect these solar panels, although my wife was telling me that has run out so they are not going to be putting anymore up.

Lol lol lol. I guess you have never been to Yamanashi or have never read my posts. Yamanashi is nothing but mountains.

Sounds a great plan that. Hope you pass.

The ones I know don't. You are told there's an update and the thing needs to download and reboot etc. Are you sure you are correct? Well of course they have to download and reboot, mine does that other wise it would not be updating. But it does not ask me it just updates when I switch on the ignition if and when there are any updates then it goes ahead and does its thing.

Cool sunny with some cloud around, a really nice day at the moment.

Well us big 4WD drivers like them for the tons of room they have inside them, they look mean and the main fact they will go almost anywhere.

Yep that is what we do, sell any excess electric back to the grid effectively making our summer electric bill zero.

Nice motor I see you got a snorkel on it, you planning on doing some river crossing with it?

I have no idea, it is Mitsubishi's own one. When I bought my car I had that installed along with the entertainment system, it is an all in one unit. My car will be 4 years old this December so I doubt that model is even available. It was not available as an after market instal anyway. I am sure if you go to a Mitsubishi dealer they sell after market ones but I reckon you would be better off visiting an Autobacs as they would have more choice. And although mine keeps its self up to date regarding the maps I dont think it updates the pre-installed info such as hotels, cafes, places

Yep same here I did a test on a 750cc too. As my UK license was for unlimited size naturally I was able to go for an oogata license in Japan. I think if you do a test on a 400 then of course that is the largest your license will then cover you for. Not sure how many groupings they have for bike size or if they just have up to 400 and anything above.

Seems to be very like that here too. This is my first whole year in this area, but feels more like back in the UK than Japan, weather wise in this area. Quite a few houses here have fire places. It actually got cold here very early, with temps really dropping off from early as late August, whether that was just this year or normal I dont know as it is my first year to live here, but surprised by how quickly it cooled down here when compared to many other parts of Japan.

I heard something about this- I thought they voted against it because- 1) acceleration was pretty poor and 2) the race sounded like a stampede of farting rhinos. Could be wrong though. They were band because they beat all the petrol cars for acceleration and top speed.

Yes diesel have more power at lower revs and in fact red line around the 4500rpm mark against petrol engines around the 6500rpm mark. Trucks and tractors red line even lower.

A lot of the reason why they stopped making diesel engines for about 5-8 years was because of the strict pollution regulations that Japan introduced. But now with the clean diesels they are well within those limits and therefore are able to make diesel engines for cars again. Hopefully they will become more and more popular like in europe where about 70% or more are diesels. They are more powerful, have a lot more pulling power, way more torque, last longer and a lot more economical than a petrol engine. And a lot of the new diesels are as fast of faster than the petrol size equivalent.

Was a nice day here, especially first thing, clear blue sky, quite cold but warmed up enough to only need a thin jacket or thick shirt on. Cold outside again now and rather cloudy.

Warm beer, yeah it is pretty yuck! I do like the way Japanese always serve beer ice cold!

Turned cold again now, and the wind is still strong, but not enough to do any damage. Looks like another cold night and heater required.

Yes was i Okinawa. Three marines went surfing or something one body has been found two are still missing.

We didnt escape the wind, very strong winds here now gusting at times, but compared to Shizouka and Kanagawa we escaped the worsed of it. Looks like the eye of the storm passed further east of us in the end so we didnt get the full impact of the storm, which is good of course, but not so good for those who did. 19oC and actually feels warm compared to the past few days, but will most likely turn cold again from tonight as the winds go back to a more nw direction later.

Eye of the storm is over us with the sun out a little. Some strong gusts but not as bad as other areas, but as the back end pass over us we could get some very very strong winds before it finally passes.

Spoke to soon, the wind has arrived but actually not too windy at the moment so hopefully it will not be too bad here. Rain seems to mostly have stopped.

Very heavy rain here for the past 24hrs, but no wind and just present hardly raining. The worst of the storm has missed us and looks like it may have passed.