The saga continues. Today, I went to go take the written exam to get the Japanese license. And ain't it crazy? I went in to take the written exam today, and I actually took it today! Before I go on though, I have to say that the weather was crazy out there in Sapporo today. The snow was falling sideways. That is, not only was it cold... not only was it snowing... but there were strong, continual gusts of wind so as to make it look like the snow was falling sideways. Coming from an area of the United States where the term "wind chill factor" is mistakenly used to describe "why San Francisco is so much colder than the East and South Bay," I was mmm... to put it nicely, surprised.
So, to the test. There really wasn't much to it. 10 True or False questions. The questions come from a book they have at the testing center. One question per page. Each page is illustrated. There are more than 10 pages so the questions are chosen at random by the test proctor.
Two questions I got particularly stuck out. I cannot stress this more... these were actual questions!
#1: True or false. There is an ambulance behind you, but you're allowed to keep going in your lane because you're in a hurry.
#2: True or false. You see pedestrians or bicyclists using a crosswalk. You must stop before the crosswalk, giving the pedestrians the right of way.
The second question in particular was hilarious to me. I mean, what happens if it's false? You can just run over law abiding pedestrians? And this is in a country where "careful" jaywalking is legal!
So, now I'm scheduled to go and take the actual driving test on the test center's course on March 3rd. Hopefully, then it won't be snowing sideways.