Once you get past May in Japan, the humidity index climbs to about 90% and remains at no less than that level for the next three months. Thus, it’s only ever worth riding a bicycle for pleasure at night; it’s just as humid, but at least it’s cool.
I was riding about earlier tonight, exploring the residential maze of this town. In my everyday wanderings, I see a whole lot of rice, a very few businesses, and only a few houses; it feels very much like I’m on the boundary between the suburban and the rural. Every so often, however, I go on a random tour of the side streets nearby. You wouldn’t be able to tell from any of these night-time rides that I wasn’t in America, in some city with miles of closely-packed, two-story houses and apartments.
Tonight, as I was riding, I heard a sound that I categorized as either a firecracker or a small-bore rifle of some sort. Naturally, I headed straight for it, and discovered the face of Rebellious Youth in Japan. This turned out to be a group of about six high school kids riding their motor scooters in the paths of a public park; I couldn’t help but chuckle as one attempted a wheelie which his scooter just wasn’t powerful enough to handle.
I tailed them for a while, usually paralleling the path offroad, because I felt like proving to myself that I can handle offroad riding at motor-scooter speeds at night without any sort of light. Then a twig got wedged between the chain and the smallest of the derailler sprockets, and I had to stop and noisily disentangle it, which brought me to the attention of the kids.
They actually turned out to be not only friendly, but eager to exercise all the English phrases they’d been learning for five years at this point without an opportunity to use it naturally. We chatted for a while, after which I headed home to de-grease my hands.
I’m eager to leave this job–this morning, I turned down an offer from the company to move me into China for six months–but every so often, an incident like this evening’s comes along and reminds me that I really do enjoy living in Japan.
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