The Okinawa Wave

Driving the car for the first time

We picked up our car yesterday and Russ was the brave one to drive it first. He had to drive from the car dealership back onto the base and then we drove around the base a little to get used to driving on the left side of the road. They say you can always tell the new drivers because they are driving around on a perfectly sunny day with their windshield wipers going. You see, not only is the steering wheel on the right side of the car but also the windshield wipers and blinkers are switched. I remember going through this adjustment in Iwakuni too, but here they call it the Okinawa wave. I had to laugh at Russ and how frustrated he got every time he hit the windshield wipers. No matter how much he concentrated on not doing it, he would still hit the wiper out of habit. He tried different techniques like keeping his hands on the lower part of the steering wheel but still kept turning the wipers on when he wanted the blinker. He finally determined that if he only kept one hand on the wheel then he was less likely to do the wiper wave. I'm still working on my technique for mastering it.

Doing the Okinawa Wave

Today we drove off base to one of the nearby bases to get the car registered and our road tax sticker for the windshield. He seemed to have mastered the blinker overnight in his sleep because he hit it correctly every time today. After we returned to Kadena we drove to Russ's office so he could go back to work and I took the car from there to run some errands. It was my first time behind the wheel. The above selfie expresses the feeling of getting behind the wheel for the first time. There are so many more things to think about. The stop signs and traffic lights are different. The road markings are different and you have to remember which lane you are pulling into. It helps to remember that you as the driver need to be closest to the center line. If you are driving next to a curb then you know you're not where you need to be. I think parking lots are especially difficult because they usually don't have the center lines. I have to say though that the base does a good job of putting arrows to mark the direction in all their lanes in the parking lots and they help to reassure you that you are in the correct lane. I did fairly well on my first trip out. I was fortunate that it was drizzling out when I was driving so I could pretend like I wanted to turn that wiper on to clear the windshield. I managed to make it to the post office, the BX and the library without scaring the other drivers. I'm sure I entertained them just a little with all the "waving" I was doing.

Driving in town. 

I'm very happy with the car so far. I love the smaller size for navigating through these skinny roads and parking in these small parking lots. I'm sure it will take some of the stress out of driving in the city. We plan to get ourselves a little lost this weekend trying to navigate around. Google maps shows everything in kanji so we'll have to figure things out as we go along. That's all part of the fun of the adventure.

Interior of the car

Japanese Stop Sign