parking ticket

Well, I guess I really am becoming a Japanese driver.

Last week while I was in Sapporo I managed to get a parking ticket -- a big, bright yellow, kanji drenched parking ticket. Ugh. And the bastards ticketed me at 3am. Who does that? One of the neighbors must have called.

The only English on the whole thing says:

" Illegal Parking. This vehicle was identified as "hochi-sharyo" (an "abandoned vehicle" or a "vehicle left unattended"). The user of this vehicle may be subjected to the order by the Hokkaido Public Safety Commission to pay "hochi-ihankin" (infraction money). "

Not terribly helpful.

I had one of my kanji reading friends take a look at it, and the Japanese is just as vague.

So I took it over to one of my Japanese friends. Like most of my friends who live out in the inaka, she had never seen one so wasn't sure what to do with it either. So, being the inaka, we took it to the local police box.

You know you live in the inaka when the police officer (who lives behind the station) has never seen a parking ticket. So he called the Sapporo office. After much discussion it was decided that I couldn't pay for the parking ticket there, but will have to return to the office that issued the ticket.

Good thing I'll be back in Sapporo next week for Sapporo Orientation to deal with it.

Bad thing Japanese parking tickets are very expensive (maybe 一万円, or about $100 CDN) and will cost me one demerit on my new license.