Driving over 100km per hour on Japanese Freeways

Street in Yokosuka 


I got the privilige to drive to Atsugi from Yokosuka yesterday. At first, getting the keys and hopping into the right side of the vehicle felt a little bit strange. Coming up to my first stop to exercise my signal light only resulted in getting a cleaner windshield. I was thinking, "RATS, I DID IT AGAIN!". Well, it didn't take long for my previous driving experience in America to catch up with me. My roadrage and desire to crank up the volume on my stereo... But being a new driver to this country made it impossible. There was only one AM radio station with English music. And it totally sucked, but what can I do? I remain concentrated on staying on the left side of the road and driving closer to cars to compensate for not having a hood. The tiny motor of the vehicle sits right behind me, next to the shifter. Well, anyways, I got on the freeway. So I was thinking, how the heck can the Japanese build freeways when it is so densely populated? There's no land left. The solution smacked me in the face as I see the city shrinking beneath me as I climb the ramp on the freeway. Their freeways are built on top of hills, mountains and all places inhabitable! Freeways are built on top of roadways and sometimes, other freeways. And it seems like you always have to pay a price to take them. Because there's a whole lot of tolls. I heard that it is about a hundred dollars to get to Tokyo by car and it is only 30 miles away! Well, in Japan, distance is measured by how long it takes to get there, because it takes close to two hours to get to Tokyo... even with a Navigation system. Well, driving on it's freeways are easy to drive on, but getting to your destination is difficult. The Japanese rely on landmarks and counting traffic signals to get to places rather than roadmaps. A LOT of streets aren't named. Eventually, I got there and it was a lot of fun driving.