Scar Tissue

Here's the start of my two-hour (one-way) commute: my Honda Super Cub that got me back and forth between my job and my Tokyo home for five years. What would have taken me 45 minutes door-to-door was cut to 15 minutes and change, though I had to hide it from the company. We did about 20,000 kilometers over those years. Now I'm doing the same 15 minutes a day on the bike, but unfortunately it gets me only to Zushi Station, which is where the trip really starts.

The first day was ominous, if I were someone who saw omens in daily happenings. It was raining, so I decided to park in the pay parking garage. Motorcycle parking is on the third floor, up some ramps and stairs, and I was tired and not paying attention since it was late in the evening, and I found my back tire sliding off the ramp onto the stairs and my leg caught between the muffler and the cement stairs. The result was a painful scrape that has left a pretty nice scar, and that--and the fact that it's not cheap--convinced me to use the free lot.

It's a free-for-all, first come, first served, slice of mayhem. When the lot gets full, people just pull up to the entrance and heave their bikes onto the tops of others, so you have to be willing to spend some time digging your bike out of a jumble of spokes and mirrors and kickstands. Now that the weather is really starting to warm up, I'm wondering if it will get even worse.