The Thrill of Victory

Sept 26, 2019 - 7 consecutive failures but what counts is the last one when it is a success.  I spent several nights walking through in my mind every intersection, every stretch of the roads, where I need to signal, where I need to stop completely, how many rights and lefts I need to look, when I need to look back, etc.  I went out to the car and practiced looking at rear view mirror, then side mirror and turn my body to look at the back of back seat window.  I was able to keep my heart from racing during the test because I was focused on the task at hand.  More importantly, I felt I had done all that I could and turned everything else over to the Lord.  Truly, I felt a calming influence in helping me remember all the critical things that I needed to do.  Moreover, movement through the S-curve and the crank seemed to flow, without hitting or nicking any of the curbs.

The examiner who tested me today and had tested me in one of my early tests, said I was night and day between my first test with him and now.  I am glad this chapter is over.  My High School basketball coach, Coach Berry once remarked, "That Ed Lee, he cries when we lose, he cries when we win."  I am older now but still my eyes welled up as I pondered this wonderful blessing that the Lord gave me, to be able to pass this grueling test.

Finding members in Kanoya and surrounding area

Sept 23, 2019.  Kanoya is Southeast of Sakurajima (our local volcano).  It took about couple hours to drive over there.  We could have also taken a ferry over our car, shorter distance but will take about the same amount of time and more expensive than the tolls from the express ways.  Part of the trip was on a coastal road.  The scenery was wonderful.  Too bad I had to keep my eyes on the roads when driving.  Just look at the size of those breakers.  We had a very successful trip.  Being so far away from church, church members here have not had much contact with other members who live much closer.

District Training Meeting Luncheon

Sept. 17, 2019

Around the table from left to right:

Sis. Glade, Sis. Smith, Elder Takaku, Elder Curtis, Elder Vawdrey, Sis. Lee, Sis. Kakazu, Elder Nishimoto, Sis. Kawai

For lunch, Sis. Lee made lasagna (we actually found lasagna noodles at a grocery store here in Kagoshima), cheese bread sticks, garden salad, fruit salad, and chocolate bar cookies.  As you can see, all the food were polished off in no time.

Kagoshima Branch Talent Show

Sep 16, 2019 Apparently over 70 people showed up for this Talent Show activity.  It was a great success.  Everyone had fun.  Even yours truly participated in a Karaoke number, Take Me Home, Country Roads by John Denver with several others, including a couple of our English class students.

First visitors

Sep 20, 2019 Jerry, Marsa, and Kai visited us in Kagoshima.  They were in Japan doing a mini reunion event with Marsa's side of family.  The rode the shinkansen down to see us for about 3.5 hours.

Kai loves all sorts of toy vehicles.  Here he is playing with Obasan.

Agony of Defeat (take 6 & 7)

Ugh! I thought I was getting so close to passing but then I mess up.  The pressure of needing to pass before my International Driving Permit expires in Jan. 2020 is building.  Knowing that these examinators can fail you for any little thing, I feel like I need a perfect drive, but no matter what I do, I mess up on something that I didn't have problems with on prior attempts.  So finally, we went to driving class so I can practice with a car identical to the ones used on the real tests and also get driving tips from the instructor on what examinators are looking for.  Well, the class is 4500 yen for 1/2 hour, so I practiced for 1 hour.  It was very enlightening.  Sister Lee got to sit in the back of the car to translate and to see exactly what I go through.  Both of us came away from that class now know that I was nowhere near to passing.  They are so nit picking on so many things.  For example, when I start the car or shut off the car, my foot must be pushing on the floor brake pedal.  My hands must be at 10 & 2 on the steering wheel at all times except when I am turning it.  I was given a map of the 2 courses where they marked them up where I need to turn the turn signal on, where I need to look right & left, where I need to look back, where to switch lanes, how many times I must look right and left before entering an intersection, etc.  Some intersections 3 times right & left, some 2 times, and some once, where it counts against you if you look more than once.  Coming out of the S-curve and crank, I am NOT supposed to come to a complete stop.  Going into the S-curve and crank, I have to have the left signal on, but as soon as I get inside, I have to manually turn the signal off.  I have no clue why.  The signal is going to turn off automatically anyway when the steering wheel is straightened out.  Who really cares the left signal is still on when I am partially in an S-curve or crank.  Don't get me wrong.  I appreciate all the tips the instructor gave me.  How do the instructors know these minute details what the examinators are observing?  I don't have any proof but it sure seems to be they are in cahoots with the examinators.  My very first examinator said I should go take a class and find out how to drive the course.  Make it difficult to pass generates business for driving schools.

There are so many little things to remember.  There are so many maneuvers that I have to perform in the exact sequence and manner that they expect.  Looking back is probably the hardest one for me.  First of all, I have a very stiff neck.  I found out that what I thought was looking back was not good enough.  On left turns, I have to look at the area between the back seat side window and the rear windshield.  For me with my stiff neck means I have to turn my body as well.  Second, because of my stiff neck, I have always relied on using a combination of side mirror and peripheral vision to eliminate my blindspot.  50 years of driving that way has become instinctive and hard to reprogram myself to turn my body to look all the way back.  It is really starting to look like it will have to be a miracle to pass this driving test.  Please say prayers on my behalf.

Group photo at Kyushu Conference

Here's the group photo.  We seniors got to sit in front.  It took several minutes to get everyone standing and sitting in the correct positions to expose all the smiling faces.

Kyushu Zone conference with Elder Choi

Sep. 12, 2019

Elder Yoon Hwan Choi, Member of the Quorum of the Seventy, and currently President of Asia North Area, in which Japan Fukuoka Mission belongs, came and instructed us.  His wife also came and instructed us.  The conference was for Fukuoka Zone, Kumamoto Zone, Nagasaki Zone and Kagoshima Zone.  He held similar zone conferences at Okinawa and Hiroshima on the 10th and 11th respectively for the other zones.  For us, the conference was to start at 8:30 p.m. with a group photo op at 8 a.m.  Sister Lee and I took the very first shinkansen in the morning at 6:08 and arrived at 7:45 a.m.  We rushed out to the bus stop and bus route 58 came just as got to the stop.  We arrived at our desired stop and walked to the church building, getting there at 8:13 a.m.  Then we found out the group photo op was going to be at 8:30.  We had not missed it after all.  When that photo becomes available, I'll post it.

We had a good time, learned alot.  Got to say hello to some of the young missionaries that had transferred away from our zone in prior transfers.

I really love the punctuality of the shinkansen.  Here is a photo at the shinkansen track that we were getting in line to go back to Kagoshima.  Sister Lee is the one walking ahead of me.

Agony of Defeat (take 5)

Sep. 13, 2019. Well, it is approaching the realm of ridiculous, if not already there. I practiced all last week, to turn my head / left shoulder on left turns to eliminate the blind spot that I supposedly have.  During the test, in my opinion I executed a near flawless performance.  Turned my head on the left turns, complete stops, no curbs on the S-curve and crank, turn signals on way ahead of time.  However, failed again.  Unfortunately, I had the same examiner as my very first attempt.  He said he remembered me, and that I had made much improvement.  He even said I did turn my head to look but however, in his opinion, I only turned and looked to "please" him, not to really look at the left side for potential bikers.  Now to me, that is totally subjective.  How can he know what I am looking for?  First of all, there are no bikers on the course.  2nd, when I look in a direction, I take a panoramic view, which means if there is biker on my left, I would see that along with everything else in the background.  Well, try again next Thursday.

Agony of Defeat (Take 4)

Sept. 3, 2019 - 4th time, different proctor, but alas same result. Fail. I missed on a few left turns of turning my head far enough back to be considered as eliminating my blind spot.  So I am improving on my accentuating the look back.  I went through the S-curve and the crank without incidents this time.  It was my best drive yet but the drive was marred by other vehicles on the road.  Not sure if I got dinked on how I reacted.  First when I was about get onto the course itself, the lane I was going to merge into had a vehicle coming, so I had to stop.  My turn signal automatically stopped so I had to signal right again.  I waited until that vehicle went past and then I merged onto the course after looking right and left and right.  Then I proceeded to the first intersection.  Prior times I always get the red light, which I would stop on the left most lane (it is a 4 lane road, 2 each direction).  When the light turns green, I would signal right and then switch to right lane as I am going through the intersection to prepare to turn right just 50 meters ahead.  This is the way it was demonstrated on the video I watched going through that exact intersection.  In America, I think it is frowned upon to switch lanes within the intersection, perhaps even illegal.  Anyway, this time the light is already green and stayed green as I pulled into the intersection.  Then I did what I had done in the scenario where I had stopped at the intersection, signalled right, and changed to the right lane.  I have no idea if that was OK or not.  The proctor didn't say anything about that maneuver so maybe it was OK. 

Then a little bit later, I had to go through a blind corner where they have 8 ft. tall walls constructed on purpose so you can't see oncoming traffic, so you have crawl out to the intersection and you have to look at least 3 times right & left.  I did my 3 times right & left just like my prior attempts but this time, after my last right & left, as I creeped out to the intersection, I saw a vehicle coming on the far lane perpendicular to me.  You can't see the car until you clear those walls.  Once I saw the car, I stopped because the other car has the right of way (it being on the priority road 4 lanes vs. my 2 lane road), but now I am stuck, a little bit jutted out in the intersection.  Of course there really is no other cars coming, being on a test course.  I probably could have stayed in the intersection but I was told to imagine that are other traffic on the course, along with imagining pedestrians and bicyclers.  So I backed out of the intersection.  Again I don't know if that maneuver was OK with the proctor.  He never said anything about it at the end.

All he said was I missed some left turn blindspots, that I need to be closer to the left edge on left turns so that the car effectively blocks potential bikers from trying to squeeze by me on the left.  I am already within 50 cm from the edge.  It seems to me why should I care bikers sneak up on my left anyway.  I am told to look left backwards already to check my blindspot to look for bikers.  If I see them on my left, I am supposed to let them have the right of way.  If I creep closer to the edge, to me that's overkill (and when I practiced that in real live driving, one intersection scared the living daylight out of Sister Lee as I had to pass by this post, which she thought I was going to hit.)  Well, the test is a test to see if I will obey Japanese traffic rules.  It is not a test of your driving abilities, so I'll have to get closer to the edge on the next test if I want to pass.  Also apparently I didn't go the proper speed through the turns.  He didn't divulge what speed I should be going, so I don't know if I went too fast or too slow.  I followed my instinct to drive the speed that I was comfortable with and yet remain in control of the car and curve.  I suspect I need to go slower because from the literature I read, it says on left turns, go at a crawl.  I guess that's because of potential pedestrians / bikers getting in the way of the turn, so you need to be slow to be able to stop on a dime if need be.

Well, next attempt will be some time next week.

Agony of defeat (take 3)

Aug 30, 2019 - another attempt.  This time we left the apartment at 8 a.m.  Traffic was worse but we still made it to the driving test center before the 9:10 deadline.  I was going to be the last driver in our group of 3.  I believe I did better with turning my body to look back to convince the proctor that I am eliminating my blindspot.  However, it was still not good enough.  The proctor said there were some turns that I missed so since that test, I've been working hard to exaggerate looking back.  At least it sounds like it is only happening on my left turns or maybe he is not as critical about right turns.  It is on left turns where bicycles and motorcycles can sneak up along side you in traffic, so you have to watch for them on those left turns. 

I did better on the S-curve this time, no nicking the curb but apparently the car nose was sticking out of the curve into the street.  I have to agree I was a little bit out, I guess couple inches could clip someone coming by.  I went through the crank better but I lost focus toward the end of the crank and didn't realize I was too close to the left side so the back left tire went up on the curb.  I was able to stop the car in time and backed up, tried again and got out without further incident.  However, it was all for naught as number of deductions sent me failing again.  The only solace I got was the proctor was nice enough to tell us what I need to work on and that no one else passed.  I actually would wish someone passed so that would give us some hope that it can be done.  I really feel sorry for the first guy in our group.  Apparently that was his 7th attempt.

Next attempt will be Sept. 3.  Let's hope I can remember all the little details I need to do.