Driving on the left was strange at first, but it only took about a day of practice to get used to it. (What took longer was overcoming the instinct to panic when seeing the oncoming traffic in the right lane.) The hardest part of driving in the opposite lane isn't the *driving*, it's the *mechanics*. The car itself is the mirror image of what I expected. When I tried to shift gears, my right arm would bang into the door. When I wanted to use my turn signal, I started the windshield wipers. Engaging the brights meant pushing the lever forward rather than pulling it backward, which led me to believe my headlights were broken until I figured it out.
Road signs also proved to be less of an obstacle than I had feared. I navigate by landmarks anyway, so I rarely even bother to look at the signs. When I do need to understand them, place names are generally subtitled in English, and road numbers are universal. Thus, knowledge of the language isn't generally necessary. The main confusion stems from non-verbal cues. Traffic lights are the same as in the States, yet the significance of the painted lines on the road are completely different. Dashed white doesn't imply one-way traffic, for example. (I still haven't deciphered the code, to tell the truth.) There are curved arrows painted dead center in major intersections, presumably to guide those making right turns into the proper lanes, but they nearly made me freeze in panic believing that I wasn't allowed to travel straight across them.
Most Japanese drivers don't obey the speed limit. I don't entirely blame them, since the limit on the rural mountain highways in my vicinity is 50 kph (31 mph). That can be an agonizing pace. On the other hand, I've been a passenger in cars where the driver whips around the mountain's curves at 80 or 90 kph (about 50-55 mph), and that's *way* too fast to feel safe. That's where the tunnels come into play...
Ah, the tunnels. The roads in my area have tons of them. During the summer, I considered it a nuisance. They're dark, and loud, and smelly, and hot. Now that it's winter, I consider them a blessing. They're generally straight (or at least more so than uncovered roads), *not* overlooking perilous drops onto rice fields or rivers, and above all sheltered from rain and snow. A driver can really get cruising in the tunnels and not even notice the speed. (Until getting caught behind a slow-moving truck, that is!)
Driving on the open highway through the mountains can be a bit nerve-wracking for those with a fear of heights, but it's a piece of cake compared to the obstacle course that is city driving. For one thing, lanes are extremely narrow. Space is at a premium. What compounds the problem is that there are few sidewalks available, so pedestrians and bicyclists are constantly traveling the "shoulder" (if one can call it that, at a width of about two feet) where the gutters run. Plus, the favored method of parking is pulling over to the side of the road in front of the desired destination (much like on a college campus, actually). This makes a somewhat narrow two lane road into an unbearably cramped four lane road. One must constantly be prepared to swerve around--and watch for the oncoming traffic doing the same on the other side.
Speaking of parking... I don't have the foggiest notion why, but practically every Japanese driver will back into parking spaces. This makes it incredibly difficult for me, following someone into a parking lot, to judge what the person in front of me is doing. I'm accustomed to people pulling front-first into spaces as soon as they have the chance. But no! Just when the driver passes a spot, and I assume he's continuing on, he'll haul around and back into it. Not only that, many drivers don't pay attention to people (such as myself) backing *out* of parking spaces. (Not even considering the backing-up beeper with which my car is handily equipped.) This makes pulling out of a parking space a frightening venture, especially now that it's winter and most of my windows will have fogged up in the interim.
That brings me to the problem of low visibility. It surprised me at first that drivers turn on their headlights to travel through tunnels. That's because the tunnels are poorly lit, and it's doggone dark in there. However, what surprises me even more now is that most drivers *don't* use their headlights during times of low visibility, such as fog, rain, or snow. (My mind simply boggles at the idea of driving in the snow without headlights.) As a matter of fact, I've had other drivers flash me with their lights in an attempt to let me know that I've "accidentally" left mine on.
We'll just see what other differences I encounter as my adventures continue...