Story Time. I ride a bicycle into a web of lies and deceit. Who survives and who surmises?

I regret to inform you that there are things that happened here that I’ve not told you about. There’s no real good reason for me not to tell you these stories so I might as well do it.

So back in early 2006 I moved from the middle of two somewheres to one of those somewheres, Osaka. A month or so before I moved I managed to find a mostly working bike in the trash. After a short stop at the bike shop to fix the tire it was back on the road. Once I moved I wanted to move the bicycle as well, but this was much more difficult than it might seem to someone not in the area; there’s a small mountain in between the two locations and, if you don’t look closely, it looks like the only way to cross the mountain is on the highway. Many people do ride bikes here, but you’ll be hard pressed to see someone riding a bicycle on the highway.

After some searching, I found a road to the South that would take me over the mountain to where I wanted to go. On one of my days off I left early in the morning on my bike and took it over that mountain. It did take quite a while, but it wasn’t very difficult after I got to the top. I make my way to the new apartment and go on with my life.

The police here don’t have much to do so a lot of their time revolves around bicycles – preventing theft, tracking down stolen bicycles, impounding bikes parked illegally. Everyone gets stopped at some point for one reason of another and it usually doesn’t take longer than 30 seconds before you’re on your way; you show them your registration and they immediately know that the bicycle you’re riding is your own. So a week or so later after taking my bike over the mountain, I’m biking around the area when I’m stopped by the police. They ask me about the bike and I tell them that I found it in the trash, fixed it, and started riding it. They are very interested in this and we go back to the police station to talk about it.

They give me a printed map and ask me where I found the bicycle and I show them. Things move very slowly and I get to spend some time chatting with the young policeman that is learning English in his free time. After a while I find out that the bicycle I was riding was stolen in Kyoto and ditched in Ikoma, where I found it. They found out where the owner lives, gave him a call, and told me to wait for him to come to the station after he’s finished working. There really isn’t much for me to do besides chat with the police officers, so I do. I’m constantly taken aback at how they act and how they’re treating me even though I’ve essentially committed a “bad” crime. They don’t have a perfect record, but their attitude is definitely better than some places.

Long story long, the owner comes and doesn’t press charges. He gets his bike back (repaired by me) and I get a story.