In Okinawa, the driver is on the right side of the car, and you drive on the left side of the road, a double confusion for an American driver. As we were getting in the right lane to make a right turn, Kevin swiped the car to our left with the left side mirror. The mirror snapped in and crashed into the window, causing the rear-view mirror to shatter.
We pulled over and looked at the damage done. Our car had a small spot where paint had been scuffed off and the broken mirror, and that was all. The other car didn't have a single dent, spot, scratch, line- nothing. However, since the car was a company car, the owner was flipping out and called the police. We spent about an hour waiting for the police. The police then said he had to drive our car to the police station, which was only about 500 feet down the road (NO idea why it took them so long to get to us). The owner of the car and the police did not speak English. All the details, I got after an English translator came a few hours later.
We had to sit in our car for the next few hours while who knows what was happening. Five to six different official workers and police came and inspected the car we hit, I just knew they were trying so hard to find something wrong. I swear that if someone had a magnifying glass, it would have been brought out. It was announced by each and every person that there was absolutely nothing done to their car. But the driver insisted that they still had to take it to a shop to get it professionally looked at.
After waiting forever, we finally found out that the reason they wouldn't let us leave is because per Japan law, the car was considered undrivable and illegal due to the broken mirror. We then had to wait an additional hour for the rental company to bring another car and take our car away. Mind you, the rental company was only 3 blocks away.
My kids hadn't eaten since we left Korea at 5:30 that morning, and it was now past 5:00 PM. They had been sitting in a parked car, it was super hot outside, and we didn't have anything for them to do because we hadn't planned on sitting in the parking lot of a Japanese police station all afternoon. At one point, the kids needed to use the restroom, so I asked a police officer if we could go in and use the bathroom. We were then escorted to the bathroom and told that once we were done we had to immediately return to our car.
After waiting hours and hours, the military police came, brought a translator and signed some paperwork, we were then allowed to leave. All that for a close right turn, broken mirror and a wasted day. It was annoying, and one of our three days in Okinawa was now down the drain. It left a sour taste in our mouth for the country and tired, hungry, and grumpy kids.
Four kids in a car on a hot summer day in Japan, you would hope they would have had the decency and civility to ask us in the station, a bathroom and a drink of water. Nope, I'm afraid not. It wasn't a good start to our super short trip.
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