It's a nice hot August day, and you're feeling smug for successfully getting a library card here in Japan, and actually using the library, and checking out a book in Japanese!! So you get on your little one-speed bike and make the trip home, thinking how well you've adapted to this country. A journey of about six minutes.

It just so happens that a lot of people have just gotten off the train. You get stuck behind a guy in his 20's, going ridiculously slow on his bicycle, weaving here and there while he composes a text message on his cell-phone. After a minute or two you get frustrated, and think about passing him. You glance behind you, and there are two middle-school girls on their bikes, just inches from your back wheel, locking you in. You give them a quick glare and they fall back. As you pass the slow guy ahead you let out a quick "Baka!" which he completely ignores. But suddenly you realize that there is a car parked right in the middle of the road dead ahead of you. You move to pass it to the right, but then you see an old man toddering across the street -- there's no way to pass the car without risking an intercept course with the old man. So you stop, and try to go around the car on the left side instead.

But then suddenly that car starts moving, and veering to the left, almost like he's trying to push you to the curb. You force your way through, confident that he probably won't actually try to kill you. As you pass the driver leans towards his open window and growls something at you, but you don't care -- you just want to get home.

Also, the slow guy with his cell phone, and both the middle-school girls have passed you in that tangle. You approach the traffic light, and stay behind a bit for them to get a good lead. In order not to have to pass the slow text-messaging guy again, you take a slightly longer route along a busy road. Avoiding the perilous sidewalk, you stay on the road with cars going by you, feeling a lot safer. For a nice couple hundred yards you pedal fast and hard, shaking the adrenaline and claustrophobia out of your head. You take a left onto a quiet residential road and relax, going along at a leisurly pace with nobody in front of you and nobody behind you.

But then, WHAM! That same guy comes off a side street and turns right in front of you, almost hitting you, still fiddling with his cell phone. You simply stop and let him go ahead until he mercifully turns onto another street that you're not going to take.

The last two minutes of the adventure pass uneventfully and you arrive home without a shred of that "wow, I've really gotten the hang of this country" feeling that you had 7 minutes ago.