Good Bye to Judy

Our faithfully servant for the last two weeks, 13-31 and of course Judy our GPS navigator.  Thank you both.

On driving in Japan,

1. Watch out for traffic lights.  The lights are not at the line where you are expected to stop, they are up high on the opposite side of the junction.  Nearly caught me out a couple of times, especially in the towns.
2. Watch out for trams, if they are around, especially if you are turning right across their tracks. Do a double take in your wing mirror and keep well away from the tram tracks.  Again, almost got side swiped by one, my fault entirely.  At traffic lights, trams have a different light signal, a 'X'.
3. Journey times.  Add at least 25% to your expected travel time for a planned route.  Speed limits in Japan are lower than most other places and the drivers in the main abide by them, 60 km per hr on stretches of single lane motorway (never experienced those before) and 50 km per hr on many stretches of open road.  I was always catching cars up and was only overtaken twice, as I remember. 
4. On dual carriageways, drivers in Japan tend to progress in the outside lane, with undertaking being the norm.  I was assured my a friend that this is not a the rule but is practice. I noticed the same thing on Taiwan's roads but there the drivers are a little crazy, making the driving experience there more like Penang than Japan.

Once out of Sapporo, the roads are empty, making the 1,500 km we motored a real pleasure, the open road through a green and pleasant land.  Mind you, in winter you would need  to put  snow chains on.