I had to go to the District Land Transport Office in Fukushima City to get it done. Fukushima City is the capital of Fukushima prefecture. (No surprise there, right?) It was an hour's trip away via the expressway, or an hour and a half via the mountain roads. To save time and money, I'd leave in the morning, missing my other Japanese class for the week, travel there on the expressway, get the plates, and return to Aizuwakamatsu by mid-afternoon before my next class.
Andou-san, the dealer from Kanagawa, would be unable to help me with the transfer due to distance. The foreign personnel advisor that I usually ask for help felt uncomfortable with the process and the distance to the DLTO, so she passed as well. A local Toyota
We were supposed to leave early yesterday so that we would be the first in line at the DLTO. We ended up having to take a detour, because I had lost my inkan certificate (for proof of stamp) and juuminhyou (proof of residence). I therefore had to stop at city hall and get replacements for both. What a wonderful start to the day. Thankfully, that was the worst of it. The rest went relatively smoothly.
The DTLO also has the roadworthiness testing facility on site. Plenty of cars were there lining up for the inspection process. Most of the people at the DLTO were dealers and mechanics, and some of them were even bringing cars by the truckful. We parked, pulled off the old plates, and went inside to the information counter. The person behind the information counter was friendly, and while he was hesitant to use English at first, he eventually tried communicating in some English, and wrote down my living address in kanji for us. The overall wait was also much shorter than we had anticipated; we spent more time figuring out the forms than we did waiting for the plate.
The only thing that was wrong, however, was the license plate itself. I wanted to get a customized license plate (and by customized, I mean the four large numbers on the plate, which is all you can do. Here's an example of what it looks like customized), and I had heard from the advice given that they would make the plates same day if they needed to make them. As it turned out, I needed to call the DTLO a week prior to my visit to reserve it. Total bummer. However, if I really want the plates, I can probably do it in the future. Besides, between the forms, registration, and tolls, I still paid one-fifth of the original price that Toyota wanted. Even if I went to register again, I'd still be saving money.
We saw plenty of cars waiting in the parking lot. One of them, which actually pulled in behind us, was a late-70s Pontiac Firebird. The temporary plates on the car stated that the car was being stored in Aizubange, which is a town just north of Aizuwakamatsu. The dealer/owner also let us take a look at, and some pictures of, the car, which was in pretty good condition given its age. That car would probably go for around $40k market in Japan. (The Japanese are as crazy for USDM as Americans are for JDM.)
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| Chevy C10 Blazer |
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| Pontiac Firebird in the last stage of inspection |
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| The red line across the plate indicates temporary registration |
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| >yfw automatic |
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| How this thing manages to pass emissions here, I have no clue |
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| Pre-Fiat Abarth sports coupe (1960s-era) |
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| Third-gen Chevy Van |
Unfortunately, between our conversations and the music in the background, I don't have any good dashcam footage. However, I will be filming plenty of it, especially this summer when there are so many mountain roads to travel on. As a matter of fact, I plan on taking some time to tackle the local roads tomorrow. My first target is the one that I've been meaning to see since before I got here: Route 374. It's going to be an interesting trip to say the least, and I'll try my darndest to get some good footage.
-wp
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