-^-for posterity-^-

so, everyone here has a small motorcycle, right? either that or a bike. the motorcycles are small and seem to strain whenever they are asked to accelerate. they also scream when they brake. rush-hour is an buffet for the ear.

i always get a kick of the names. there is the ubiquitous honda dream. there is the dream, the dream I, the dream II, the super dream, the super dream I and the super dream II. it is the ford tarus of motorcycles here. the side panels are a rainbow of maroon, orange and purple. also, there is the max II (which looks like maxi), the best, the future, the spacy (i don’t think i could make this up), the wave, the support (what?), the welcome, the jupiter, the darling, the citi 100, the magic 100, the viva (where are we, madrid?), the boss, the team, the mystery, the deluxe, the vision, the fuzzy (nothing fuzzy about it), the sirus (not the one that goes to salford), the angel, the fx and the astro. those were the ones i wrote down in about 10 minutes of watching rush hour traffic.

i quickly counted all the vehicles that passed me in one minute. the road i’m on is one way and very narrow. one and a half lanes. in one minute i counted 165 vehicles of which maybe 6 were cars/trucks and 20 were bicycles. i thought i may have miscounted so i counted again. i got 177. the flow of traffic is relentless.

the yokohama tire dealership was to my left and a young man walked out and said hi to me. he said, “pleased to meet you, jon.” i pooled my memory but his face didn’t come up. did i know him? “you are 22, right? you look very young. you look too young to be a teacher.” i was dumbfounded, forced a smile and he drove off. guess i’ve been the center of conversation over at the ‘ole tire dealership.