Kyoto: Underworld of Fined Bikes

During the last trip to Japan an unusual story happened to me. And it was in my beloved Kyoto. It turned out to be a wonderful warm day, and my friends and I decided to rent bicycles to ride in different areas of the city. In such cases, it is customary to say that nothing portended trouble. And really, look: what trouble can happen in this nice city?

Looking ahead, I’ll say that everything ended in the best possible way (you will see!), But we, of course, badly battered our nerves.

Renting bicycles in Kyoto is easy. Besides the fact that they are provided by many hotels, quite a lot of bike rentals are also scattered in tourist areas. This pleasure is worth 1000 yen per day (this is somewhere around $ 9 at the current rate). There is one catch: they all require you to return your bikes no later than six in the evening.

"Surely you can't ride any longer?" we asked. We were politely but firmly answered that it was definitely impossible. At six, bicycles must be returned. We agreed. As a guarantee, a driver’s license was left.

So, taking our bikes, we set off to travel around Kyoto. We visited several churches, drove through pretty sleeping areas, and indeed, enjoyed a pleasant May day.

As a result, we went to the embankment of the Kamo River, which flows through the city from north to south. I have already said that I consider this embankment the best in the world.

In the afternoon we got a little tired of pedaling and decided to relax on the river arrow. There is a place where the Takano River flows into Kamo, and there is a great place on the arrow to just sit and look at people. We parked our bicycles next to a handful already standing, closed them with symbolic locks and went to sit by the water.

There, upstream the river is blocked by intricate dams, creating interesting rapids. Handsomely.

The water here is shallow, knee-deep. On a hot day I just want to get into the river to cool.

We sat there for a good couple of hours watching the local characters. Watching from the side of the Japanese is a pleasure.

About five began to gather. An hour later, they promised to rent bicycles, to go there for about twenty minutes, but we were already a little hungry and decided to return the great ones early. We come to them ... But they are not.

That is, how is it ?! Other bicycles are standing, but ours are not visible. We parked them next to each other and distinguished them by identical blue locks. At first they thought that they just came to the wrong place, looked around - no, everything seems to be right. The place is right, but our bikes are not. Have they been stolen ?! But this is absurd. Japan is a safe country. Nobody steals bicycles here, it's not New York. Nevertheless, ours have gone somewhere.

After a couple of minutes of bewildered searches, I noticed on the asphalt a sticker with today's handwritten number:

"Bicycles and mopeds left on the sidewalk and interfering with the passage will be evacuated to the fine parking near the Kokusaykaykan station."

Wow. Did our bicycles have been confiscated while we were sitting by the river? But then why are others standing in the same place? Really took only ours? And if you took it, then how long? Is it possible to pick them up already, or are they still taking them there? And anyway, where is it going there? I drive the name of the station into Google Maps and get a point somewhere far in the north of the city, where I have never been.

An hour walk on foot, and the subway is not much faster, since you also need to walk to this line. At the same time, we promised to rent bicycles no later than six - this is already forty-five minutes later. Anyway, it’s not clear if they have our bikes there! Suddenly they were really stolen ?!

Since we had no other options, we decided to go to this fine taxi parking lot. There’s also a snag: the five of us, no Japanese driver will take. And everyone needs to go, because there are five bicycles. We must take two cars.

On the way, traffic jams. We’re going ten minutes, fifteen. And at the same time, we understand that even if we free our bikes, we will need to pedal this entire distance back and forth! I'm trying to call the rental office, say that we still do not seem to be in time by six. But there, as luck would have it, no one speaks English. Strange, because they said in the morning!

We come to this very station Kokusaykaykan (try to pronounce quickly!) It is not immediately clear where to go. I see a girl with a bicycle coming out of the subway. He showed her the photo of the sticker about the fine parking. "Where is it?" - I ask. She points to the subway entrance from where she just left.

"No, I don’t need a subway, but a bicycle parking."

“So she is,” the girl says, blushing a little. Then I understand that she, too, takes her bike from these tow trucks.

And indeed, at the entrance hangs a sign: "Warehouse of bicycles and motorcycles."

We descend into this dungeon ...

And there really is a bicycle warehouse. Yes what! Two-story racks go into the distance, the end-edge of this is not visible. And if the upper level is almost empty, then the lower bicycles are full.

It immediately reminded me of the last frames of the film about Indiana Jones, “In Search of the Lost Ark,” where the treasure that the heroes sought throughout the film is put in a box and left in an endless warehouse.

Here we are faced with a similar scale. It was some kind of underground kingdom of fined bicycles. We are horrified to think about how we are here to look for ours, which we saw for only two or three hours and recognized only by the way they stacked with identical locks.

So that you understand the full extent of this fine vault, here is his plan. Each rectangle is easily about 50 bicycles!

Two very cute Japanese grandfathers work for all this huge dungeon, who (of course!) Do not know a word in English. They asked us with gestures where we left the bicycles, and I showed them on the map the place where the two rivers merged. Grandfathers nodded in understanding and gave us the forms that needed to be filled out. All fields were signed in Japanese, but the grandfathers had one copy of a piece of paper, which explained in English what column should be written.

And here we are lucky. Right behind us, a young Japanese came down to this dungeon, who spoke good English. He invited us to help chat with these grandfathers. Moreover, his bike was evacuated from the same place as ours.

After his intervention, grandfathers immediately led us to the place where the bicycles that had just arrived were standing, and there we finally saw our lost clunkers. It is difficult to describe the joy that we experienced when we saw the familiar blue castles.

The petty formality of paying the evacuation cost remained. Grandfathers pushed us to such a vending machine. Of the 64 possible buttons, only one worked on it ...

"Bicycle Handling Fee" costs 2,300 yen, or about $ 21. Unfortunately, each of us had to pay in cash only.

Upon payment of this fine, the car issued us a receipt. Showing her grandfathers, we were able to get a paper pass.

The pass should be fed a special machine, which stood near the exit of the dungeon.

And then he opened the mechanical gate to freedom.

It was just six o’clock, and we were about an hour to get to the place where the bikes should be returned. Fortunately, at this moment, our new Japanese friend appeared out of the ground. His name was Osama, and he agreed to call the bike rental to warn them that we would be late.
“It's okay,” he said. “I explained the situation to them. They will be waiting for you until about eight and they won’t even take extra money for it. I think they were just very happy that they themselves did not have to go and pick up these bikes "

Later we learned that Osamu himself works in a bicycle rental and arrived at the parking lot to pick up one of their incorrectly parked bicycles.

Along the way, we saw many new areas, all of them were very green. It’s hard to believe that you are in a city with a population of over one million.

Authorities continue to improve the embankment further north from the center, building new bridges across the river, connecting the banks.

At one point, Osama caught up with us, who managed to change his company’s bike to an electric one. He offered to take us to the bike rental to help resolve issues, if any.

But there were no problems. The owners of the bike rental were really happy to see us and thanked us for the fact that we had resolved the whole situation ourselves and were only an hour late.