How To Buy A Car In Japan When You Speak No Japanese

Everyone had told us that Matt should start the car buying process before I came over. We didn't listen as Matt thought it would be nice for me to get to pick out my car. (see he can be sweet!) Boy do we regret that now.

There are three ways to buy a used car in Japan. 1- A used lot (which there are not that many of) 2- An auction (this is where almost everyone goes) 3- From another person (we have tried this route however have only found a small car for sale) We had been told that the auctions are very stressful and that everyone hates them. We had been told of a dealership on Port Island that had an English speaking salesman and if they didn't have a car on their lot we liked that we could find one in the computer. So we decided to go the dealership route with the English speaking salesman.

Matt and I set out on Saturday morning with high hopes of coming home with a car purchased. After walking an hour looking for the place we arrived to find out that the only person who speaks English is out sick. (Of course) We managed to look at the cars and got a better idea of what we wanted. We were very disappointed, however a trip to Ikea afterwards was a great pick me up.

After leaving the dealership and heading to Ikea (on foot of course) I told Matt my feet were burning in the back. I had decided to go fashionable and wear some cute skinny jeans and ballet flats. Lesson learned from this decision is that you should never, ever wear new shoes when walking vast amounts of distances. (We probably walked 4+ miles that day.) Why not? Because by the time you get home your feet look like this:


Saturday night we got onto a used car site and located 3 cars that we wanted to see. After church we set out to try and find these cars at what we thought were close to each other locations. After having no luck in finding any of them we tried to find the train station home, figuring they were close by because of the Google map we had printed. However the map master (AKA Matt) didn't realize that he had blown up the areas pretty good and the train stations were miles apart, as were all the dealerships. We figured out that we had probably walked a good 7+ miles that day, if not more. Up and down hills. Thank goodness I had slip on shoes that day.

So today Matt is calling the auction consultant and finding out what we need to do. We have given up on doing this our own way and are ready to conform to what everyone else does. Maybe by the end I will have a cute car like this one:


However Matt keeps joking that I will get something more like this. And btw, these are about as long as they are wide.


So after being here 21 days we are still no closer to having a vehicle than we were before I arrived. While a car is not a necessity here as we will train it most places, it would be a huge help in getting Emily home each night from practice, making it possible for us to stay for Sunday school at church (the shuttle doesn't run after Sunday school) and in getting heavier groceries home. And the bigger pain, once we do pick out the car, with the red tape involved here it will still be almost 10 days before we even get the car.

And as far as my feet goes? They may never be the same again. This is what the looked liked this morning after I removed a Neosporin covering from them.