Photos of my car below. Driving on the left was awkward for a couple days (especially since I just hopped in and drove cold, no practice or anyone else with me), but I have it down now. The trickiest part has been shifting with my left hand. The second-trickiest part has been navigating all the rotaries ("roundabouts" or "traffic circles" to folks here), since they go the opposite way I'm used to. I keep drifting to the left if I'm not paying attention; it's hard not to, because while sitting to the right of the car it feels like I'm too close to the oncoming traffic. For some reason, I don't remember it feeling that way when I'm on the left side of the car.
I haven't gotten into any trouble yet, but I did hop a small curb on the left once while trying to dodge one of the guys who stand in the road at intersections trying to sell you produce and cell-phone cards. They all laughed at me, but I thought I was being pretty polite for not killing them.
2 comments:
Brings back similar memories of driving a rental car in New Zealand and having to adapt to sitting on the right side of the car and concentrating to make sure I stayed on the left side of the road. The stick shift and traffic circles made things even more interesting. I'm glad you haven't hit any pedestrians!
I had to drive one of these in Japan for three years; not hard at all if there's just one lane though! Good luck w/ the frickin' rotaries. I have enough trouble w/ those in the States!!
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