Lesson Three: I`m big. Japan is small.

I bought a bike in Tokyo so that I could tour here in Japan. I found it in a Japanese K-Mart kind of store. Now this store is "like" a K-Mart. Same amount of stuff, one fifth the floor space. Packed. With the help of Anne I was able to ask a few questions, get some added gear and pick out a particular bike. The guy was very helpful, spent a fair amount of time with me and even gave me some tools for free. We closed the deal and made arrangements to pick up the bike after he added the front basket and rear rack. ( Yes I said basket. Wait until you see this bike.)We do the bowing, thank you and more bowing thing and I picked up my back pack and turned to go. It was at that moment, I don`t know how it happened, but I guess when I turned to go my backpack hit a row of bikes. There were about fifteen bikes in this row. They all went down. Crap. More bowing, apologizing, bowing, thank you`s and more bowing. My seat post is to short on this bike ( surprise surprise) and the " K-Mart " does not have a longer seat tube. So Anne and I have to head to a local bike shop. She explains to the bike shop guy what I need and he scratches his chin, thinks, then gestures to go by me. I step back, directly into a box that grabs my foot and hangs on. I, of course, begin to fall and take two or three giant steps with the box on my foot. As I turn to catch my balance I begin knocking things off shelves with my backpack. More bowing, apologizing, bowing, and picking up.