Let me entertain you...

...Let me make you smile.

I am a circus clown.

Complete with white face, big feet, fuzzy hair, and oversized pants. And let us not forget the critical last detail... a ridiculously small bicycle.
I once heard that, when one takes into consideration the amount of energy used in comparison to the distance traveled, the bicycle is the most efficient mode of transportation ever created. I have set out to prove that, when one takes into consideration the use of logic and common sense, my new bicycle is the most ridiculous mode of transportation ever created.

Until two weeks ago I had been borrowing a bicycle from a girl that was studying abroad in America. Oh, how I loved this bicycle. It had the cutest little basket, and it also had a ringy-ringy bell. It was graceful, efficient, and it took me everywhere (see May 23 blog for more backstory). I loved to ride my bicycle, I loved to ride my bike! But the exchange student came home, thus needing her beautiful bike back.

Walking everywhere was a real bother, it just took so much more time to go about my daily business. Not to mention, I had gotten accustomed to the freedom of having a bicycle, and I loved randomly roaming the city streets if I had just a bit of free time. So, MWU set out to furnish me with another bicycle, which is really quite kind and generous of them, so I have no grounds to complain. But I think I will anyway, cause it's real funny.

I now have been furnished with what is called a "mini bike." The second I saw it, I thought this just had to be yet another language miscommunication. Like, "This is my four year-old son's bike, your is the beautiful full-sized bike around the corner." Nope, not the case. The bike is about two feet tall, and the pedals come just about two inches off the ground (so they scrape at the slightest turbulence, like a pebble under my tire. This all means that the seat is jacked up about fourteen or so inches from the frame, which pretty much makes me look like a potato on a toothpick. The wheels are about 1/4 the size of a normal bike, so I have to pedal twice as much to go half the speed. This makes me look a bit like Wiley Coyote, you know - when his legs are frantically gyrating as he floats stationary in mid-air - yeah, I pretty much look like that.

Riding to school for the first time today, I was sweating like mad (the humidity is just picking up too...) smashing my toes every ten seconds (tiny, tiny, pedals) and constantly catching my loose-fitting linen pants in the gears. Not to mention, there was a horribly insensate loud clacking noise whose origin I couldn't trace (I figured out later that it was a plastic thingy-technical term here- caught in the spokes).

Pulling up at a crowded crosswalk, feeling overheated and frustrated with my bike, I ripped off my jacket and wiped my brow. That's when it occurred to me - there were about twenty or so people blatantly staring at me. Yeah, us gaijin usually get stared at most places we go because we look so very different than most of the population. But this was different. This was like (ponder for a nanosecond before nonchalantly looking down) "Did I somehow forget to wear pants today?" type of attention drawing.

That's when it occurred to me... Many of the women here would rather not shave their arms for six months (uh, that would be a really big deal, since most women shave their arms every other day-er-so) than allow their skin to be slightly darkened by a ray of sunshine. With my xerox-paper white skin freely exposed , big feet scraping up the pavement, fuzzy hair from the intense humidity, oversized pants tripping me up and getting caught up in the spokes, and annoying accidental clickity-clack percussion performance...
I looked like a big freaking circus clown.
I believe I may just be too much woman, for that ridiculously small bicycle.