For those of you who were not at the bar and don't understand this in-joke, Ogaki's finest have detained me multiple times on suspicion of stealing my own bicycle. Each time, on getting released, I am reminded that either "the foreigners" or "the Brazilians" are unleashing a biblical plague of bike thefts on Ogaki and that I should be careful to double lock it to avoid becoming the latest victim.
My response to the JP cops that stop me:
"Sumimasen... Nihongo taberemasen..."
(Sorry... Japanese eat can not...)
And other gibbering in a western accent and they wave me past. I usually get stopped around 2am during my cycling commute home. Makes sense I guess when the last trains have stopped and lots of bicycles get "borrowed".
Nice. I've been stopped as well. The most recent time it was raining and I had just been tossed off my bike at a fast speed. Shortly thereafter a cop stopped me, and while pondering how I would explain my situation in nihongo, he called in the bike ID, and as soon as he saw the blood all over me he let me go pretty quickly.
I can't count the number of times a policeman has stopped me during the late evening to check that my bicycle wasn't stolen...
But frankly, in Kyoto at least, the problem wasn't stolen bicycle, the problem was that there are no parkings anywhere in the city and so every year you had to expect to have your bike impounded...
