This is a picture of Shibuya crossing. As you can see I had the camera on the wrong setting and it was horribly over exposed. However I liked the effect and proudly saved it to the memory card on my camera.

And then I get stopped by the police.

“Excuse me, is that your bike?”

“Yes”

“Well there have been a lot of bike thefts in the area, can we check the registration of your bike?”

I wasn’t exactly in a position to say no.

“Sure go ahead”.

The cop had a look at the registration lable on my bike.

“This bike is registered in Osaka”

“Yes, I used to live there”

“So where do you live now?”

“I live here in Shibuya, but I just moved from Chiba and before that I lived in Osaka” I replied.

“Wow”

I’m not sure what was so “wow” about that but I guessed he was half doing his job and half looking for a conversation with a foreigner. I changed the subject.

“So are you guys busy this time of night?” (Obviously not otherwise they wouldn’t be on mess with the gaijin patrol).

“Erm…yes” he lied.

The conversation went from traffic safety to the best place to get lunch in Shibuya. He was quite polite and I actually enjoyed the somewhat bizarre natrure of the conversation.

He got a call on his radio. The bike registration did exist and I wasn’t a suspect anymore. He thanked me, gave a half bow and walked off.

A strange but interesting encounter.

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