Silver Week and Culture Shock

There are 2 major holiday blocks here in Japan. The biggest one is in the spring. Golden Week is a week where many Japanese holidays just happen to land together to form a 9 day weekend! Yay! This week is Silver Week! I have until Thursday off. So far I have done nothing...
I have had my share of experiences that made me question why I was in this increasingly strange country. I think the thing that stands out the most in my mind happened just last week. I had taken a break on my ride in to the station last Wednesday for some coffee from a small island of vending machines about halfway through my route. Consequently I missed the train I usually take and ended up waiting at the platform for a good 10 minutes. During this time I saw the most terrifying thing that a person who bikes for 15-20 minutes both ways everyday could ever see. I was playing with my I-pod, and I heard a terrible screeching sound. I looked up in time to see a 50ish looking business man on a bike get hit by a lady driving a vanish vehicle. The bike was totaled. I started looking for a way to get over to the guy without having to run through the station, when he pulled himself up and waved to the driver. He then grabbed his scrap metal bike and walked away. I could hear him apologizing from the platform. As he limped away, the lady pulled over, got out of her car and checked it for damage before driving away herself. I don't know about you, but if my bike was totaled, or if a car hit me and I was on the ground from the impact, I would probably not just walk away with a destroyed bike.... The rest of the week there was a police officer at that intersection.
This evening, as I watched my host brother struggle to read, I realized we were kind of in the same boat. I could read faster than him, but I had no idea what I was reading.... But he couldn't read at all... Hehehe