HOW do you find your way around in Japan?!

For those of you who have tried to get from point A to point B in a car, have you ever wondered HOW in the world people here find their way around? I SURE HAVE!

First of all, there are NO street signs in Japan, at least I haven't come across any so far, and I've been living here almost 2 years now. If you're only driving around in your local neighborhood where you've already familiarized yourself with the roads, then it's not a problem. BUT, if you want to get to some place you've never been to before, then it can be a problem, especially if you have a bad sense of directions like I do. As I see it, there are a number of problems in finding your way around in a car here in Japan:

• Problem #1: NO street signs.

• Problem #2: All the traditional Japanese-style homes look the same. All the modern Japanese-style homes also look very similar.
  

• Problem #3: If you live in the countryside, there are RICE FIELDS in every direction. AND THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME.
  

• Problem #4: SOMETIMES, you come across a stop light that has a what LOOKS like a street sign on it, EXCEPT, you can't be fooled. They actually AREN'T street signs, only the NAME of the stop light. Which means, no matter what direction you come from, it's the same name.
  

SO, adding all these problems together, I find it nearly impossible to figure out where I'm going, where I just drove, and where I'm supposed to head. I look in every direction and it all looks the same to me. On top of that, the names on the stop lights always throws me off because I'm accustomed to expecting the name on the light to be the name of the street.

It took me a long time to figure out that the names on the lights were the same from all directions. One day, I was trying to get somewhere, and I decided to take the backroads. WHAT a mistake. There were rice fields all around me, traditional Japanese-style homes here and there, and a stop light with a name on it. I thought to myself "Wow, this is the first time I've seen a street sign in Japan! How helpful, now I can have some point of reference for where I'm supposed to turn!"

About 20 turns all over the backroads, I was back at the same light again. Not just once, but probably like 20 times. I couldn't understand why no matter how many turns I took, I kept coming back to the same spot. How could it possibly be???

Eventually, I "accidently" found my way out of what felt to me like the Bermuda Triangle and arrived back home without ever reaching my initial destination. I was pretty upset by the time, due to the absurdity of the same "street" coming up over and over again no matter what.

My parents are baffled by what I could possibly get so confused about. I say it's WRONG to give stop lights NAMES. Why do stop lights need names???

I have more to say about the road situation in Japan, but I think I'll stop here for now. Just thinking about getting lost everywhere I go makes me upset.