the boss wanted me to get some three-wheeled mopeds so that the supermarket could do home deliveries. he was referring to the Honda Gyro, a bike commonly used in Japan for that very purpose. this bike comes in different configurations (some with a canopy, some with a hard box on the back, and some with aftermarket racks featuring built-in suspension to prevent spillage) and is really nifty for deliveries due to its small size and the stability provided by the two back wheels.
at the time, I had a vague idea of what he meant, but I didn’t know the name of the bike, and more importantly, I didn’t know that this bike wasn’t available for purchase in the UK! pizza places used regular motorbikes equipped with boxes on the back for deliveries, but that was not gonna be stable enough to deliver sushi without everything going all over the place. I found some other three-wheeled motorbikes, but they weren’t cheap or small. Honda Gyro bikes could be imported into the UK, but at a hefty price.
it surprised the boss that these ubiquitous-in-japan bikes were not available elsewhere, and it surprised me to find out that a global manufacturer had a specific family of motorbikes that weren’t available worldwide. thinking about it now, pretty much the only food places that were actually doing their own home deliveries in the UK back then were pizza places, while a number of restaurants in Japan did deliveries long before the rise of Uber Eats and others. not sure of the deeper factors behind that difference though.
looks like that supermarket closed down a few years ago... that’s a shame. I remember going for an interview back when my Japanese language ability was really shoddy, and the guy interviewing me telling me to come back once my Japanese was better. that was actually really encouraging as I had previously gone into another Japanese supermarket with a “jobs wanted” poster on the front door, only to be told that they weren’t looking for anyone🤔. anyway, I did eventually get better at Japanese and I started working at the supermarket. I learnt a lot from my time there doing interpreting and research for the boss who wanted to open a restaurant (and we did it! there were snags along the way but it happened!). I ended up leaving because I wanted to go to grad school in Japan—I helped out a while with interviewing people to replace me, but idk if they found anyone in the end.
By mojilove on 2023-02-22