Bike parking

I've had a very flat day today. I think I'm running out of puff at the end of the school year. One of the things I did do, however, is go and buy some food for dinner. 

This isn't a shop I regularly use because the prices are high, but they have the bread rolls that I needed for dinner, so I rolled up there on my bike. As the shop is next to the station, they've become quite strict on bike parking recently. 

Tokyo is, in general, strict about bike parking near train stations. This has quite a bit to do with the amount of traffic that train stations see. It would be easy for bikes to clog up train station entrances, so you usually have to pay for parking your bike near a station.

So this store has installed these machines to park your bike in. Quite ingenious, really.

This sign says that you park free for the first two hours.

This is what it looks like outside the shop.


And here is my bike. I had a bit of an awkward time getting it up onto this and when I was done, it looked pretty precarious. I guess at least I could be fairly assured that the bike wouldn't be stolen.

After I did my little bit of shopping I came out and reminded myself what number slot my bike was parked in and then went to this machine. Plugged my number in and away I went. 

A later amendment: someone told me today that when you've been using these less than two  hours, you don't even need to enter your number. What what do you know? Not as much as I thought!