Greetings from the future!! I'm in Tokyo!!!!!!
They won:t accept any applications for 2004 until they have the information up on the site which won:t be till august or september, so you:ll have to wait till then to register. Last night we went to Daikoku to see some street racing. It was cool to experience the kind of culture they have over there. They do craziest things to their mini vans and step wagons here. There wasn:t much action though, just some R34s, R33s, and other cars stopping in to see what was happening then leaving. It was kind of a waste, but it was still better than my previous two nights. I have mostly video from last night because my friend that was taking pictures took some that didn:t come out right. I haven:t slept in 2 days so after exploring Japan all day, I decided to take a nap for a couple hours before heading up to the bar and ballrooms to see the girls, but my friend decided to take a short nap as well, so I didn:t wake up till midnight, by the time I got to the bar, all the girls had gone home. You can just imagine my disappointment. Some of the girls I saw around today were so amazingly beautiful. You guys have no idea how bad I want to bring one home with me. So anyway, I just went up to the bar and had a drink. Not exactly an exciting day, but it was really interesting to go out and see how the people in this country live their average day. My recommendation for anyone coming to Japan is, try not to do typical tourist things like taking pictures of Tokyo tower or whatever...take a train ride to a random town, and just walk around see what the different areas are like, what the people are like. Go to small restaurants, not the westernized ones..and order foods you:ve never had before. You can see the major attractions anytime in books, but you can never get a good idea of what it:s really like in this country unless you try to live a day like an average japanese citizen....believe me, you will have ALOT more fun and it will be a more valuable experience. This morning I took a bunch of random trains and subways and found myself lost. But the journey back to the hotel was a great learning experience.
You:d be surprised how little car shops there are. outside of Super Autobacs, there are few places to get tuner parts. At least that:s what I:ve seen. I found one this morning in the town of Hikawadi when I was getting myself lost, but it was closed at the time. Other than that, I haven:t seen any other shops. But I have only been through a very small portion of Japan. I:d need a couple more days to do some more exploring, but sadly I:m returning home wednesday.
You:d be surprised how little car shops there are. outside of Super Autobacs, there are few places to get tuner parts. At least that:s what I:ve seen. I found one this morning in the town of Hikawadi when I was getting myself lost, but it was closed at the time. Other than that, I haven:t seen any other shops. But I have only been through a very small portion of Japan. I:d need a couple more days to do some more exploring, but sadly I:m returning home wednesday.
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gtd65
- Posts: 331
- Joined: Mon Nov 25, 2002 11:24 am
- Car: 1995 240SX SE
- Location: Sarasota, FL & Galashiels, Scotland
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Actually I forgot to mention this - Japanese women, yes you get some beauties over there for sure - but from my experience Japan has the largest numbers of ugly women in Asia hands down!
Sure you see lots of dolled up girls walking down the street and you think, "whoa look at that!" but then when u get up close it is like "oh dear!"
For those of you that may think I am biased against Asian women for some reason - I'm not at all.. I lived in Hong Kong from 1995 to 2001. My GF (who is HK Chinese) actually told me a story that years ago the Emperor of Japan (supposeldy) said that the people were too ugly and advised mixing with other nations to produce more attractive offspring.
Most of the Stars that you see in the movies etc in Japan are very much surgically "enhanced"
No need to send me examples of hot Japanese chicks btw - I've seen plenty of beautiful Japanese women
I'm just stating that the average Japanese girl is not very attractive by comparison to most of the other SE Asian nations.
Of course being a chap who is not shallow I understand that looks are not the only improtant criteria when judging women
Looks are only skin deep.... however...Ugliness goes through to the bone.
Sure you see lots of dolled up girls walking down the street and you think, "whoa look at that!" but then when u get up close it is like "oh dear!"
For those of you that may think I am biased against Asian women for some reason - I'm not at all.. I lived in Hong Kong from 1995 to 2001. My GF (who is HK Chinese) actually told me a story that years ago the Emperor of Japan (supposeldy) said that the people were too ugly and advised mixing with other nations to produce more attractive offspring.
Most of the Stars that you see in the movies etc in Japan are very much surgically "enhanced"
No need to send me examples of hot Japanese chicks btw - I've seen plenty of beautiful Japanese women
I'm just stating that the average Japanese girl is not very attractive by comparison to most of the other SE Asian nations.Of course being a chap who is not shallow I understand that looks are not the only improtant criteria when judging women
Looks are only skin deep.... however...Ugliness goes through to the bone.
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Just another 240
- Posts: 902
- Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2002 3:52 pm
Well guys, I'm back, and it's pretty depressing. I arrived at JFK airport and there were people yelling at other people, old guys taking FOREVER to process passport, etc. Just soo much rudeness. In Japan everyone is polite. Being back in the US feels more foreign than when I arrived in Japan. I wish I could go back, but I will be working on getting the pictures and videos up in the next couple days. I have ALOT of pictures that I have to upload almost half a gig!! And I have about 3 hours of video, but that's video of all of my Japan trip.
gtd65: you're right, the cops in Japan are very lax. We were walking down the streets of Shinjuku and there was group of bikers and they were all pulling wheelies and endos right in front of two patrol cops and a cop in a car at the intersection, none of them even blinked. I also noticed that they are not armed. Other than night sticks, I didn't notice any side arms. In fact, at Daikoku, the major street racing gathering lot by Yokohama bridge, there's a police station RIGHT there and cops walk around etc. None of them cared. I don't know the whole story or deal with the cops, but I'm curious as to at what point they would actually take action and do something.
Just another 240: I stayed an extra 2 days. It was an additional $150 a night for the hotel. I just got home about 10 minutes ago. The tour ended on Sunday with most people leaving monday morning. Not one person I met wanted to leave and were jealous of me because I got to stay. Those two extra days, I just explored more of Japan, went to malls, small towns, here and there...nothing to exciting, but still very intersting.
I'm definately going back...
gtd65: you're right, the cops in Japan are very lax. We were walking down the streets of Shinjuku and there was group of bikers and they were all pulling wheelies and endos right in front of two patrol cops and a cop in a car at the intersection, none of them even blinked. I also noticed that they are not armed. Other than night sticks, I didn't notice any side arms. In fact, at Daikoku, the major street racing gathering lot by Yokohama bridge, there's a police station RIGHT there and cops walk around etc. None of them cared. I don't know the whole story or deal with the cops, but I'm curious as to at what point they would actually take action and do something.
Just another 240: I stayed an extra 2 days. It was an additional $150 a night for the hotel. I just got home about 10 minutes ago. The tour ended on Sunday with most people leaving monday morning. Not one person I met wanted to leave and were jealous of me because I got to stay. Those two extra days, I just explored more of Japan, went to malls, small towns, here and there...nothing to exciting, but still very intersting.
I'm definately going back...
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nametakennow
- Posts: 10024
- Joined: Sat Aug 24, 2002 4:14 pm
- Car: '06 MINI Cooper S
nismodave wrote:issanni........I dont know if your into sr20det's, but where there any new advanced parts for it you saw?
Just curious:D
Yes, there were a couple new products. But I will detail all that in my article. Granted it won't be the greatest work of journalistic material, but at least you won't have to wait till May to read about it in Turbo and SCC (I refuse to recognize Super Street as a legitamate magazine). Unfortunately I'm at work right now so I won't have the time to work on getting the pictures up till later this afternoon. Unfortunately, all the pictures (all 500+ of them) are about 1MB each and roughly 2000x2000 resolution, so it would be hell to download, even for broadband users. But I promise all that I will have everything up by tomorrow (Friday) night.
I think a trip to Japan should be something EVERY import car enthusiast should make. I don't want to sound sacrilegious, but it should be a pilgrimage like how those of the muslim faith go to mecca. It is seriously a life changing experience. Not only will it educate you on a new culture, but it will help you gain an understanding of the culture and people that are responsible for the cars that we love so much. There's alot more behind our cars than just scientific engineering and mechanics.
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Just another 240
- Posts: 902
- Joined: Mon Aug 19, 2002 3:52 pm
Well, exhaustion has gotten the best of me, but I managed to get some pics up. Check them out here:
http://www.issanniracing.com/pictures.htm
But a word of warning...the pictures are MASSIVE. I got them down to about 200kb a piece from 1mb and down to 1600x1200 from 2560x1920 (true 5megapixel quality!) I apologize ahead of time if things get slow as my webhost is horrible when it comes to bandwidth allocation. Things are getting pretty busy now so the video might take a week or two and my article on the whole trip will be up on my site in a few days.
-Joe-
http://www.issanniracing.com/pictures.htm
But a word of warning...the pictures are MASSIVE. I got them down to about 200kb a piece from 1mb and down to 1600x1200 from 2560x1920 (true 5megapixel quality!) I apologize ahead of time if things get slow as my webhost is horrible when it comes to bandwidth allocation. Things are getting pretty busy now so the video might take a week or two and my article on the whole trip will be up on my site in a few days.
-Joe-