The REAL Initial D, Me, Skyline, and Gunma PICS 56k no

[s14s14s14]

sooooo much awesomeness in this thread sooooo much more awesome than the canyon roads in socal

[Silviastein]

It would be really awesome if you could upload full size images somewhere to be used as backgrounds.

[ImportDaddy]

I am soooooooo envious of all those pics......I think I'm moving!

[R32Dragon]

Looks like a sweet trip. If you dont mind me asking, do you live there independantly or are you a service member stationed there? I updated my base dreamsheet last week so hopefully Uncle Sam will be sending me there shortly.

[SienSil80]

No I'm here independently. I'm a college student studying international business and japanese.

Bakadaruku!! It must be nice to live in Shibukawa all of 3 minutes from Mt.Haruna at all times. I'd be there way more often if I was close by. I love the town, much more relaxed and people are more friendly then in Tokyo.

Hayashiken, yea it feels good driving on the touge here and the sound of the RB does always sound good resonating off the mountain. You should really find time in your busy schedule to head out there sometime. If not, the Hakone touge is much closer.

[touge_951]

i have a question for you. how do the japanese treat the gaijin? i want to go to tsukuba college and i actually look a little japanese, so im wondering how were treated.

[SienSil80]

Depends on how you act but generally racist with a healthy helping of ignorant. Housing, job, anywhere, you'll experience varied levels of racism. I could go on for hours about some of the challenges I've faced just because of my race here, and I'm sure Neal and others on the board have stories of their own.

Looking like a Japanese (I'm guessing another asian you're thinking) wouldn't make a difference. I've found them to be 10X more racist to other asian races then to other racial backgrounds (you should hear some of my Japanese friends go on about racial superiority versus the Chinese and Koreans).

The one thing that really pierces through the racism in most areas (excluding housing) is your Japanese language abilities. If you're fluent or close to fluent, then almost immediately you're treated with more equality. Being American, Australian, or English also helps as they generally have a positive picture of them.

If you want to go to a college here and aren't looking for one with an English program, I think you'll face alot of challenges, good luck though.

[dickie]

what happened to the site the pic of that cress was hosted on? team become defunct?

[SienSil80]

Huh, I dunno. No the team is still around and competing. One of the members, Josie, is their web designer and she was running the site. I guess she decided to stop paying for webhosting.

That will not do.

[shmex]

Wow ma, forget intial d for a second, but is that some secy mountain side beauty. I love the greenery. Always wanted to live in pacific northwest, and that kinda reminds me of it.

I've never really watched intial d , and just started watching to see what's the rave about it/....but its amazing to see the extreme detail taken from actual places, and put into anime and such.

Definately keep up with the pictures, I am for sure susbcribing to this thread.

Ps. My fiance is jealous of your gf. She wants an fd too, but doesn't forsee it in her near future. I however am jealous of your r32. That's my dream car, and I will have one. Oh yes, I will have one.

[Slappy]

This thread =

[CSLAVE]

This thread =

Grave robber and agreed.

[Rolo]

I envy you, but also love you for sharing your happy times with us. I'm not a big fan of the anime, but loved the movie, and love the Japanese culture and landscape too. Looking forward to the write-up, pics and video's!

[nippon240]

Yeah man!!!!! Very good write up! I actually drove to all of those places a in July 08. While I was driving in Usui, I also saw a couple of monkeys sitting around waiting to cause hell on someone...so I had my windows rolled up....lol. So since you live in Yokohama, did you go to Hakone very much? I was stationed in ayase-shi, Kanagawa... and we would head up there every weekend for drifting. I also used to hangout at Daikoku Futo.I just cant wait to come back! Cheers man!!!!!

[xX RB Xx]

yeah none of the pictures worked for me.. can someone email them to me? i want to see them.

email is [email protected]

[TroubleBound]

^^ I thought i was the only one, they aren't showing up for me either, is my comp missing a program or something? Everyone made the pics sound amazing and i cant even see :\ I remember my dad got me initial d for my birthday like 6 years ago(didn't know what drifting was,he just saw cars and knew i liked cars..i didn't know what drifting was yet either), got the seventh Tokyopop (americanized) dvd, and after watching the blue sil-eighty and 86 battle it out, i ordered all 4 stages from japan. Great show. Anyone have any idea when 5th stage is coming out?

[xX RB Xx]

there pictures are on this thread.

zer...=1600

[HashiriyaS14]

i have a question for you. how do the japanese treat the gaijin? i want to go to tsukuba college and i actually look a little japanese, so im wondering how were treated.

Honestly, Gaijin will generally be treated better if they look like Gaijin.

If you look Japanese and don't act Japanese "i.e. don't fit in", it can be a very unfriendly place. If you look like you don't fit in and still don't fit in, people seem to forgive a lot more.

This is, of course, a gross generalization, but it was relayed to me by a Japanese-American friend who did JET (he had no Japanese language proficiency).

[RanciD]

Sorry to ressurrect a really old post but so far this thread has painted a pretty bad picture of the Japanese for anyone who would potentially visit the country so I feel it may be best to share my own experiences.

I've been living in Machida, Tokyo Prefecture for about a year now as a study abroad student. When I got here my japanese was pretty basic and even now it's not very good but I've never had any negative experiences with racism in the time I've been in Japan. I'm a stereotypical looking white American guy so there's no hiding I'm a foreigner so if you want to get technical I am treated differently than a typical Japanese person but I've never interpreted this to be negative. I'm sometimes enthusiastically approached by people who want to know what America is like, why I came to Japan, how I like Japan, etc. but no one's ever said "screw off, we don't want you here" or something like that but maybe they save that for people who don't know any Japanese. In my experience I've been nothing less than thoroughly impressed about how kindly I've been treated. When I first got here people really did their best to accomodate the fact that I didn't really speak any Japanese. I had similar experiences getting my alien card, cell phone, etc. Everyone has really gone out of their way to help the other study abroad students and I whether we spoke any Japanese or not. Maybe my opinion is a bit skewed because I come from Boston (or maybe it's just America in general) where 99.9% of the population would sooner stab me for a double cheeseburger than give me the time of day, but I've been pretty impressed with how welcoming and helpful everyone has been.

I certainly can't speak for all of the Japanese people but my own experiences have been nothing but positive. It may simply be an issue of location. I know for sure a Japanese person visiting America is much more likely to have a bad experience in certain areas of the country than others.

Anyway, that's my 2 cents.

[Xdisaster240sX]

i have a question for you. how do the japanese treat the gaijin? .

If you really want to know, Go watch Tokyo Drift...

[P.G]

What a nice country ,,, I wish i can live there ,,

[Otto.]

One of my favorite threads is back from the dead.

Is that an Explorer in the fourth picture?