"I Spent 11 Days In Japan Because Why Not" - The Thread

offroadkarter

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Alright, last post should do it.

On the way back from Gunma, we stopped at two more Up Garage's

First one was an Up Garage Riders, which is the same concept as a normal Up Garage except for motorcycles. I was surprised to see how popular Harley's are in Japan, but I'd see people on baggers out on the mountain passes in the pouring rain.

Up Garage Takasaki Full Album
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Down the road we found a normal Up Garage, didn't find anything I had to bring home at this one.

Up Garage Maebashi-shi
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I found a supercharger kit for a GT86/BRZ sitting on the shelf. This is roughly 2600 USD, not a bad price.

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Next day we stayed on the island in the morning and went to the Joypolis arcade, which is a big arcade attached to a mall. It's so huge it has an indoor roller coaster that runs around the place. We tried out the Initial D arcade game where they put you inside a full size car which moves around as you drive on the mountain pass.

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Later that night, it was time to see if Friday Night would bring a crowd out to Daikoku PA again despite the rain. We got there around 7:30 and had plenty of time to watch people roll in. Thankfully the Police didn't shut the place down and it was everything I figured it would be.

Daikoku Futo PA Friday Night Full Album

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The last day in Japan, we walked around Shibuya and went across the famous Shibuya crossing. Shibuya crossing is apparently the busiest crosswalk in the world, it was featured in that scene from Fast and Furious Tokyo Drift where the Evo and RX7 drift through a crowd of people.

Shibuya Adventures Full Album
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This is a big car to be driving through Tokyo!
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Japan loves it's Alpina's. I saw 3 during my trip, this one was a E60 B5S.

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Later that night, Yuichi stopped by our hotel and we all piled into his Comp Orange SVTF. This is actually the first time I had ever been in one of these cars, the recaro seats in the SVTF EAP are more comfortable than the newer Focus ST's I think.

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And here is Yuichi entertaining a bunch of slightly intoxicated stupid Americans

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We all took the train back to our hotel and thankfully we only got slightly lost. Only took one stop to realize we got on the wrong train and quickly jumped lines to the correct one.


So that pretty much sums up the trip, it was almost 9 hours back to CA (which was very much on fire at this point) then another 5 hours back to PA. I took the next day off from work then proceeded to do nothing at work for the rest of the week. It was great to finally meet Yuichi after so many years and see both of his cars. I hope to return to Japan in a few years and maybe even ship one of my cars over instead of renting one. I think the M5 would be pretty fun both on the expressways and the mountain passes.

At this point I can't remember if I posted this but here is the link to my full album.

Japanjam 2018
 

offroadkarter

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Wow, Ryan, was a dream vacation. Good for you for taking the step to fulfill it. Judging by all those great photos, you had an absolute blast. That was one trip you'll never forget. Thanks for taking the time to post the photos. And sharing your vacation trip with us.

Thanks Bob, was certainly a very different experience being across the world. Still some things I never got to see/do while in Japan so I'd like to go back in the future. We originally planned to take the train to Hiroshima but we later found out that would have cost about 400 dollars US per person. We walked around Tokyo instead.

Awesome thread and pictures! As soon as I saw you were at the D1 event you were going to post Daigo's cars. Im the one that posted the thread about his builds before, and if you saw him then you probably saw my friend Jun there too who was his team manager. The carbon fiber BMW on green wheels is also Daigo's build, but it may be leased out to another team as that is primarily how he makes a lot of his money. He builds and then leases them out and he does so well because he is typically the trend-setter in the drift world. When he does something everyone else follows suit. Everyone said the Vette was too balanced for drifting until he built one and then like 2 or 3 other teams followed suit. That Vette is a beast and the two he has are originally C6Rs.

Do you have any details on that BMW? I'm curious what they did to it or what the hell it even started out as.

I like Kisaragi Awano!

Agreed
 

Serpent

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Damn, I swear the Japanese cars in the 90s were the pinnacle of style and innovation. 1990-1999, we saw all these bad ass cars that even europe couldnt replicate. The only thing they didnt have were v8 and v10 cars.
But you cannot go wrong with any of the sports cars and sport focused cars from japan in the 90s! NSX, R34 GTR, Supra, 3000GT VR4, 300ZX, RX7, Civic Type R, Integra Type R, Celica GT4, Lance Evolution, Subaru 22b, im sure I left a few.

Nice to see an AMG Hammer, those are going up in value quick.
 

TheOne™

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very cool pics man. I plan on possibly taking a trip there sometime late next year and plan on going to the Nismo Omori factory as well as some of the tuning shops and the Nissan Heritage Collection museum. this gives me some ideas of places to go.
 

svtfocus2cobra

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Thanks Bob, was certainly a very different experience being across the world. Still some things I never got to see/do while in Japan so I'd like to go back in the future. We originally planned to take the train to Hiroshima but we later found out that would have cost about 400 dollars US per person. We walked around Tokyo instead.



Do you have any details on that BMW? I'm curious what they did to it or what the hell it even started out as.



Agreed

I looked at his IG and it looks like the car itself just showed up as there isn't full build pics like there are with the C6. It is tagged with Prodrive so maybe it is a Prodrive built car that he got his hands on. I asked my friend so I will let you know when he replies.
 

Kevins89notch

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Sounds like a fun trip man. Sometimes you just gotta put your foot down and say, "I'm doing _______ because I want to!"

I've traveled all over Europe and SE Asia simply because I wanted to.
 

offroadkarter

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Damn, I swear the Japanese cars in the 90s were the pinnacle of style and innovation. 1990-1999, we saw all these bad ass cars that even europe couldnt replicate. The only thing they didnt have were v8 and v10 cars.
But you cannot go wrong with any of the sports cars and sport focused cars from japan in the 90s! NSX, R34 GTR, Supra, 3000GT VR4, 300ZX, RX7, Civic Type R, Integra Type R, Celica GT4, Lance Evolution, Subaru 22b, im sure I left a few.

Nice to see an AMG Hammer, those are going up in value quick.

Japan had a lot of cool stuff on the domestic market in the 80's and 90's. Now, everything is essentially a hybrid that looks like a gundam. Autech which was once a small skunkworks tuning arm of Nissan which made the 260RS Stagea, or a R33 GT-R sedan, now makes handicapable vans.

very cool pics man. I plan on possibly taking a trip there sometime late next year and plan on going to the Nismo Omori factory as well as some of the tuning shops and the Nissan Heritage Collection museum. this gives me some ideas of places to go.

Make sure you book your trip to the heritage collection well in advance. You need a reservation to get in and it fills up fast. They also don't do tours every day, I think they only did 6 tours or so in November. Sadly I didn't get to go see that.

Sounds like a fun trip man. Sometimes you just gotta put your foot down and say, "I'm doing _______ because I want to!"

I've traveled all over Europe and SE Asia simply because I wanted to.

That's pretty much the reason I've given anytime someone asks "why"

Just felt like it
 

thetastelingers

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Every time I hear/see pics of anything Japan, it makes the want to go even more.

Thanks for sharing the pics and the experience. I imagine there is more to Japan than just the car scene, but I would be going just for that. LOL
 

mc01svt

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best thread eva!

if someone wanted to replicate this trip what type of budget would it take?
 

offroadkarter

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Every time I hear/see pics of anything Japan, it makes the want to go even more.

Thanks for sharing the pics and the experience. I imagine there is more to Japan than just the car scene, but I would be going just for that. LOL


That's essentially what happened to me, up to the point where I finally just went. Out of any country to go to where you don't speak the native language, Japan is probably one of the best as everyone is so polite. I really mean everyone, not "I went to this tourist area and the staff was so friendly". When we were departing at Haneda airport and waiting for the United desks to open, the entire front desk staff all stepped out in front and took a bow in unison to everyone in line before they opened the desks. When our plane was departing, the ground crew took a bow then waved as we pulled out of the terminal.

There is more to Japan and we saw a lot of what real Japan looked like by driving out to the countryside.


best thread eva!

if someone wanted to replicate this trip what type of budget would it take?

I'm not sure if I can take "best thread eva!" credit ever since DBK posted the thread of him shipping his Ford GT to the UK, driving to France then driving on the track at the 24hr of lemans. That's baller status we can all aspire to reach.

I guess budget wise it depends on what you want to do really. You can rent a normal kei car for a hell of a lot cheaper than we rented our stagea (and would save you a lot on gas). I would say realistically, including airfare, hotel, our rental, and general spending money on things like parking, food, gas (we drove about 2000km's, a tank of fuel was almost 90 bucks US) a safe budget would be around 3-4 grand. Granted, I split the hotel and rental car with 2 other people so that helped. The plane alone was 1600 round trip, the hotel was 1300 for 10 nights and the rental car was just over a grand for 10 days.

Well worth it though
 

svtfocus2cobra

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Said the BMW was built by a company called HGK that originally built it as a a racecar. Pretty much the same car as below with a full package cost of about $250k.
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Z06

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Holy Shit! Impressive! That was a well worth it trip. I was just about to say you haven’t been to Japan unless there was some R34’s. I got put in my place real quick! Lol
 

STAMPEDE3

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Sweet pics. Looks like a great trip.
I must be the only one here who would skip all the BMW, Lambo, GTRs, etc....
And settle for a AE86
 

offroadkarter

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Holy Shit! Impressive! That was a well worth it trip. I was just about to say you haven’t been to Japan unless there was some R34’s. I got put in my place real quick! Lol

If I only had one other passenger with me on this trip I probably would have rented a R34 (or R33) as the rental instead of the Stagea. Still would like to drive a R34 someday so I can look at that cool ass digital display in the dash.

Sweet pics. Looks like a great trip.
I must be the only one here who would skip all the BMW, Lambo, GTRs, etc....
And settle for a AE86

Well, we were going to rent the AE86 except someone drove it into the side of a bus one week before we flew out to Japan lol

The Evo 6 was a blast though, I'm glad I got to drive one of those and I'd love to own a 4-6.
 

Shifty Powers

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Great thread! It certainly sucked up some time at work and finished it off at home. Congrats on finally getting to make it to Japan. That looked like a lot of fun and a hell of a trip.
Was talking to the wife recently that we need to go to Japan. We both really want to and figure it will probably be the next trip after Europe for Belgian F1 GP next year.

So thank you for posting and being informative with it! If I get to go in 2 years or so, I hope to do the driving tour among a few other things you posted!

Again. Awesome trip!
 

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