The Official "Wrap Up" Thread of my trip to Japan!!! ***TONS-O-PICS***

[Nick Stonawski]

Dont mean to dwarf BorHors thread but someone does need to club him over the head for being in Japan and only minutes away from Tokyo Auto Salon yet not going! GOSH!!!!! :3d_frown::biglaugh:




I have traveled all over Europe and am now set to explore another area of the globe, Japan! So everyone from the shop including a few friends and I took the trip across the Pacific to the country of Japan. With help from our friend and auto/parts importer Takashi, we were able to see everything we came to see and help with the translation barrier.

Here we go…


Tokyo- Landed, went to our hotel rooms at the Tokyo Hilton and then took a walk at midnight around Shinjuku area to get more familiar with the area. Even the McDonalds there was awesome! They have a shrimp burger, teriyaki burger, McPork burger and a damn good Big Mac with Egg in it like from an egg Mcmuffin. Mmmm mmmm good! Yoshinoya wasn’t too far either and at the KFC u can order Beer with your Chicken!! Even at 1am there are still men in full business suits walking about with briefcases and whatnot like they just got out of work. Two of them saw me taking pics on the street and started saying “America!!!” with a big grin on their faces doing a weird dance and hand gestures, so I snapped a pic. All over Japan they have vending machines of all sorts. Some that dispense cans of hot coffee, Kit-Kats, hot corn chowder soup, green tea, water, sodas, cigarettes/cigars, etc. The machines are literally as common if not more common then fire hydrants on our streets in America. They’re EVERYWHERE! All day and into the night there are arcades open with all types of crazy games to play. Even cool looking slot machines. Forced Ryan to sit down and pull the handle a few times. Back at the hotel at 2 am and needing to be up at 6am to run the schedule Takashi had planned out, I decided to sleep in and just cruise the town of Tokyo with Bryan and Billy the next day at our own pace.
Bus ride to the Hotel

Our View outside the Tokyo Hilton

The Crew: Lisa, Ryan, Perry, Takashi and Lance

 

[Nick Stonawski]

Shibuya and Harajuku
Rijeet, his girlfriend Ruth, Billy, Bryan and I hit the town of Shibuya and Harajuku at 10am the next morning to wander the fashion district. All sorts of crazy shops and what not around including graffiti and other art. Prices were a bit outrageous in some stores for me to even bother walking in. I have never been big on fashion so I let the ballers like Rijeet go in and look at $600 casual jackets. Hehe. Though there were some other wild things to see. Alligator shoes and I’m not talking about the real kind, I’m talking about the kind that would be out of a comic book. Four hundred bucks for these beauts were a bit out of my price range but not out of view from my camera. One of the shops was called “The Filth and the Fury”, and had some interesting things as well. Interesting bikes outside and some crazy works of porcelain art inside. I tried taking pics of the porcelain inside but all I got to snag was a pic pf the bunny being stabbed in the back with a knife before one of the employees asked me not to take pics in the shop. Another cool item they had was a large bust of Hitlers head made of porcelain with a spout on one end and a handle on the other, a Tea pot. Best of all were the guns they had in the display case, guns titled “Porcelain of War”. They were guns and grenades made out of porcelain. From Uzi’s to Colt .45, AK47’s and so on. Down the major street there were Pie shops with incredible displays of artwork using simple fruits. Retailed for $80+. To finish off the day we hit the famous intersection with hoards of people walking in Shibuya where it is estimated 500 people cross the street every time the light turns. Can u find me in the mix?

Smallest bar in Tokyo

The JR line gets pretty damn crowded…

 

[Nick Stonawski]

TAS
The Next day was the Tokyo Auto Salon (TAS) show. It’s the largest annual import car and aftermarket show on the planet. If your big on imports (Japanese specifically) then I highly recommend u come check this show out once. It will make any show u go to after this seem like a backyard get together. We got lucky scoring some press day pass tickets so we were able to snap pics without the large crowds TAS is known for. I took over 100 pics at this show alone and to keep this write up from being too long ill just include the pics I thought were best! Though all are VERY worthy of being posted.

Bryans Mugshot:

Billy got all the girls

 

[Nick Stonawski]

TAS Parking Lot
The Parking lot at the show was another event in itself. Cars that would win first place at every show in America were just casually parked among the many other “beaters” in the lot. I may have snapped just as many pics out here as I did inside! Again here are just a couple I snapped to keep the amount of pics from getting out of control. From super rare Top Secret Supra Widebodies to tiny little cars we don’t even know the names of, decked out full tilt as if it were just customary to do with any automobile owned in Japan.

 

[Nick Stonawski]

Daikoku Meet
So after a loooong day at the Auto Salon we went back to the hotel and everyone kinda split off and did their own thing. Takashi and his buddy Adachi-san gave another guy in Yokohama a buzz to come pick us up from the hotel to take us to the famous Daikoku meet just outside of the city. When he arrives we go outside and I let out a small laugh cause I had flew half way around the world and Hiramoto-san shows up to drive us in a Cherry 1969 Z28 Camaro. The car was AWESOME and so was Hiramoto-san! This was actually the first car I ever wanted when I was younger. It was perfect! Unfortunately the motor had just been replaced and wasn’t able to take it to full throttle. So we drove it back to his garage in Yokohama area and picked up another left hand drive car, S class Mercedes. Riding in style.

We then headed out to the Daikoku meet. We showed up early and saw 8 Lamborghini Diablo’s in the parking lot but no other imports. So we grabbed a bite to eat and came back an hour later. It was perfect timing cause the parking lot had now exploded with cars I’m interested in. the cops were cool too and let me take a pic of them in their car at the meet. One was cool and said he visited Palm Springs last summer and I told him I used to live there. Again all types of cars were there. GT-R’s, RX7’s, Supras, 240’s etc. Even a four rotor Rx7 showed. When revved up it sounded exactly like a motorcycle! Many there were from Australia or other English speaking countries and was able to have a conversation with a few people. The guys with the supras though were full blooded Japanese and spoke no English at all. So the art of finger pointing was my only way of communication.

 

[Nick Stonawski]

 

[Nick Stonawski]

Wangan
At nights end of the Daikoku meet, Hiramoto-san took us through the famous underwater Wangan tunnel at over 140mph in his S-Class! How many people have done that?!  A very big exclamation point to the end of a great day!!

Sick Day
After the long day and night, the weather, jet lag, and my roommate’s sickness all kinda caught up with me at once. My roommate Perry aka Ryan’s dad who works at the shop with us, had come down with a nasty cough and after listening to it for a while I immediately recognized the sounds from his breathing and coughing… it was Pneumonia. Perry had to go to the ER that night which luckily was literally a stones throw away, though it was a holiday and the ER there didn’t have the doctors to handle Perry’s case at the moment. So they sent him back to the room with a couple meds to hold him over for 3 days till the ER was fully prepared with the right medical staff to attend to his condition. I couldn’t get any sleep from all his coughing so I had to room with Billy and Bryan that night. I was feeling sick too, so I slept in the following day, all day and just rested till I got better.

 

[Nick Stonawski]

Tuner Shops
A late start to Sunday and I join Billy, Bryan Rijeet and Ruth again for a stroll through Shibuya again. Though it was short lived since Takashi had invited me for another night on the town. I couldn’t resist since he told me what was in store. Once again we met up and took the train to Yokohama and Hiramoto-san picked us up again. This time in another car. His wife’s Nissan Rasheen with a SR20DET swap! This guy had all the cool cars. We set out to find some tuner shops including Abflug/S2 and DoLuck, though it had been a while since Hiramoto had been to these places and each one we went to had moved or closed down. So we went to a shop close by called “Works”. They had some nice rides in the showroom so I snapped a couple.

Full Race Civic. Lexan windows and all

Next we went to the shop Hiramoto-san gets his cars worked on. This was a hotrod shop only. Some beautiful cars in the shop including the owners Black Corvette in the corner with a motor swap. A car that would easily retail over $100,000. Awaiting the wait time at dinner, we stopped by an UpGarage and Autobacs. For those that don’t know, UpGarage is a used car parts store. So all types of cool used and sometimes almost new parts were there. from Turbo kits, to audio systems, all sorts of things to look at and purchase to make the time fly.

Crazy Dinner
I told Takashi, aside from sushi, when I got to Japan that I wanted to eat things I couldn’t normally eat/get in America. So he found the best spot, a place u can actually fish for your own food then have it prepared how u like, whether it be raw sashimi, deep fried or cooked. This was my kind of place! As soon as u walk in there is a window where u can watch the chefs prepare the food. The chefs would cut all the meat off the sides of the fish while it was till alive and stick a chopstick through it while preparing the sashimi. Even with the fish skewered it was still flapping its fins and chomping it mouth while being served to the customer! Even fish heads by themselves removed from the body were still trying to breathe. AWESOME!! So we sat down and Takashi asked me if I was down for some “weird shit” to eat. So he asked if I was cool with eating Horse or Whale! HELL YA BRING IT ON!! So I got my fishing pole and spent an hour trying to hook something in the aquarium built around the boat in the restaurant. There were Fish, Eels, small sharks, and all sorts of other sea creatures such as abalone, lobsters, crabs and sea cucumbers. All of which u could catch and eat. I hooked two fish but as soon as I got them out of the water they would twitch and break loose and take my hook with them! So I gave up and went back upstairs to join Takashi and Hiramoto in the feast. So there was raw horse neck and red meat, raw whale, cooked tuna (rare part located just behind the head inside the bones/cartilage), all types of sushi including “Shako” which is an animal that eats off dead carcasses in the sea. One of the best dinners I have ever had! For those wondering, the horse neck was cut very then and was a bright white meat which had some chew to it, but nothing too bad. The raw red meat of the horse could not have been from the horse’s leg since it was not chewy at all. Though no matter how slow I chewed to “savor the flavor” I couldn’t quite taste anything different from what regular sashimi tastes like. The whale meat was a bit softer and reminded me of a good chunk of fatty tuna aka “Toro” though I had Toro as well that night on rice, so I know they weren’t the same thing.

Blurry pic of a Tuna head

Fish head still alive…

 

[Nick Stonawski]

Hakone
Going to watch drifting was the next step that night. Hakone is a famous mountain area known for its curvy streets and local drift enthusiasts who get sideways in them late at night. There are many different roads and whatnot where drifting takes place but hard to find where exactly people go every night since they switch it up. We saw a group of “VIP” style cars heading up as we waited by a local liquor store parking lot. We quickly hoped in and followed them 25 mins up the mountain till we found a spot with other cars. I would have never thought these lowered 4 door sedans with luxury comfort written all over them would be the ones putting on the show that night. A couple of the guys who were already there mentioned a cop had gone up where they were planning to drift so we waited until the coast was clear. Unfortunately the cop came back down and saw us, threw on his lights and for some reason started chasing US in the Rasheen!! So Hiramoto –san booked it down the mountain and found a driveway to pull into and switch off his lights. Soon after the cop flew by, not seeing us, and continued down the mountain while we went right back up to meet everyone else who had returned. Time to drift!! A quarter mile or so up was the peak of this mountain and the area where the drifting was going to commence. There was a nice “S” bend before the summit, and that is where the majority of the fun went down. The pictures I took don’t really show the skill and execution these amateur drivers had, so the in car video (which I will post at a later date when finished) will have to do the talking! The owner of the Toyota Mark II was sporting a 1JZ pushing about 300HP and told me he had only been drifting for 4 months. With the skills he had he could easily join the D1 drivers. I stayed filming and snapping pictures till 2am! We went back down the mountain and stopped at a Ramen noodle place for a late dinner/early breakfast and went back to the room to crash from yet another excellent night hanging with Takashi and his friends!

 

[Nick Stonawski]

Osaka and Kyoto
The following morning Takashi and I took the Tokaido Shinkansen (bullet train) headed for Osaka. Average speed was about 120mph but the train has proven to do over 200mph!! Osaka was 320 miles away and with just a few stops we made it in just under 3 hours! We passed Kyoto and stopped in Osaka to grub at an all u can eat sushi & Mongolian style barbecue restaurant. Later we headed back another 20 mins to Kyoto for a tour of a city full of culture. For $150 the taxi driver gave us a full tour of Kyoto in Japanese. Takashi translated for me. Lots of interesting history in Kyoto, but I'm not going to explain it all here. Do a Google search or I would highly recommend to experience it first hand. The people in Kyoto dressed and acted totally different from those in Tokyo. A more relaxed, layed back casual feel is what I got. The Temples were beautiful. The Kinkaku-ji aka the Temple of the Golden Pavilion was unbelievable. The top portion of it is all pure gold. The cost for Japan to redo it in gold recently cost them $17million!! I was just in awe. Truly an image I got on camera as well as a lasting image on my memory. As secluded as it looks, its only on the outskirt of the city. Around it are the other monasteries and Zen gardens. A small tip though the city towards the next temple, we stopped in a quiet village where the teachings of Geisha women are still preformed today. The “Miko” are the places where the girls from 14-20 learn the trade and after 20, they are able to serve men alcohol and be Geisha. The cost these days for having a Geisha JUST SERVE YOU ALCOHOL FOR ONE NIGHT can cost up to $2000!!!! This day we arrived in Kyoto was also special since this was a holiday where all girls who turn 20 all over Japan dress up in full Geisha looking outfits with beautifully done hair and all. Below is a picture of two girls in very modest outfits compared to some I saw throughout the day. Kiyomizu-dera Temple was the next stop and had a wonderful view looking over the city of Kyoto. With night approaching fast I got some last pics and bought some gifts as well. This being the end to my 7 day tour of Japan I was ecstatic with my adventure yet sad I had to leave.

Just a funny picture of some guy with huge nuts…

The “Miko” street

So after 3 hours of typing all this at 7am, I am happy I officially got all I could on paper to help share with u and remind me of the time I had in the country I have grown to love sooooo much. I am seriously considering someway of possibly getting a job in Tokyo and at least getting an opportunity to live there somehow. Weather it be as a German or English translator (which they are in need of there), I am looking for some kind of excuse to go back. The women there are all so beautiful and kind and totally my type! Given another week or two there I would have maybe snagged myself a wife!! Haha. Thanx for reading through yet another one of my travels and hope to bring yet another interesting and exciting read for you after my next… to where… I’m not sure yet.

 

[BorHor]

Thanks for making me feel more bad.

 

[Nick Stonawski]

Thanks for making me feel more bad.

next year foo!!! ill be there and so will YOU!!!

 

[BorHor]

Yup for sure.

 

[thechori]

oh my jeeesusss. those cars were sex...........god i hate my life


hahah awesome pictures dude, looks like you had a fu********in ball.

 

[emission]

Sweet he has hood pins now. lol
His interior is full of CF, Not to mention he's running on air, for that sick ass drop. I want TRD seats, not a big fan of gold wheels. but I love the car.

 

[TurboFreak]

That. Is. Awesome.


I need to start a little "Trip to Japan with Boris and Nick fund..."

 

[Kai]

Guys - find me some IS300 coils while you're there

 

[suprahero]

Pictures were awesome Nick. It looks like a beautiful place to visit. It looks a little different tha Alabama does.............

Now you can post up the pictures of the women that you took.........please!

 

[BlackMKIII]

Wow.

 

[AF1JZ]

Thanks Nick for all the awesome pictures. I think that I might have to go to Japan now.

And to think, I had orders to Yakota AB, Japan back in 05' (got cancelled due to sleep apnea). Yakota is right outside of Tokyo. Sometimes I just hate the Air Force for screwing me over like that.