I hope tire smoke isn't carcinogenic...

So yeah, as I said, it was a bit of a hike. But getting to see a ton of Sylvias, Skylines, hachi-rokus, and a pair of awesome Toyotas (a Chaser and a Soarer, of course!) tear around the Ebisu South Course, mostly sideways, I can honestly say that waking up at 6 and riding the trains for 5 hours was well worth it. Getting there really was crazy though. I transfered at all of these stations I had never heard of onto lines that I had no understanding of geographically. Realistically, I could have ended up in Okinawa and not have realized it. But my broken Japanese was enough to carry me through the commute, meet up with Kristine, and eat ramen way too early at Kouriyama station. From there it was just a couple stops to Nihommatsu and Ebisu Circuit. We gave up on taking a bus once presented with the timetables for doing so, and just took a cab. It was like 3000yen for a 15 minute ride, which believe it or not isn't that bad for Japan. Good thing too, cuz the cab driver took us inside the circuit right to the South Course, which ended up being another 5 minutes up and down a bunch of hills. Good thing we didn't have to walk from the bus station. But being in a cab was definitely a little awkward, especially with all the other car lovers checking each other's rides out, all under a banner that said "no car = no life". So true. But oh man, once we got to the track. All the teams actually racing that day had their cars lined up behind the main grandstands, with the drivers coming out to meet the fans. This was my first event so I didn't really know much about the drivers, but after this race and watching the Option DVD I bought of the first round from 2006, Ken "monkey" Nomura aka Nomuken is def my favorite. For one, because he was a huge showoff and was the only driver to always drift through the unscored warm up section on the upper half of the track, which happened to be where all the free section seats were. Also for trying to slide the rear end of his awesome Blitz Skyline while half out of the car, but not being able to cuz he's pretty short. I was cheering for him after seeing him in the prelims, and he made it to the final battle against one of the Team Orange Imprezas and took second. The judge kept saying "this is truly a high level battle!" :) As far as the cars go, seeing a big Chaser slide around the circuit in full D1 spec solidified my love of all things Toyota (or at least all Toyotas with the 1JZ-GTE / 2JZ-GTE). Every day I'm here I feel the need for a car more and more, and I'm definitely going to run out of things to do in my town if I don't expand my operating range with some (twin turbo) wheels soon.

So maybe, hopefully, I got really lucky after the race. I called a cab to pick me and Kristine up but was kind of worried about the cabbie's ability to determine where we were exactly based on the short conversation. So when an opportunity presented itself, (much like the time I accidentally spent my train fare on McDonald's in Hitachi) I humbly asked for the assistance of the international community in Japan, and ended up meeting some damn cool people in the process. Waved hello and asked the first group of white people I saw if they could give us a lift to the station, and they happily obliged. As luck would have it, the guy was driving a really slick looking JZX100 Chaser Touring V, with the 1JZ-GTE and numerous mods. Turns out he's a dealer just outside Tokyo specializing in exporting JDM cars! Of course I already knew that there's nothing I can do to bring a car here back to the states. But it was awesome luck to meet a guy who knows all the details about buying cars here, especially the kind of cars I want to buy. Plus, he was happy to let me and Kristine know about all kinds of drift events coming up soon. Hopefully I will get to go to some of them, since I just found out today that the Super GT in Motegi is no go :(

Chou A Class

So coming up this weekend, maybe, is the D1GP in Fukushima, the closest its going to get to Ibaraki. I'm so far north in Ibaraki I'm almost in Fukushima anyway. Even given that, though, it looks like I am looking at a 5-6 hour trip, one way, to get to the Ebisu circuit where the event is gonna be at. Not that it's actually that far away, its just that the trains are exactly the opposite here as they are in Tokyo. Sporadic service at best, with stations located next to pretty much nothing. I'll have to switch lines 2 or 3 times and spend almost as much time waiting in a station for a train to come as I will on the actual trains. All of which just reminds me of why I need a car.

But! Man, I did some searching around on Yahoo auctions, and it might not be that bad at all to get one. The main problem is that the cars here are so freakin cool. Why is that a problem? Because I can't take it with me. Once my time here is done so is my time with the RHD beast that I want so much. If I bring it to America, it would probably get crushed in some junkyard. So what do I do? Get so close to my dream of driving a Supra around the C1 inner, only to spend my time here in a Civic? Or worse yet, a little kei car? Or spend significantly more money and do something that I've always wanted, but know that I would have to give it up in the end?

I was looking at Soarers (Lexus SC) on Yahoo, and the price for most of them from '92-'97 was around 300,000 - 600,000 yen. Knock a couple zeros off to get dollars, and you might think that it sounds about right, maybe a little on the cheap side for a car that is at least 9 years old. Except for a couple things. First, they're Toyotas, so you know that they will run for like 150k miles easy. Second, not a single one had more than 90k on the odo! I guess that even though Ibaraki is inaka countryside, and people use their cars way more than in Tokyo, America is still way ahead of the game there. These cars would probably be twice as expensive in the states and have twice the mileage. Plus they wouldnt even be as cool as they are here! The SC300, the "sporty" coupe from Lexus, has the 2JZ-GE engine. Almost perfect yeah? Except that little "T" that's missing stands for the most important part, turbo. Here the best Soarer has the 1JZ-GTE engine. Slightly smaller displacement (2.5 vs 3.0 liters) compared to the 2JZ, but it has the twin turbo action and 280 hp (upper limit for Japanese cars, not always followed "officially"). It's not the Supra's TT but its related to it and its still a turbo.

So what I'm thinking, is I'm not buying a car, but an engine to take back to the states and put in an American car, bring a little of the dream back with me. I just get the added bonus of having a car attatched to it while I'm here. The 1JZ-GTE is pretty prevalent here, not only in the Soarer TT but also the Chaser Touring V (a pretty badass sedan, also a fav) and the Mk III Supra. Howeeeever (shikashi!) maybe I should also look at the Toyota Aristo (Lexus GS) because they put the real deal, the main event, the 2JZ-GTE, in that bad boy. Hmm... better go back to check the auctions...

catch up

Got inspired to write another post here after getting bored at the Board of Education and finding other JET blogs on the Ibaraki JETs forum. And considering I'm planning on posting this blog on that forum after I write this its like an endless feedback loop thing. But honestly (especially considering how annoying blogger has been to use, I think I liked the old livejournal better) it's hard to tear myself away from Ouendan !

Yeah I know, I'm like a year late on this one, but I just got my DS a couple months ago! So if somehow you haven't already played/heard of it, its a rhythm game for the NDS where you tap/slide on the touch screen to make your badass cheer gang give everyone the kind of fighting spirit they need to get through the day. Like the standard kid studying for entrance exams, or maybe the concert violinist riding the train to his receital with severe diarreah. The music is all J-pop, and even though I'm not particularly fond of the pop music here (except Kishidan!) its all catchy. I guess I never really got into the rhythm games much before outside of Taiko no Tetsujin, but its a really cool way to connect with the music. Plus, Ouendan is so freakin hard that there's a huge sense of accomplishment when you finally beat a stage.

RANDOM CATCH UP STUFF

went camping with all the 5th graders in the area. all the kids here love bugs, and love to show them to me.

went into tokyo and met up with anthony, went to namja town!

went on a mission in akihabara to find a way to play US PS2 games on a system here, and also to buy ouendan cheap. succeeded in the first while dodging crossplaying maids, but the second had to wait until i checked out the book off store here in takahagi. well actually it was called the chameleon club for some reason but it was in the book off store.

iwaki beach bomb - trying to cram as much drinking as possible at an hour long nomihoudai followed by - get this - black nikka in a can! was a bad idea, passed out on the beach pretty soon after getting there, woke up at 5 am with sand everywhere.

the last event will have to be a secret until i go back there so i can photographically document its awesomeness and enlighten everyone reading this.

Terebi

Japanese TV is so fucking retarded. I just had to get that off my chest. Every time I've turned it on I am astounded at whats on. If its not the stupid eating shows that Anthony has so elequently called out, its even worse. Last week I was bored and what did I see but a show about "hey what completely fucking retarded stuff that no one would waste their time thinking about can we come up to do with everyday items?" First, someone was like look, its just a normal 2L bottle! But watch! (everyone else on the studio stage goes eee?) Just by squeezing the sides a bit, I can suck up this egg yolk into the bottle and drop it on some rice! (Everyone else on stage goes uwaaaaaaa! and starts clapping) Next, a guy is like look! I cut across this carrot! And now, I can scale this fish with the cut edge! That one was too much even for one of the guys getting paid to think it was amazing, because he was like wait, I can do that with my finger. Then he did. He pushed some fish scales around with his finger. It was on TV. Yeah I turned it off after that. But now, Im bored and trying to do laundry, and its even worse. Im flipping around and see the studio people start clapping as some guy comes out of a dark entryway. Its just a dumbass guy in a green tshirt ive never seen before, so I change the channel. I've only got like 8 channels so I was back there pretty fast. And the fucker in the green t shirt was demonstrating how he can open one of those plastic wrapped wet towels by just flicking it with one finger while holding it by one end. Then, the announcer is like "so what is this guys true power?" It turnes out his ability was to fold the hand towels into animals. Only they werent actually anything. Oh man. His "pengin" was just rolled up and folded in half with a corner sticking out. Godzilla was like the exact same thing. When I went on a cruise the fucking maids did a better job. But this guy made a little group and his green T shirt was actually advertising his "art." Jesus. And the entire time Hard Gay was just in the background not being Hard Gay. Plus Beat Takeshi was there watching too. So fucking ridiculous. I think the only requirement to be on Japanese TV is to be able to act interested in people who have wasted their lives. But I did learn that HG has like a gay crush on the fortune teller judge from Iron Chef. AAAARGH. And Pe Yon Joon's japanese sounds just like Ahn Tuans.

After actually sitting down and watching the next guy, who was in his 30s and has been making little robot action figures out of rolled up paper, and then videotaping himself play wrestling two of them together, and then the next guy, who was in his late 60s and just completely fucking out of his mind in a room surroundeb by dumb crap he made, I kinda had a revelation. Maybe it has to do with how proud the Japanese are about their overall national identity, but its like they're very accepting about small personal eccentricities. Like all the old women who dressed up in Hawaiian costumes and danced in front of everyone at the matsuri, not to mention the flamenco, samba, and belly dancers. Or all these people who have spent a whole hell of a lot of time making "art" out of nothing. They interviewed the old guy's wife for a bit, and she was like yeah, I put up with it because it makes him genki. And he certainly fucking was. But its not just that theyre tolerated, they get paraded around and celebrated in public, or put on TV with studio announcer types saying nothing but "uwaaaaa" or "sugeeeeeee." And I don't think its sarcasm either, considering how well sarcasm goes over in general here. The only comparison I can think of in America is stuff like when they bring the "UFO expert" or "psychic" onto the daily show, or the entire first 5 episodes of any American Idol clone. They celebrate (completely retarded) stuff, we point and laugh at how ridiculous it is. I mean, we're right, but it always seems kind of mean.