Let me first start by saying these are just my observations from my time in Tokyo. Different people can visit different places and come away with different impressions. I’m going to focus on the automotive aspects of my trip here in this thread and try not to get into the side / cultural stuff as much.
All pictures in this thread we’re taken by myself using King’s Nikon that I borrowed, thanks again! Some of the pics suck as I didn’t have time to play with things and had to shoot quickly. A video clip of our R33 GTR drive is at the bottom of this post. I also can’t thank Adam (FEAST JAPAN) enough for his hospitality - he’s a real stand up guy :tup:
Tokyo, Japan
When I originally pictured Japan in my head, I imagined streets filled with cool JDM cars. In reality it’s not much different from here in North America. 99% of the cars on the street are just passenger vehicles; Moms and Dads in vans, 4-door bland cars and people who generally don’t care what they drive as long as it gets them from point A to point B. And at the same frequency that you’d see a “cool car” while traveling around our area, only once in a while would I come across a car worth noting.
Normal Streets
Most of the cars in Japan are small. Not because they’re trying to save the environment or spend less on fuel, but because in many driving situations you simply couldn’t fit a bigger car. 2-way streets are the same size as 1-way streets here. Even stop signs and stop points are set back by about a bus-length from where they’d be placed on our streets because if they were any closer, cars would be unable to turn without clipping someone’s bumper. Also there are convex mirrors at some street corners to help you see what’s coming down the blind side streets. Things were tight like this even in Rural areas as we experienced later on our R33 GTR drive.
Roads & Highways
All highways are toll roads or have some sort of charge. Booths are everywhere. You don’t see police on the highways either – only speed cameras. And there are signs that tell you that there is an approaching speed camera so unless you’re not paying attention you’re not going to get caught. And there are no speed cameras in the tunnels… and the tunnels can go on for miles. It’s in these tunnels where the Midnight Club does their top-speed runs. A popular meeting spot is daikoku futo and we tried to go there one night but biker gangs had been causing trouble and it was shut down by the police. Street signs are also a bit different. Some even have areas that light up to tell you where congestion is.
Trains
Most people ride the train system in Japan and it gets PACKED. It’s a hell of a lot easier than driving… and cheaper (depending on which trains you take.) The station near where we stayed didn’t have an attendant at the gate… ever. So we figured out that while we still had to pay full price to get where we were going, on our return trip we simply purchased the least expensive ticket (about $1.50) and when we got to our station we just walked off. This saved us a ton of cash as some one-way trips were upwards of $50. Rush hours made the trains so packed you’d be touching someone with all sides of your body. There are even trains reserved for women at peak times of the day to keep old-man-japan’s hands from wandering.
No Hondas?
One thing that definitely surprised me was the lack of Hondas. Nissan and Toyotas outnumbered them by at least 4 to 1. My entire time there I only spotted 4 Civics; all hatches, all stock. In fact there were even more Alfa Romeos and Mitsubishis than Hondas. And just like driving around Buffalo seeing mostly Fords and GMs, Nissans and Toyotas were everywhere in Tokyo. And there seemed to be an endless amount of Nissan and Toyota models… much more so than what we can buy here. We did see one Spoon type-R on a flatbed and one JoesTypeS style Type-R.
American Cars
I may have actually seen more American cars than Hondas, lol. I didn’t take pictures of every one, but they had the basics from Trailblazers to Corvettes. We actually went to a performance shop for American cars called Rod Motors where they had several clean cars and one serious drag car. The shop was in a small area underneath a apartment building. Apparently their drag car was so fast they were kicked out of the local 1/4 mile track. I can’t remember the details of the story.
WELD Techniques / Garage HRS
We also made our way over to a Japanese / Euro shop to hang out for a bit. They had a lot of your run-of-the-mill high HP EVO builds laying around. 
The EVO with the blue tinted headlights was a high dollar build for a customer in California that ended up going belly-up. It was for sale and hopefully has found a good home by now. All the car guys I met were super cool, especially when Adam told them I was a car guy from the US. There was also an Alfa / Italian performance shop next door.
Dealerships
In addition to your everyday normal car dealerships there were also a lot of specialty places and used car performance places. Some had super clean examples of classic Japanese and European cars just ripe for the picking. I’ll let the pictures do the talking here.
Registering & Inspecting / Driver Education
So let’s say you buy a car and you need to get the paperwork squared away. In Japan you take your car to what looks like a toll booth compound where they check things over. We took a short visit to see what it was like. There were rows of new cars parked and waiting to be checked, and people waiting in line at the “booths.” Hey, at least they can wait in their cars. Over here we stand in lines next to fat smelly people and over hear personal conversations we wish we hadn’t. And in Japan you get to learn how to drive on cool obstacle courses complete with little hills, street replicas and mini twisties. (see the pictures shot though the green fence.)
Gas Stations
Gas stations are a tad different. There are both self serve and full service. Some stations have hoses hanging from the roof while others have the pumps we’re used to. But take a look at those sweet fuel filler guns. In the video below you’ll see what happens when we pull up to a full service gas station.
Car Cafe & History Garage
Yeah, a car cafe. Like a Starbucks that serves coffee and beer while you’re surrounded by primo examples of sports cars, race cars and racing paraphernalia. Smoking allowed. And there is even a window to watch Toyota master techs do whatever they’re up to in the shop behind the counter. Just don’t try to tell the waitress sarcastic jokes or she’s likely to take you seriously. We had a bit of fun with the race driver statue and posed him in honor of Michael Jackson (who had died that day) before we left. Tons of cool stuff to buy as well.
Random Car Finds
I took pictures of anything that seemed cool or unusual and found a few noteworthy things here and there. Some of these American cars we wouldn’t look twice at here but over there among the funky minivans and tiny cars they seemed out of place. I also got some shots of this awesome stacking car park / ramp. I don’t know if I’d want to put my car into one of those vending machines…
R33 GTR Purchase
Now for some real fun stuff. Adam, my brother and I went on a train ride north to meet up with this younger guy and buy his R33 GTR. He picked us up from the station and while he didn’t speak English, like most Japanese people he could at least understand it enough to respond. After getting back to his house and Adam looking over the car (in his sweet GTR jumpsuit so the kid knew he was serious) the deal was struck and we were off to find some fun roads! See portions of the video clip below! We made a few stops, one at a damn high in the mountains and a few places along the way back into Tokyo and Adams shop.
Video:
Non-Automotive Stuffs
I’ll finish this thread out with a few non-automotive pictures from my trip. I took a bunch of side trips to Mt. Fuji, Tokyo Tower, shrines, Emperors Palace, etc that were a lot of fun. And I’d also add that this was a great trip but not relaxing at all, lol. That’s mostly my fault for cramming so much into my time there. If you ever have the chance to go make sure you plan in some breathing room / time! Hope you enjoyed this thread!
Yokohama Bay Bridge and Skywalk
Yokohama
Tokyo Tower
Mt. Fuji
On Fuji looking out
Part way up Fuji
Sony Building (super awesome inside)
Cool diagonal intersections
Emperors Palace Gardens
Nikko
Original Post in this thread:
On Saturday I’ll be flying to Tokyo to visit my brother who’s in the Air Force and also meet up with Adam (FEAST JAPAN) to do some automotive filming :tup:
Anyone have any requests or things they’d really like to see? Anyone who’s been there have any tips?
My goal (if I can) is to compare and contrast the automotive scene and bring a bit of it home to show to everyone on NYSpeed.
I’ve never been there, so feel free to go off-topic in this thread about other things that might be cool to see and film outside of things automotive.
I’ll also be updating this thread at different legs of my trip 
