Tuesday, January 30th, 2001
I wake up early, but already flustered. I feel like I still have a s**t load to do in order to go to Kansai, and I am right. I pack the books up (after modifying the dimensions of the box) and get it addressed as neatly and legibly as possible. Wwooop! Toyota just opened...I call and make a Janglish reservation for tomorrow's factory tour. I finish stuffing my pack and run, maybe more like waddle, out the door. Here's a sight...a six-foot-one gaijin wearing a bright red jacket and a huge red pack, carrying: a heavy Japanese Postal Service box full of books, my Timbuk2 bag, and the garbage and recycling (as a surprise favor to Echo.) I am trying to hurry, but felt more like an ox, or maybe a camel, a big, bright beast of burden storming through this quiet, midmorning, very Japanese, little-old-ladies-and-schoolkids suburb. Only a little bit of customs paper later, and I am off to Shinjuku, sweating in the 3^o Celsius weather. I need to change money in order to buy a ticket, and I know that there are several banks in Shinjuku close to the station. I try four different ones, pack still on, finding only ATM's and local branches. You know what they say...the fifth time's a charm, especially when it's Citibank. Half an hour later, the bank was very very satisfied that it was indeed my signature on each and every traveller's check I had signed in front of them, but I was already running for the bus station...OK, it is almost noon. There is usually an early afternoon bus-maybe 5-1/2 or 6 hours to Nagoya...supposed 20 minute walk to the Youth Hostel...I have to check in by 10:00 PM....Eeeeyikes, it's going to be tight, especially if that walk is more than 20 minutes or if I get lost! At the JR Bus counter in Shinjuku station, I can't get any help. I guess it must be lunch hour or something. Resigned to my fate, I start to relax. Luckily for both me and my undershorts, before I relax too much, I realize what is causing some of my tension. Takashimaya Depato (Department Store) is close, but the men's room is busy. I decide it is probably faster to wait than to try another floor, so I take off my pack. Ten minutes later, my wait is over, but I have my newly-vacated stall ganked by some other guy!
1:05 PM. Let's see if my luck has improved any back at the ticket counter. I ask in Japanese, "I'm sorry. I would like to go to Nagoya today. I'm sorry. I don't understand much Japanese. Can I get a ticket to Nagoya today? What time? How much does it cost? Thank you I'm sorry." Oh...I see now; I have a choice of times. I get to decide between 11:30 PM and 11:50 PM. I buy the 11:30 and consider the consequences: I lost out on the view out the bus window. I gained half a day in Shinjuku, one night's accomodation charge, and a nice early start. I still think I would prefer to see out the window...I alwasy have to know where I am...the lay of the land...what it all looks like...you can't put a price on that. I am starved, but I want to call the Youth Hostel ASAP to keep them from getting any more pissed about my cancellation than they were already going to be. I find a phone booth, but it is in use, and the guy was making multiple calls referring to a sheet of phone numbers. I thought every one in Japan had cell phones-Oh wait..._those_ are for sending e-mail messages with. OK...I find another phone booth, but I don't have correct change. "Chenji ga arimasuka?" A nice old man is more than happy to oblige, and the hostel is cheerful too.
I eat a misoburger for lunch, which isn't anywhere near as good as it sounds, even after scraping the onions off. I fanasize about Japanese cars in the sunshine-filled lunch counter window. A passing black Corvette breaks my revery. C4 Corvette...a RARE bird in Japan. I know that Toyota sold Cavaliers in Japan as part of the Toyota/GM bed-buddies deal, so GM isn't unheard of, but try and find a dealer with LT1 parts in Japan! The Cavalier thing has been puzzling me. Why would anyone in Japan buy one? Well, maybe they don't judging by how few I have seen on Japanese roads, but why would Toyota agree to sell them? It makes no sense. Unless they are sold at a considerably lower sticker than in America, and isn't charged any import tgaxes, anything JDM in that price range is going to be a better car, whatever your criteria: performance, ride quality, build quality, efficiency, power, etc. I'm guessing from what I've seen that Japanese vehicle tax and registration laws, usually based on size (engine cc and external dimensions) must be different for imported cars. A Cavalier is 2400cc. In Japan, this is one of the biggest and most expensive size categories. Most other cars in the 2.5-liter ballpark are are often straight-six (naturally aspirated or turbo) two or four-door rear-wheel-drive luxury sports coupes, sports sedans, and sports wagons. Sort of like a luxurious M3 in that they have plenty of go, plenty of status, plenty of handling. Four-banger front-wheel-drive small economy cars are 660cc to 1500cc or maybe 1800cc on the outside, and cost a lot less to register. The Cavalier just doesn't make sense.
To kill some time I go to play more driving video games. There is a Ferrari 355 Challenge game at Suzuka...and it is so much fun! The sound is incredible and comes from right behind you. The feedback is very realistic, and the vehicle dynamics aspect of the game is excellent, one of the most consistently realistic I have experienced. The car is definately a mid-engined car on super-sticky tires, so it can be hard to catch once it starts to slide, especially since you can turn the traction control off! The ol' Corolla technique of "any unwanted oversteer above 40 mph? Just floor it and gather the car up!" doesn't work so well with 400 hp. My point is that the car in the game could be made to oversteer, but it was tricky. Add in all the other challenges of the game (it won't let you downshift unless you rev-match in neutral, the computer is very hard to beat, etc.) and hanging the back end out isn't my main priority in racing during the game. Once I had played it a bunch of times and I was getting used to the game, inducing slight oversteer while turning in _felt_ faster, but just like real life, it wasn't really any faster. But I think that Japanese driving enthusiasts live to oversteer, because this Japanese guy jumps in and is drifting all over the track like crazy...almost every corner, any speed...and he would keep up with the computer! There are also a whole range of nighttime highway battle/mountain road drifting games of varying quality, but always featuring Corolla AE86, FC3S RX-7, 180SX, R32 Skyline, etc. Some of these are quite fun too.
I continue to kill time in bookstores; I finally find some postcards! I sit outside looking over the train tracks at Takashimaya Times Square (Lester's favorite spot) and write ten or fifteen postcards. This necessitated finding stamps, after which I continued to wander the streets until 11:00 PM.
The bus ride to Nagoya isn't much fun. The supposed benefit of overnight buses is that you save on accomodation. Well, you also save on sleep. This bus is in the neighborhood of 100^o Fahrenheit, and we have a persistent sleeping tooth-grinder mid-bus! I magage to see a little bit out of my window. I keep the curtain cracked to try and see out, and to try and let some cold in, but the window would condense over and start running every few minutes from all the heat and snoring on the bus. It gets bad enough that I am stripped down to a t-shirt and no shoes and I am still sweating! I manage to see huge piles of snow, a few mountain hillsides, and that was about it. I do see a Mavic Team Car with its parking lights on at a rest station by the side of the road. It is pure Euro-style, a small station wagon, bright yellow and covered with three-foot tall Mavic logos, with a huge roof rack and about twenty spare road bike wheels on the roof. I am puzzled and amused to see a bicycle-racing team support car in such an unlikely location at such an odd time. I don't think there is any road bike racing in Japan in January. Maybe I am hallucinating...heat exhaustion combined with sleep deprivation!
Today's observations: The Japanese have real issues with handling money. In stores/restaurants/banks, you place your money in a plastic tray. The clerk removes it beneath the counter, puts your change in the tray, and hands the tray back to you. When money is given as a gift or a tip, it is always in an envelope. Some places, the cashier disinfects his or her hands after every transaction! Then there are all the ticket machines; you buy a ticket for train/bus/museum admittance/lunch/soup/whatever, at a machine right next to the counter where a bored employee sits, and then you give the employee at the counter the ticket to prove that you have paid. Any place change is needed (coin lockers, video games, ticket machines) there are also change machines! Wierd!
The other thing I have noticed: the Japanese use very polite language whenever providing you with a service, even over a P.A. system. On the busses and trains they always use "If you please..." forms when making announcements, "If you please, get off at the next stop to connect to the Naninani Line." Today I started noticing a "If you would please...." form. Not a "If you would, please..." but a "If you would be so kind as to deign to listen to me...." form! Teinei means polite in Japanese.
Only in Japan: A 308 Ferrari with a large wing on the back (touring style with two drilled-out aluminum central supports and little endplates) hustling down the road, with a Honda S2000 _hot_ on its heels. We're talking inches, and anxious to prove itsself, with an R32 Skyline GT-R, complete with ski rack on the roof, not far behind, and waiting to embarass them both!
January 31st, 2001
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