GETTING TO JAPAN, DELAYS, SUPER AUTOBACS
So I stopped being lazy and finally got around to starting my Japan tour diary as a few members were keen on the idea to see what I experienced on my trip back in February and to get ideas for their own trips. On the trip I took about 1600 photos. I obviously wont be posting every single pic but ill try my best to post all the cool interesting things ☺
As I saw so much i will update in parts when I have time available. Hope you enjoy the read.
Before we even left Sydney our trip wasn't looking too good as Tokyo was experiencing their worst snowstorm in 40 years. The city had snow absolutely dumped on them for the week before we were meant to arrive. Narita airport was actually closed up until the Friday morning!!! Safe to say I was a bit worried reading updates constantly that week However on Saturday February 15th my girlfriend and I flew out of Sydney on Singapore airlines headed for Japan. One 3 hour lay over in Singapore later and we had arrived in the land of the rising sun on the Sunday morning.
Didn't even make it out of the airport before buying my first of many boss coffees
One of the main reasons for going to Japan was to snowboard (my girlfriend and I are both avid snowboarders). The first 5 days of our trip was planned to be spent snowboarding in hakuba but first we had to get there. You'd think that these massive snowstorms would be great for us then right? WRONG!!! Although the snow had stopped the problems associated with the storms were still continuing. Many of the countries highways were covered in several meters of snow as were the train lines. Not the most ideal thing when you have to travel 3 hours across the country to reach the snow resorts of hakuba.
We had originally organised to receive a coach transfer across to hakuba from the airport but upon arriving no service was waiting. We found a small group of Aussies who ended up being in the same predicament as us (we ended up becoming good friends with 3 of them and hung out the whole time we were in hakuba). An hour of rushing around trying to communicate with multiple people we somehow acquired a prepaid phone and were able to call our coach company. We were basically told "do we want the bad news or the bad news?"
Our coach and driver had left the previous day to try and beat the storm that had left Tokyo and was now making it's way further across the country...he failed. He was stuck on a highway about halfway between Tokyo and hakuba in a couple meters of snow. Our next option was to catch the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Nagano then catch a bus from there to hakuba. Oh wait all train lines that way were snowed under as well. We were told lines were currently being cleared and our only option was to purchase a ticket for a morning service the next day and just hope for the best.
We were stranded in Tokyo for the night. Cool! We contacted metropolitan marunouchi hotel (the hotel we were staying at later on when we returned to Tokyo) it just happens to be really close to Tokyo station. Luckily enough they had a few rooms available that night. We were all put on the top floor!
Day view
Night view
Thank god for travel insurance right!
Looking to make the most of our afternoon/night in Tokyo we agreed to meet up with our new friends later on that night and headed out to do some sight seeing and explore a little. Me being me our first place we had to visit was of course super autobacs Tokyo bay! Feeling a bit hungry though we stopped in shimbashi and found a cool tendon place. Prawn tempura, miso soup and warm tea. Beautiful I must add it was funny watching my girlfriend attempt to use chopsticks for the first time.
With a rail network as vast as Tokyos it’s a surprise we were able to navigate so easily. Definitely wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. Did get lost at one stage transferring from one line to another but did stumble across this cool temple/shrine in a back alley so I guess it was okay.
Tokyo rail map
Not much later we were getting off at our station across the road from super autobacs!!!! I was seriously like a little kid running off and taking pictures and telling my girlfriend to hurry up
Crowded Japanese trains
Already taking pictures from down the road haha
We finally arrived!!!
Couple of cars in the parking lot out the front. Slammed yaris. Man they love these things. Had aggressive fitting wheels, flares to compensate and brides as far as I could see. Probably more done to it too.
Clean type x
Eventually made it inside and had a look around. It's funny how we think of super autobacs as this crazy jdm parts store etc but really it's not too much different from our super heaps and our autobarns here in aus. They have their tool aisles, their care care aisles and their air freshener aisles but then they have that small back corner area which has all the parts we desire grouped into manufacturer aisles so everything is easy to find.
Mugen parts grouped together in the Honda section
Then there is the wheel section. Floor to roof hangers full of rims.
Want a set of TE37? No worries we have them ready to go
(Sneaky set of RE30s underneath)
Or maybe you like CR KIWAMI? Not to worry we have those too!
Orrrrr maybe you'd like a set of these crazy rims for your super kawaii ride hahaha
There's also the upstairs seating section where all the bride and recaro seats are displayed but I didn't get any photos of this. It's a shame these aren't ADR approved though as it'd be cool to rock one of these for the kids.
Inspecting the nardi and js racing steering wheels. I didn't end up buying any as a Mugen 3 wheel came up for sale on ozhonda
I'd say super autobacs store is made up of 70% normal car products then 30% of the aftermarket parts we like. It's this aftermarket section that makes it so special though. Parts that we'd be waiting for weeks here in Australia are readily available on the shelf here.
The haul from super autobacs that night
After a good hour and a bit looking around and buying parts we finally escaped super autobacs (as my girlfriend describes it haha) but the car adventures didn't stop there Just down the road is another famous Japanese icon. Wangan freeway!
Sadly no high powered cars drove by while I was standing watching
Ill leave it at that for now but plenty more updates to come
So I stopped being lazy and finally got around to starting my Japan tour diary as a few members were keen on the idea to see what I experienced on my trip back in February and to get ideas for their own trips. On the trip I took about 1600 photos. I obviously wont be posting every single pic but ill try my best to post all the cool interesting things ☺
As I saw so much i will update in parts when I have time available. Hope you enjoy the read.
Before we even left Sydney our trip wasn't looking too good as Tokyo was experiencing their worst snowstorm in 40 years. The city had snow absolutely dumped on them for the week before we were meant to arrive. Narita airport was actually closed up until the Friday morning!!! Safe to say I was a bit worried reading updates constantly that week However on Saturday February 15th my girlfriend and I flew out of Sydney on Singapore airlines headed for Japan. One 3 hour lay over in Singapore later and we had arrived in the land of the rising sun on the Sunday morning.
Didn't even make it out of the airport before buying my first of many boss coffees
One of the main reasons for going to Japan was to snowboard (my girlfriend and I are both avid snowboarders). The first 5 days of our trip was planned to be spent snowboarding in hakuba but first we had to get there. You'd think that these massive snowstorms would be great for us then right? WRONG!!! Although the snow had stopped the problems associated with the storms were still continuing. Many of the countries highways were covered in several meters of snow as were the train lines. Not the most ideal thing when you have to travel 3 hours across the country to reach the snow resorts of hakuba.
We had originally organised to receive a coach transfer across to hakuba from the airport but upon arriving no service was waiting. We found a small group of Aussies who ended up being in the same predicament as us (we ended up becoming good friends with 3 of them and hung out the whole time we were in hakuba). An hour of rushing around trying to communicate with multiple people we somehow acquired a prepaid phone and were able to call our coach company. We were basically told "do we want the bad news or the bad news?"
Our coach and driver had left the previous day to try and beat the storm that had left Tokyo and was now making it's way further across the country...he failed. He was stuck on a highway about halfway between Tokyo and hakuba in a couple meters of snow. Our next option was to catch the Shinkansen (bullet train) to Nagano then catch a bus from there to hakuba. Oh wait all train lines that way were snowed under as well. We were told lines were currently being cleared and our only option was to purchase a ticket for a morning service the next day and just hope for the best.
We were stranded in Tokyo for the night. Cool! We contacted metropolitan marunouchi hotel (the hotel we were staying at later on when we returned to Tokyo) it just happens to be really close to Tokyo station. Luckily enough they had a few rooms available that night. We were all put on the top floor!
Day view
Night view
Thank god for travel insurance right!
Looking to make the most of our afternoon/night in Tokyo we agreed to meet up with our new friends later on that night and headed out to do some sight seeing and explore a little. Me being me our first place we had to visit was of course super autobacs Tokyo bay! Feeling a bit hungry though we stopped in shimbashi and found a cool tendon place. Prawn tempura, miso soup and warm tea. Beautiful I must add it was funny watching my girlfriend attempt to use chopsticks for the first time.
With a rail network as vast as Tokyos it’s a surprise we were able to navigate so easily. Definitely wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. Did get lost at one stage transferring from one line to another but did stumble across this cool temple/shrine in a back alley so I guess it was okay.
Tokyo rail map
Not much later we were getting off at our station across the road from super autobacs!!!! I was seriously like a little kid running off and taking pictures and telling my girlfriend to hurry up
Crowded Japanese trains
Already taking pictures from down the road haha
We finally arrived!!!
Couple of cars in the parking lot out the front. Slammed yaris. Man they love these things. Had aggressive fitting wheels, flares to compensate and brides as far as I could see. Probably more done to it too.
Clean type x
Eventually made it inside and had a look around. It's funny how we think of super autobacs as this crazy jdm parts store etc but really it's not too much different from our super heaps and our autobarns here in aus. They have their tool aisles, their care care aisles and their air freshener aisles but then they have that small back corner area which has all the parts we desire grouped into manufacturer aisles so everything is easy to find.
Mugen parts grouped together in the Honda section
Then there is the wheel section. Floor to roof hangers full of rims.
Want a set of TE37? No worries we have them ready to go
(Sneaky set of RE30s underneath)
Or maybe you like CR KIWAMI? Not to worry we have those too!
Orrrrr maybe you'd like a set of these crazy rims for your super kawaii ride hahaha
There's also the upstairs seating section where all the bride and recaro seats are displayed but I didn't get any photos of this. It's a shame these aren't ADR approved though as it'd be cool to rock one of these for the kids.
Inspecting the nardi and js racing steering wheels. I didn't end up buying any as a Mugen 3 wheel came up for sale on ozhonda
I'd say super autobacs store is made up of 70% normal car products then 30% of the aftermarket parts we like. It's this aftermarket section that makes it so special though. Parts that we'd be waiting for weeks here in Australia are readily available on the shelf here.
The haul from super autobacs that night
After a good hour and a bit looking around and buying parts we finally escaped super autobacs (as my girlfriend describes it haha) but the car adventures didn't stop there Just down the road is another famous Japanese icon. Wangan freeway!
Sadly no high powered cars drove by while I was standing watching
Ill leave it at that for now but plenty more updates to come
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