Friday, January 19th, 2001

Typical Tokyo residential suburb. Look at how close the parked cars (left) and vegetation are to the street!

More typical residential housing, complete with skinny street, tall narrow construction, and external plumbing. This was taken from the train platform.

Japanese Nissan Silvia (U.S. 240SX) done up in drift style. Note the grille and lights are different from U.S. models, and the mismatched wheels and body panels (yes this is intentional.) This is typical of paid parking under the elevated train tracks.

This city never ceases to amaze me; the convenience store clerks care, and are polite! Now that I have some clue how the system works, today I ride the train around by myself. First thing in the morning I ummm.........walk around getting a feel for some of the neighborhood (which wasn't directly towards the train station.) In the end, my internal compass guides me there by a totally different route than the one I already know. I go to Ueno and walk around looking at the shops.

Typical Ueno street. Note the vegetation despite the narrowness of it all.

Typical Domino's in Ueno. Artiulated, three-wheeled, covered scooters for deliveries.

There is a whole neighborhood, Korin-cho, which is motorcycle shops. There were tons of cool bikes, none of which will ever be seen in America. My understanding of things is that here, machines over 750cc are illegal, and the test for an over 400cc license is very difficult. I guess you have to demonstrate that you can pick up a five-hundred pound motorcycle! And then there is the yearly US$1000 rigorous safety inspection for bigger bikes.

The current height of Tokyo motorcycle fashion...more on this later
There is also a section of discount shops under the train tracks. Everything from clothing to produce...I see some real bargains, by any country's standards. This area is called Ameyoko, "America neighborhood." It has been a bargain market ever since World War II, only in the early years it was a black market, selling American goods that were intended to help the recovery of Japan.

I also want to explore Ueno Koen (Park,) but it is 4:20, getting dark, museums in the park closed, and rush hour on the trains approaching. I take a quick scouting mission to the entrance, and then split. This park is interesting, too. It is built on a hill and houses five museums, one shrine. one huge pond, and a zoo. The hill used to be a temple belonging to the Tokugawa Shogunate. Tokugawa unified warlord Japan and ruled for several hundred years. Towards the end, the last group of Tokugawa samurai numbered only several thousand, and they were facing stiff opposition from the Meiji Emperor; trying to defend the temple as their last stronghold in the...1860's? Well, they didn't last. As part of the Meiji Restoration, the area was made into Tokyo's first public park. This also helped prevent the slaughtered Tokuagawa-loyal samurai from becoming martyrs. The imperial forces ruled the day, the warrior class was destroyed, Japan's borders were opened to foreign contact, and modern Japan was born!

The overflow bicycle parking outside Ueno station. Also note the cabs.
I hop on the Yamanote line for Ikebukuro. In Ikebukuro is the world's largest automobile showroom, the Toyota Amlux. It is in an oval-shaped high rise that glows purple at night, but with a curious matte-finish look, and flashing white stobes. Toyota publicity photos of the Amlux Building.

Very impressive from the outside, even if the impact is somewhat diminished by the fact that it is housed across the street from Sunshine 60, a sixty-story "self-contained city in a skyscraper." Inside is amazing also. Seventy current models on five floors, all of which you can touch to your heart's content. Sit in 'em, open 'em up...check the trunk, check under the hood! They also have show cars, the remains of Prius from crash-testing, and a Prius hybrid-car drivetrain which had been sawed in half for the cutaway view! Another hybrid car was a hybrid gasoline-electric four-wheel-drive small minivan! In Japan, Toyota offers several models with a "Wellcab" option. The passenger's seat piviots around the B-pillar (or sliding door in minivans,) slides out, and lowers down, allowing access for people in wheelchairs or with limited mobility, but keeping the vehicle more useable than say, a full-size van with an elevator lift.

There are videos and demonstrations everywhere. When you walk in, you see a giant chrome ball suspended from the ceiling. There is a staircase descending down from the ball, and inside is a movie theater! It is a "full-sensory experience," complete with surround sound, rumble packs in each seat, and smell-o-rama. I can't get over how wacky and so quintessentially Japanese it all is....something stranger than most Americans could even dream of, and here it is, advertised as one of the main attractions! This week's feature is "First Finish," about Toyota's desert-racing program, and is predictably cheesy. The plot has to be fictional, because it had all sorts of drama, and even a love story between two drivers (one actually a journalist-turned-driver. Hehehe!) It must have been made a while ago because the trucks are all last-generation's body style. The heroes were running a 152E!! (Holy jam! The rare, twincam, 16-valve, 2.0-liter R-series competition motor!) They didn't show under the hood, but from the sound of the friendly-competitor's Toyota, it must have the more-current 3.0-liter V6. The bad guys are in Ford Rangers that were on screen for a total of about three seconds. I choke up and seriously almost cry! As the tears were welling up in my eyes, I marvel that the story of Toyota success is so touching, and then I decide that it must be the fumes from the smell-o-rama! The basement is the Motorsports section. More cool videos: Indycars, Formula 3, Formula Atlantic, Japan Formula Toyota, Le Mans, Japan GT Championship, Japan Touring Car Championship, Toyota Altezza Cup, Toyota Corolla Sprinter Cup, Toyota Starlet Cup, Toyota Vitz Cup, Paris-Dakar Rally, World Rally Championship, Japan Dirt Trial Series (Am.=Rallycross Eng.=Autocross) are in a videoloop on a row of screens. I am eating it up...I watch through it twice. Needless to say, I could have dropped about ten grand in the TRD (Toyota Racing Development) store in about five minutes.

I spend over half and hour at the Toyota Altezza (Japanese version of the Lexus IS300,) just staring at it...it looks so much better in person! The exterior styling is really striking, and it just keeps growing on me.

Me sitting in the Amlux showroom in an Altezza. Thanks to the Germans who took this picture!
See even more pics and info on this car (and others) in my Japanese car gallery
While the overall proportions are nothing new, the details are far more interesting than any BMW sports sedan...the subtle hood bulge, the shape of the headlights, the taillight style (this is car this style origianted with,) the complex curves of the front fenders, the amazingly subtle upward-curving character line down the side...this is no slab-hood, slab-fender, kidney-grill Beemer. Toyota can take their "chronograph-style" instrument panel and shove it where the sun don't shine...gak! How do you read that thing?...But the rest of the interior is nice. Sitting in one makes me want one all the more, almost enough to move here just to get one! As I sit in the car and think about it, I get more and more agitated and emotional. I have never driven one, but I want it so badly. It is hard to face how amazing this car is. U.S. $17,000-some, 30-some MPG, 212hp 2.0 liter four-cylinder engine, rear-wheel drive, six-speed manual transmission, small-almost exactly the same size as the new Celica, and it weighs under 3000 pounds, hundreds of pounds less than the bloated U.S.-version Lexus. It is such a shame that the U.S.-market version has a 215hp 3.0 liter six-cylinder, five-speed automatic tranny only, and costs over thirty grand. Think of the price another way: If the U.S.-market Lexus IS300 were sold in Japan at U.S. prices, it would currently cost ¥4,400,000, give or take one or two percent. The one sitting in front of me, equipped as I would want it (the sports model with a manual transmission, plus the optional wheels and tires) costs ¥2,600,000!!! I talk to the girls who work there for a little while, as much as my Japanese allows anyway.

Finally I have to leave Toyota Amlux when they close. I spend a while wandering in Ikebukuro, but it is pretty noisy and dirty. Much to my delight, a find a high-end bike shop...upon closer inspection it was...a high-end bike shop, just like anywhere else. They carry Merlin, Bianchi, Specialized, Alex Moulton, Bridgestone, Anchor, which I learn is high-end, high-tech, non-traditional Bridgestone, and a few other unfamiliar domestic brands. Mostly road stuff, but also quite a few of these suspended, folding, 20-inch travel bike things. I am pleased with my abilities as I ask questions in Japanese, and try to connect with the guys there, bike shop staff-to-bike shop staff. On the other hand, I am put off by their annoyance at me...I am beginning to learn that cultural standards regarding small talk are different here. I try not to let it frustrate me.

Around the corner is the strangest alley. A hip-hop club, a rap music store, a hip-hop clothing store "offering both L.A. and N.Y. styles," and a bunch of black guys, running around smoking Japanese cigarettes, and talking to each other in Japanese. I try talking to them, but we can't communicate very well. My mind is racing at the possible origins of this group: American servicemen gone native? Then why is their English so bad? Children of former servicemen getting in touch with their roots? They had a few Japanese hangers-on too. I later learn that the Japanese government has oragnized exchanges with some West African nations...maybe so, maybe not, but curious in any case.

I take the train home, having only a few misadventures along the way. I do really well considering that I can't read the signs. I have to learn more Kanji soon! You learn really fast when you have to get around, and my strategies include hanging back and listening for announcements, asking someone to read the signs for me, and comparing different sources of info. I find out that while the fare map is in Chinese characters (Kanji) only, sometimes there are timetables (who looks at them when the train runs every three minutes?) and the timetables have the Japanese names in Roman and Kanji characters. I have the fare machines pretty well down, but one mistake required me to rise a new challenge, learning the "Fare Adjustment Machine." Tokyo is the king of all train cities. I have no idea how many train/subway lines there are...at least seven, probably more. A lot of the ten and fifteen-story department stores here have a ground floor train station, and run their own train lines!

If someone told me that this city has seven train lines, fifty museums, five-hundred-thousand restaurants, five-hundred-thousand stores, and two-hundred-thousand clubs, I would call them conservative. As long as you have money, there is stuff to do in Tokyo. It would take several lifetimes to get to know this city. I see something for everyone at work today. For Tom J.: In among the endless rows of bicycles and motorcycles lining the sidewalk, a sticker catches my eye. I am in the trendy young part of Ikebukuro, and I see "X Straight Edge X-If you aren't now, you never were." Best of all, it is on a very small dilapidated scooter. For Larry D.: Not one, but two Suzuki Samurais, called a Jimmy here, both factory fuel-injected, turbocharged, intercooled hardtops. For Darren S.: Enough attractive women everywhere to keep him ogling for weeks and brand new city bikes. Internal seven-speed Nexus hubs with integrated drum brake and bike lock. Fenders on the bike, integrated into the frame-they always fit, they are always mounted. Double-sided kickstand, also integrated. I bet we could sell a few of these. The only drawbacks: Ladies frame only (when I say ladies frame, I mean ladies frame...down tube and top tube parallel, three inches apart) and mild-steel tubing, welds, and stamped dropouts I would expect of K-Mart.

January 20th, 2001

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