Japan 2017 Day 2
Actually the story starts the day before, as we just got off the train from Akihabara and our first taste of rush hour. Packing sardine thing is true and didn’t doubt it. We deposited our stash that day and we went off searching food. We headed over to the Ramen Kagetsu Arashi shop near our AirBnb. (Side note, if you doing any travel writing or any traveling blod/vlog, take a note pad and write down wherever you go. It took me a good 20 minutes to find this place because I forgot the address to our AirBnb).
As described by my friend, the tonkotsu broth was rich with pork and the roasted pork was awesome. The thing about this establishment is that we had to order the things we want from the vending machine, take the tickets and pass it onto the chef where they will deliver it to your table. Additional side note, make sure you are clean of uric acid because soft drinks isn’t plentiful but highballs and beer can be found everywhere, but water is a given at the same amount. Anyways, a lot of car rental places are 24 hrs and relatively cheap considering to rent a car for 3 to 4 people was about less a $100 (it costed more because I bought insurance and such). The first one near was Nippon Rent-A -Car. I am not sure because it was the time of day or the fact that we were foreigners, they didn’t want to let us borrow a car. So we went home down but not defeated.
The next day, we went to anther near the station, and the workers at Nissan-Rent a Car was awesome! We were able to quickly get a car roughly under 1 hr. It felt quick because we are tripping that we could’ve gotten a car to rent and I was rushing to remember all the rules of the road. Like learning how to drive standard I quickly learn all the mechanics of driving and I will write in another post of driving in Japan coming from an American country.
As you can see from the post, it was a Nissan Cube. We all wanted to try a new Japanese vehicle but beggars can be choosers. Anyways, from then on, we were set and left on a rainy day towards Nikko Circuit where we wanted to attend Drift Muscle. Its been a dream of my friends and myself to see authentic drifting performed on where it originally came from. On a side note, didn’t know Nikko was so close to Irohazaka, one of the downhill courses from Initial D.
The drive was 3 hours long to get to the prefecture. The thing about long drives is that I tend to get sleepy so measure to pack up some drinks, good music and company to talk about things. We wanted to check out Gumma area but it was another 3 hour drive there, so we weren’t chancing it in the rain. The drive from Chiba took us outside from Tokyo rather than through it, and us getting on the express way. I could only equate it to driving in California and Houston, with the by-ways. I was using Google maps that was handled by my co-pilot.
Speaking of Google Maps, although at times reliable can be frustrating. On our trip, it took us through some questionable roads because it was a short cut. Because I felt a little lost and it was losing GPS at that time. You don’t need to leave the main road sometimes.
The whole event was crazy! The smell of burnt rubber reminded me back to drift sessions days at Campbell industrial park. The art of sliding cars was so beautiful. We never been that close to drifting cars going that fast around a corner. The reason that day was wet is because we were expecting a typhoon category 2 (in most Asian countries, a hurricanes are called typhoons with the same category speeds). Despite that, they made the drifting all better. I didn’t had a jacket or hoodie, and no umbrella, so I was under prepared to be there. At the end of of the time I had to sit it out because my camera was getting wet and additionally I was getting a little tired.
The food that was served was unexpectedly good although it might because we were hungry and the only thing that was left over was fried noodles. Still it was pretty good and reasonably price compared to some other places (looking at you American stadiums).
Anyways, the drive home was smoother despite day turning to night, the roads felt a bit more comfortable and well, relatively slow. We hit some traffic because of the typhoon, which made it easy to drive home, because everyone was going slow. Because it was going slow, me and the fellas had a great time talking about high school crushes we had before. Those were the days and speaking of high school crushes, we were able to see this when driving back. (Please don’t mind the idiot screaming. I was freaking out seeing it, and the fact that I was passing it.)
Overall, we ended the day on a good note. We got home safely, took a break and ate at a nearby Gyudon (again another place where you had to buy tickets to your meals). The food there was simple yet tasty. The cooks were relatively fast too!
By the way, a jippy jip pac, my friend was referring to is a Hawaii’s Zippy Zip Pac. A bento or boxed lunch. I think its on different grounds that it can’t be judge against. Anyways, that was our day 2 in our adventure.
Yes this is going slowly but slowly will be finding time to write these post.
Traveling Geek 