Kuro Neko

@sasilverbullet , yes! At least a month in Japan would be a good idea.
Avoid Kyoto entirely (all fake these days, and too many hits to the face with selfie sticks), and get out into the lesser traveled areas; Kyushu, Fukushima, Shikoku, Sendai, Noto Hanto...



Leaving tanuki town, for a few days work in Tokyo.



Big scandal these days with host and hostess clubs' exorbitant drinks bills, with clients then forced to pay off through contracted prostitution.
Sad.

I spent 10 minutes helping the tourist couple in the lower right frame (just seeing them in the photograph now, so they were obviously at it for even longer), after they walked past me three times, with third time waving their phones about with one seriously berating the other in Cantonese - 'where, where, WHERE?'
Turns out their hotel address was listed wrong.
I turned the corner, and a French couple was doing the same thing... at least the address they were seeking - next to my office - was correct.



Showa-era baseball range.



I've never seen a US domestic market RAV4 before, assume they are not all like this?



Slightly more elegant, a 1960s' Karmann Ghia (though those whitewalls, and Instagrammable roof rack could be removed).




Classic Panda AE86 on RS Watanabe (for the JDM fans).




Back home again for increasingly cold days, and not sure if we're expecting snow this year...

545svk

So glad your thread got highlighted. Just spend an enjoyable hour or so scrolling through it.
My teenage son is keen to move to Japan and get involved in the car culture. The more I see of Japan through posts like yours and videos online the more I feel I would like to join him if he makes it there.
Subscribed and looking forward to your next drive / posts.
Cheers

kiznarsh

That RAV4...woof! Looks like it's held together with giant staples.

KCShelby

I know! Almost like Optimus Prime got hit with a box of staples as he was "getting dressed"!

Spyder_2011

RAV4 looks like the owner brought it over in pieces from a junkyard and then stapled it back together!

Thanks for continuing to update this thread!

Kuro Neko

Well... that series of comments made me laugh out loud.

Looking at it closer, it's a combination of stick-on aero deflectors, and I now realize too, wires and strip LED assemblies.
It must look pretty wild at night...

mr_m1ke

Beautiful photos, thanks for sharing. This one brings me right back to my own small towns I've been to: Narai and Myoko.

Kuro Neko

That's pretty awesome thanks, the Kiso Valley is one of our favorite destinations too.
Narai-juku is particularly nice, no wonder it sticks with you...



Unfortunately though, we're stuck at work for a while.
At least until we can take some time off, and get out and about though.

Here, we took one of the new year holidays for short drive around our area.



An elaborate kura we hope gets some attention from damage likely inflicted in the 2019 Cat 4 that ran across the Boso Hanto.



Firemen in Japan, are perhaps like firemen globally - they like to spend time polishing their trucks.



One of our local shrines had an open day, and this is one of their centory-old dormitories.



This is the dorm's view over the shrine gardens.



Main entry to dorm, with Taisho-era annex.



Local daikon and cabbage shop, straight from the farm.
Purchased like this, the fresh produce does indeed last weeks, not days like purchased from a supermarket.



I've only ever seen one NSX in Japan, not driven by an oji-san (the one on page 1 here).
They do look gorgeous though, and that V-TEC is one of the best engines ever made...

Kuro Neko

Living (mostly) in the countryside, we look forward to the weekends.
A week or two ago, there was a huge winter storm, but the weekend dawned clear, dry, and sunny.
We guess due to the storm, there were very few weekenders in our area, and we had a near COVID lockdown emptiness experience.



The Boso Green Line was completely empty, and we enjoyed the undulations and fast corners accordingly.
Stopping for lunch at this fresh fish restaurant on the coast.



Though there were a few patrons when we sat down, our chirashi orders arrived with no one else present...
We chatted to the mama-san about the old photographs of abalone divers on the wall - her relatives from many years ago I think she said.



No matter the weather, there are always scores of Tokyo motorcyclists enjoying the many touge in the area.



This simple shrine is still maintained with a thatch roof.
Unlike our minka, which is just slathered in 500 to 600mm of kaya, you can see the multi-layer of a careful, maximum weather-proofing application of thatch.
No wonder such is rare and expensive these days.



Vaguely militaristic section.
Hopefully, no class A war criminals interred here - unlike other locations favored by nationalistic politicians, pandering to the old imperial days.



Main entrance, through illuminated tori.



On the way home, abandoned gas stand photo op 227...

Kuro Neko

Some photographs of a Cayman S.



Nice day for a drive down the coast, and some exploring we've been meaning to do for ages.



Cool winter day, with a bit of wind, and the outlook from Boso Hanto up the coast.



Porsche released this vid a while ago, and we've had the route and fishing point logged as a photo op since.




Suzuki-san's journey is further described here.



Harsh coast, and you can see the rock tunnel, from Suzuki-san's vid.



Coming inland for the journey home.
One of the many one-lane bridges in the area.



See ya!

emayex

Beautiful photos and beautiful 987.2. The more I see, the greater my desire increases to visit Japan. Thank you for sharing with us.

Kuro Neko

Thanks, and feel free to ask any questions about Japan and touring accordingly - happy to help...



A few threads over on clocks and dash pods, a comment prompted me to finally rethink my dash clock and instruments color mismatch.
Though the Sport Chrono stopwatch was silver, not white like the rest of the instruments, I had always intended to one day fit a matching white VDO clock face, but could not source a 52mm VDO with the front setting buttons - instead of the remote switch type, which of course would require more wires and somewhere to mount the setting switch.
The VDO series ('Cockpit', not 'Viewline' I think), with the through-the-glass buttons is easy and discrete, allowing the otherwise 100% plug-and-play of the pigtail I made.



In looking for options, I came across new old stock 356 dash clocks:




Still black-face though, but I did like the green 356-style font and color.
It reminded me of the 50 Jahr 911 dash:



My Elfenbeinweiß 356 of course had black faced instruments, with the classic early Porsche green highlights, and the speedometer and tachometer green and red zones:



So, rather than change the black clock to match the white S instrument pack, I figured changing the white instrument faces to match the black clock, and pick up the retro cues off my 356 might be a viable option.

Thus, I just ordered this instrument cluster face from Gauge Faces.com:



I chose the more serious 356 / 911 font, over the playful Boxster / Cayman font too.
A few other outlets are also making a variety of retro, colored, and GT and S versions for most models these days, and it was a 964 set that prompted me to go searching for this option for the Cayman.



Hopefully the quality matches the OEM and the installation isn't as complicated as it first seems, as the black and white theme matches my tastes nicely...

Kuro Neko

It's been a long time since I explored any haikyo, and even longer since I posted any photographs.



It was great to get out hunting for abandoned stuff with a camera again, up a rough and rarely used fire trail.



Then off onto an even smaller spur, perhaps the old road over the top of a mountain before they built the tunnel below.



The road though is now no longer passable, likely after the last few years' typhoons and the many landslides we experienced.
Some kids had perhaps decided to see how far they could get their mum's kei, not very far it seems.



The road is perhaps unlikely to be reopened again for a while.



Off in the distance, a single lane tunnel, then another shape loom.



A Land Cruiser Cygnus has somehow managed to get buried, first on, then in a number of landslides.



With this amount of surface growth and mold, it had obviously been here for at least one or two weeks through Japan's humid summers.



Mostly intact, getting it out would be near impossible with the access road now down to single file walking track in some places.
Unless of course, the boarded-up tunnel it may have been attempting to traverse goes somewhere else - already well into the forest, with no real supplies or hardware, we will save exploring the tunnel for another time...

Goonfather

You must be racking up the KMs on that Cayman!

I'll be visiting Japan for the first time in April for the F1, and immensely looking forward to exploring the outer regions. Being sans-987, it won't quite be as off the beaten track, but we'll see how far I get!

Kuro Neko

Awesome!
I am sure you will have a great time.

We've done over 42,000km since we purchased it in 2018.
Not a wild amount, but certainly a lot for a Japanese Porsche...