Rezz

Some pretty boring driving shots. All the raised expressways pretty much look like this, with the odd ferris wheel or skyscraper to break the continuous sea of apartment buildings and smog. Here, theres an expressway deck below me, then a street, so we're already 8 stories up... then this overpass comes out of nowhere. I must say I was very impressed the first time I saw all these expressways rising above the buildings in Osaka/Kobe. Crossing the Yodo river. See the bridge in the background? Just beyond that is where I was sitting at the end of year fireworks display on the previous page... This is Nishinomiya, taken about 5 minutes before the pic above. My DJ mate Nao lives in one of those blue apartment blocks. A bit blurry, but I think you can get more of a feeling of actually being there with a bit of blur and natural light, don't you think? This is 'Ni-go-sen' (Route 2) between Kobe and Osaka, around the Nishinomiya area.

Terry's Gloria Gran Turismo not being thrashed... A Japanese wrecking yard 'somewhere in Amagasaki'. Some people might remember an HPI article about this place about 5 - 6 years ago. It's not such a big place area-wise, but the place was stacked to the brim with wrecked cars. Shit cars start their slow painful death here, in the clutches of the evil 'GRAPPLOR'... ... Grapplor then flips the victim over and does some precision work to get the enigine out of the bay... ... then once the engine, exhaust, suspension subframes etc are thrown on the pile behind, Grapplor then deposits the limp and lifeless carcass into.... ... 'Hell-ga', the car-eating, metal-cube-shitting compactor. hehehe Here a pile of Hell-ga's shit she prepared earlier... Time for a synchronized drink after all that crushing. If you happen to be in Amagasaki, go to this place! Buggered if I can remember where it is exactly, but with 300 yen pints of lemon chu-hi you can't go wrong. I had about 5 of them and a whole stack of different yakitori and Terry picked up the tab... you're a legend mate

Next series of shots show the extent of the ultra urbanisation of the Kobe area, with a population of *only* 1.5 million people. The mountains and the sea - which characterize Kobe - are a kind of natural boundary... the only thing that stops the endless concrete and steel from devouring the entire region. If you think this is bad, Osaka is much MUCH worse, and then theres Tokyo/Yokohama... Pics were taken at the top of Rokko Mountain. If you're wondering why every so often they have groups of highrise apartments then lots of low rise, well where all the high rise buildings are grouped thats where a train station is... it's very convenient to live near a train station, then you can get practically anywhere without a car. I lived near a train station but had a car anyway... just like about 6 million other people in my neighbourhood.

Laurence: That night me, Terry and you met up at Nanko was 4th August last year. Showing good offset there mate, but the ride height... she's gotta come down Laurence is in mid-drift here (if you look closely at the front wheels turned op-lock), I only had my little camera that night, so the flash was practically useless. This probably a better shot, but still bad. Laurence did impressively well for his second time out in a new car in front of some tough onlookers (the local Japanese). Terry Vahoumis doing what he does best... blowing smoke up ya G'day Terry! Some random R32 drifter that I didn't see have a run that night.