yeehaa, in tokyo!

[neergnevets]

hey guys, made it to my old mans place (who is away with work) here in hiroo, tokyo. long story but shit, to those who have never been here dont carry 6 months of crap/snowboards/winterclothing etc... through the subway when you have no idea where your going. armed with 3 numbers (nobody mentioned they didnt name streets) i found an international school and worked the aussie charm with some yankees lasses who helped me find the house. counting my blessings.

well, looking at the game plan for the next week and looking to those in the know for tips. my bro reckons the upgarage at Minami Machida is cool, is this one alright or is there better. reason i ask is that 9 usd to get there one-way i dont want to visit more than i have to. is that the going rate, 900 odd yen to chiba etc.. from shibuya/hiroo area? wasnt expecting that but hey... wasnt expecting alot and having had my dad and bro here for years i thought i knew more than the avg joe.

also going to do the crystal/top secret garage thing one day, from chiba-kita ill guess i can find ts, then ask those boys armed with a option mag whish direction crystal is. arent they sick of foreigners dropping in though?

then there is redpark and nismo omori, which is cooler and are any worth the trip out there to be honest as im guessing its like 20usd just getting there before getting etc....?

anyone else know anything actually worth seeing/highlight as a day trip from tokyo? trying to plan wisely considering transport is so expensive. is it worth getting the oldmans wife to drive me anywhere or is train just as easy?

oh and how far is tskuba from shibuya roughly in hours/km? i know im asking alot but just getting anything hey.

thanks again boys,

[sewid]

how long are you staying in Japan?

If you're staying 6months then it would probably be worthwhile buying a small car. I have never done that though so ask some of the Japanese residents on the legalities. You will need to have a International driving permit at least so if you didn't get one of those before you left you may be stuck.

If you're only staying a month or so and you dont have a JR pass (cant get one from Japan) then you're going to be stuck paying for the train travel unfortunately.

Up garage is a good store to visit for lots of interesting used bits for the car. Be careful buying stuff off the bargain shelves (priced 100 - 5000 yen) as it may be worn out or broken, hence it being cheap.

Crystal is by no means a mandatory stop on any Japanese itinery. I went there a couple weeks ago and wasn't really impressed as the range of products for Skylines is very limited. Lots of nice wheels though. The only things i found tempting were seats (Recaros and Brides, all too big to bring back) and Ganador mirrors (on sale but still couldnt bring myself to part with the $500 or whatever).

I would go out to Tokyo Bay Superautobacs as the sheer size of it is impressive and the range of products, while not huge for Skylines, is still fun to wander about in. The carpark is also quite good with loads of good cars you can photograph. Also a Tommy Kaira dealership is at the same location. Upstairs in Superautobacs is a book store with loads of interesting Skyline books and brochures for sale from 1000yen up.

I would definately take a trip out to Omori to visit the Nismo Omori factory, if you know some Japanese you may be able to see more than just the showroom as they have a decent workshop too.

To find out how far it is between any two train stations in Japan use this:

http://grace.hyperdia.com/cgi-english/hyperd01.cgi

[Blitz]

Sewid: Toyko Bay Autobacs was definately the better of the 3 Super Autobacs we visited.

As for Crystal, they had loads more stock of the performance gear we wanted than most of the autobacs we went to and at much cheaper prices. For this reason alone its definately worth a look, especially on the way to Top Secret.

I did notice Tokyo Bay was the only store with the larger hardware in stock such as HKS Turbos, Greddy Plenums etc.

My god, I cannot wait to go back.

[clow]

Crystal isn't bad at all. Bought quite a bit of stuff from them when we were there.

Prices were resonable and comparable to other places we went to.

Nismo gallery is nice as well. There are two Nissan "Gallerys" in Ginza. One is at the 4chome crossing and the other is behind of the main streets. They had a 350GT. You could take cars out to test drive etc. But its pretty much just a 15min visit.

C.

[sewid]

Yeah Crystal did suprise me in the amount of stock they had in the way of phat intercoolers and so forth. In that respect its worthwhile.

I also went to Chiba Naganuma superautobacs but unfortunately it was closed that day for some unknown reason. In the carpark there were a load of GTR's though so i just walked back to the station (20mins walk) taking photos of nice cars.

I'm also itching to get back to Japan, probably do a lot less running around chasing after car bits next time and just take it easy.

[Blitz]

Sewid, Naganuma left a bit to be desired - not much stock but hey they carpark was impressive

[neergnevets]

hey thanks for the input, having a great time scouting out these places. if it werent for this forum i wouldnt have had half the things to see that i do now. way to go!