Blizzard

Today we were hit by some nasty winter weather as I mentioned we would in the previous post. Highs of 26F and lows around 16F with windy gusts its a pretty big change from the usual rainy days. My car was looking pretty lonely out in the white so I snapped a shot to remember the moment. It will probably clear up in a few days according to the forecast.

Glorious day

Had an amazing time drifting at Pacific Grand Prix today. The car performed beautifully and everything felt great. From the start things were a little hairy as it's been a while since my last event and I spun a few times here and there. Had some issues figuring out how to clutch-kick properly and under-steered a lot--and going off the course a bit. At the edges of some parts of the track there were these white raised speed bump bits which tore my car / wheels up a bit. The brand new wheels suffered a few nasty gouges from them unfortunately, it's mostly cosmetic stuff though.

As the day went on I started to get a better feel toward initiating drifts by clutch-kicking and put my car through a ton of abuse. The new differential performed amazingly as well and made some really weird sounds during intense drifting action--hopefully I won't need to have the diff rebuilt for a looong time as I'm quite poor at the moment.

Then towards the end of the day I was feeling pretty comfortable and began to really feel the cars movements and was able to use weight-transitions to link multiple turns together. Once I felt that it was like my eyes were opened to new possibilities. I had to do the entire course in 2nd gear and the car had no power in third which limited my ability to throw a good smoke show, and I wasn't comfortable using the e-brake yet.

The brand new tires I had on the rear almost lasted the entire day, I swapped the rears out once they started to show some cords. It looks like there will be quite a few events throughout the winter, at least one per month, which is great except I'm a bit wary of having to flush my cooling system with distilled water before each event especially when it starts to hit freezing temperatures--we'll see how it goes. Pictures soon to come from media at the event hopefully!

Looking good

Today in preparation for tomorrow I took the car to the shop to have the new wheels installed, not just installed though as I can do that myself. I needed to have the fitment checked and have the fenders rolled to add clearance. Front and rear wheels were installed with the car in the air, the fronts looked ok... but the rears showed some massive poke. The mechanics didn't think there would be any way to get the wheels to fit without cutting and installing over-fenders.



I wasn't going to take that for an answer though as I've heard lots of other people with my car fitting some ridiculous sized wheels without so much difficulty. I later realized that other people were able to fit large wheels because they had raised their car to a height where the wheel didn't need to tuck into the fender. My car's height can't be adjusted right now and it's pretty low so I said to break out the fender roller and have at it--let's make this happen.



It took a bit of pressing and muscling to force the fenders out, they were pushed out pretty well and afterward the wheels appear to be able to tuck inside the fenders now. After a test drive there was some rubbing on one side so more pressing and rolling was required. After tweaking the fenders a little more the fitment seems to be pretty good. I'll find out for sure tomorrow I think.



Final touches left to do before tomorrow include flushing the coolant with distilled water and mounting a fire extinguisher in the car.

Ready to roll

Since I've gotten back from Japan, I've been continuing my work in the lab and have started taking a 2nd year Japanese language class. It's pretty fun stuff. Hopefully by the end of the year my Japanese will be at a decent enough level that I'll be able to hold conversations easily in Japan. We'll see. There's 3 people from Japan in my lab so thankfully I'm able to get some conversation practice in although the practice is pretty informal and ends up being a bunch of joking around saying things like "you're fired!" or some other new vocab that I picked up in Japanese.



On the automotive / drift-related side a lot of things have happened. While I was in Japan I sourced a really great deal on some OEM BMW Style 5 wheels (original BBS) that were for sale in the states, so I had those drop-shipped to my place in Seattle. They're a bit bigger (and as a result, heavier) than I'd really like, but they're still really nice wheels. They were originally an upgrade option for the old 7-series but apparently not very many people who bought 7-series cars upgraded which left BMW with a giant warehouse full of these pristine 18" BBS wheels. Many years passed up to now and BMW placed all the wheels under clearance to get rid of old inventory and that's how I got my hands on them. However, because they were originally designed to fit a 7-series, fitment on my car (which originally came with 15" wheels) may be a slight issue. I'm not too worried about that and am looking forward to putting them on to see the sexiness transformation.



On another note, I had the diff upgraded again to a more beastly unit which should be absolutely ready to drift like mad. When I take tight turns and apply gas the diff clunks and pops like crazy which seems to drive a lot of people crazy. However, I love it because it's telling me the diff is actually doing something and is still working. My car is noisy enough as it is, a few extra clunks here and there won't be noticeable.



With that said, I have a drift event that I'm attending on Saturday at Pacific Grand Prix which is a newly built go-kart racing track which has now been opened for drifting. This will be the first public open drift event at the course and will be my first time drifting on a real miniature circuit. I hope it all goes well.

Back in Seattle

I'm back in Seattle now, got a ton of stuff to sort through and clean up. The return flight from Narita to Seattle was pretty short, under 8 hrs cruising at around 680 mph with a 110 mph tailwind. If only getting to Japan was that short though.

I think I have some more car related updates soon.

Touristy Stuff #7 (Final)

Today we went to the Tokyo Game Show which is an annual event held in Tokyo as the name suggests. We were pretty hyped up for it after seeing coverage from previous years events. We arrived around half an hour after the gates opened and had to wait in line for over an hour in a massive queue before being able to get to the ticket area. Once passed this point... MASS AFTER MASS of people.



The place was flooded with people, we tried to navigate around and at one point there was a blockage so bad there were people (sweaty nerds) crushing us from behind by constantly ramming to try to get people to move forward. It was literally body pressed against body trying to move anywhere with absolutely nowhere to go or escape. If there was a fire or something of that sort at that moment, there was a pretty certain chance we would have died--not if I could help it though!



The crowding got a little better later in the day but it was still impossible to see anything due to the massive queues. All the games and everything else was in Japanese as well with very little that was presented having the chance of coming stateside either. So all in all TGS wasn't that great. It was a good experience in that we got to experience the craziness of TGS and see some cool stuff, but the crowds killed it. I'm sure TGS is a completely different story with a press pass when the event is completely quiet.



However, one of the bonuses to the event was all the cosplayers (Costume Play) that were dressed up. There are a lot of cosplayers in America that try to emulate the Japanese but nearly all the costumes / cosplay at TGS was of a completely different caliber. There were some ridiculous looking people at the event as well, but I'll let the pictures do the talking.



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Touristy Stuff #6

Today we tried to get to Mount Tsukuba by bicycle which is around 20km each way, but my friend tired out on the last hill climb so we turned back and headed home before it got too late. Some fairly picturesque views along the way though.

Tomorrow we'll be going to the Tokyo Game Show so expect an update related to that.

Touristy Stuff #5

Today it was pouring rain pretty much all day, so I decided that we should go to Odaiba, which is a large completely man-made island which is still part of Tokyo. Odaiba is connected to the rest of Tokyo via the very famous and picturesque Rainbow bridge which is often photographed at night--which is what I did as well. Anyway, there are a few different potential activities to do at Odaiba such as visit the Fuji TV building, walk around, etc. However, the reason we went was to check out one of Sega's last remaining "parks" known as Joypolis.



We both bought all-day passport passes and went on most of the attractions. Joypolis consists of 3 stories of interactive / virtual madness. One thing that I noticed though was that pretty much all the other people that were there were couples and most of the attractions were for couples as well. The first and last "rides" we did were pretty cool--playing the Initial D arcade game within an actual car with fully functional controls, the entire car (and screen) even rotates and banks during turns which makes the experience feel pretty realistic.



Another attraction we did which was worth noting was called Storm-G, which was an 8 person, 4-"ship" racing game. Two people ride in a single "ship," have 2 joystick controls for each hand and both drivers need to match their control inputs with each other in order to navigate the course. There's another component to the game in that when both players simultaneously press the buttons at the top of the joysticks, the ship will do a rapid 360 degree barrel roll which is used to avoid obstacles and seemingly increase mayhem. I thought the ride would be ok and it was, but I don't think I'm fit to ride in an actual jet fighter as all the spinning from just the game made me feel like poo.



There was an interesting half-pipe simulator as well but I opted not to ride on anymore forceful spinning rides after the poo feelings from Storm-G. We played a few crazy virtual games and rode in a few adventure simulators which were surprisingly good (similar to the Back to the Future ride at Universal Studios)--there were several times where the jeep / boat we were riding in actually felt like it was freefalling.



After Joypolis, we explored the shopping mall that it was in and found a floor of cool shops selling very retro Japanese stuff, food, toys, junk, etc. There was a Muscle Park in the mall as well, complete with a cheezy mini Sasuke mock-up course. Following the adventures we headed back home--more later.

Touristy Stuff #4

Another busy day in Tokyo, today we went to Ryogoku which is basically sumo city, of course to watch some sumo. The 15-day seasonal sumo championship started a few days ago so we were fortunately able to experience the sport firsthand. Once we arrive in Ryogoku there were tons of sumo everywhere dressed in traditional Japanese attire--it's hard to believe that sumo are still normal people that play games on their cell phone, have fun, etc. like you and me.



The sport of sumo is full of rituals which we didn't quite fully understand. I understood the basics such as all the elaborate purification rituals the sumo perform when they spit out water and throw salt into the ring, along with the feet clapping moves, etc. The matches were fairly entertaining and the experience was pretty cool. There were a few times when some sumo were thrown into the audience which sit just outside of the main ring--creaming a few old people. Tickets to watch sumo are pretty expensive if you don't buy the cheapy general admission tickets that we got which were 2100 yen. Tickets close to the ring run at over $200 each. The Japanese are very enthusiast about the sport and cheer quite a lot--there was even something like a cheerleading squad of old people in one section of the audience, big time sumo fans I guess. The sumo come from various cities throughout Japan so it's common for Japanese people to root for certain wrestlers as their representatives.



In Akihabara we went and explored more shops and arcades and finally hit the jackpot after finding a floor filled with the latest Gundam simulator. We each got pilot cards and played a few games. The simulator screen in panoramic and is equipped with a headset so that you can communicate with your teammates during the 6v6 online matches. It was pretty fun, but requires a huge investment to work your way up to a decent Gundam mech. However, on the next floor we played another mech combat game called Border Break which is pure amazingness. It's hard to express how fun this game is and how sad it is that the game will probably never come to America. The game format runs as a 10v10 with headset capabilities and has a pilot card as well with amazing mech class unlocks and mech customizability. The matches play somewhat similar to a point capture format with the objective being to destroy some kind of reactor core thing in the enemy's base. What makes the game so amazingly fun is the controls which consist of a fixed joystick on the left and a mouse on the right as well as a touchscreen display which is seemlessly integrated. The game is very smooth and fast paced, I'm going to miss it.



We also went to a maid cafe in Akihabara called The Granvania. The experience was as expected, it's just a regular cafe aside from the fact that all the waitresses are dressed up to a certain theme. It was an interesting experience though, shame that pictures weren't allowed.



More to come most likely.

Touristy stuff #2-3

It's been an insanely busy time exploring / showing Tokyo to a friend, we probably walked something like 30-40km each day. My feet felt / feel like death. We went to Asakusa which is a really popular tourist location, even for Japanese people. There was a massive open arcade-style market area with tons after tons of souvenir type items ranging from paper fans to samurai swords and associated cutlery, stationary, wood-block prints, traditional toys, dolls, statues, etc. so much cool stuff. The temple at the end of market is pretty massive albeit a bit boring as well.



Following a thorough exploration of Asakusa we walked to Ueno to check out a large toy store by the station. Then we went over to Shibuya at night to see the usual populous insanity and explore the Seibu Loft and Tokyu Hands--both containing tons of gift-like and generally awesome items.



The next day we were insanely tired after waking up at noon and decided to take the time to explore Tsukuba a little more. We checked out the wares at Up Garage and spotted a nice Nissan S15 (all S15s are amazingly nice, I want to get one if I can come back to Japan). Later in the day we rode our bicycles to a giant pet shop and saw some amazing / rare animals (I mentioned this shop previously, however, I never explored the fish / water creatures section).



There were some insanely rare fish at this shop which are illegal / banned in America.




There was a tank filled with 5-6 asian arowanas which were being sold for around $8000 each--a really prized fish. I managed to take some pictures of a couple beetles at the shop and snapped a picture of the amazing falcon that was for sale--it's too cool.



As we were leaving the shop we were surprised by a huge Arapaima gigas fish which was probably 5 feet long or more.



Tomorrow should bring further adventures.

Touristy Stuff #1

A friend (bff) came to visit me in Japan for a week or so. So starting today we did a bunch of touristy stuff, mostly redid most of the stuff that I've already done previously. Retracing steps can get pretty tiring. Tokyo is big.

Today we started off in Akihabara, explored tons of electronics shops, went arcade hopping, etc. then walked to Ueno and through Ameyayokocho which used to be a black market for American / military goods a while back. Right now it's just a big market area with tons of people and nearly anything you want / need.

Following that, we went to Harajuku to see crazy dressed people and the youth of Japan. Then went to Shinjuku to get a view of Tokyo from the Metropolitan government building--this time at night to get a view of all the fancy lights. The view is much nicer at night.



We ate dinner at an izekaya (Japanese bar) and my friend suggested one food item pictured in the menu which apparently looked like fried (golden) rings of squid to him. I read the food name and didn't see anything squid related and noted that but couldn't figure out what it was. We ordered it anyway to check it out--maybe it could be good. Sooooo... when it arrived the food didn't even look like rings, they were like balls of something. I ate one and there was something squishy and "juicy" in the center of the material and the rest was super chewy like gum. I can't really describe the taste of the squishy center parts as being pleasant, it tasted a bit like poop or tires or something like that (neither of which is good). We were both a bit disappointed and wondering what we were going to do with this stuff. I was disappointed because I hadn't encountered this stuff before and didn't know what it was although I had seen the name before. This time I would research what this stuff was when I got home--it's called horumon and wikipedia basically describes the material as beef or pork "offals," which to me means bits of stuff that shouldn't be eaten. I guess it's a learning experience.