Japan – Page 9 – Our travels

By Roger on Japan tagged hamamatsu, shin osaka- Leave a comment

Hamamatsu station to Shin Osaka

We woke up and packed up our stuff. Our hotel is right next to Hamamatsu station, so it wasn’t much of distance. The best way to travel city to city in Japan is Shinkansen! So we bought those tickets.

By Roger on Japan tagged carshop Friend- Leave a comment

Meeting Kuze-san, the Kubos and Carshop Friend.

The main post can be found here : Journey to Carshop Friend.

But this I wanted to go more into detail as Kuze-san and Kubo-san have helped me so much and have met with me as much as possible.

I met with Kuze-san on Facebook and when I planned to go to the 30th Leopard meeting, he said he was going to meet me there. We were to exchange gifts then.

The night I arrived in Akihabara, he contacted me saying that he was unable to go to the meeting. I told him I would be back in Tokyo towards the end of my trip and it would be great to meet him. I also told him to tell Mr. Kanazawa I wanted to visit Carshop Friend that time too.

He asked me what I was doing tomorrow and I said nothing, he said he can meet me and take me there. So that is what happened.

Kuze-san and the Kubos arrived at the place we were staying at. We exchanged gifts and Jasmin said she wanted to explore and go shopping in Akihabara, so we split up before getting to the JR station.

He brought the Kubo family as well. We had a good conversation on the train there, but we also had lunch at one of the JR stations we stopped at.

I also met Mr. Kanazawa that day. He is the owner of Carshop Friend, the Nissan Leopard Specialty shop. Going to his shop and meeting him was something that many of us true leopard enthusiasts set as a goal.

This was important to me on many levels, but I also made good friends!

By Roger on Japan tagged akihabara, keisei skyliner, tokyo- Leave a comment

Arrival to Tokyo

When I decided to go to Japan for the 30th Annual leopard meeting, so many thoughts were going through my head. I thought I would be doing it alone, but Jasmin wanted to come along. She did good because she is great at planning and research.

I didn’t want to make the same mistakes as my previous times (focusing on cars only) and she planned many other things to see and experience.

We arrived to Narita airport and took some quick pictures.

We jumped on the Skyliner to get to Ueno Station and then took a Tokyo Metro subway train to Akihabara station, where we were staying for 2 nights (Thursday and Friday night).

Jasmin figured out the train system, while I just followed her lead. I didn’t pay attention to the different lines.

Finally at Akihabara.

By Roger on Japan - Leave a comment

Wandering Leopard Japan 2016

When I decided to go to Japan, I wanted to meet my friends and see as much as possible, focused car and Japanese culture. The culmination would lead to the 31st Anniversary Leopard meeting in Hakone.

I say pilgrimage because Tanaka san (Kazuho) told me last year that this is the 31st year of the release of F31 Leopard.

1986-2017= 31 years.

So I said I wanted to make in symbolic by including any 31 cars. R31 Skyline, A31 Cefiro, Z31 Fairlady, Y31 Gloria, Cima, or Cedric and F31 leopards. Kuze san then told me that Carshop Friend (Leopard shop) would be holding the 31st Nissan Leopard meeting, parade and cruise in Hakone.

My dry sense of humor called this Wandering Leopard Pilgrimage

Wandering – since I would be traveling Japan to different areas for 9 days.

Leopard – While I did base this on meeting Leopard owners, it wasn’t exclusive.

Pilgrimage – the journey to and within Japan.

Do you know MMA fighter Enson Inoue? In 2013, he walked across Japan for charity and to raise awareness of the Fukushima tragedy.

Walk for Japan

This was very inspiring to me and it partially influenced the idea of moving across Japan. Obviously, my journey was more personal and not as important as Enson’s mission.

So I started to plan: