Jeremy,

Remember me? You put a clear bra on my white Evo over in Mt. View last year. Great pics. How was it watching the race? Did you get a decent view of the action or did cars just fly by and that was it?

I lived in Japan for a year right after I finished school ('95). Very interesting place to say the least. I made it to Suzuka 3 times - MotoGP, F1, 8 hours of Suzuka (worked in the pits w/ a small privateer team), but unfortunately never made it to WRC. Lucky dog.

Anyways, being an English teacher kinda sucked, but I'd love to go back. What kind of work do you plan on doing over there?

Joe

 

Sorry to go OT, but I had to.

Joe, did you write this? http://omega.med.yale.edu/~pcy5/japanese/teacher1.html

 

Haha. No. I worked at a private school (Aeon). My students ages ranged from H.S. on up. I had some interesting experiences with my students (some more then others *ahem*), but nothing like what that guy did.

Joe

 

Whoo, nice pics!

Some footnotes:
1. The blue Toyota is a Caldina GT4: think of a competitor to a Legacy turbo wagon
2. The Mitsubishi gal is so hot it's even funny
3. Yes, you drank the Hokkaido milk!!!! :banana:
4. I forgot what I wanted to say.

 

Yeah she was a cutie, but its not just that the girls at the rally or the girls in the stores and out at night WAY hotter than what we have over here, what blew me away was how impossibly cute the average girls you see all over town are, my favorite one was the UPS delivery girl(forget what they call their UPS over there) in the little tan outfit with the pig tails that ran by me on the sidewalk with a little package in her hand, I swear if I saw her walking down the street in my town I would probably drive my car into a pole, over here thats just the average girl that works all over town! wow

Hey Ryan, me and my buddy are heading back out there in the spring, you down to come out too?

 

When are you thinking of going? Theoretically, I should be out there in the begining of April.

 

Ryan(? =Choku Dori)

Are you pretty well versed in JDM-cars-that-were-never-imported-to-the-states?

I know in many cases technology has passed many of them by, but a couple of questions come to mind. I know that fairly old cars aren't as strictly regulated for import, so I wonder how difficult it would be to import (legally) an older car from there, and then 'update' it. I know that the old-school Skylines are pretty much NOT sold to westerners, but there must be others of similar bodystyle. I'm reaching, but Bluebird? King? Ha ha ha. I need to do my homework.

 

Great pictures and commentary!! Makes me want to go to Japan even more so then before.

 

Jeremey: YES! The average level hotness/cuteness in Japan is really high! A buddy and I worked out a rough statistical formula that amounted to: 10-15% burning hot, 60% cute/hot, 10-15% okayish, the rest ugly. Messed up? Hell yeah
As for a return in the spring, I'd love to but I'm in class 'til late May

Pat: the issue of importing an old Japanese car is not so much the importing itself, it's finding a car from that generation that's still roadworthy. Because of prohibitively expensive but mandatory safety inspections every (5 or was it 10? I forgot) years, most Japanese folks just chuck their old cars in a junkyard and get a new one. That's why older cars are super rare in Japan. The old cars that people keep tend to be collector's items of some sort, or have some sort of intangible (sentimental?) value, otherwise people wouldn't keep them. That's why Japanese people go even more bananas than us when they see a Skyline from the '60s or whatnot.

Bev: When did you move to San Ramon?

-Ryan

 

Hmm... when I was in Japan in the Osaka area, there were no cute girls at all... probably was in the wrong part of Japan.

 

What part of Osaka where you in?!

 

tell them you're in a band or that you're a DJ

 

I was in a small suburb just east of Osaka call Ikoma, between Osaka and Nara. Plenty of cute girls but tons of butt-ugly ones too. There seems to be a whole class of seemingly in-bred people in Japan and they are not fun to look at. Also, if you insist on a girl having a nice smile, you could be a very, very lonely guy in Japan. Someone whip out a copy of "The Big Book of Japanese Smiles" and pass it around please. Nothing like spotting a really cute girl in nice shape on the street and have her return your smile....to reveal her snaggleteeth and dead tooth. Youch.

Next time I go, I'll have to check out Tokyo and Sapporo.

Joe

 

CD,

Thanks much. Not too different from the majority of Americans with regards to 20-30y/o Japanese imports, when I think about it.

 

Hey Joe!

yeah I plan to do my exact job thing over there, no ones doing it yet and its a HUGE new car market! Should be great, studying Japanese like hell right now though. As for the 'no fun to look at" overall I was actually surprised how many cute girls there were, saw hardly any real dogs, even out in the small town, especially compared to getting back here and seeing all the typically flabby American girls

And for the "JDM teeth", I had heard about this before I headed out there, didnt see this as much as I thought I would. People made it out like every chick out there has messed up teeth, really hardly any. Think just the ones that do stick out so much, especially if they are otherwise pretty hot, oh well, just pretend your in England