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BigSmoke
Posts: 844
Location: Indonesia Occupation: Following Those Damn Trains Age: V$: Broke |
#151595 2018-11-24 23:19 |
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Cultural Exchange
CAUTION: PHOTOBOMB AND LONG STORY AHEAD!
Wew boi, not alot of things happened this week, aside of my stuff for sale got sold, and.....
guess what, an impromptu after-work cars n' coffee!  This mini car meet went quite well and sound, and I think it represents a small but diverse slice of Japan car culture. Yeah, I'm quite confident after meeting great people in the meet. Let's jump into the update then! [24 Nov 2018] As of Thursday [22 Nov], my stock suspension parts and clutch I mentioned in the previous update has been sold, racking V$4500 in total. But as nothing else interesting happened in that day aside from work stuff, let's skip into Saturday.
11.50 I've finished most of my work and going to go to the kitchen to cook lunch when my phone suddenly rang. I wonder who called me in the weekend like this, since I've sold everything I've put for sale, I haven't ordered anything yet and I don't have anything to install with Ohira-sensei for previous reason. I decided to bring the phone to the kitchen anyway and cook a plate of omurice while answering the phone via hands-free and loudspeaker function.
"Hello, Yuan Edo's residence" "Oh, hello Edo-kun. It's me Ryoji." "Ryoji-san with the orange M3, yes?" "Exactly! You still remember that day at Tsukuba, huh?" "Of coure, Ryoji-san. It's a bit rare of chance to see an european car here, let alone driven in one" "Ahah yeah, I appreciate that. Oh yes, remember when I said I have a sister here?" "Well....yes? What's with that?" "Oh, I guess you still remember that part a bit. Listen up, I'm going to meet her" "Yes, and-HOLY CRAP THE EGG! Sorry, I'm cooking omurice at the moment. Excuse me, but what did you say?" "I'm going to meet my sister. Are you free today?" "After 1 pm, yes I do. What's the matter real-HOOPLA! One flipped egg! What's the matter?" "Alright then, let's meet up. Tsukuba uni south parking lot, at least 3 pm. You in?" "Good idea, I don't have anything to do post-work anyways. And oh, can I have my friend join too?" "Sure thing, the more the merrier. What's your car colour again?" "It's a silver Evo III. Numberplate [my car's numberplate]" "Alright, if I don't show up at 3 yet, my sister will look for your car and wait. Well then, see ya" "See you later Ryoji-san, have a good day. And now add the rice in......" "And oh, have a nice lunch too. I can smell it already" "Hahah sure thing" Well, cooking while answering phone call can be disastrous, it turns out. At least I didn't overcook the eggs, but the workstation was quite a mess nonetheless. I decided to eat first to fix my mood and gain some enrgy for the cleanup.
13.10 After cleaning up the kitchen, I called Rantaro. I'm sure he'll be excited to hear about the meetup........ "Yo, Rantaro-san! I hope I didn't disturb you mate" "No don't worry, my shift will end in around 1 hour, I've got some time to kick back. What's the matter?" "Listen, I'm going to meet someone-no, possibly two guys with legit european cars-" "European cars you said? Sure it's legit?" "Definitely. I've met one of them befo-" "Why don't you have me with you back then?" "You said you were busy man! Anyway, are you free at 3 pm?" "Told ya I'm free in an hour. You want me to meet them too?" "Yea of course mate, it's your fanservice moment, why should you miss it?" "YAY! Man you're the best! Wait where are you going to meet up?" "Tsukuba uni, the parking lot where you showed me your car back then" "Aah perfect! Okay nice info boi, see ya at 3!" "See ya mate, can't wait to see your reaction" With Rantaro confirmed to join us, I prepared my camera and translation papers to be brought to Tsukuba uni. 14.15 I arrived to the uni and quickly secured my place at the south parking lot. Weekend means there weren't any lecture activities, so the parking lot was noticeably quite and vehicle-ridden........except for one Levin coupe at the furthest lot.
 I do remember one of my clients here have some awesome JDM legends, including this Levin. But which one? While I was wondering about who owned said Levin, I packed up my papers and went to the uni to turn it in to my clients. Perhaps I'm going to meet one of them. But before I walked to the uni, I decided to take some pics beforehand. That way I could ask for confirmation over the ownership.
 And indeed I met him inside the uni. The owner of the Levin is Mr. Kitagara (52), a geologist and geography lecturer. Despite I'm not being his student, I like to ponder over his geographical posters, documentation and research papers over his room (after all, I have to translate most of them), so I call him Kitagara-sensei. He also seem to not mind, and thus being friendly to me. After turning in the translated papers and receiving raw softcopy files to be translated in return, Kitagara-sensei talked about his car.
"Ah, Edo-san, I heard you like cars, yes?" He asked in relaxed manner. "Yes sensei, I like cars, be it road cars or race cars" "I drive my old racer today. It's not as sprightly as it's used to be, but you might like it" "May I ask what is it sensei? The model, I mean" "It's an AE86 coupe" "Excuse me sensei, is it the Levin at the south parking lot?" "Yes it is-wait how do you know that?" "Uh, I parked mine beside it, sensei" "I see, what's your car?" "An Evo III, sensei" Then I showed him the pics I took before "Oh my, what a tasteful choice! Anyway, want to join me for a lunch?" "Thank you sensei, but I already had one before coming here so I'll get some snacks instead. Oh yes, one more thing." "I see, what is it?" "I will meet my friends in an hour at the parking lot. Sensei, do you have free time at 3 pm onwards?" "Let's see........it's weekend so it looks like I got a lot of them. What's the matter?" "It would be a honor for me to have your Levin joining our discussion. Well it's a small mee-" "Numbers doesn't matter, tell me what car will going to show up" "At least a Mark II GX70 and an M3 E46" "Oh, interesting line-up. Okay, I'll join after lunch. See ya at the parking lot" "Thank you very much sensei, that's very kind of you" With another person joining the party, I return to the parking lot with snacks and joyful heart. 14.50 I returned to the parking lot, and it turns out Rantaro has arrived with his Merc II-Whoops I mean Mark II, and parked his car beside mine. But where is he? I decided to put my snacks first before searching.  "BOOM GOTCHA!" Rantaro surprised me from behind of his car. That doesn't surprise me, but what surprised me more is the fact that he came quite early.
"Well, if you want to fully enjoy a fanservice, you gotta line up earlier than everyone else. Know what I mean?" Rantaro explained to me. Yeah, quite a great analogy. Moments later, Kitagara-sensei arrived. "So which one is this, Edo-san?" "The Mark II sensei. Yes, this one has been converted into a Merc, even I called it Merc II" I answered, followed by Kitagara-sensei laughing lightly and Rantaro blushing. Then Kitagara-sensei turned his glance towards Rantaro. "Ah, you must be the owner of this Mark II, yes? Quite tasteful colour choice you picked here" complimented Kitagara-sensei. "Yes sir, thank you. All for that european 80s look" Rantaro claimed proudly. "There's this company around this refecture that can do sort of this thing yes? I didn't expect them to do such clean, thorough job. Say, does it also have a Merc engine inside?" Kitagara-sensei asked to Rantaro. "Ah, unfortunately I can't afford the Merc V8 option, sir. But I was lucky enough to replace the stock engien with a 2JZ-GE I found" Rantaro answered humbly. Then we show Rantaro's engine bay, as well as mine's. And then, it was Kitagara-sensei's turn to show his. It was a mechanical heaven.  Ah yes, almost forgot to explain the car in detail. Kitagara-sensei's AE86 is a Levin Kouki coupe model, with not a lot of exterior and interior mods other than Cibie foglights, Nardi steering wheel (not pictured) and these 16' wheels that I don't know which brand and model, although it looks a bit similar to Melber Mesh wheels, wrapped in stretched Dunlop Direzzas. That's because Kitagara-sensei spent most of his money on the engine and handling department, going through several iterations. This one, created at least 2-3 years ago, features a lot of things, including Tokico shocks and springs, Project Miu 4-pot brakes with 275mm rotors, front strut bar to add rigidity along with front and rear anti-roll bars as well as a plethora of Toda-produced parts in the 4A-GE Bluetop engine. Almost all of them, in fact, save for GReddy air filter and TRD oil filter. All thse mods and tuning made this AE86 quite a potent one, Kitagara-sensei claimed it can produce close to 200 BHP.
He is a regular attendee in the Tsukuba's annual Hachiroku Matsuri (yep, an AE86 festival), and in his spare time would come to several trackdays and open drift competitions too. I haven't seen his car from the first time I had a trackday there, so I asked him to join me someday. Obviously, I really want to feel the power of his AE86. Meanwhile, we took some more pics of our car together.......... 
 ......before a girl came up approaching us. She instantly noticed the presence of Kitagara-sensei and my Evo III. With a bit of hestitation and slightly worried face, she apporached Kitagara-sensei.
"Ah, Ryoko-chan, what's the matter?" Asked Kitagara-sensei in friendly tone. "Um, sensei, which one of these two men owns the silver Mitsubishi?" She asked politely. I raised my hand, and answered:"It's mine, anything I can help for you?" "Have you seen an orange BMW around here?" She asked to me. "Welp, I haven't seen one-wait wait wait are you Ryoji-san's sister?" "That is correct, do you know about him?" I suddenly remembered about Ryoji's note to his sister and me('find my Evo III and wait with me'). That girl is Ryoko (26), a staffer at Tsukuba uni at the uni's main building. She has a slender figure and brown, long straight hair, dressed herself in a decent suit and waistcoat. Kitagara-sensei sometimes come to the building for registering researches, so he knows Ryoko quite well. Ryoko graduated from this very uni 2 years ago, as a Bachelor of Business and Administration. I guess she'll bond well with Rantaro over this kind of stuff. But before introducing her to Rantaro and his Merc-uh, Mark II, I told her about how I met Ryoji at Tsukuba. She said the M3 feels nice to her and has a good radio, though she doesn't really like it when her bro goes flat on highways. She also likes the colour, since she likes to eat orange fruit at lunch breaks. 15.22 Whilst talking to Rantaro and Ryoko, an unmistakable sound of an european inline-6 engine echoes slowly to our ears. "Could that be it?" Asked Rantaro in excitement "Well yes it is! It's my bro's BMW!" Ryoko answered gleefully, letting out a bright, warm smile  "Yeaaaa look who's here! Fresh as ever my ma-Wait hang on a minute...." I interupted my own compliment towards Ryoji after spotting another silver car at distance, muffling a loud 4-cylinder tone. Turns out it was the same Clio from that time at Tsukuba! Rantaro looked equally surprised as well, seeing that French cars are quite rare here. All we could mutter was "Oh my god....."
 Ryoji entered the parking lot first. Then he stepped off the M3 and instructed the Clio driver to park beside him.  The Clio driver is Genzo (32), Ryoji's college friend who ended up being his assistant at his real-estate company at Tsukubamirai. Like Ryoji, Genzo also shares interest over european cars, though Genzo is a bit different: Because he likes to watch rally and touring car racing clips, he is interested in french cars, particularly french hatchbacks. He reckon these kind of hatchbacks are superior at handling mountain roads and twisty circuits. From these clips too he also learned rallying skills that proved handy in Tsukuba back then. He's a huge fan of Jean Ragnotti and Didier Auriol (though Didier won his title with a japanese car). Then we moved the topic to his Clio.
 "In all seriousness man, not only you've imported an euro car, you imported a special one!" I complimented, seeing as Genzo imported not just an ordinary Clio, it's a Renaultsport Clio 182. "Yeah, I'm quite lucky to got it under V$20000. It was V$16000 to be exact" Answered Genzo. "And you still tuned it up?" "Of course man, gotta have that rally feeling. And oh, hand-picked tuning, boi" "I just can't imagine how you can tune it like a witchcraft, it just gels very nicely" "I have to admit, I'm scared sometimes when the back swings off, but eventually I can handle it" "That's normal though, even rally drivers don't swing FWD cars that much like you did" "Your car looks cute! I love how it looks angry yet bubbly at the same time!" Ryoko interjected, riveted over the Clio's simple shape. "Uhh, thanks I guess" Answered Genzo, a bit confused. I and Ryoko simply giggled over his response. Meanwhile, Rantaro literally drooled over these two cars, Kitagara-sensei had to snap him back to sense.  We spent the day discussing our cars, as well as checking out the engine bay and interior of each cars. Rantaro looked visibly ecstatic while sitting in Ryoji's M3, while Kitagara-sensei and Genzo complimented the works and crafts done in Rantaro's Mark II. Ryoji was impressed over my Evo III's interior, calling it 'simple but effective', while I and Ryoko had fun pondering inside Genzo's Clio. "It's like sitting inside a capsule!" remarked Ryoko.
With the engine bay comparison, it's quite clear how similar yet different the way Kitagara-sensei, Ryoji and Genzo shows their gratitude in the automotive world: Kitagara-sensei bought a local car and spent his life turning it up to eleven, while Ryoji simply throw his money over an lightly-tuned import car, and Genzo is a combination of both. All for the same goal: Better performance on and off-track, and to show the world how much they love their cars. 
 I also had karaoke and dance session with Ryoko and Rantaro (all the boys couldn't dance well), using these two songs for our routine. It turns out Ryoko likes to watch anime or reading light novels at her spare time. She used to like mangas too, but stopped right after graduating from the uni, since she can't keep up with a lot of series at the same time.
Time passed up so quickly, it felt like the sunset came at a sudden. Everyone decided to capture the sunny, blue and orange skies their own way. Here's mine: 
   We talked up some more until the sun almost compeletely set. It was a tiring, but exhilarating, fun and memorable day. Ryoko and Rantaro looks quite exhausted, but their smiles were emitting genuine happiness. As I rarely had a pic of my car in darkness, I decided to try capturing some more pics before we all leave the spot.
     With all photos taken, the car meet is officially over. It was an awesome experience seeing and talking over a different spectrum of JDM and EUDM culture and sub-culture, as well as gaining new life experience and friends in the world. Each of us exchanged contacts so we might be able to gather like this again at one time. Finally we bid our goodbyes as Ryuji, Ryoko and Genzo went back to Tsukubamirai as darkness envelopes their cars, while I, Rantaro and Kitagara-sensei went back to our respective cribs.
Aaaahh damn it took me 4 hours to write this. It might not look that much, but not when combined with the fact that I started writing this in midight and finished at dawn (almost sunrise, in fact). Despite being a looong update, I don't think TL;DR version is needed since it's just one small car meet, but there's a small update over my wallet tho. I put it directly here since it's only affected by one item: Initial V$ = V$ 1,401
Sold Stock Supension Parts & Clutch = V$ 4,500 V$ at the moment = 1,401 + 4,500 = V$ 5,901 That's all my updates for now, thank you for stopping by and see you soon!
This post was edited by BigSmoke (2018-11-26 03:41, ago) |
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