Demon Dave

Top thread and excellent photos. The directions are great for anyone thinking of making the trip - and you should, it's a must for any nismo/skyline fan That 350Z looks awesome - damn, if they only made them with four seats.... Dave

a few pics to give you an idea of what you can see in the Fuji five lakes/hankone areas... Lake Shoji View from 5th step, Mt. Fuji. Shirakabako Waterfall Restaurant in Kawaguchiko where the owner is a bit of a car nut. In addition to a seriously stretched limo, and a Lambo he also recently acquired this: View of Fuji from Lake Kawaguchiko.

Never been to Hiroshima myself, so can't help with that one - perhaps Rezz and Evo_Lee know more Tokyo - there's already loads of info in the Japan section on that, so have a comb through some of the previous threads. Mt. Fuji - is in Yamanashi (my prefecture...as in where I'm living, not that I actually own it or anything ). Not sure if the climbing season is open by then, most probably not (as I recall) so you'll be limited to going to the 5th step (about half way up the moutain and the highest point you can reach via car/bus). There are usually bus tours/day trips leaving from Tokyo (most probably from Shinjuku or tokyo stations. ) that you could get on. I definitely recommend the bus, as it'll take you right up the mountain. If you have the time, the Hankone district (around the base of Mt. Fuji, and on the way from Tokyo to Fuji) is worth it - loads of hot spa's, lakes, hotels and touristy spots. Hakone is also popular with drifters at night, so if you've got transport (in the form of a rental car) it could be cool. Also at the base of Mt. Fuji you can find several lakes and resort areas, all easily accessible by bus including: Lake Kawaguchiko Lake Yamanakako Lake Shoji Lake Motosu and a few others. Plus, there's numerous museums, caves (ice cave, bat cave etc) to see, a couple of nice waterfalls, a small theme park: Fuji Q Highland plus a fair bit more) Also be aware, Fuji is not that far from Yokohama, which is a pretty cool place to visit too.

You're not alone - most of the people I know of who worked for Nova didn't last more than a year before they got out. There are better schools/places to work - my advice would be to wait until the end of your contract and then start looking for somewhere else. They'll probably be a gazillion schools in the Osaka area - while most of them would have filled their teaching posts by now, a few might be looking for teachers. Getting into a school midway through the school year can be trickier, but it is possible. Most of the vacancies tend to be available from early March onwards. You could try getting into the export business - there are a lot of companies working out of the Tokyo area, though not so many (that I'm aware of) based in Osaka. If you've got connections back home, setting something up shouldn't be too difficult. Again, it would probably help if you spoke some Japanese and had someone who could take care of all the paperwork on the Japanese side. Good Luck

Streeter - welcome to the Japan Residents Club (Gaijins R US ) If you're in Osaka, you're not too far from Rezz and Evo_Lee. As for work - unless you're fluent (ish) in Japanese there isn't a lot a foreigner can do in Japanese besides teach. If you're skilled in some trade, you might be able to get work for a big company that has operations abroad (i.e. outside Japan, in English speaking countries) though work like that would be difficult to come by. Just about all the Japan residents on here (myself included) work in Education - the only exception being Evo_Lee I believe. I know of several people in the Tokyo area, but again there either work for big multination corporations or the media/journalism. Give the teaching job a bit of time - I wasn't too comfortable at first, but needs must and when all is said and done, I can think of a lot worse jobs to be doing! Dave (in Yamanashi - the home of Mt. Fuji, me and many farmers )

'cause it's better than England Nah seriously, IMHO it is. I came out here for a vacation, decided it was about the coolest place on the planet to be and decided not to go home. When are you coming to Japan? Your friend with the GTR might be able to give you a general idea of where places are. The threads I suggested earlier also have information on the main attractions (car wise) and getting to them isn't that difficult. There are bound to be loads of places to see cars parked up in the Tokyo area, though I'm not familar with them. The best place by far is the Daikoku parking area, which is in Yokohama, not too far from Tokyo. You could probably take a taxi out there (which would cost a fair bit) or maybe even a train and spend the night in Yokohama. There are a couple of places of interest in Yokohama, Zele-International with their impressive selection of used GTR's being one of them. Another possibility would be the guys at JUN, they're bound to know where all the best places are and I'm sure they wouldn't mind giving you a tour if ya asks nice. Most Japanese are very friendly and will try and answer your questions no matter how poor your Japanese speaking ability is.

Tokyo Tokyo/Yokohama Auto Salon To get ya started

Greeting to my fellow Brit :( Congrats on being able to secure some work at JUN! I'm about 90 minutes drive from Tokyo, in Yamanashi. AFAIK non of the regular Japanese residents on here, with the exception of Akeenan (I believe), live near the Tokyo area. Not to worry since your bound to meet a fair few foreigners in Tokyo who might be able to point you in the right direction. There loads of info contained with the various threads in the Japan section, a look at the TAS '04 thread will help with an idea of where to look for places like Autobacs and Crystal. The best place to check out cars is Daikoku, near the waterfront in Yokohama. Ideally you should try and get a rental car while you're out there, though you could use a taxi which would be easier in some cases. Good luck! Dave (ex Derby resident )

Camera is a Sony F828. Mountain is Japan's most famous - Mt. Fuji And the lake is in my back garden.... almost :)

Being able to read some Japanese is ideal, but you can get by without it. Most satnav systems are pretty intuitive to use and most allow you to simply input the telephone number of the place you want to go to (instead of searching the database or typing in an address). It's also likely that someone at the rental place (especially in the Narita/tokyo area) will speak enough English to give you a basic idea of how it works...hell if me dad could work out how to use a Jap satnav anyone can! :)

Hehe - I had a lot of fun in a rental March once BTW - are March's March's in Aus, or are they Micra's like in England?

my local park...and some long exposure trickery Sunrise over Mt. Fuji, January 1st 2004....

These two were taken at my local racing/drift circuit... One of my other cars...(there's normally a R32 GTR body on it) Dave

Same here, I don't have any OCR software, never used it and never needed it...got the missus instead

Aye - if you're coming into Narita and staying in the tokyo area then akihabara would be the best place to go

Troy, sounds cool. There's plenty of cool places (nature wise!) for photo shoots in Yamanashi/Nagano/Shizuoka.

hehehe :) I've been waiting all year to get the skyline infront of some sakura for a photoshoot I thought I might have to miss out this year, what with work, bad weather, a baby and then having a coil pack fail and the car off the road for a couple of days while I waited for it to be replaced But, managed to get a few photos eventually...well, I say a few...about 1.5 GB worth! :D Edit: you can see a couple more on my site, here

Well, spring is here and since a few people have asked what Yamanashi is like (compared to the big cities) I thought I'd give you all an idea of what the view is like from my back yard...well, 2 minutes drive down the road, anways! Dave

I think getting a personal plate comes down to either bribes - or knowing someone in the licensing department

Q to the other Jap residents : I've been told on numerous occassions that it isn't possible to ask for/buy a personalized number plate...is this true?

The top two Kanji are the prefecture where the car is currently registered. The numbers beside those are a tax code, generally speaking most passengers cars (with the exception of yellow plate 660cc Kei cars) have either a 3xx number or 5xx number. Usually cars with smaller weight and engine capacity have a 5xx number, bigger cars the 3xx number. Trucks and other specialist vehicles have others such as 1xx or 88 and/or a green license plate. Below that the plate has a single hiragana letter followed by upto four digit numbers. AFAIK the numbers have no particular meaning, other than they uniquely identify the car.

don't miss out the "to" と in front of the numbers...

Good luck There's nothing quite like the car buying experience in Japan...Ohh what fun all the paper work is...NOT Outa curiosity - do Australians have to take a test to get a Japanese drivers license? Or are you as lucky as us Brits - just walk into the licensing centre wave your British license at them and they throw you a Japanese one back! :)

in a word (or two ) SKYLINE HEAVEN :rofl: Seriously, a yearly festival off all that is Nissan and Nismo. Held in late Nov, early December it is the event of the year for Nissan sports car enthusiasts. Previously it was held at the Fuji Speedway, but when Toyota bought the track they moved it half way across the country to the TI circuit (?)... An event not to be missed. Check out Rezz's pics from last years event, if they're still up.

Again, it seems I've been lucky in a lot of respects. My wife's family are really friendly and do not in any way seem to resent their daughter marrying a white dude. I spend a lot of time at their place, probably even more now we've just had our second child and their always going out of their way to help in any way. My mother in law seems to be have become an English fanatic, always trying to her best to communicate in English with me... Still, as pure said a lot of Japanese girls will do their best to keep the fact they have a foreign boyfriend a secret, especially from their parents and family. And do I feel *really* comfortable living here? Yeah, I guess I do. Sure, I get the occassional stare from people (and the odd bit of racism now and again) and it's hard not to notice all eyes shift to me (and my family) when we enter a restaurant or shop, but I've come to think of it as more like being a celebrity than anything else... And besides, while Japan may not be perfect, to me it's totally better than living in the UK!