It’s still the rainy season in Japan and going anywhere near Mt. Fuji is pointless because it will be forever hidden in the clouds. Hakone is one of those places that’s a thousand times better if you can see Mt. Fuji. In case you’re not familiar with Hakone, it’s the hotspring resort town at the end of the Odakyu line. You can get there in less than 2 hours via the Romance car from Shinjuku. There’s some very nice hotsprings and restaurants in the area which is perfect for a weekend date. Hakone is also one of the best places to drive fast and tight winding roads through the mountains. I wanted to get away this weekend and decided late friday night to head out there just to drive some of those curves. Luckily it only rained at night and during the day the roads were mostly dry and I could put the top down.

(1) This is one of the pirate ships you can ride across Lake Ashinoko. Usually you can see a magnificent view of Mt. Fuji across the lake to the left. There were busloads of bored European tourists waiting to get on the next boat. I felt sorry for them because they came all the way from the other side of the earth to see Mt. Fuji, but all they could experience was this plain looking lake and a tacky boat. Oh well, it is a lot better when Mt. Fuji is visible, really! (2) Stuck in traffic on the road leading up to Hakone Shrine. Certain parts of Hakone are gridlock on the weekend. Even if you don’t drive you’ll still get stuck in the jams riding the bus. Better to be in your own car listening to your tunes.

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Some photos of the roadster taken on my drive up to Gunma and Tochigi last weekend. The weather on saturday was surprisingly hot and sunny despite it being the rainy season. I put the top down in around noon time but the sun was so strong I felt like I was in a microwave oven. We drove down to Ikaho Onsen and back to where we were staying which was about an hour drive. On sunday, I did the drive along Nihon Romantic Highway. Down through Nikko and Irohazaka and made a stop in Kinugawa Onsen and Utsunomiya for gyoza at MinMin before heading home. The roads weren’t that crowded from Utsunomiya so I decided to take the back streets rather than the expressway.

Here’s my roadster beside one of those vans with the wings. This one had a big Disney cat from the Aristocats painted all over it. For heaven’s sake, Why?!!

Relakkuma is comfortable in his new home. It’s kind of gay, I know. But the girls insist.

The weather was unusually warm this past weekend so yesterday I canceled the indoor activities I had planned and went for a little drive around Tokyo. The photo above was taken at a railroad crossing of the Keikyu line somewhere near Tsurumi, I think.

If you are new to driving in Tokyo, let me give you some advice which I had to learn the hard way. Besides the long weekends and other holidays, there are 2 periods every month that you should avoid if you hate crowds and traffic jams. The first one is obviously the weekend after payday. Unlike in western countries where people get paid every two weeks (as far as I can remember) in Japan payday is only once a month and is usually on or around the 25th. So everyone has the cash to go shopping and buy the things they need. Yesterday, I drove out to Nitori and Ito-Yokado and also to Haneda Airport and while these places are generally crowded on Sundays, they were more crowded than usual, this weekend being the weekend after payday. It was a bit hard to find a parking space, although not impossible.

The other lesser known time to avoid driving is on the nights of the 19th and 29th of every month. Apparently, JUSCO, which is kind of like a Walmart, has a sale every month on the 20th and 30th. As a result, other large stores must follow suit and have sales of their own. This creates a chain effect throughout the retail industry and so on the nights before those dates there are hundreds of trucks on the main arteries transporting stock to the different stores. I happened to be driving on one of these nights and almost got sandwiched between some of these big trucks. As you know, my car is already really tiny and because it’s a dark gray it basically becomes invisible at night. The next car I buy will be red. Definitely.

Gas is getting expensive. A litre of regular now costs about ¥130 and high-octane over ¥140. You may not care if you are not a car owner but if these prices remain high like this you’ll see fares for taxis, buses, delivery companies etc increase in the long run. It’s all connected. According to this site, the cheapest gas is in Iwate Prefecture. Maybe that’s where I will go for my summer vacation.

Saw on the news this morning that starting from June 1st this year, the law regarding illegal parking will change and become more severe. This is in my view a great thing as everyone knows illegal parking is rampant in Tokyo streets and is the primary cause of traffic jams. Just the other day I saw a guy park his mercedes on a busy crosswalk while a policeman on a bicycle watched and did absolutely nothing.

Previously, if you parked your car illegally policewomen in a tiny patrol car would drive by and chalk up your tires. This is a warning and if your car is still there when they return after about 30 minutes, they give you a parking ticket or put that yellow plastic tag on your side mirror. With the new law, there will be no grace period. The cops will come by and put a sticker on your car with a phone number that you must call. The parking ticket is sent to your house and if it is not paid they have the right to revoke your license or even repossess your car.

The local governments will also be recruiting thousands of citizen parking police that will go around checking for illegally parked cars. I’m not sure if these people will be able to give out the tickets or not. As with most new laws, they are rarely enforced but having them there does tend to put pressure on people to stop. I only caught the gist of the news as I was on the running machine at the gym, will try to find out more details later or if anyone has a link about the new law. please send to me.

Going to the Boso Peninsula via the Aqualine makes for a less congested drive than heading west to Fuji or Izu although not necessarily as interesting. There’s almost never any traffic jams in that part of Chiba and I can get to Kisarazu in less than 30 minutes from my place. That’s faster than driving to Shinjuku. The only negative is that it costs ¥2320 one way on the Aqualine (It’s actually ¥3000 but there’s a discount if you use ETC which ends at the end of March). Today’s destination was Ryugujo Mikazuki Onsen in Kisarazu. It’s a super onsen on the coast right after you get off the Aqualine. While crossing Tokyo bay the wind was incredibly strong and I felt like I was going to get blown into the ocean.

This was by far the biggest super onsen I’ve ever been too. The parking lot fits over 1300 cars and 50 buses, there’s a hotel, outdoor pool, indoor pool, water slide, sand bath, a bunch of saunas etc etc. It’s almost like a disneyland attraction except with naked people. The best thing is there’s a fantastic view of Mt. Fuji from the baths. There are 2 other equally as big Mikazuki Onsens on the other side of the Boso Peninsula too. I’ll have to visit them sometime.

More pictures of the Aqualine here.

These photos pretty much sum up what it’s like driving in Tokyo. Most of the time you’re surrounded by trucks, LOTS of trucks. On weekdays, the roads are just full of trucks. When I was in Singapore I noticed that 99% of the cars on the road were sedans (mostly silver Corollas) but in Tokyo at least 60% are trucks, 25% are taxis, and 15% all the other kinds. Why so many trucks in this city? My roadster is already pretty low and with a big truck in front of me most of the time, I can never see if the light is green or red until I’m right under it.

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I’m sorry to have to do this but here are more pictures of my car. Today, the third day of my long weekend devoted to just driving, I went out to Taiyo No Sato, a super onsen located along Kujyukuri beach out in Chiba. As far as driving goes, it wasn’t very interesting, just took the expressway there and back. I had planned on driving the entire perimeter of the Boso peninsula but the traffic there was fairly heavy so I arrived just before lunch. I also spent more than a few hours at the onsen relaxing and getting a massage so by the time I left it was already 4pm. These photos I took along the beach near the onsen.

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Someone described the galaxy gray color of my car as ネズミ色パール or a pearl mouse color which I thought was spot on so I decided to name my roadster ネズミ１号 (Mouse #1). Sounds silly but I couldn’t think of anything else. Today was the first day I had a chance to take it out for a real drive and decided to head out to Kawaguchi lake. There were a few things I wanted to test out. One was the Sony navigation system. It’s much better than I thought except for the VICS beacon (a system which gets real time traffic and redirects you away from traffic jams) which kept changing my route every 10 minutes and didn’t save me anytime at all. I ended up taking more than 2 hours just to get on the Chuo Expressway this morning. I tried to turn it off but couldn’t. I might have to disconnect it. Today was also the first day to take the car onto the expressway. The NC is alot more solid than my NB and I felt much safer in this car. Inside, it was much quieter and altogether a smoother ride. The suspension of the NC is a bit softer than the NB which some people don’t like but makes long drives endurable. In the NB sometimes you feel a bit shaken up after a few hours in the cockpit.

I got off at Kawaguchi lake but unfortunately Mt. Fuji was in hiding today. It did make a brief appearance in my rear view mirror so I stopped for a photo (above). One thing I realized is that if you drive around Mt. Fuji counter-clockwise, which is usually the case if you get off at Kawaguchi to drive the lakes, Mt. Fuji seems to be always behind you. I might try driving the other way around next time.

I saw a few NA roadsters but not a single NB roadster today. I also saw a 3rd Generation Ltd. The second NC on the road I’ve seen so far. The velocity red was unmistakeable as it drove past me in the opposite lane near Kawaguchi lake. The driver was an old lady, must’ve have been over 60!! And an old guy in the passenger seat. Her husband I presume. BTW, no one seemed to notice my new car. I guess there aren’t so many roadster freaks out there..

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I joined JAF last month because my car battery died and now they’re sending me their monthly magazine JAF Mate. Oh boy! Why they put a duck and rabbit on the cover of an auto user’s magazine is the first thing that crossed my mind. Lots of good articles though, osens, drive routes, safe driving tips, how to drive economically and even travel English tips. They have all the previous issues scanned and available online. Need a password though.

This morning, we decided to visit another local onsen and a nearby museum before heading back to Tokyo. We wanted to get back soon to avoid the traffic.

On the way to the onsen, there was some sort of local festival going on. Seemed like everyone in the neighborhood was out pulling these long logs down the street. Not sure what it meant.

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One of the first driving routes you’ll find in any Kanto driving route guide is the Venus Line route. It’s an 80 km stretch of winding road through the mountains in Nagano. Been a while since I went on a long drive and decided to make the trip while I have some time off work. The Venus Line used to be a toll road but I heard that since last year they made it free to attract more tourists. On a good day, the scenery along the Venus Line is spectacular (well, so I heard) perfect for top down driving. But, being off season and all, the weather this weekend will be crap.

(1) Left early friday morning, the Chuo Expressway was empty so it only took about 3 hrs to get there including a long break at Dangozaka parking area (2) Got ETC installed yesterday and it’s cool! And it’s a good thing too cause my roadster is so low that sometimes I can’t reach the ticket machine (3) The start of Venus Line, not that impressive..

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