Your Japanese word of the week is...

"dame" だめ , which means "bad" or "wrong". You can also use it as an emphatic "NO!" and, as is such the way with these words, can be used in a rather angry manner if need be.

dame!

Uggs. You might know these. Apparently these are sheepskin boots from Australia worn for warmth long before they became fashionable. I have never liked them. Maybe it's the lack of any discernable ankle or how the rounded toe makes the foot look like a styling reject from a cartoon shoe. I particularly don't like how the lack of support means that anyone who wears them eventually wears them to the point of collapsing on their instep.

Worse than all of that, however, is that lately I've been seeing guys wear them...... it just looks completely wrong.....

Dame!!

A Taiwanese man arriving at Narita Airport from Hong Kong. He collapses. Authorities thought he was suffering from a strange strain of flu.

Turns out he swallowed 90 packets of drugs in an attempt to smuggle them into the country.

The drugs poisoned him.... I laughed =P....

DAME!!!

The Cove. It's no secret that Japan is often known for its controversial whale hunts but worse than that is a lesser known dolphin hunt that happens annually in a cove in Wakayama prefecture.

What basically happens is as the dolphins migrate, the fishermen herd them into the cove where the dolphins get slaughtered. No, seriously..... reports of up to 2,500 dolphins get murdered in this one hunt alone.

When reports of this broke out a few years ago, former National Geographic photographer Louis Psihoyos took it upon himself to set up a secret film crew (including a diver for images from in the water) to catch this atrocious event from start to finish.

I should say that I personally have no issues with whale hunts for cultural reasons. There are lots of things that I eat that other cultures don't (I eat beef; Indians don't) and vice versa. I can appreciate that whale hunts are an important part of certain heritages and that's fine.

I do, however, have a problem with herding and massacring some 2,000 dolphins so they can be served up on a plate.......

That's just wrong......

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"honyaku" which means "translate". And last week, I finally got off my butt to figure out how to get Vista to write in Japanese. It turns out it's ridiculously easy (it took 30 seconds) so now I can also write the kanji for "honyaku", 翻訳. But people more often use "tsuyaku" 通訳 even though, according to the dictionary, it means "interpret" as opposed to "translate"...... I suppose it's the same in English though...

Anyways, like I promised, I'd found some time to flesh out some awards for the Tokyo Auto Salon last week. Some are new awards, and some aren't, but here we go...

Worst Colour Combination Award

No, you're eyes aren't fooling you. And no, neither is it noise from my camera. The car really is a poo brown over-saturated with metal flake.....

What probably is fooling your eyes, however, is the car itself. When I walked up I thought to myself, "There's something wrong with this Porsche"..... I couldn't figure it out until I saw the front......

If you know what's wrong with this picture and, even better, can figure out the origins of the name, feel free to leave a comment...... you might get a prize =).....

But despite its many glaring problems, it still managed to fool quite a few people.......

Most Under-Appreciated Car Award

It just wouldn't be me if I didn't award an Evo something hehe....

But I think this particular Evo IX deserves it because while the Evo X is a good car it doesn't impress me as much for some reason.

It certainly looks nice and is technology laden (active centre diff, active yaw control, active steering, twin-clutch gearbox), but it's also heavier and I find its performance slightly underwhelming.

I also happen to like my cars rather raw and this Evo IX delivers much better in that respect. I like that journalists say the steering could be considered almost overly-sharp. I like that some find it noisy. I like that others find it stiff. I don't even mind the bland interior and a body based off some middle-of-the-road bleh-mobile.

The Evo had it where it counted and proved it could go beyond its image and humble base to be recognized world-wide. Thus, this clean Evo in the Varis booth deserved much more attention that it got...

Random interesting picture...

No room for the groom?

Best Booth

Mazda. I will say, though, that no booth was particularly overwhelming (unlike Mitsubishi's darkness-of-space booth last year) probably since car show budgets were being trimmed as, apparently, filling booths with modified cars and pretty models is not as important as preventing bankruptcy... who knew...

But Mazda had every car in their line-up on display all dressed up in the same colour and same detailing (seats, stripes, wheel & bodykit styling), and had them open for everyone to try. It really created a cohesiveness to the display admist a sea of flashy colours and outrageous engine transplants.

An honourable mention goes to Subaru who built a rally car from the shell up in demonstrations over the three days. This is the techs putting in the rear axle and suspension.

It never ceases to amaze me just how fast cars rally cars can be taken apart or put together. I didn't stay for the whole show but they only scheduled, like, 15min for this bit.....

Best Tifosi

Tifosi is the Italian word for a group of sports fans. Increasingly, it's become synonymous the ravenous Ferrari fans at Formula 1 races. Y'know, the one's who dunk themselves in red paint and hold up a gigantic flag for 4hrs in the rain...

Well, despite there being only ONE Ferrari in the entire show, this guy still came in his Ferrari hat. And jacket. And sticker'd phone...

If you must know, he was taking a picture of a Nissan...

This was the only Ferrari in the building, an F2008 that Bridgestone brought along. The F2008 was the car Ferrari contested for the '08 season. For '09, they changed the rules for the allowable wing sizes and now the cars have strange full-width (reaching to the outside edges of the front tire) front wings and extremely narrow rear wings. It's not very attractive..... there's also an option to install a hybrid system (like in a Prius) which allows the drivers to use the batteries to provide a maximum of 6.6 sec (per RACE) of extra power....

The "What The Deuce" Award

Last year's award went to the company Nate for producing the frog car. This year's award also went to Nate for producing this "chick" car......

They hatched it out of a red egg lined with tin foil...... I think that's saying enough......

Best Model

Unlike last year's award which was won by a headless, armless, and legless mannequin, this year there were lots of models worth mentioning.

But try as they might (Suzuki and Toyo in particular tried quite hard), it goes to this nice girl in the Dunlop booth.

I didn't take a brochure though... Dunlops aren't really my thing =P...

Or maybe I should just put the rest of the pictures up and have a vote instead =)...

Best GT-R

With the GT-R being the darling of the Japanese performance scene and the GT-R Spec V about to be released soon, the show was flooded with them. But the Zele GT-R wins because aside from the surprisingly becoming orange paint scheme on their cars (they had a new 370Z as well), it's a very well put-together car with lots of neat and subtle features.

My particular favourite is the carbon fibre bumper that looks identical to the stock one except with two brake ducts put in. I never liked the stock bumper's lack of ducting (a sadly increasingly common styling element) and the Zele bumper looks different, functional, and simple all at once.

Best of all is that in a recent GT-R shootout, Zele's GT-R ran the best time of the day, beating other well-known tuners (like Mine's) on the track.

Car of the Show

Unequivocally- the Mugen NSX RR Concept.

As you might have figured out, I like things that are subtle, pragmatic, functional, and thoughtfully designed/engineered. I like details. I particularly like when something is designed with a clear goal in mind and, like the Evo's quick steering or stiff suspension, isn't ashamed of what it is.

The Mugen NSX RR Concept checks all those boxes. Despite being a car that's been out of production for almost 4 years, it still managed to captivate everyone. I watched it spin around slowly for nearly 15 minutes...

It's not just the body. Yes it resembles their endurance racer, is made of carbon fibre and aluminum, and is gorgeous like a race-car should be, but some panels were moulded to the body shell and they filled in the standard car's side air intakes.

It's not just the brakes. Yes they've got massive calipers and disks, but the entire wheel hub assembly was redesigned to push the wheels out, making use of that wide-body design.

It's not just the aerodynamics. Yes it's got a big wing and a hood extractor, but it's also got relocated exhausts for better rear floor aero and it has the air intake on the roof first seen on the 2002 NSX-R and their race car.

It's not just the interior. Yes it's the same as the normal one, but it's completely redone with new gauges, new steering wheel, new nav screen, new dash/switches, and new seats, all upholstered in red Alcantara.

It's not even the engine, which is the normal 3.2-litre V6 which is puny compared to fast cars of today. But Mugen turned it 90° so it now sits longitudinally (the crankshaft lies front-to-back) instead of transversely (side-to-side), just like their JGTC GT500 race car.

No, this car impresses because it's all those things but put together with a level of quality reserved for top-level race teams with big budgets, which Mugen is. Despite Honda pulling out of F1, this car proves they still know what they're doing.

And with all-but-confirmed rumours that the next NSX will be a front engined, V-10 powered, all-wheel-drive sports car (everything the previous one wasn't), the RR Concept, like the Nismo R34 Z-Tune from last year, is a fitting farewell for one of the most enduring sports cars in Japan, if not the world.

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"tsuitachi" which refers to the first day of a month. Just as how in English we say "January first" instead of "January one", "tsuitachi" is used in Japanese instead. In my case, the most important date in the first quarter of this year is March 1st. That would be, as I've just confirmed tonight, when my next grading is. I certainly don't intend on failing but it's not going to be easy. Especially because I'm determined to grade under the most scrupulous of testers, those in charge of the Tokyo area test.

To that end, in September I started training once a week at Takagi Sensei's Guseikai dojo. It helps that he's one of the people on the grading panel so I'm trying to take in as much as I possibly can in the next two months. However, it's still difficult mainly because while the grading itself only requires me to do all the basics, two kata, and two pre-set partner drills, I don't know which kata or drills I'll be required to do until the day of the test. And because they're choosing two kata out of 4 and two drills out of 10, I essentially need to know all of them....... =P

And while it sounds stressful, it hasn't stopped me from enjoying my time here. For example, this weekend I...

... went to the 2009 Tokyo Auto Salon.

As usual, I'll be putting up a couple noteables in a separate post.

... took part in the Shiramizu Arukou-kai, their annual new year walk to a shrine. The name actually comes from "aruku" (to walk) and "kai" (a meet/event), hence the name "arukou-kai".

Here are some pics from Arakawa Sensei's blog.

That's Arakawa Sensei at the head of the line.

It was a cold but bright morning and about 120 dojo members (Shiramizu has nearly 450 students!) came out for the walk which was about 1.5hr each way. At the temple, we prayed and had a short 5 minute "practice". At the end of the walk some parents had hot soup ready for us so it was great fun all around.

... went again to the Kagami Biraki at the Nippon Budokan. Like last year, it opened with an exhibition showing how the head of a samurai clan was given a feast followed by martial arts demos. I managed to catch the kyudo (archery) and karate demos, both of which were quite good.

Following that was the "First practice of the year". Nine different martial arts on the main floor of the budokan all practicing together. It great fun.

These next two pics are, again, thanks to Arakawa Sensei.

That's Carl, the current intern, right behind me.

Your Japanese word of the week is...

"jutai" which means a "traffic jam". But before we go any further, I'd like to wish everyone a very happy new year!

Anyways, back to the traffic........ these past three days (Jan 2 - 4) I was in Kyoto with Carl & Amy (the current Shiramizu interns) and Okano-san, a Shiramizu member who wanted to join us.

It turned out that having him along was incredibly helpful and I can't thank him enough. Not only did he arrange our accomodations, but he decided to drive there and back. That meant we didn't have to take the train to the various sights around Kyoto as well as saving us on Shinkansen fare.

The day started at 7am on Jan 2nd. I met Okano and we headed off down the highway towards Kyoto. Carl & Amy took the bullet train there, completing our nearly 6hr roadtrip in a little over 2hrs. Speed is everything...

But no matter, the sun was out, we had U2 blasting, and we stopped at various sights along the way.

Well, ok, there was really only one sight worth seeing- a Mt. Fuji not choked by pollution or drowning in rain clouds.

If I'm honest, I never understood the awe of Mt. Fuji. It's just a mountain surrounded by mountains surrounded by buildings. But driving towards it, I realised that it's the obvious and imposing size of it that makes it interesting. It always manages to stand out no matter what vantage point you look at it from. Whether its the constant snowy cap or how all the mountains around it look like they're holding Mt. Fuji high above the rest, it just sits there lording over the rest of Japan.

With a few stops on the highway and sitting in a short traffic jam, we arrived at Kyoto Station around 3pm and met Carl & Amy. We didn't do much except drive around looking for an ATM that wasn't closed (nearly everything is on holidays from Jan 2 - 4 in Japan, even, apparently, electrons) and finding the hotel. Oh, I also saw an Evo IX MR, which was wicked...

By that time, we just decided to check-in and meet one of Okano's friends for some great okonomiyaki and karaoke.

First impressions of Kyoto? It's a city proud of its history that has reluctantly let modern culture infiltrate its grounds. Similar to Vancouver in the lowness of most buildings and the wideness of the main roads, Kyoto looks really uncomfortable with itself. Seeing the spaghetti knots of power lines string their way into blocks of tile-roofed houses is an unattractive way of mixing new and old. But hiding among it all are pages and pages of history... Oh, and I saw a Bentley Continental Flying Spur, which was wicked...

Day 2 started at 8am and we packed it with lots of stuff. After some breakfast, our first stop was the Kiyomizu-dera. The Buddhist temple is famous for things like a perilously droopy stage in front of the main hall and the Otowa waterfall where three streams of water fall into a pond and drinking from them individually bestows wisdom, health, or longevity. But not all three as some believe being greedy invites misfortune.

It was also at this point that I realised I've been to Kiyomizu before, as I distinctly remember having my picture taken drinking from one of the streams..... obviously it wasn't wisdom otherwise I would've remembered it wasn't my first visit...... oh well.....

I should also say that visiting shrines and temples after the new year are very popular for people wanting to ensure a prosperous start. As such, Kiyomizu was extremely packed but we made do. Finishing the walk around Kiyomizu, we headed to our next sight. On the way, I saw a Caterham, which was wicked...

I accidentally stumbled into Kiyomizu's colour-void area...

Next stop was the Byodo-in, a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Kyoto city famous for it's large Phoenix Hall. The entire area used to be a gigantic villa and it was converted into a Buddhist temple in 1052. Though all that remains of the villa now is the Phoenix Hall which houses a huge wooden sculpture of the buddha Amitabha covered in gold foil. You can also find the Phoenix Hall on the back of a 10-yen coin.

The small bridges that lead to the Phoenix Hall...

Fittingly, Amitabha is the "Buddha of Infinite Light" and the hall (more like a room considering its size) used to be covered with things like mother of pearl in order to reflect as much of the meagre light entering the hall as possible. Above the front door is also a small window designed to illuminate the statue's face which, along with the fact that you have to crane your neck upwards to look at it, serves to enhance the feeling of awe as you look at Amitabha.

Unlike wine, however, it hasn't aged well and many of the carvings and paintings on the walls have long faded away. It remains unrestored, which I kind of like, and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site like the Kiyomizu Shrine. The sculpture itself is a national treasure.

The best part of the Byodo-in is the sheer size allows there to be lots of people without ever feeling crowded, something none of the other temples/shrines could do.

Some detailing on a Byodo-in building...

After a quick lunch, it was off to Rokuon-ji, better known as Kinkaku-ji or the "Golden Pavilion Temple".

The temple was commissioned by Shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu as a retirement home and was converted into a temple by his son. It's often spoken of in relation to the Ginkaku-ji (Silver Pavilion Temple) built by Yoshimitsu's grandson in an effort to emulate Yoshimitsu. The latter, however, was never covered in silver.

The pavilion itself sits among a very beautiful garden and in the middle of a serene pond, aptly named the Mirror Pond.

It was also burned down in 1950 by a monk.....

It was rebuilt and in the last 15 years has had everything from the gold foil to the roof restored. Still...

After Kinkaku-ji it was a short hop to Ryoan-ji, a temple most famous for its rock garden. I first heard about this in grade 9 and so it's been nearly 10 years coming that I see this.

The premise of the rock garden is that while there are 15 rocks in the garden itself, the most that can been seen while seated is 14. It is said that becoming enlightened allows all 15 to be seen.

I must, however, be honest with a few things.

First off, I was initially intrigued because I thought it was designed so that you couldn't see all 15 from ANY angle. In reality, you are limited to only one side of it. Though I suppose that makes it significantly easier to hide at least one rock from view.

The other thing is that as I moved from left to right sitting in different positions, by the halfway point I picked out exactly where the missing rock was. I have no idea if being enlightened and "seeing" the rock allows for its "visualization" but I'd like to think so... kind of makes up for missing the wisdom water at Kiyomizu heh....

Despite all those things and the sheer number of visitors trying to see all 15 rocks, I really liked it because it and the surrounding grounds are really very peaceful.

The grounds at Ryoan-ji.

By this time, it was almost 5pm and rushed though we did, we didn't make it to Ginkaku-ji before it closed. But we saw quite a bit that day and after a bit of dinner and souvenir shopping, we went to bed.

The third and last day started at 8:45am when Carl, Amy, and I walked to the nearby Nijo-jo Castle. It normally opens at 8:45 but because of the same Jan 2-4 holiday we and the electrons were on, changed its opening hours to 10am. I took a picture of the (closed) doors....... Oh, I saw a new Nissan GT-R too, which was wicked...

Lastly, before leaving Kyoto, we stopped by the Kamogawa River Park, a neat little park at the fork of Kamogawa River which runs along one side of the city. In the park is a fun stepping stone path that allows you to cross the river and some cool stone sculptures of turtles and fish along the way.

I also have to mention the Shin-Meishin Expressway which we used for the early leg of our return journey.

I loved this road because it exemplifies the Japanese penchant for engineering their way out of everything. Where there was a mountain they built a tunnel. Where there was a gorge they built a bridge. In fact, they went so far to streamline the process of moving machinery along the road that it is almost entirely flat, despite it punching through endless hills and valleys. The Omi-Odori bridge actually connects directly to a tunnel so that the road on either end of it is level!

It's also paved with silky smooth asphalt and even on the bridges there are no road seams. It's also WIDE! Two hard shoulders and two massive lanes. And empty- even at 12pm!! Oh, I saw a Porsche 550 Spyder too, which was wicked...

What with gentle curves, smooth pavement, and immense length, it would be easy to test the limits of whatever you're driving.......

It's hard to express just how badly I wanted to drive that road....

But the fun was shortlived as we neared Tokyo and hit traffic that stretched out journey to nearly 10hrs. Driving through the interchanges in Tokyo also gives you some idea of just how complicated the road network is. On- and off-ramps snake in all directions and roads loop around and through each other, sometimes 4 or 5 stories above a similarly busy local road network below. It's amazing they even managed to fit it all in... Oh, and I saw a Ferrari 360 Spider, which was wicked...

All in all though, it was a great trip and definitely something that needs to be done to get a sense for how deep the history runs in this country. Because while Tokyo has historical sights, it certainly can't convey it like Kyoto can...

I'd also like to say I'm quite happy I bought my camera. Despite the cloudy weather and drizzle for the better half of day 2, I left it to do its thing and I would say about 80-85% of the pictures came out well. A couple of them have overexposed skies but considering how dreary the light was all day, I can't really blame it. Only a handful of times did I need to fiddle around with the settings to get the shot I wanted.

Of course, I've tweaked all the pictures here slightly, but I think they turned out ok......

This last one I just pointed-and-shot but I quite like it for some reason.....

Next up, the Tokyo Auto Salon 2009!!