Grind Chaos. Slow-mo-Kabukicho. First Sakura of the season.

Work has been hell, and as a result, this is late. Sorry.
It takes a lot to edit anything of my own after wrecking myself editing client work.

Music:
 - Shadows of the Mind
 - Waltz of the Undertaker
 - The Arcade
All tracks from: MachinimaSound.com
 - https://machinimasound.com/



Camera:
 - Sony a7S
 - Sony fs5 (rental)

Car: Nissan Silvia S14 Q's

Social:
 - https://www.instagram.com/darcnoodles/
 - https://twitter.com/darcnoodles

Passion:
 - http://darc.jp
 - http://bit.ly/darcjp666
 - https://www.instagram.com/darc.jp/
 - https://twitter.com/darcjp666


work:
 - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDYQOcu6MwS-z_gNvYa67Aw

Double Trouble #JapaneseRides

With my tax return, I have purchased my third Nissan Silvia. Yet another white S14 Kouki, but this one is a Q's Automatic, not a K's Manual. It's almost certainly going to become my daily driver. The black beast will be relegated to track duty only (as soon as I can actually afford to track it again).

"But wait, you can't even afford parking!?" is what you're going to say, but in a month, things will be a bit different. Soon, I'll be back in my natural habitat, behind the wheel, once more!

Coming of age, Sangenjaya, crows and more #7Days7Minutes (2016-1-11)

First #7Days7Minutes of 2016. Let's see how long I can keep these regular  this year :p

Yellow RX7 - Mt Akagi #JapaneseRides

I saw this sweet customer ride parked at Rings' Auto Shop on Mt. Akagi (Gunma, Japan)

My Daily Missile

My Daily Missile (Nissan Silvia S14), a set on Flickr.

I went up to the same location on Mt. Akagi where I shot the S2000 to take some snaps of my daily missile I really like this location.

As for my ride. It's not pretty. Not terribly powerful. But I drive the shit out of it and have epic fun doing so ;)

Since the last time it made an appearance on this blog I got a new front bumper (Vertex).

incidentally. Posting from the new flickr to blogger works (after a fashion)

The best S2000 I have ever seen…

Honda’s S2000 is a legendary car. It is a marvel of engineering and is not too bad looking in general. For some reason however, Honda fans (In Japan… In my experience) Either go track Otaku or keep their cars in pristine stock condition like it is some collectors item or investment for future resale…

Drive To Almost Nikko

What better way to kick off the new year than to tell you about shit that happened in 2012. My neck is stuffed so I am at home and have free time so why not get the backlog out of the way…

The cat and I got into the car and went for a drive. We had a general Idea of direction but no destination was planned. We headed up Mt. Akagi at first and were worried by the piles of snow on the side of the road. Being late autumn, we new some snow had already fallen but we expected less. There were some threatening clouds in the sky too but they dumped their load on the peaks slightly above the level of the road.

Shots #82 perfect

Shots #81 Too cool for the cold

I posted this on my tumblog a while back but that was just a crop out of the camera. I tweaked the levels and white balance this time around.

Come in Echo Base…

“> Well, I finished my circle. I don't pick up any life readings.

<There isn't enough life on this ice cube to fill a space cruiser. Sensors are placed. I'm going back.”

quote: The Empire Strikes Back

We went strawberry picking because my lady had invited her friends and brother from Nagano to Gunma to have a jol. When we had degusted on the strawberry goodness we decided that a trip up to the shrine on lake Akagi would be a great plan.

Strawberry fields

Let me take you down 'cos I’m going to strawberry fields…

Yeah strawberry picking season is here. At the Harada Strawberry Farm, ¥1200 (R120) gets you 30 minutes, a plastic tray and unlimited condensed milk top-ups. A ¥1200 box of strawberries holds about 36-40 strawberries.

To make it worthwhile, you need to be a fiend.

For me that’s something that comes naturally…

幽霊「ghosts」 ~5 hit combo~

Heart Transplant

One of my buddies wrote off his Silvia S15 recently. He got himself 2 S14s to replace it. The first had a Tomei Power Complete 2.2 litre engine but the body was scrap. The second was an engineless body. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see what needed to be done.

Shots #62 Pissed off…

the edge of  jetty:

Akagi Nights

A few nights back, some mates went up to Akagi to get their practice on. I joined them. and got reminded why I prefer Haruna when one feels the need to steer a little more in the corners if you know what I mean…

Shots #55 Cars

Three Valliant Knights storm a Red Castle

When I came to Japan there was an ALT here who essentially showed me everything and helped me sort out my life, car and well, just about everything here. 3 years later and he is on his way back to his homeland. We went for one last cruise. Sadly for him he had already sold his beast and was in his wife’s rinkydink. no matter we had a good drive on Mt. Akagi.

The two of us in arrived at the predetermined spot and waited… and talked about cars… and waited. Then we rolled up the Touge to find a windswept frozen wasteland. Still very much in the grip of winter despite spring having arrived elsewhere.

We headed to the shrine on the lake to kill some time and we discovered that the little rinkydink had beaten us to the top. How about that.

We then went up to a parking lot I know to do a couple of runs before heading down a very narrow and winding touge that comes out at the Akagi Onsen… Yes. There is an Akagi Onsen.  I was surprised to discover this too!

For some reason, I have the urge to visit the hotel there sometime. I should look into it.

Back down the hill and along another rather fun road before heading down into Ogo for a beef bowl. Where we sat and talked shit for a good hour before having to part with the Evo. He had to go in another direction.

We then headed back to Shibs to watch a movie and were only slightly distracted by the amazing sunset… By slightly distracted I mean I was struggling to keep the car in my lane while shooting out of my sunroof.

Total Distance driven:

about 82km

View Larger Map

Shots #48 The Abominable Snow Beast

Never caught on camera before, the rare Hondadrivus Japonicus spotted on Mt.Akagi.

Update – Autumn Drive on Mt. Akagi

Ok so I want to try and get all, or at least most of this year’s backlog out over the next 2 days. First up… some pics of a drive I took on Akagi on the most perfect autumn day in November.

At the bottom the leaves were still in the process of changing which made for a beautiful initial ascent, but as the road got more fun, the tries became more barren… which is probably a good thing.

  Note the marks on the road ;)

 

This sign has something to do with driving on boobs :p

 

The lake was pretty as always but it was not as pretty as I remembered it. I somehow thought that Lake Akagi was prettier than Lake Haruna… but I was clearly mistaken. Being atop a mountain, it was also rather cold up there as well.

In addition to the beautiful Gunma landscape there was of course the local wildlife. None of the larger predators were spotted, however some of the smaller ones were out and about…

  Well there was ONE larger predator about, but it doesn’t count :P

I took the road less travelled home and was rewarded by both an amazing drive but an almost deserted road all the way to Numata and some spectacular views…Even found a back road to Minakami which I will explore when the current winter snows melt away.

 

All in all it was one of those trips that made the price of the Silvia worthwhile.