Painful Skyline

From Wikipedia: Itasha (痛車, literally "painful car") is a Japanese term for a fashion of individuals decorating the bodies of their cars with fictional characters of anime, manga, or video games (especially bishōjo game or eroge). These characters are predominantly "cute" females. The decorations usually involve paint schemes and stickers.

It is what it is. I have no words. If you like it, good for you, I suppose. 

Painful 180SX (Akihabara UDX)

From Wikipedia: Itasha (痛車, literally "painful car") is a Japanese term for a fashion of individuals decorating the bodies of their cars with fictional characters of anime, manga, or video games (especially bishōjo game or eroge). These characters are predominantly "cute" females. The decorations usually involve paint schemes and stickers.

I daresay it doesn't look terrible on this 180SX. If only the character depicted was an adult woman, not a child, because you know the owner has had a long session with 'Mrs Palmer and her five daughters' while looking at pictures of that character.

Painful Swift (Akihabara UDX)

From Wikipedia: Itasha (痛車, literally "painful car") is a Japanese term for a fashion of individuals decorating the bodies of their cars with fictional characters of anime, manga, or video games (especially bishōjo game or eroge). These characters are predominantly "cute" females. The decorations usually involve paint schemes and stickers.

While the thought of driving one of these things is rather painful. I must say. This is designed and wrapped well. I quite like that pearlescent green pattern.

Driver Portraits - Daikoku Parking Area Dec 2016

Those of you who follow my Japanese underground instagram account or follow my facebook page will have seen these, and my previous portraits like them. If it's your first time seeing my [driver portraits] series, the basic concept is that all the cool cars are nothing without the people who build their hearts and souls into them. Everyone shoots the cars, which are just secondary representations. The true creativity, beauty, passion and soul of a vehicle is the person behind the wheel.

If you want to see more of the people that mainstream Japanese society shuns, and the amazing things they do, check out my instagram account or follow my facebook page.

rudies #TokyoStreets

Riding, Shibuya & your opinion | 7Days 7 Minutes (2015 -05-11)

Music: Jetstream By MacSharks (LiquidData royalty free music pack)

00:00 Riding Intervals (5 seconds every 2 minutes) (Ota Ward)
01:11 Your thoughts on my thoughts
02:15 Intersecting (Shibuya)
03:11 Riding Realtime (Kawasaki)
04:11 A Shibuya crossing that's not THE Shibuya crossing
05:11 River Ridelapse (Setagaya Ward)
06:11 Reflections

The Great East Japan Tour

I've been busier than a former AKB girl turned hooker over the last few weeks, and the places I've been generally didn't have connectivity or I didn't have the time to use the connectivity to blog. I apologise. 

I left for Shibukawa, Gunma on the 9th, and rode the 50cc 6 hours on the backroads to get there. I stayed with Yoshitatsu that night and the next morning we pulled out at 2am to go to Nikko Circuit for the DRiFTWiRED1 drift event. 

When I got back The Cat told me that her grandfather wasn't doing well and the next morning I got the call that he passed away. I met up with her and her sisters in Takasaki, Gunma we went back to Nagano for the funeral and proceedings.

After the funeral, I hopped the shinkansen back to Gunma and participated in the Shibulawa Dashi Matsuri. Which is and was one of the highlights of my life when it comes around every 2 years. It was good to be home. 

After 2 days of festival and a day to replace the Chain on my bike, I rode back to kawasaki and barely had a day to recover some semblance of sanity before hopping a Shnkansen for 5 hours to Akita in the far north.

I interviewed the heads of the Yamamo Soy Sauce company and a maker of Inaniwa Udon (one of the best known types of udon in Japan)

Back on the shinkansen to Kawasaki where I had a night in my own bed before heading west to Nagahama, in Shiga Prefecture, on the shores of Like Biwa, Japan's largest lake. 

The work was to interview the management team at Top Seiko, one of the world's most precise ceramic and tungsten machining companies. 

I then tool a look around the Kurokabe area, near Nagahama Station, where one of Japan'a oldest downtown shopping areas has been preserved and still serves the same purpose. Lack of money prevented me form taking too much time there. 

I hopped back on the shink and finally headed back home where I am now putting together a craptonne of articles, images and videos  over the next 2 weeks before getting on more trains and heading to more exotic destinations.

not my actual route or transport method but accurate sense of scale

7 Days 7 Minutes (2014-07-21) Yokohama Night, Street Performer, Epic Music and more...

00:00 notMONDAY Street Performer
01:00 TUESDAY Just Riding
02:00 notWEDNESDAYLocal Bike Shop
03:00 notTHURSDAY Minatomirai
04:00 FRIDAY Follow Friday: Moth De La Cruz
05:00 notSATURDAY Yokohama Nights
06:00 SUNDAY Another Perfect Sunset

All Music by The Living off the album M.I.V.1


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Going Ape

I took a ride down to Enoshima yesterday, partially because I could partially because I wanted to get some longer distance experience on Matt's bike. While I was there I decided to take some photos of it.



It's a tiny bike too small for me both from a size and an engine capacity standpoint but considering I'm being lent it for the price of whatever parts are needed to keep it running, I am not complaining too much. That said, due to it's size compared to my wide ass, I'm gonna need to get a carrier rack of sorts cos any rides over an hour long are going to be hell on my lower back with a backpack (this ride was 3 and a half hours -__- )



It was great weather for a ride though, not cold, but not too hot. And riding along the coast is always going to be awesome. These longer rides are not going to be a regular thing though. It just takes too damn long on the 50cc to get anywhere. I need to work toward having a steady monthly income so I can get my car back and use that for longer drives and eventually get my proper bigger bike license and get a 250cc for close commutes and city travel.



Till then this will keep me going. Even with the fatiguing ride, having the freedom to go wherever the hell I want whenever I want, is EPIC. It took about as long as the train to get to the coast and it was more tiring, but there was so much less stress and I found some interesting things along the way that I'd never find on the steel tubes of misery. The bike was also way cheaper. This trip cost me about ¥400 as opposed to almost ¥1500 on the zombie line.