Our holiday in Japan - Pic Heavy!
Discussion
Apologies to those who have already seen this over on MX5Nutz, but had a few requests to put it on here as well.
So me and Planet Claire (Helen) have just returned from a 2 week holiday to Japan. It was ace – a beautiful country, and never have I been somewhere where the locals seem so friendly and keen to speak to you about England, and what you think about their home. Anyway, enough of that, and onto cars. If you are local to us, you may remember in 2011 Helen was contacted out of the blue by a Japanese guy (Kuniaki) who didn’t speak much English, but said he was coming to the UK for a few days and wanted to see some mx5s… we met up with him and took him around Brooklands museum, and Helen organised a mini mx5 meet in Weybridge. He also got some passenger rides in turbo and supercharged cars and the thumbs-up suggested he was very impressed. Helen and he stayed in contact since via email and so when we decided to go to Japan we thought we’d visit him in Hiroshima (which, as you know, is Mazda’s home).
After a couple of days in Tokyo we took the bullet train to Hiroshima, where Kuniaki met us at the station and spent the afternoon taking us around Peace Park, and the Atomic Bomb Museum – a truly sobering experience. In the evening we had a fantastic multi-course meal.
The following morning we collected a hire car – a lovely silver Mk3 Coupe. It was Auto, but actually proved to be quite fun in the semi-manual setting.
We followed Kuniaki out of Hiroshima and into the mountains, and met up with his local club – Kurakake Roadster Club. No time for introductions though, as we were already late for the main meet further into the mountains, with the “Shooting Star Club”. That was one of the loveliest and most bizarre experiences of my (mx5) life – we were treated like celebrities and everyone was keen to talk to us and show their cars (even if actually they couldn’t speak much English). Among their members was Mr Wakasa, there with his lightly modified Mk3. He was a senior manager at Mazda and part of the Mk3 development team. While technically retired, he was still at Mazda as a consultant working on the Mk4. Business cards were exchanged and we were told if we visited him the next day at the factory there was a chance we might be able to see the Mk4 in the metal…
Anyway, here are loads of pictures of the meet. Not sure that anyone had any form of forced induction, but most of the modding genres were covered – from classic British style, to super slammed, to big wings, to Pitcrew conversions. I was even blown away to see my first mk2 coupe!
So me and Planet Claire (Helen) have just returned from a 2 week holiday to Japan. It was ace – a beautiful country, and never have I been somewhere where the locals seem so friendly and keen to speak to you about England, and what you think about their home. Anyway, enough of that, and onto cars. If you are local to us, you may remember in 2011 Helen was contacted out of the blue by a Japanese guy (Kuniaki) who didn’t speak much English, but said he was coming to the UK for a few days and wanted to see some mx5s… we met up with him and took him around Brooklands museum, and Helen organised a mini mx5 meet in Weybridge. He also got some passenger rides in turbo and supercharged cars and the thumbs-up suggested he was very impressed. Helen and he stayed in contact since via email and so when we decided to go to Japan we thought we’d visit him in Hiroshima (which, as you know, is Mazda’s home).
After a couple of days in Tokyo we took the bullet train to Hiroshima, where Kuniaki met us at the station and spent the afternoon taking us around Peace Park, and the Atomic Bomb Museum – a truly sobering experience. In the evening we had a fantastic multi-course meal.
The following morning we collected a hire car – a lovely silver Mk3 Coupe. It was Auto, but actually proved to be quite fun in the semi-manual setting.
We followed Kuniaki out of Hiroshima and into the mountains, and met up with his local club – Kurakake Roadster Club. No time for introductions though, as we were already late for the main meet further into the mountains, with the “Shooting Star Club”. That was one of the loveliest and most bizarre experiences of my (mx5) life – we were treated like celebrities and everyone was keen to talk to us and show their cars (even if actually they couldn’t speak much English). Among their members was Mr Wakasa, there with his lightly modified Mk3. He was a senior manager at Mazda and part of the Mk3 development team. While technically retired, he was still at Mazda as a consultant working on the Mk4. Business cards were exchanged and we were told if we visited him the next day at the factory there was a chance we might be able to see the Mk4 in the metal…
Anyway, here are loads of pictures of the meet. Not sure that anyone had any form of forced induction, but most of the modding genres were covered – from classic British style, to super slammed, to big wings, to Pitcrew conversions. I was even blown away to see my first mk2 coupe!
Later on we headed off, back for more driving through the fantastic and lightly traffic’d mountain roads. Our Mk3 quickly got under our skin – bumps that would shake our fillings out in our own 15 year old Mk2’s were dispatched with a distant muffled “thump” and everything felt so right. (later that night were we searching autotrader for mk3’s for sale).
Anyway, where would they take us for lunch? Obviously a strange American-inspired farm deep in some woods that had a BBQ, a band playing, dogs running around, and sheep tethered up. It was like something out of “Deliverance”. After lunch we watched the locals making “Mochi”. Basically its cooked and steaming rice that is pounded in a huge wooden mortar by massive wooden mallets. They thought it would be hilarious to make the visitors do it so we were handed the mallets. Tough work once the rice becomes thick and sticky and they soon lost patience… the finished sticky dough is then pulled apart and rolled into small balls, and dipped in sweet sauce (it’s a dish usually eaten for new year)
Back in the cars, and another longish drive took us to the top of a mountain overlooking the Nukui Dam. There they set up a picnic and drinks for us, and presented us with various presents – sweet rice cakes, and a special tin of Mazda biscuits. Everyone was put on the spot and asked to introduce themselves to us in English and all of them managed. Thankfully when it was our turn we weren’t expected to speak in Japanese, as we only knew 3 words, but as one of them was “thank you” (“Arigatou”) that was used a lot.
It was late afternoon now, and time to drive back to Hiroshima, but before we took the car back we would be stopping by their “clubhouse”. What would that be – a pub? A hall? A shed? None of those things in the end – the clubhouse is a toyshop! Its the club Chairman's business ("Saboten"). Literally crammed to the rafters with toy cars and figures and costumes. Their club meetings must be a laugh riot.
So, it was then we said goodbye to most of Kurakake Roadster Club, and Kuniaki took us back to the rental place. With a heavy heart we gave back our Mk3, but our spirits were lifted when by chance we found another Mk2 Coupe just around the corner– this was the “other” shape with the difference nosecone and less “Halfords” bodykit. I want!
The next day Kuniaki picked us up in his Suzuki wagon to visit the Mazda factory. It is amazing – it’s the size of a large town itself. It has its own powerstation, 2 fire stations, and the bridge connecting it with the other side of the river is the biggest privately owned bridge in the world. It also has its own harbour where the cars can be loaded straight onto the boat. Cars are built in 12-15 hours from start to finish…
(On the way we saw this little workshop)
So we signed in and joined the public tour (its free) through the museum
We went (briefly) into the actual production line, where we saw a few MX5’s going through the final stages – the dashboards being picked up by robot arm and slotted into the cars, and then the windows being glued in place.
After the public tour we called Mr Wakasa and he came down to see us.
Sadly we wouldn’t be able to see the Mk4 (fair enough – I suppose they are busy getting it finished and don’t need us getting in the way) but we did press him for some details. For many questions he made a “zipping” motion across his lips, but did say that he’d driven the car and it was brilliant, with the throttle response in particular being excellent. He took us around some of the staff areas like their food hall and shop, and bought us a couple of MX5 magazine, then it was time to say goodbye and let him get back to work.
Afterwards we went to for a lovely lunch, but here ends the main MX5 part of our trip. But here are some more random MX5s we saw around, and also some non-MX5 content. Apologies for your bandwidth…
Not your typical trip to Japan, kudos to you, it looks like fun 
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