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Merlins tokyo adventures day 1


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Its 3:20 am local time ... Cannae sleep. Got to my hotel at 9 pm and slept til 1:30' which is 8:30 am west coast. Can see the tokyo tower out my window on the 16th floor of the skinniest hotel i've ever seen. This place is cool!

 

Meeting "itchy" at the yokohama station in 6 hours to start a Datsun Dream Day... Personal tour of the engine museum by the Curator and the former head of Nismo marketing, followied by lunch then a couple hours at the Zama heritage collection... 250 datos, nissans and princes from 1932 to now!

 

Think I should bring extra underwear.

 

Plan is to head back to yokohama in 2 days to Mooneyes.... And to look for old parts ;') i have no idea what the fuck im doing lol!

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Im shopping for 1964 cedric parts, cool datsun trinkets, old books and hopefully vintage nismo racing videos ... Brought an extra suitcase that i hope to fill lol!

 

Fire out the suggestions. Kyoto/ nara is 23/24 then komatsu is the 25th for the motor car museum of japan

 

Gunna try and dozebfor an hour or two more...

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Kiyomizu-dera in Kyoto would be a must visit. Don't know how the foliage looks around this time (Mid November is best) but don't let that stop you.

 

The Ishikawa area (Komatsu) is where my wife's family is from. It's a beautiful area as well. There is a garden near that museum you're headed to, check it out if you have the chance.

 

Lots of random J-tin near the Komatsu airport, FYI ;)

 

I think you'll be fine in Tokyo. Doubt you'll find old JDM parts at Mooneyes in Yokohama, but it's worth visiting anyway.

 

If you're going to Yokohama and are set on finding Cedric parts, try giving Satoshi at S&A auto create a call. How's your Japanese?

 

More than anything enjoy yourself. And bringing wheels back as your check-in allowance isn't fun but I've done it many, many times...

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Spoiler alert! no Oics until i can get a n adapter cable for my camera.

Not getting into much detail as I will be doing this as a nissansport article.

the fast and loose is that i got down to yokohama, got a guided tour of the engine museum, a tour of nissans new yokohama headquarters... you'll be pleased to know that they have a classics section there. i may go back to take detailed pics. My host, Eiichi Shimizu, picked me up at the train station in his 1964 Nissan Cedric with 54k original miles. he toured me around yokohama, showed me all the Nissan plants.. then drove me about 45 minutes up to niisans R n D bunker... from there we went for an excelent soba lunch, then on to the Zama Collection.

you could spend days there, but you can't as you must be with a host. Eiichi-san drove me about 200 miles that day in the cedric, epic !

 

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Nice! I'd just love to have one someday, but I would be doing naughty, naughty things to it, so I would need a really, really crappy one so I wouldn't feel bad! And even then I'd feel bad so probably wouldn't unless it were so bad there was no chance of finding parts to restore it with out Jay Leno's shop.

 

It would be the ultimate Datsun traditional hotrod. Marrying two of my loves. But if I can't build one i might draw one.

 

It is so close to the Austin Ruby 7 (But there are differences.) that one might make a replica with one of those if they had some nice pictures to go by (So I will totally take you up on that)! Then I'd just piss off the Austin guys! I could sculpt a rabbit hood emblem... Just day dreaming Merlin!

 

I like that this guy is trying to build his own.

 

My link

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My feet are sooo fucking sore! I think i walked half of tokyo... Forgot my JR pas at the hotel in shimbashi, ao i walked all of Ginza plus the whole east side of the imperial gardens. Scored a Tomy bluebird coupe and a limited edition Hakosuka aat this crazy ass toy store.. They had huge rubber snakes and 3 foot long cockroaches with christmas bows on them- just what evry kid wants for christmas, a three foot cockroach.

Went to this massive bookstore and scooped up a book on the nissan R380 racers, one on nissan trucks and buses, and two copies of a pictoral history of datsun from 1914 to 1973.

Then tonight.... Its 11:30 here right now, i went to Shibuya... Crazy ass place, sounds like your caught in a pinball machine, hot hot jdm chics dressed to the skanky nines all over the place... Mindblowing.

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So today i had to do something non-car and not alot of walking. So i went to the mountains to Nikko to see the shrines and temples... Awesome! No tourists at all, Stunning carving paintings and stonework , off the scale of neat stuff ive seen in my travels. Picked up some Ratsun swag there.. A bunch of Buddhist safe driving charm stickers, and some Shinto ones too.. Look very cool. Once i get back, we'll figure out how to get them out...

Saw 2 hakos, a stunning blue Kenmeri and a lowered sunny pick up from the train.

 

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Right on. When I was in Japan five years ago, I never saw a single Datsun. But the first classic car I saw was while on the train from the airport to tokyo. It was like something out of a dream, a charcoal hakosuka running down a dirt road alongside the railroad tracks ... I still can't believe it.

 

I did see one Sunny Truck, a delivery vehicle for an appliance store. Not counting the ones I saw when I visited Aoba Auto "The Sunny Truck Store" in Yokohama. They were all post-Datsun versions.

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Its 3:20 am local time ... Cannae sleep. Got to my hotel at 9 pm and slept til 1:30' which is 8:30 am west coast. Can see the tokyo tower out my window on the 16th floor of the skinniest hotel i've ever seen. This place is cool!

 

Meeting "itchy" at the yokohama station in 6 hours to start a Datsun Dream Day... Personal tour of the engine museum by the Curator and the former head of Nismo marketing, followied by lunch then a couple hours at the Zama heritage collection... 250 datos, nissans and princes from 1932 to now!

 

Think I should bring extra underwear.

 

Plan is to head back to yokohama in 2 days to Mooneyes.... And to look for old parts ;') i have no idea what the fuck im doing lol!

.

Im shopping for 1964 cedric parts, cool datsun trinkets, old books and hopefully vintage nismo racing videos ... Brought an extra suitcase that i hope to fill lol!

 

Fire out the suggestions. Kyoto/ nara is 23/24 then komatsu is the 25th for the motor car museum of japan

 

Gunna try and dozebfor an hour or two more...

 

 

Yeah, the time dif and jetlag took a couple days for me--+ plus all the drinking! Those guys can drink! Have fun brother. If you get a chance, go up to Kamakura--its beautiful!

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