Off Topic - Japan: Cars, City, Food, Magazine & Transport

Yours truly was in Japan for the whole of last week for some business purposes (hence my apology for not really updating this blog meaningfully for quite sometimes now due to extreme busyness and also I can't visit Proton's Power of 1 due to the same reason). As outed in my previous two post about the Motoring in Japan and Magazine in Japan, there are many other things that can be seen from where I went : Chiba and Tokyo. 

Here are some photos I managed to snap for sharing with my dear loyal readers.

Cars.

As outlined in previous post Motoring in Japan , the Japanese market is filled with the K-cars, wagon and MPV. There are quite significant numbers of Toyotas around, with model such as Noah and Voxy MPVs, Passo (the old one, but the new Passo/Passo Hana and Boon are very rare), Porte, wagons especially tons of Probox Wagon and hybrids including Harrier hybrid, Toyota Aqua (or Prius C), Prius V (the MPV). Popular MPVs that usually made their way to Malaysia are plenty too, such as Estimas, Wish and Isis. Honda is popular too with Honda Life,Honda Freed, Honda Fit (Jazz), Stepwagon and N-Box. 

Japanese dominated model in the carpark

Foreigners among the local

There's also foreign cars that can be found from time to time, mostly are Audis and VW. There are plenty of old VW Polo too running along the Chiba's street.

However, there's also old American banger such as an old Cadillac and beefed-up SUV to resemble a big-foot!

Yours truly also visited the Porsche showroom as well Nissan showrooms near the Tokyo-Ginza area. The new Porsche 911 was on display, and the PDK S model is priced at around 15,000,000 milion yen. Nissan Ginza showcased only two models namely the Leaf EV (priced at 3m Yen, expensive reckoned by Japanese counterpart) as well as the funky Juke.

More after the jump.

City.
I stayed in Ichihara - a bit sub urban with just enough facilities for all the people live here. There's supermarket selling food at reasonable price, there's clothes outlet at cheap price, a few nice restaurants here and there, lots of convenience stores, a number of pachinko(including one big one in front of my residence),  a Daiso and also second-hand shop. There's however no mega-magazine shop. That's what lead me to the Chiba City after working hours. Trip to Tokyo meanwhile was for working purposes, with just enough time after the meeting to slot in the city seeing. Enjoy the photos around Chiba, Tokyo (Ginza and Tsukiji).

One of main streets in Chiba, perfect fusion of big city modernism + flora richness in quieter back streets

Lexus showroom already closed at 8pm (managed to peek inside to see the new GS), monorail mounted on upper rails!!

Somewhere nearby Shimbashi station - strikingly dense population of workplace

One of the main streets, with k-sized delivery van that managed to pack the whole shop

Ginza is a shopping heaven, albeit it comes with a price (and also a brand)

The popular Tsukiji fish market that auction tuna in the morning. That giant crab is 25,000 yen a piece after weighting

Food.
Lets start with the airlines food. I've heard that our home-grown MAS served one of the best food, and it is indeed true. The meals was about 5 course meal, delivered in stages in an hour period. Appetizer is our traditional satay, served with richly-flavored kuah kacang. Satay is perfectly bakar, not overcooked like our local pasar malam, the meat is just about cooked, leaving a lasting tender feeling upon every bite, which revealed a slight pink-ish flesh that lost none of their juice. The kuah kacang is also one of the best I've ever taste in my life! The rest of course is a fusion of japanese and western meal (asian is also one of the selection), with some roasted seabass, chicken breast with come creams that I don't know, soba noodle (with punchy wasabi), as well desserts like cheese cake and ice creams. Juices are free flow, so are minor refreshment like sky juice, tea, coffee and nuts.

Anyway, as far as the Japanese food is concern, life is such a happier phase if you can accept the raw seafood. No big deal and no worries as those seafood are fresh and has absolutely no fishy smell. Below are some of the meals that enjoyed by the author. Just don't ask what is their name!

Magazines.
The big book shop is one heaven's for magazine shopping. Pretty much akin to what we have in Borders, MPH or Kinokuniya, there's massive selection of car-related magazines and books. Pretty much anything from dedicated k-cars, wagons, tuner, VIP-style and even RC magazine can be bought. My attention however has been focused on MotorFan, the magazine dedicated to each and every new Japanese car launch in their market. I only managed to snap those featuring Subaru BRZ and Toyota Aqua. Refer to my previous posting for details here Magazine in Japan.


Transport.
If there's a thing that Malaysia must emulate, this is the one. Every bits of the any mode is perfectly timed. When the train is scheduled to arrive at 5.23, it won't be gone missing and the schedule board simply shift to the next scheduled train, no, no STUPID things like that! I am amazed. The author was amazed watching the train arrived and gone, too busy to realize that Chiba (where I was) was hit by 6.1 Richter scale of earthquake!

Closing.
That's all for now folks. Perhaps this is the first and the last of the Off-Topic ramblings in this blog. If there's going to be other one, perhaps it is the continuation of this Japan trip. Till then, let's go back to the intoxicating motoring world!