In the Spring of 2002, I was invited by Mr. Kenji Tsuzuki, of the Front Row Gemini Owner's Connection Car Club, to attend the 2002 Gemini Owners Meeting in Japan, as a representative of the IsuzuWeb Car Club. Mr. Kenji Tsuzuki had extended this invitation in 2001 and in 2000, but I had been unable to make a trip in the previous years. In the Fall of 2001, I began studying Japanese at the local community college, and was finishing up the second semester when Mr. Kenji Tsuzuki extended his invitation. I figured this was as good a time as any to take him up on his invitation, as it would be good practice for what I had learned in Japanese class, and the descriptions from Japan is that their biggest Isuzu car show each year is expected to get smaller and smaller as time goes by, as the years take more and more Isuzu cars away from us.
Some of this is car related, some tourist related, and some is cultural observation. It should be interesting on several levels and to readers interested in different aspects of Japan. If not, well, I tried.
Japanese persons will be referred to as "Mr." or "Ms.", this is out of respect as I fully expect this to be translated into Japanese by way of computer software program, and the computer programs will automatically place "san" on the end of names as the equivalent to Mr. and Ms. I am extremely unsure of family and given names and name order in Japanese, and in order to avoid any possible insult, I have decided to use both names, because I can not for the life of me figure out which one is which. I will likely get a lot of names wrong, as well as some details and times or dates, and hope these do not upset anyone.
I had prepared for the trip by putting together a small practical dictionary of the words and phrases I thought would be most commonly used, compiling from a Berlitz Japanese-English dictionary, the "Japanese For Busy People" text book, and classroom notes. Words are grouped by type (noun, verb, etc., based on general topics such as occupation, place, etc.). This was extremely helpful, but should have been larger with more verbs and adjectives and could use to have been organized in alphabetical order for English. This was an extremely good way to compensate for limited vocabulary comprehension. Something it did not help was that sentence form got confused, notes on that would have helped.
I packed quite a few gifts for Mr. Kenji Tsuzuki and the Front Row club people anticipating customs of giving a gift to someone you meet. This went extremely well. Something in an inexpensive tourist type nick-nack with your home town on it works great for general needs and is really appreciated by the recipient. I chose little pewter Gateway Arch nick-nacks. I also took some IsuzuWeb and Isuzuperformance things, and a couple US market parts for specific people I knew would be interested in them. I had packed hoping to get all the gifts out of my luggage, condense down to one bag, then expand back to two for the trip back as I collected things to bring home. That didn't work, I ended up shipping a box by FedEx, more on that later.
I had been very busy just prior to leaving, trying to get caught up on business and competing in the Gateway To Nationals divisional autocross race in the days before leaving, I had effectively been awake for 48 hours straight prior to leaving, which I thought might be of advantage because my body would not be used to any set day and night pattern and should adapt easily to the time change.
The above map shows my route of travel. I arrived first at Narita Airport outside Tokyo, and then flew to Nagoya. From Nagoya, I travelled to Nara, and then Kyoto, before returning to Nagoya briefly and then travelling on to Toyokawa. From Toyokawa, I travelled back to Nu Kawa, then on to Yokohama. From Yokohama, then to Tokyo for a day, and back to Yokohama. Again starting from Yokohama, to Fujisawa (just south of Yokohama), then to Sayama, and back to Yokohama. Then, finally, from Yokohama through Tokyo and back to Narita Airoirt just north of Tokyo for the departing flight.