2019 Japan/Korea - Tokyo 5
This was the one day in the whole trip I was most looking forward to, a trip to the Honda Collection Hall in Motegi. This was also the first time I would drive in Japan and Asia in general, so I was a little anxious navigating in a language I genuinely did not understand. Fortunately the majority of the road signs were romanized so while we may not have understood what the words meant, they were at least legible to our English-speaking eyes. Also our rental included VERY useful GPS. It not only called out where to go pretty well, but had wonderfully useful (if not a little dated looking) graphics that showed which specific lane I needed to be in. Honestly preferred it over Google maps during the drive, even if some of the functions were stuck in Kanji and the assistant’s voice had a few Engrish moments in its pronunciation.
Some RHD cars are designed better than others and fortunately being Japanese and from a RHD country, our Nissan Juke is one of the better ones which flips the side the indicator stalk lives. Wouldn’t have been an issue in this automatic-equipped car anyways, but it was one of the things that really annoyed me with the Vauxhall we rented in UK, which forced me to use my shifting hand to start/cancel the indicators.
Going to put together other posts dedicated to the car/bike spottings on this trip, but I highly recommend a visit for anyone who’s a fan of cars, motorcycles, or Honda/racing in general. It was a really amazing place and even though it seemed like I thoroughly combed all 3 floors, I’d happily return here again someday just because some of the vehicles here are that amazing. Just as I started to feel like I’ve become jaded over all of the stuff I’ve seen over the years, places like this instantly get me geeking out all over again.
One of the great things about the collection was it’s located within one of Japan’s most legendary racetracks, Twin Ring Motegi. Like several other tracks in Japan, racing isn’t the only thing this place offered, as there was a mini-amusement park and an adventure park for families. Could even camp here if you wanted to!
After grabbing a quick lunch of some light-broth ramen, we started heading back into Tokyo to drop off the rental and enjoy our last night in Tokyo before heading off to Seoul the following morning.
One of the breweries we managed to swing by was Yo-Ho brewing, a brand I was familiar with in SF by their very unique styled artwork on their cans. They have several locations, this one being their Aoyama location which had a great vibe; active but not too crowded or loud. And while their beer was really good, their German style appetizers (sausage & potato wedges) were great!
Finally ended the night with dinner at Tonkatsu Maisen Aoyama Honten. Really, really good katsu at really reasonable prices, it’s definitely on our list of places we’d want to go back to.
Finally grabbed some dessert at a cafe across the street and headed back to the hotel just as the rain picked up. Next stop, Seoul!
