Japan Trip / Rides 2

Second half of my ride-specific pics. 

Oh look, the perfect car for everything, aka RS4 Avant. 

S class rocking a full Lorinser kit!

Japan has some strange cars, but never would have expected a modded XKR! Looks like it would have come straight out of a catalog from the late 90's.

Tokyo is definitely the place to be for some perfect condition Euro classics!

This 901 seems more fitting going to a meet at Venice Beach than cruising Tokyo, but it works there too!

Admiring the beautiful bikes in this city when suddenly a wild Dodge Ram van appears!

American cars are far from popular in Japan, but whenever you spot one, it's always an interesting model. 

Something timelessly classic about the Toyota Century. 

Shy little guy

I think I'm in love...

And on the very last night, near our place, I finally ran into a proper R34 GT-R, though I spotted some interesting mods. It has some aggressive venting on the passenger side of the bumper but not the other side. But then it's also rocking Endless calipers and what appears to be BBS RE-MG wheels (!!!), so who am I to judge? 

Japan Trip / Rides 1

So now that I've wrapped up the general travel pics, I gotta of course mention all of the amazing cars and bikes I encountered while in Japan. I didn't spot anything too exotic, but for such a metropolitan city that frankly doesn't require any sort of personal transportation to get around, there's an amazing amount of interesting rides. So, that said, here we go!

Subaru, please! If you're not going to give us a hatchback Impreza WRX, then for the love of God, please bring over the Levorg! Honestly I'd prefer the Levorg, and if I were going to push myself for a new car, this would be the one car that I'd immediately jump for. 

Why yes that's a Lancer Evolution IX Wagon with an older diesel G-Wagon in the background. That's Tokyo for ya.

LITTLE CHERRY WAGON

I've encountered this little 410 a couple times already and each time I can't help but admire how great this little wagon is. Like the VW Squareback, it carries some charm that no wagon (or hatchbacks as it'd be marketed) today can pull off. 

Paris / Day 1 Pt. 1

Our stay in London has finally come to an end. It was fun, but it's time for me to go home. But before we head back to the States, we're going to spend a few days in Paris because, why not? So at 3:30AM, we woke up, cleaned out the few things we had left in our room and on a very dark, rainy and windy night shuffled all of our luggage over to the nearest bus stop to hop on the Eurostar to Paris. We made it aboard (with only a few min. to spare), but it was an extremely stressful and frustrating travel. Next time, we're paying the 5x cost and taking a cab. 

Of course, in the end, it was worth it as we emerge from the Chunnel to an early and refreshingly bright morning in France. While far from sunny by Cali standards, this might as well be San Diego for our Vitamin-D deprived bodies. And it is after all early Feb, so for a winter day in Europe, I'm not complaining. 

We arrive at our rented Airbnb room and took in the fresh air. While it was wonderful being so close to open sky in a very traditional French apartment, the downside to these century-old buildings is the lack of some modern conveniences such as a lift. This is an issue when carrying several 70+ lb luggage pages up 6 flights of narrow, spiraling stairs (see my IG stream). Needless to say, we'll definitely be getting a good workout while staying here. 

Random car rant; It's no secret the US market isn't fond of wagons and MB's last C class estate was admittedly a pretty poor reason anyone would be interested in a smaller MB wagon. However, the past gen C in wagon form looks as good as any other German wagon, if not better (I actually prefer the boxier, cleaner lines to that of the E91). As I walk around UK/France and see several of them, it always makes me think what a shame we never got to enjoy these good cars. 

One common sighting Michelle noticed about Paris so far is how often we look down a street and at the end stands some spectacular structure. In this case, it's just a BNP bank, but it's still pretty amazing the among of work and detail that's gone into decorating these buildings. Speaking of BNP, like Barclays in UK, a BofA customer can withdraw from an ATM without fees. Obviously the currency rate is still in effect (which can be painful as an American who dearly misses low prices and cheap currency) but it's definitely a more convenient and cost effective way for paying for goods aboard. 

It's sort of strange that despite the buildings being generally taller here and the roads being generally curved everywhere, the city feels more open than London. Perhaps the streets are slightly wider or maybe it's the sunny weather we had today? Not sure.

Of course closing with another car pic. Whatever, I am a big fan of the new 3 series. Looks miles sharper than the outgoing non-M E9X's. On a different note, I'm going to start breaking down these tourist posts a bit so the pages don't take so long to load. Look forward for part 2 tomorrow!