Sorry for the triple post, but I have to catch up...
Today was sort of a Conrad day. He requested we go motorbike riding whilst in Japan, so after a bit of back and forward, I managed to hire some bikes from SCS Ueno (I'd recommend them if you want to hire bikes. Friendly to deal with). After a breakfast at Denny's we went back to the hotel to get suited up. In another brainspasm, I think Jonathans is better than Denny's. Better value, better prices and more range. Anywho, after saying our farewells to the girls, I left my phone with Mum and we headed for Ueno. Fortunately, the subway station near the foot of our hotel is on a line that goes straight to Ueno, so after hopping on, 10 mins later we were there.
As I may have mentioned before, I don't really deal in particulars or details. After briefly getting spun around, I pointed us in the right direction. From my google street viewing, I knew that it was basically on the main road north of Ueno station, but do you think I could remember the exact address? So after asking a friendly bike shop owner, he pointed us in the right direction, 3 blocks up and across the road. We soon found the shop, and were cordially invited in and sat down. We must have spent about 30 mins getting all the paperwork (international licences, insurance policies and other stuff) sorted. Then after rolling the bikes onto the street, and running through the controls and stuff with us, we were off. Albeit very briefly.....
After setting off from the store, we headed down Showa-dori. Being Tokyo, there was actually an entrance for the Expressway in the middle of the road, rather than to the left. I turned, then Dean turned, but Conrad missed the turn off. ARggh.. We hadn't even gone 5km and we had already lost Conrad. After riding down the expressway for about a kilometre, Dean and I stopped on the side of the road and waited for Conrad. He had seen us turn off, so all he had to do was loop around and return to where he had lost us, and he'd be fine.. except that Conrad is directionally challenged. After waiting on the expressway for about 10 minutes, he finally found us and we were off again. Straight down the C1 loop. I had raced this plenty of times before on Tokyo Extreme Racer Zero (PS2 game), so at least the turns and stuff were semi-familiar. We looped around Meguro, before turning off onto the Tomei expressway near Shibuya. Our first stop was meant to be Riders (Up Garage for bikes) at Minami Machide, but it seems the winds were against us... For one thing, it was so cold, I thought I'd get frostbite in my fingers. Usually, I'm fairly insulated and fine when it comes to the cold, but this is the middle of winter in a country that gets a proper winter. It was about 3 degrees, but with windchill, it must have been in the negatives. My fingers were frozen, but I'd just have to grin and bare it. After getting off the Tomei Expressway at the correct exit, there was a bit of a mix up with the Tolls. The roads and exits can be pretty confusing especially if you don't have any sat nav with you...
It seems that you have to pay to get on, then after about 20km, you have to pay again. I had gotten a ticket from the gate, but Dean and Conrad had driven right through. So after paying 3x over (I was designated spokesperson) we stopped on the side of the road again. We headed left, but in reality to get to Up Garage, we had to go right.... After stopping a kilometre up the road, I scrapped that idea, as it would have required us to try and navigate back the other way and then get off at the correct exit.
We continued down the road for a while before I saw a familiar name. Fortunately I have a photographic sort of memory, and from the google mapping and also seeing the road sign from the Shinkansen on Monday, I remembered that Odawara was near Hakone our destination. So after doing a couple of ramps, we pointed our bikes in the right direction. By this stage it was after 12.30, and as we were getting a little hungry, we stopped at the Family Mart located on the expressway at Totsuka. We had a couple of pork bun things, before I got some clarified instructions from the shop assistant. We just had to keep heading the way we were going.
We started off (after paying another toll) down the road, before it connected with Route 1. This was the road we had to stay on to reach Odawara and then Hakone. The problem with it is, that it goes through all the towns and suburbs between there, so every traffic light and slow turning vehicle held us up, not to mention the 40 and 50km/h speed limits. We could have got there much quicker by getting back on an expressway, but the guys would rather have spent more time riding, than pay for tolls. By the time we reached Odawara, it was close to 3pm! We had been riding for nearly 4 hours, but according to the signs we were only 85km from Tokyo... Now I'm not sure if they measure their distances as the crow flies, but it sure felt a lot more than that, especially with the wind off the Pacific Ocean feeling like it was coming from the north, rather than the south.
We stopped off for a feed and relieve at KFC then made our way towards Hakone. Unfortunately we missed the turn off for the Hakone Turnpike (sponsored by Toyo) so we had to loop back til we found it. Then after going through the little toll road booth (It's classified as a private road), we were on our way... Up the Hakone I had read about in those old Street Drifting articles and such. Brrrr... It was even more frigid. I only had the motorcycle jacket, jumper and T-shirt on, with Jeans and boardies underneath. Dean didn't realise this, and was surprised later to find out, as he and Conrad both had thermals and underlayers on as well, and they were still cold. We were warned by the the toll booth attendant that it was slippery on the road, so take it easy and as we got back on the bikes (we stopped to take pictures) we could see why. There was a heap of snow and ice on the ground, with black ice everywhere. We took it cautiously and got up the hill before sundown. We were treated with a magnificent view of Mt Fuji at sunset, the townships and the lakes, as well as looking down the coast towards Izu Peninsula.
We had intended to go down the Izu Skyline, but with the light dying and all of us feeling like we were arctic explorers already, we decided to make our way home. After heading back, we decided to grab a cheap feed at Yoshinoya on the outskirts of Odawara. For the exorbitant sum of 480Y, we had a big bowl of Gyuudon, coleslaw or kimchi, and some Miso soup. This kept us fuelled a little longer (you use more energy trying to keep warm), so we headed off towards home. It didn't feel half as long this time, with much less traffic on the roads, so it didn't take us half as long to get back towards Totsuka. This time though, I wanted to head to Daikoku-futo, a big parking area on Yokohama bay where there was supposed to be car meets on Thursday nights. After getting better directions from a service station attendant, we headed in the right direction. If the wind was cold at Hakone at 3pm, then it was positively icy on Yokohama Bay. We crossed the Yokohama Bay Bridge before pitting in at Daikoku. We would have had to come this way to get back to the hotel, but I was in need of a pee break (my kidneys were freezing, so I had been busting for a couple of hours) and Dean and Conrad needed to warm up a bit. We sat around having a vending machine break, but except for a couple of 370Z's and an R32 Gtst, there wasn't much to be seen. Conrad and Dean took some pictures before we headed off home. I was a little disappointed as I would have loved to see all the modified cars, but I suppose it was brass monkey weather, so given the option of standing around on Yokohama bay freezing and talking about cars, or being at home, I could understand their choice. Back up the corkscrew that brings you down to Daikoku and we were on the Wangan (Bayshore Route), a road famous for the original Midnight Club and other illegal street races. As it was nearly 10, we just wanted to get back to the hotel, but at least with the Tunnels underneath Haneda and other bits of water, it was actually warmer than during the day in the wind.
We crossed Rainbow Bridge (actually, me and some guy in an JZA70 Supra were mucking around), before we went up the guts of C1 inner again. We kept rolling before turning off to go to Nihombashi, near where it splits off from C1 and Wangan. We parked the bikes down a tiny alley to the side of the hotel, before we got all the gear off for the night. An enjoyable ride, thoroughly freezing, with us missing some bits I wanted to do/show the other 2, but it didn't matter. If the shots from Hakone turn out, as well as the experience of riding some of the most famous street racing roads in the world, it was all worth the planning.
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