Japan October International Gathering

October was a busy month for me as it was a traveling month. First day we landed in Tokyo and meet up our regular Japanese collector friends. These 3 gentlemen are the admin for Tomica Town Neighbourhood facebook group. We had dinner together as usual. Great discussion on our life and hobby we all shared.

This is my "brother" from Japan. We will always try to catch up with each other if I visit Tokyo.

We didn't just stop after dinner. We went to a cafe when Iijima San show us a portion of what he will be selling at the fair next week.

Ok, we bought some from him too for sure. Our objective is to buy Tomica in Japan.

Our ride for this trip is a Honda Shuttle. I choose this for the price and practicality. I kind of like the looks of the car too although I didn't really like the style of the Fit, Grace or Mobilio.

Look! This is what I meant by practical. 4 of us with tons of luggage. I will take this car again next year. Planning another trip soon. This trip is a little special as I am going to places where I have never been before. This is also first time driving to other Prefectures. Really long journey.

Meanwhile in another prefecture faraway. Finally, I get to see the legendary Dome-Zero in its signature colour, Silver.

There is a red one as well. Cool.

This is just a small portion of Tomica in the shop. Cool shop as first time visiting here.

Beside my car, there is a dead stock Silvia S15. It looks stock to me, Japanese people don't really mob their cars crazy like us. I saw many Skyline and Type R are stock to the rims as well. I love stock cars. Hate aftermarket sports rims.

We are going so many places on day 1 that I lost count.

Covered few hundred kilos on day 1. We had our dinner at 11pm in a Chinese restaurant. We were the only customers and the restaurant owner and staff chat us up. They are curious why the 4 of us are travelling together as we came from 3 different countries. We drove back to our hotel which is more than a hundred kilos away. We reached hotel at 3am, I slept at 4am. Driving from 9am till next day 3am with many stop overs. It was tired but we had a lot of fun.
 

Driving to the toy car event the next day. Only 3 hours of sleep. 

Upon reaching, Pooh said that he wanted to take photo with this "vintage" van. Ok, it's old for any standard.

Then we found this little Honda Pick-up.

We spoke to the owner and he told us it has a small motorcycle engine of 360cc. This little truck was made in the early 70s.

Classic Toyota Mark II and a Hakosuka Skyline. Ok, and a small Mitsubishi, Ek wagon?

The first Skyline which wear the Nissan badge. 

Toyota Mark II or the Cressida Coupe.

 Me and Larry at the fair. Bought a lot, spent a lot.

 There are around 50 stalls here. Lots of stuff and we are happy with our shopping.

We decided that we had enough. We will leave the fair and continue our drive hunting.

Next day, we drove back to Tokyo. On our way, we went to 5 or 6 different shops to hunt for toys or Tomica.  

Many Tomica hanging on the pegs waiting for us.

We are done for the day. Pump the car up, get ready to return the vehicle before going for our late dinner. In 3 days, we traveled 961km. I am going to beat that on next trip I hope. 

Larry said that Ichiran Ramen is good so we had it near our hotel. The rest of the days, we spent in Tokyo for our usual hunting. See you next year Japan.