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Today is the second last day in Japan as we will be going home the next morning. Tokyo trip will not be complete without seeing the Tokyo Tower and visiting Asakusa. I have been to both but for the benefit of Keong as this is his first trip. Anyway, it could be nice for me to revisit since I have hardly taken any photo of myself wherever I travelled.
What I like about Asakusa are the shops before the temple. There are different variety of Japanese food stuff, souvenir, fashion, toys, shoes and many different kind of shops along this street.
Some nice toys found in one of the toy shops in Asakusa.
Reached the main temple, said my prayers and hopefully it will be answered.
We were lucky this time as there was a carnival with around 50 stalls selling local food beside the temple. We tried almost everything which comes along and our lunch was settled there. The amount we spent on food at the carnival was more than enough to visit a decent restaurant.
We tried almost everything at this stall with exception of octopus.
I bought a bowl of stuff from this stall. I call it "stuff" because I don't know what the hell I ate even until today. Initially I thought they were selling braised pork but half way through eating, it tasted like chicken. I look at the stall again and I can understand only one word, "bird".
Taito Station is just around the corner in Asakusa. I was filled with excitement as I wanted to play with the Tomica Catcher Push Table. There is another similar machine with Meiji chocolate stacked like Tomica.
Seriously, I didn't know I played for nearly 2 hours. I did managed to topple most of the Tomica in the machine. I spent a total of 10,000 yen on this machine. It was fun for me as we don't have Tomica theme machine in Singapore. What we get are lousy candies or cartoon character miniature stuffed toys. I didn't know I love Tomica this much.
Tokyo Sky-Tree is just near to Asakusa. It's taller than Tokyo Tower.
After visiting Asakusa, I suggested to visit II Ado for last minute shopping but Keong decide to go to Akiba to buy a spare battery for his out dated digital camera instead. He is too afraid to go to II Ado. He is afraid that he cannot resist the temptation and started buying again.
This time I stayed for 1.5 hours in the shop trying to inspect every corner of the shop. I requested to open every cabinet so that I can see every car better. I tried getting one car from every shelve I opened. First car I picked was a Gama VW Microbus, followed by a Diapet, a Popinica and a Solido. Finally I decided to go for another 6 Diapets from the 90s which are very reasonably priced.
Total damage done was a mere 20,000 yen. Not bad for a last minute shopping to end the trip. I still have not inspecting all my purchase although I am back to Singapore for 2 weeks. I wanted to open them slowly and most of the cars are still in a big box. I plan to re-organise my toy cars in my room so that the new ones can go into my display shelve. I did a more thorough shopping this time comparing to my last trip in 2010. I hope to visit Japan soon. Good-bye Japan and I will be back.
After the Wonderland Market, we decided to pay a visit to the Motomachi Chukagai (Chinatown) as it's just within walking distance.
I wanted to try their stuffed buns or dumplings if they are different from those we had in Singapore. One distinctive difference is the price, we can buy around 5 to 6 in Singapore for the equivalent. The filling is also a little different from ours in Singapore. In general, they taste good as the skin texture of the bun might be better than some shops in Singapore. These bun stalls are everywhere in Chugakai, it seems like buns and dumplings are the signature Chinese dish in Japan.
This shop is selling souvenirs on Pandas and they are selling Panda shaped buns too! Every shop selling buns enjoyed good business so it's not a surprise that a souvenir shop hopped into the band wagon as well. We had Chinese food in a restaurant for dinner before heading back to Tokyo. We actually quite full after eating buns and after dinner, we could barely walk.
Upon going back to Tokyo, we headed back to hotel for unloading of the toy cars we conquered in Wonderland Market. After unloading of stuff, we headed to Ikebukuro which is a stop away from our hotel for Bic Camera. I bought some Diapet and Bandai transformer look alike robots. I did managed to get some Tomica as well. We walk to Toy'R'Us in Sunshine City nearby as I wanted to buy some Toy'R'Us exclusive Tomica as I do have some of these edition in my collection already. I saw the blister packed Tomica are on sale which prices slightly lower than Bic Camera so I bought 4 at 997 yen only.
Day 5, 17th December 2012, Monday. A day we needed to wait up early for taking the bus ride to Gotemba. We had breakfast in a eatery shop nearby our hotel. I am more relaxed finally as I achieved 90% of my KPI with only Minicar TMT missed in my planned schedule. Hence I have time to spy on Keong because he captured almost anything in his camera behind my back while I was heading the directions during the first 4 days. That includes every meal we had. Nope, he has no facebook or blog.
The JR Kanto bus brought us here, Gotemba premium outlets which the ride took about 1 hour and 20 minutes. We shopped for stuff we like. Bought a Reebok classics, some garment from Gap and a pair of gloves that cost much more than any of my T-shirts. I am still figuring out why I bought this, for trips in Germany perhaps.
There's a food court in the Gotemba Premium Outlets and one of the stall is selling Singapore Chicken Rice. I gotta try this.
I ordered the Pepper Chicken Rice and it tastes nothing like Singapore. The rice is just plain rice unlike our chicken stock rice, the salad look-alike doesn't taste a single bit like our "ah-cha" and the chicken is totally in a world of its own. Interesting.
Keong in action again. Wha ha....
I couldn't find Mt. Fuji so I look for the information counter to do a verification if I come to the right place. I just want to take photo and in the mean time we can shop here. The lady at the counter is very helpful and courteous. She walked out of the information counter and show us the direction of Mount Fuji, she told us that as it was a raining day, it is not possible to see Mount Fuji. We thanked her for her kind gesture although a little disappointed.
We had dinner in a Italian restaurant in Gotemba before heading back to Shinjuku. The JR Bus is waiting.
You might be thinking we called it a day? No, I rushed down to Minicar Ikeda as I need to check if I can get some stuff here. I also urged Keong to buy the 2 Tomica encyclopedia so that he will not go home with regrets and he can refer to all the variants whenever he needs to. Then we rushed down to Gulliver which is near our hotel for last minute shopping. Nakata San saw me and asked about the Hong Kong Tomica I have bought as he learn from Bob we bought one each. This is the first time we chat and he is one friendly person. Although I have been to his shop many times but we never chat before. I showed him my Hong Kong made Tomica Sprinter and he said that I bought it at a reasonable price, I thought so too. I also showed him my green Microbus because I brought it everywhere I go in Japan. I requested a carton box from Nakata San as I wanted to pack all my cars to send to myself in Singapore. I have bought too many cars and my luggage couldn't take all. I thanked Nakata San and we head back to hotel as we had a long and tiring day shopping.
Finally, the day has arrived. I have been waiting for this day to visit the Wonderland Market. Although it's my first visit to Wonderland, this is the 84th edition and it is the oldest and longest running toy swap meet in Japan. We met up with Bob at the train station for our destination.
Going from Tokyo to Yokohama takes about an hour with one transit. Bob said that Nakata San suggested a different route so I ditched my original plan and followed him. The event was held in Marineria, which I had saved this in my google map like other minicar shops in my phone. I was actually fully ready for this whole trip.
Admission is 1000yen and I managed to pay only 800yen as Nakata San handed me a discount voucher the day before when I visited his shop. We were an hour early and there was a queue lining up already. We weren't too far back as we are just later than 10-15 people only. I understand from Bob and Nakata San that this used to be 10 to 20 times bigger and crowded in the past. The Wonderland Market today has smaller crowd and lesser stalls now. I hope this swap meet will continue and not die off. Anyway, welcome to the Wonderland Market.
As soon as I stepped into the event hall, I started to take photos before the crowd rushed in. There are some cars displayed in the event hall which coincidentally you can find these cars produced by Tomica as well. This is the Honda S800, predecessor of the Honda S2000.
A British Racing Green or maybe Olive Green Morris Mini Cooper. Classic!
This is the ultimate classic super car of Japan, the Toyota 2000GT. This is the first time I see this car in person and took quite a number of photos of this classic. It's a re-make of a Jaguar E-Type but it has become a class of its own way now. This car is the star of the trio.
Not that it's not crowded but I am first few who stepped into the event so I am able to take photos of the stalls clearly.
A stall that was selling model kits. I do build model cars during my younger days as a kid but I kind of felt that I was destroying them rather than building them because my work always looked so awful.
Take your pick, there are some vintage ones in the stack as well. I am not touching any of these.
For Tomica fans, prepare to go ga-ga over these extreme selection in the trays.
I don't know where to start on these lot so I moved on instead for photo taking.
The crowd started to gush in. I went to one of the stalls where they have many loose cars which prices starting from 100 yen up to 500 yen (depending on condition and model). I saw a father with his young son acting fast with the 100 yen Tomica so I decide to join in the "fun" as well. That was just a warming up on my hunting spree. I also met Ken from Ken's Garage of Hong Kong in this event.
I came to this stall where the seller displayed a huge collection of junk cars. I would say the condition varies as I saw that a small portion of cars which are mint as well. I asked the seller the price he is selling and he asked me which ones I am referring? So I guessed that the price must have varied from models. I just picked a beaten up Tomica Mazda Luce AP since I never had that car. He told me it's 500 yen so I moved on. I was expecting much lower for a heavily played with car.
His stall is a huge one with many loose cars. You gotta open your eyes to find the cars you needed. I saw a larger scale Playart Saab 900 (almost mint) and a Cherica Toyota Century (lightly played with and some paint lost) but I don't have the courage to ask for the price after enquiring on the first Mazda.
There was also a stall which had thousands of loose cars, mostly mint. I saw many people crowding at this stall so I thought that the price should be uniform. I was wrong again when I pick around 5 cars and seller was telling me 2400yen in total and price of different cars varied. It's a disadvantage when you don't speak Japanese so at times I have to make do with my extremely basic Japanese such as "How much is that?" and "I understood".
These vintage Japanese tin toys are super nice but the price is super to me too. I like the red Toyota 2000GT, red Celica 2000LB and the red Corona 1900SL.
Then I came across this stall which had many rare toys. These are for Fairlady fans who are crazy over S30 and S130.
They have these garage sets as well which I have not seen this type of packaging.
This is a power Tomica off road set, not something which I had in mind. I was actually looking for my Tomica racing set which consist of the Porsche 935 and the De Tomaso racing on a 2 lanes circuit. I sold it years ago on ebay for only a mere $46.00 (USD) which the set was complete with both mint cars. I tried looking for it in Yahoo Japan and the price is double to triple of the amount I sold. I regretted selling that set.
I was amazed to find this 4 lanes racing set here as this is my ultimate dream set. I hope to find one which has been played with so that I can enjoy it without destroying the value of a never played with set. I don't mind if the set come without the 4 original cars as long as the set is still working. This set is too huge and I am not ready to pay a big value item for this trip. I didn't ask about the price but a set that is not played with and completed with 4 mint cars is estimated to be in the range of 600,000~800,000yen.
Something which I will not buy for this trip. Wal-Mart special at good price but I am not interested at all.
Bob found something special. I saw this car at one stall and was looking and holding it for a minute hoping the seller will tell me the price. I was attracted to it because I had hardly see this colour variant. I didn't ask for the price because it didn't come with a box. So I passed it on.
Bob was saying that he got it for a good price and it could pay his shopping trip to Wonderland because this is a rare variant. The seller was kind of desperate as he might not be able to hit his target so he sold it at small discount from the asking price. I understand from Tonegawa that the stall in Wonderland isn't cheap at all as he was at the 83rd Wonderland Market as a vendor. I decided to head to the same stall once more hoping to find something rare but not Tomica of course as I was too late for that. The seller thought I am a Porsche fanatic as he started to recommend big items because I picked 2 Porsche 911 (1/66 scale). I managed to slash 1000 yen off the pair from this seller. This seller should be from some Porsche club in Japan as all the cars on display are Porsche. His stall was located just behind the Toyota 2000GT as shown above. One of the Porsche is rare because it is a Norev mini-jet based on a Schuco casting.
A little introduction on Bob. Bob is a Tomica collector and trader back in the States and he has been traveling to Japan since the early 80s. He has created a few special edition Tomica under his name. It's such an coincident that I have one of his "creations", a red Camaro Z28 that was made in the mid 80s. I was informed by Bob that only 1008 pieces of this car was made and so this is a rare variation. I can't remember where I bought this car but I was thinking eBay.
Bob told me that this red Camaro was forgotten in the first Tomica Collection Encyclopedia as it should be rightfully be labelled under F34-3-2 since it was made during the mid 80s. It was then included in 2nd edition under the book titled "Tomica Variation Note".
This car is labelled as "Bob Special Edition". I hope Bob can make more special edition models. I will get my cousin to buy and sell them in his shop. Maybe all the new American cars made by Tomica and colour them red with gold accents like the above Camaro?
Bob also understand that I hope to own a Hong Kong made Tomica. There are a few stalls at the Wonderland Market having a few of these rare pieces. Bob told me that he knows one guy at one of the stalls and make connections for me. He had a Sprinter, a Cedric and a Gallant GTO. The Sprinter and the Cedric are almost mint while the GTO suffered from some paint loss. I told the seller that I have to re-think about it as I have no intentions to spend too much on a single car. I just couldn't resist the cars and told Keong after an hour on the offer of the Hong Kong Tomica. I asked Keong if he is interested and I decided to negotiate with the seller by doing a bundle sales. I learnt that trick from "The Pickers". It didn't work so well as planned but managed to bring the price down a little. I like the Cedric better but it is the highest price car so I go for the Sprinter instead since I collect old Corolla as well. Keong eventually had to go for the Cedric. The feeling of owning a car that I had always wanted is hard to describe in words. It felt like striking a starter prize in the lottery but I had to pay for it. It sounded like I was using money to buy happiness. I am still a happy man now while writing this post at least. The Sprinter will go to a good home for sure. See if you spot it in my display shelve? We stayed at the Wonderland Market until the very end. I will make a return to Wonderland Market soon. This place is just too cool for toy hunters.
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