Hafa Adai ya’ll, thanks for joining us for another Guam style experience…. Coverage this time around will be presented for the first time ever on here, from my mobile phone, which currently is an Iphone 13 Pro. Crazy how good of a quality phones produce nowadays, most people can’t even tell the difference in quality anymore. Going to be a mix of my personal experience with a mix of Tokyo and the cars… Hope you don’t get too bored. Might be a lengthy one so hope you’re sitting on the toilet for this one. Let’s get this started…
After all these years of seeing Tokyo Auto Salon (TAS) coverage in magazines and online, I finally had the opportunity to participate in my first show… and boy what a surreal experience. I had visited Tokyo in December with my family and was soooo excited to be back to visit after all the travel requirements started becoming less stringent. I had a blast and was happy to use that trip as a way to get familiar with the area again for the impending scheduled TAS trip; Thanks to the wifey for allowing me to go back for the TAS weekend…. and of course I had to slap a tag in Takeshita Street… s/o’s to the Reddirt fam.
When I found out that TAS was on, I had it in my mind that I would for sure for sure go with or without company. I asked around and I was excited to find out that Jed aka @jeders was down to fly out to the show with me. We also knew that we would be meeting up with John aka Jone aka Johnny aka Joni aka Jhan San aka Zaddy Gozum aka @japgozoom who would be flying in from Osaka. When we got to the airport Friday morning in Guam, we ended up seeing a bunch of others who were heading to the land of the rising sun including Anton (@ANFilms) and a couple of his homies. We also ran into Magahaga Lou, no joke. Anyways, in planning the trip, Jed mentioned that we would be meeting up with some tomodachis from Tokyo that he met back home in Guam, Kenjiro and Masami. They picked us up and we headed to this new resto in their ville…
Jed and I don’t know so much of the Japanese language and Kenjiro and Masami didn’t know much English so you can imagine how dinner would have went without some beer and tipsiness involved… but we got by thanks to Google translate every now and then, lol. Besides, Jed was pretty close to them already because the couple actually got married in Guam a few years ago. Thank you guys for the hosptiality, hope to see you back on island one day soon!
After dinner, we stopped by their house to switch to a bigger car so we could fit John. They had this wall dedicated to license plates and frames in their living room…. super cool.
Guam and Hawaii…. Dope seeing a “real” house in Tokyo with all this Guam themed stuff inside it. It’s sorta like the equivalent of walking into a house on Guam and seeing a kanagawa wave flag or some dude sporting a koi tattoo? lol. They also had this super cool toilet that automatically lifts its lid… got some Tsubaki Tower type of vibes.
After dinner and the stop to Kenjiro/Masami’s house, we headed back to Shinjuku to pick up John from his Airbnb… I really didn’t expect this guy to be as tall as Shaq. What freaked me out even more is that his Japanese language speaking skills were pretty fluent. He helped bridge the language barrier gap with Kenjiro/Masami…. with what we wanted them to know, with directions, yea basically all of that. John used to live and went to school in Guam but moved out to Osaka with his family; He exports JDM cars worldwide on the daily, including Guam. John’s been pretty lowkey about it, but he’s starting to pick up the advertising on social media for his scaffolding wrap advertising business, so if you’re interested check him out on IG, @japgozoom. I’m sure many of the JDM cars you see on our Guam roads were some of the ones he helped get here. Even if you don’t plan to import any cars, scope out his feed because he has some cool connections with many people and shops in Japan. Nice to see a Guam boy out there doing things like he is.
We had planned for Saturday to be dedicated to exploring TAS… Trek wasn’t too bad, but we did have to transfer over from the usual trains to a local bus. I think it might have been the first time I’ve ridden in one, so I had to snap a pic.
Don’t remember if I had this before we headed out or another day, but ya’ll know 7-11 in Japan is stacked with munchies. Every time I was either in Japan or Korea, I’d look at this and want it but always end up buying something else. Well, this trip I finally got one of these carb sandwiches and it was amazing…
The Veilside 400Z was the first car that we ran into in the sea of cars and people…. I don’t know the exact number of cars, but man, there were so many “halls” that the show was pretty much like 50 Guam car shows put together in one spot. I read that around 175,000 people attended the show that weekend… and that’s their ‘mid’ number — TAS had 330,000 walk through in pre-covid 2020. Imagine the whole Guam population x2.5 coming through…. Crazy.
I really wanted to check out Spoon Sports HQ/Type One in Ogikubo again (last time I went was in early 2008 before the first iPhone was even born), but heard they closed for the weekend….. So I had to make sure to check out their little spot at the Option booth where they would be showcasing the prototype parts for the new FL5 Type R. Got to meet and speak to Jomoto-san for a moment while he was entertaining a Youtube vlogger (Brickhouse SPL). Super down to earth guy, just like all the other folks in Japan. A few Guammies actually sent me dms saying they saw me on that particular vlogger video… inception noh?
Beautiful Varis FL5… As ya’ll know, I’m kinda particular to Hondas…
Right next to the FL5 was this GT86… Dope display, lighting was on point and I like how it was staged on that reflective bottom, sorta like how we car guys like to park next to a puddle to get a reflection in a photo.
Another cool thing about TAS was that almost every booth was giving away some sort of free giveaway or promotional material… eco-bags, catalogs, magazines, stickers… By the end of the day, I swear I was carrying about 50 pounds of free stuff. Of course, you could also buy things… We actually ran into a group of other Nissan Guam & Team Ghost homies — Journey @schematic_671, Von @driftervon, Novelle, Russ, and company. Journey had already bought something for his GTR and was carrying the goodies while he enjoyed the show.
This 400Z caught my eye mainly because of the aluminum parts it had on… Looked like something that we would see here on Guam.
This Supra at the Yokohama Wheels booth caught my eye… Has an OG kinda feel on those Advan Oni-2 wheels.
Sea of yellow cars at the 326 Power booth… Yellow always catches my eye; I swear one day I’ll have another yellow car in my garage.
I had a couple of HAFADAZE stickers in my bag and I so badly wanted to stick one on here but I chickened out in the end… haha
There weren’t many golden-era Honda cars at TAS, but the Tactical Art Civic was there and mannnn the details and cleanliness of thing despite it’s age is on another level. Pictures do this car no justice at all. It’s one of those “you have to see it to believe it” kinda cars.
On the other side of the spectrum, the Liberty Walk Ferrari F40… Chopped and slammed. Absolutely nuts; It was harder to get around this display than getting a BBQ plate Wednesday nights at the Chamorro Village.
I also got to meet up with OG Menace-fam Jon Anderson… another dude who helps get JDM cars on the roads in Guam. Here he is checking out this 86 that was on display and also for sale… Always cool traveling and meeting up with people from back home… so for anyone who’s interested, shoot us a DM @hafadazeguam and let’s get a GU contingent up for next year’s TAS? We have 7 months to plan it if we started now, haha.
I spy…
The Mugen FL5 broke the internet a few days before TAS… glad I got to see it in all it’s glory. Kinda looked funky to me, but Mugen parts always look funky and then get better over time… The old guy in me kept saying put your phone down, stop taking pics, and let it all soak in… I mean every major social media outlet, company or personality had guys covering the event, so if I wanted a pic of something, it would probably look even better from them than if I took it myself? And what do you know… the old guy in me did just that. I walked and walked and walked and man it was like a never ending barrage of cars. If I wanted to check out everything thoroughly, it would have taken me a week or more to see everything in detail…. like how I used to go around Blockbuster Dededo looking for the right games/movies for the weekend.
We pretty much spent the whole day at TAS and when we got back to Shinjuku, I was pretty much spent… I had already lost a lot of sleep Friday night because of the street noise and the hard ass pillows from from our hotel… So, I just wanted to relax a bit. John sent a text on our chat around 10:30-11:00 saying he was headed to a meet and I looked at it and put the phone down with no reservations and went back to sleep because I was just dead tired. It turns out the meet he went to was THE infamous “Tokyo underground parking garage meet….” You know, the ones with all the the cars with “real” owners, not specific TAS show cars. In retrospect, I should have went because now I’m going to have to go back next year to experience it for sure. Don’t forget, send a DM on IG if you’re interested in going next year, because we’re going to run it back. lol
When in Japan, I usually stick to the tourist ramen, Ichiran… but John said this hyped Afuri place was good so we went… and yes… it was.
It was our last day there, so we were just killing time, sight-seeing, and getting some omiyage ready to bring home. We had to take a taxi at one point so I just snapped a pic because who ever takes taxis in Japan?
We decided to check out Shibuya Sky to kill some time… It’s a must visit if you’re in Tokyo. But I’d treat it as a Two Lover’s Point visit. Once you see it, you wouldn’t have to go back again unless there was a major change to the attraction. I don’t even remember the last time I went to Two Lover’s…
Went to Akihabara to get my son some Pokemon cards and ended up here somehow…
Also randomly ran into these in one of those stalls in the subway areas… Everything goes good with chocolate, even shrimp.
These are like a buck in Japan… it’s like their take on King Kar… and dare I say it’s just as good or even better. According to Jed, they sell this locally at ABC Store for like $3.50; Try it out sometime…
After getting our last minute goodies to bring home, we met up with Shoukichi, @dx_shoukichi_ver2 near our hotel… We were messaging back and forth since we arrived to try and schedule a meet-up and we finally made it happen. He drove over an hour to get to us and it was another cool experience meeting with a Japan local who loves Guam culture so much.
I’ve been following his build on IG for awhile now and he reps Guam hard at the meets…. Little details like this Home Depot bag and Guam make his build so mungi…
That Spam coin holder tho… Dude even flies a full size Guam flag from the bed of his truck at the meets… Fanoghe Chamoru, senpai. Check the reel of his truck on our IG when you can… All in all, the TAS trip was amazing and I hope to make it again next year *crosses fingers*.
I’ve been wanting to print tees for awhile now, but never could decide on a concept until I started planning the two Tokyo trips… I really wanted to have this ready before December but just didn’t have the time to do them. I mean TAS was 2 months ago and I really wanted to do a write-up a week or so after but never got it around to it. BUT, it’s done now and the albeit late, the merch is ready. The store will be fully stocked this week, so please drop by our online store this Friday for the drop. Limited number, sizes, and colors are available so mark your calendars!
Thanks for reading, esta!
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**[STAY TUNED FOR THE TOKYO DROP THIS FRIDAY, 3-17-23.]**