It all starts with pictures from the local drift scene in Japan.
Pictured below my JZX90 at Honjo Circuit last year, thanks Nathan for the photo!

But today this poor blog got brought along with me to show what this common phrase I hear “Living The Dream” is all about.

The day starts off with a 10min bike ride to my local train station (Shin-Isesaki) where I will attempt to catch the train to work, a usually trouble free way of getting to work.

Parked my bike and headed into the station to grab my ticket because time was ticking. The bells started ringing signaling to me the train was approaching the platform so I hastily handed over ichiman (10,000 yen) to the useless man in the ticket booth as he slowly gave me my change then finally my ticket. In the time it took for him to give me my change and ticket the train had already left, no intercom was used to ask the train to wait which usually is the case, so I cursed him jumped on my bike bound for the JZX90 express.

After a 40 min drive from Isesaki to Ota I finally got to work just missing the peak hour traffic.

From there it was time to head to my Subaru company class, so I jump in the poor work provided Subaru Vivo that’s about to see some automatic clutch burning and 8000rpm as I endeavor to get to my class by 5:30pm.

Pulling into the main security gate at Subaru’s main factory.

An hour and half later its 7:00pm and my class had just finished where my students tell me about Subaru’s future plans and future car productions that wont be hitting the market for a while and of course some actual English teaching thrown in mix. Now its time for quick snacks to keep my sugar level high to keep me awake, and no better place then Save On.

Now  7:50pm I have eaten all my sugary treats and I’m waiting for my students to arrive for there 60min class.

Finally 9:00pm has come time to go home!

If  you have read this and your thinking, wow this is the most boring thing on the internet well times that by 4 and that’s my usual working week but with about 6-8 classes in a day from 2:00pm to 9:00pm then once I’m finished there its back home to carry on with my car exporting business HashiriyaExports.com packing and hunting for parts for another 4-7 hours.

The JDM dream shattered in one web blog, if your a normal person that has a passion for cars and can deal with mind numbing English teaching while getting paid average wages and you actually enjoy Japan for more then just your car hobby then you can survive this place without breaking into a sweat. English teaching is not a hard job and really not too bad, just a bit mind numbing and eventually the wages will get to you.

This is not a blog complaining about my current life style and what faces many foreigners coming to this country with the same dream I had before reality punched me in the face and gave me a sore bleeding lip. Its more a thread of why are you coming to Japan and you better have a good back-up plan if it all turn sour.

I’m here because I am lucky to know some of the nicest people I have ever meet who all have the same passion for cars as myself. Together we have had some crazy times on and off the track, to me friends are my life and without them I would not be here in Japan. Cars brought me to this country but friends will keep me here, ohhh and of course my fiancée. And well there is the ease of access to world famous tracks, touge and snowboarding all just around the corner that makes life a little easier to bare but there is a trade off for having all of this within your reach.

Japan is like another planet, its hard to get your head around the place even after you fall into the English teaching trap. The question is where do I go from here, you cant live your whole life on average English teaching wages that’s what’s crunching my brain now days. The key is to get away from English teaching as quick as you can and try to find another way to live, easier said then done.

I was lucky enough to spend my first year in Japan drifting, sometimes up to 4 events in one month but it has all caught up with me. I’m now putting the car aside letting the shakken (car registration) run out this year and going to try and move forward with life outside of cars with my fiancée not just working my life around them. Next year the JZX90 will be coming back out, until then it will slash plated to any events I’m lucky enough to attend.

So no more of this for my car this year.

Just quite a bit of this.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, March 19th, 2009 at 12:29 AM and is filed under Random. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.