There are some things in life that are difficult. Waking up to this view on your first morning in Japan is not one of them.

After a bus ride and a couple of trains we made it to Tokyo. We were devastated when, on the bus to the station in Narita, we found a workshop about 100 metres from our hotel (with an S15 with pink Gram Lights 57Ds on the front and Volk GTCs on the back) and a VIP van workshop that we hadn’t visited. But there’s always Thursday…

What do a bunch of car guys do when they first arrive in Tokyo? They go to Super Autobacs in Shinonome, that’s what they do.

I bought a Broadway mirror, some FET driving gloves and some Snap-On Japan mechanic gloves, but this is a car blog and I guess you want to see cars. This perfect pair was relaxing out the front when I came out of the shop…

A slammed M6 completed with colour-matched dish and #1 plates and a VIP styled JZX100 Chaser. Amazing.

We spotted this angry looking FD out the back waiting for some love. Inside it had Brides and a full cage.

Back out the front was this tuned Civic Type R completed with Spoon brakes. Andrew, sporting the new Garage Dusty crew neck, approves.

Saving the best for last, though, this Alphard was amazing.

I’m kind of excited about this shot. Car & location couldn’t be more perfect.

We also saw the toughest JZX100 I have ever seen in my life, but it was too dark to take shots. Black, slammed, kitted, black-centre Work XSA 18s outside the guards with stretched tyres, etc etc. We also saw a race Corolla at Cockpit, a drift JZX100 with R32 GTR rims and a stitched together kit cruising Shinjuku at night, a low black-on-black R35, perfect white VIP Alphard and a noisy S8 FD also in Shinjuku, a few VIP Aristos, a slammed track-style Yaris with Brides & SSRs, and plenty more. Even saw 2 Galants! Pretty damn successful car spotting day.

We also did some normal civilian sightseeing. A meal at Little Cars Cafe (with the best pizza in history and a coffee stirred with a spanner spoon) was followed by a stroll.

The streets down in Shinonome were pretty quiet. It’s an awesome area actually, laid back and genuine.

We visited a Cockpit store, then just walked and got ourselves deliberately lost. Walked through some industrial backstreets (including the one where we found that black Mark 2) and stumbled upon this view.

Of course, some nights when walking around the back streets of Tokyo you bump into 80s video games just sitting on the street, powered by a gaffa-taped power board.

My life is strange at the moment.