So this past weekend a friend and myself took a trip to Nikko which is famous for its many historical places and sights. I debated if i should drive there but knowing that it would cost over Y15,000 in tolls going and Y15,000 coming back, not to mention gas i passed and just took the train. One of the highlights for me was being able to go up and down Irohazaka which is basically the road that takes you from lower Nikko, where all the shrines are to upper Nikko which is a hot spring resort. Basically it is 48 turns of awesome driving.
We got off at the panorama rest house, for those of you who watch a certain car anime you would probably be expecting to see a black Evo III chilling here, unfortunately it was just a bunch of station wagons and a Coca-cola truck. Starting to wish i had my car.
But suddenly the crisp morning air was shattered by the sound of a turbo and squealing tires down in the valley. After about a minute the cause came flying up, it was this black zenki. The guy driving saw me getting ready to snap a picture and he put on the brakes. You can see him giving me the `WTF` look haha.
When you see this kinda set-up with some cheap skinny ass tires on the back and a nice set of Gram Lights on the front you probably know what he does on the weekend. Wishing i had my car.
Nothing like doing some `spirited driving` at 10:30 on a Monday morning
From the left side of the rest house you can see the famous Irohazaka down hill, check out the waterfalls on the right.Really wishing i had my car.
Going down was a pretty interesting experience. One thing i must say was amazing was the skill of this bus driver. Basically the roads are so narrow that the bus needs to take a wide sweeping arc around the turn to clear the hair pin. At times it looked like we were seriously not going to make the turn and go off the cliff, the corner of the bus and the guard rail only separated by about 4 inches as he took the turn. You can tell by the picture below somebody was getting some action recently. Really really wishing i had my car.
I have got some other stuff that isn`t car related but still cool so stay tuned for that.
I love this road. its a shame you didn't get to drive it though. however, you would probably be stuck behind one of those buses or coca cola trucks. I won't say wagons because the last time I was there was in a friends bmw wagon and I don't think you would have felt "stuck" behind it.
ReplyDeletethe tolls though......
Very nice to see this in another form than the welknown cartoon.
ReplyDeleteBTW: be glad the bus didn't do the downhill in a similar way as the SW20. ;)
In December 2005, me, my wife and our friend went up Irohazaka. It was covered in snow and there was a snowstorm blowing. We got to the top, walked around(freezing), went over to Chuzenji and then went back down to Lower Nikko. We also had to stop halfway down for almost an hour due to a bus getting stuck or something. On the bus I sat on the inside and was totally relaxed. My wife and friend sat on the outside and could look out the window over the cliff edge. They were s******* themselves all the way up and down while I just relaxed, slept and read a book!
ReplyDelete