Fromeward Bound

Taking the long way home from Japan to Frome, UK

Month: November 2015

Meeting Naoko-san and visiting our Land Cruiser

November 22, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Whilst we purchased our Land Cruiser FJ62 about a month ago, part of the deal was that it would receive a full overhaul to a) fix a few broken parts and b) get it ready for the journey. So, since buying the car, it’s spent the whole time at the garage. We’ve been keen (desperately so in fact) to visit our car and see how things have been going, but felt a bit ‘silly’ going to visit for no reason other than sentimental ones! As it turned out we were given a great excuse as Ikegaya-san had recently met a fellow ‘overlander;’ Naoko-san, and kindly arranged for us all to meet her at Utilitas HQ.

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The 60 Meeting

November 21, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Whilst we were at the Utilitas (http://www.utilitas.co.jp) purchasing our Land Cruiser FJ62 the boss, Ikegaya-san, invited us to join him in attending this year’s annual meetup of 60-series Land Cruiser owners. We, of course, took him up on his offer and agreed to go. We did feel a bit weird that whilst we do technically own a 60-series, we’d be turning up empty handed as our car was going to be at Utilitas for the next month having various bits and pieces attended to.

The weekend got off to an early start because we had to be in west Tokyo by 7am to meet Ikegaya-san. At 07:00 on the dot Ikegaya-san rolled up in his pristine red Land Cruiser FJ60 and we hit the road. And I say pristine, but seriously, this is one special pin-up of a Land Cruiser that’s made several magazine appearances here in Japan.

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Finding a parking space

November 8, 2015 / / 0 Comments

In Japan you can’t buy a car unless you have somewhere to park it – the garage literally won’t sell you a car until you complete a form that officially proves you have somewhere to park a car within 2km of your registered home! Whilst that sounded kind of curious to our British ears it makes a lot of sense in Tokyo given the lack of space.

So having committed to our journey, and having decided to buy a car as soon as possible, the next stage was to find somewhere to park said car….

With a bit of help from Clare’s employer we eventually found a spot some 500m from our apartment.

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We bought a car!

November 8, 2015 / / 0 Comments

After various visits to various garages in and around Tokyo looking at various cars, we  eventually found ‘the one’. In our case this was a ’89 Toyota Land Cruiser FJ62G.

What with Japan being the home of the Land Cruiser you’re pretty much spoilt for choice for quality specimens. That said, it did take us a few visits to various shops to find the ‘near’ perfect car for us. I say ‘near’ as our 60 has an automatic transmission when we would’ve preferred manual.

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