Having got the faff of our Christmas/New Year trip to the UK out the way, I was finally able to make a start on turning the car into a lean, mean camping machine. After lots of humming and harring we finally settled on the plan of sleeping in the car, as opposed to on top […]
Author Archives: barkertrax
Hey Mr Postman…
Exciting deliveries keep arriving. Foremost is the fridge; a Japanese design called Engel. We decided on the MT17F which gives us enough room for milk, a small amount of fresh produce and beer – a total capacity of 15 litres. We oohed and aahed about whether we needed a fridge but in the end decided […]
Soft Furnishings!
Being totally crap with mechanics and general ‘car stuff’ I have given myself the role of being in charge of soft furnishings. Incidentally I will also be in charge of cooking, eating, entertainment, cleaning, washing, chrome polishing and making friends – rather gender stereotypes I know…but there you go… And so on to curtains. Firstly, […]
It’s in our hands!
Well we have it! Three months after putting down the deposit we went last Saturday to pick it up. She is utterly amazing; with lots of new shiny bits. We’ve taken her for a couple of trips around the block, at one point accidently going down some very narrow residential streets which was a bit […]
Vehicle Update
Our Land Cruiser FJ62 is currently having a few bits and pieces replaced/rebuilt in preparation for the long way home. As Utilitas has only 1 mechanic, we’ve had to be very patient and accept that, in the words of Morrisey, “these things take time“! Today, we got a little photo update from Ikegaya-san. It’s great […]
Meeting Naoko-san and visiting our Land Cruiser
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 […]
The 60 Meeting
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 […]
Finding a parking space
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 […]
We bought a car!
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 […]