Formula 1 Race in Fuji Speedway

This past weekend (9/30/07) Orlando and I had the opportunity to go to the Japan Formula 1 Grand Prix in Fuji Speedway. I say opportunity because we needed allot of help to get the tickets at face value and to plan the trip from Hiroshima all the way to the outskirts of Mount Fuji where the race track was located. We went with our Japanese friends Yoshi (like the Nintendo character) and Yoko (every girl around here is named either Yoko or Ryoko or Keiko or anything that ends with ko) who basically arranged the whole trip, we basically just tagged along. Sincerely without their help we would have never made it to the race unless we paid a whole lot of money for a tour. Just imagine having to take a plane from Hiroshima to Tokyo, staying one night in Yokohama (a suburb of Tokyo), the next day tacking a train for 1.5 hours, driving 1 hour and then taking a bus to the race track that took another hour!!! We got to the race 20 minutes before it started!!! Lesson learned: Mt. Fuji is really, really far away!!!! And to top it all off it was raining all day non stop!!!! This was our sexy look for the day:
The actual race was pretty cool because the cars kept spinning out and crashing into each other.

As I mentioned we also has a chance to checkout Yokohama which was actually a pretty cool and very modern city. We went to its Chinatown (this proves you can find one anywhere):



We found this super funny Panda store with every panda product you can imagine:
Here is Orlando goofing around with Yoshi.
We actually staying in Yoshi's parents house after the race and his mom and dad where soooooooo nice to us I can't even begin to describe it. Once we arrived at their house around 9 pm his mom had huge dinner ready for us!!! Hello for total strangers!!! Once again we got to sleep in a tatami room on some futons, which is always an adventure by itself.

You never know what you will find in Japan just take a look at what we found in the airport on the way back to Hiroshima:
Yes people this is an actual Pokemon airplane!!! , you have to have your camera ready to go at all times!!! There is never a dull moment around here.