When I was in Harajuku last week, I caught a glimpse of a poster advertising the Mille Miglia Japan, which was to be kicked off at Harajuku on the 13th of October. I thought there was only one Mille Miglia in the world?
Apparently, Japan begs to differ, and with sponsors ranging from Alfa Romeo to Alitalia (how do they have money to sponsor things?), this event was every inch the real deal.

I wandered over to Harajuku with my friend Tatsuki (he was the guy who bought a DSi along with Dave and I). Fortunately for us, the event was very easy to find, as it was located at the entrance to the Meiji-jingu shrine, right next to the train station. It was about 10:30 at the time, and the event did not kick off until 12, so we spent the in-between time holding ourselves a prime viewing position right next to the fence and taking some photos of the cars lined up at the gateway.

One thing that intrigued me greatly as I stood watching were the nature of the drivers. Even though they were almost without exception Japanese, they all looked like the sort of people that drive classic cars. There was a distinguished air about them: the way they dressed, the way they talked, the way they all seemed to know each other - in my mind, it was not all that different from the Classic Adelaide, except perhaps more... distinguished (and Japanese). Take, for example, the driver of the Alfa Romeo 8C (if there is a more beautiful car anywhere I have not seen it yet), who, upon entering his car to shelter from the light rain, proceeded to smoke casually away on his cigarette-in-a-cigarette holder. How eccentric, and yet how so typical of an owner of such a rare machine!

The cars in the event were many and varied, ranging in age from a 1925 Bugatti Brescia T22/13R to a '65 Alfa Romeo Giulia. Surprisingly, there was only a single Ferrari in the entire event - a 1950 Ferrari 195 Inter - but this was more than made up for by the many (nowadays) unheard of makes like Stanguellini, Morassutti and Bandini. The Maserati 150S was also very impressive. It was a wonder to see these pieces of history in action, driven by men smoking extended cigarrettes and wearing leather helmets and racing goggles, and I couldn't help but feel nostalgic for the 'good ol' days'. Which is funny, because a classic car from my 'good ol' days' would probably be something like a '92 NSX or something.

I took many photos on the day, but most of them were rubbish, so I have selected only a couple to show you here on the blog:

After a quick and unsatisfying lunch in Harajuku, I said goodbye to Tatsuki and met up with Mr and Mrs Kinoshita, relatives of friends of my parents. They were an extremely lovely couple who lived in Setagaya-ku, slightly west of Shibuya. The area they lived in was simply stunning - large houses, abundant greenery, impressive cars (I saw a pearl-white GTR) and even a large Dominican school. I did not have the opportunity to take any photos at the time, but imagine this area as something like the inner-eastern suburbs of Adelaide.
I spent some time at the Kinoshita's house, eating the delicious food they had prepared for me, and the time passed very quickly (no doubt aided by the Asahi and sake they kept pouring). It was soon dinner time, and to my surprise I was invited to go along with the Kinoshita's for dinner at a local Jazz bar.
On the way, we stopped at a pachinko parlour because I mentioned that I had never played pachinko before. After this brief experience, I can safely say that I do not want to play again. To explain it briefly, pachinko is like pokies, except a whole lot more pointless. You pay money for a certain amount of ball bearings, which you then insert in a machine and hope they come out again. I had no idea how the people sitting next to me managed to accumulate whole piles of the things while mine dissappeared in seconds - and nor did I really want to dwell on it. Those ball-bearings could not really be exchanged for anything of worth (like, say, money), and I left the parlour at a loss as to why people would waste their money, time and eardrums (it was incredibly noisy inside) on pachinko when they could instead play something like DDR ;)

Dinner was delicious yakitori skewers accompanied by an American blues band. I could describe it all, but instead I will leave you with this video - definitely a day I will not forget!



PS: If any of you would like to have a different take on the Waseda/Japan experience, Alicia has a great blog and even better photography - something for this blog to aspire to, I suppose :P