Tokyo Motor Show 2007 has just started (from October 27 to November 11) at Makuhari Messe on Tokyo Bay. Japanese consumers have lost a big part of enthusiasm for this extremely stupid method of transportation since the bubble imploded. Nevertheless, there remain thousands and thousands of diehard car freaks hidden in the corner of society, and they are flocking to the vast arena of Makuhari.

The shiniest star of this year's show is, without a single doubt, the resurrected Nissan GT-R, the Land Rocket.

Nissan's CEO Ghosn-san introduces the new GT-R, the Land Rocket.

Generations of car aficionados in Japan have had an illicit love affair with Skyline GT (popularly known as Suka-G). It started its life as a souped-up version of Prince Skyline sedan in 1964. After the Prince Automobile Industries, the original manufacturer of Skyline series, was taken over by Nissan in 1996, Suka-G flourished as the workhorse of Nissan's motor sports activity.

The first Suka-G, Prince Skyline 2000GT (1964).

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We have to pay one thousand and one kinds of taxes in Japan, just as Ali Baba and Sindbad of Arabian Night used to surrender their hard-earned dirkhams to merciful Government of Khalifa Rashid ud-Din. Then, in Baghdad, all tax jobs had been outsourced to tax contractors, while we in 21st-century Japan outsource our affair to tax accountants. Not much progress since when Abbasid Baghdad flourished, is it?

One of the most cumbersome taxes in Japan is, definitely, the property tax. If one builds a new home, he has to register this property to local land registry office. Without this registration, your home would stay in the virtual domain and be worth as much as the fancy building in virtual Second Life.

Tax collector from sky! Quick, hide behind the tax shelter.

Then, local Government assesses your registered property and sends a hefty property tax bill to you every year. You build a tiny do-it-yourself garage on your plot? Or a toolshed? The same thing. Even a rabbit hatch for your pet rabbit, you have to register.
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Are you good at parallel parking? Quite a lot of urban car drivers hate this delicate and cumbersome way of parking and try to avoid it at all if ever possible. Oh yeah, your Mobile Ojisan has hopelessly rotten hands and eyes for this job. His history of self-inflicted damage while negotiating parallel parking has piled up thicker than the volume of War and Peace".

Things have improved a lot since Toyota introduced the Inteligent Parking Assistance system in 2003, on a Prius hybrid. Assisted by a rear-mounted TV camera, the Prius automatically steers the wheel while backing up for parallel parking. Only thing you have to control is brake pedal.

LCD display panel of Lexus LS460L. Parking assistance system started.

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Wow, you are suffering from the double whammy of tennis wrist and tennis elbow. I'm afraid you played too hard without wearing armband, and maybe, the grip of your racket was not the right size ... No? You got it from a tiny plastic wand of Nintendo Wii!

Those hardcore users of Xbox and PS2/3, on the other hand, suffer from chronic tendinitis. Which do you prefer, fingers or wrist/elbow?

Nintendo's managing director Miyamoto-san fighting against evil shareholders.

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On October 12, the sky fell on the head of commuters in Metropolitan Tokyo area.

Starting from the small hours of the morning, most of the automatic gate machines in hundreds of local railway stations refused to wake up. Desperate station staff cajoled, threatened, kicked and banged these truant machines thousand times, but they adamantly kept on sleeping.

Station gates wide open. Overhead display in red: Gate machines down!

If this kind of truancy had taken place 15 years ago, nobody would have noticed it. Because, then, a horde of extremely skilled Eki-in-san (dear station personnel) with clattering ticket-punchers controlled the station gate efficiently, with the speed no present gate machines can match.
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