Oh, Did Someone Say ...

... Sharkfin soup? Guilty as I felt—and I did feel guilty, as I thought of the now-finless shark spiraling down into a dark, rudderless death—this bowl of gelatinous excitement went straight back to the kitchen. Sam Fleming photo

Day 2

Hi, hai--sorry for posting delay.

Kawasaki Good Times World was good times indeed, and the start of what promises to be a series of walk-and-gawk activities that have the 18 journalists on this trip shuffling around like obedient school-kids (while looking signifcantly less cute than the actual school-kids who swarmed KGTW in matching hats).

The museum opened into a hall that chronicled the origins of the 129-year-old company (collectively called Kawasaki Heavy Industries) and offered a glimpse of the surprising range of events and areas they've been involved in since. Of all the ships, robots, bikes, helicopters, and bullet trains on display, though, I have to say I was most impressed with the Kawasaki tunnel-boring machine, responsible for excavating the Eurotunnel from France to England in 1991. Whatever 1/20th scale means, you still have to stand in awe of the kind of technology that shrinks cars to fit through a football-sized passage. Then again, a Rubik's-cube solving robot is nothing to sneeze at—nor is an '07 ZX-6R, whether you're a moto-journalist or a 7-year-old Japanese school-girl.

Post-Good Times World, it was back on the bus for a ride to KHI's Akashi Works plant, which is not only the source of "leisure products" (like motorcycles) familiar to U.S. consumers, but also responsible for bohemoth projects like fabricating one of the two main towers of Japan's Akashi Kaikyo Bridge, which boasts the longest span of any suspension bridge in the world and did a first-rate job of getting our bus from one side of the Akashi Straight to the other.

Once the bus arrived at Akashi Works, we were quickly outfitted in jackets, hard hats, and ear-pieces for a tour that wove in-and-out of various motorcycle assembly lines, the noise and bustle of which didn't obscure the obvious efficiency of a system that allows several different models of bike to be assembled on the same line. Cameras weren't allowed in the facility—and won't be in any of the other factories we tour, either—but some stock photos are apparently winging their way home for use in a later RRX article, and hopefully they'll convey some of the wonder of seeing motorcycles careen overhead while you jump to avoid racks of tanks, fairings, and forks that have somewhere to be. In the meantime, I think you'll be pretty well satisfied with this excellent sketch I just did, though I admit it doesn't speak to the remarkable strangeness of hearing alerts that sound like ice-cream-truck music occasionally flutter down on a floor full of serious, fast-moving laborers. And yes, as someone pointed out, it kind of looks like the bad end of a stockyard.

Still Day -2 Through Day 1 ...

Okay, it seemed wise to go ahead and try posting that first fragment below, but once I had, I couldn't figure out which string of Japanese characters meant "edit." Since I'm (just barely) bright enough to understand what a large, green, plus-sign button means, however, I'm going to settle for adding on instead.

The image above, by the way, is the view from my hotel room. Beside me on the desk is a laminated card that reads, "As the strong winds accompanying the approaching low pressure may cause a variety of slightly rasping structural sounds along with a subtle back-and-forth movement, allow us to notify you that this is a natural response of the flexible, but durable, construction required to enable a sky-scraper such as the hotel to withstand the effects of earthquake and typhoon...." and then goes on to politely ask that guests refrain from calling the front desk in the event of said rasping. The word "exit" is also painted on my 20th-story window.

Happily, there are a lot of other things to look at in this room, like this gold bedside table I'm officially obsessed with: In a nod to the kind of futuristic houses and lifestyle we were promised in the 1950s and '60s, its shiny buttons can open and close the drapes; pipe classical, smooth jazz, or the Star Wars theme into your room and/or bathroom; wake you up in the morning; turn the room lights on and off; illuminate the area underneath the table and bed; and call for a masseuse. Also, the toilet seats are heated—a strange but not objectionable experience.

Warm toilet seats aside, Kawasaki's hospitality was actually in full effect long before the plane left LAX for Tokyo, hence the title of this entry. As long-time sponsors of Infineon Raceway's AMA round—known formally as the Kawasaki Superbike Showdown—both Saturday and Sunday nights of the event featured the soon-to-be-famous Kawasaki Mini-Moto ... your only chance to see drag race world champ Rickey Gadson face-off against road race legend Jimmy Felice on kid-sized dirt bikes. With Speed TV personality Greg White doing exceptionally snarky commentary throughout the evening (I'm here to tell you that he used the phrase "razzle-dazzle" twice), you'll understand why I don't have a clue what the finishing results were. From the look of this photo, however, it's clear that Gadson won something that gave him the right to sneer at the crowd.

Big kudos to Kawasaki's Jeff Herzog, who designed the course—which featured table-tops, an uphill section, switchbacks, and more—on a dinner napkin and then made it real in the best way. Built on a family farm just six miles from Infineon (guess how happy the three dirt-bike-riding kids who live there are about it), the track is now a permanent fixture and the Mini-Moto itself an annual tradition.

The day after the AMA road racers left the Infineon Raceway track, media and local Kawasaki dealers and riders swarmed onto it within the framework of a Sportbike Track Time/Kawasaki track-day event. Infineon is a really fun track to ride, thanks in large part to the elevation changes of its first section, and with about seven hours of available track time and cool, sunny weather, it was the kind of day that makes you grateful to be a motorcycle rider. I was feeling particularly happy to be circling on an '07 cherry red ZX-6R, but the bike was perhaps less happy to have me as a rider after I lowsided in a right-hander at the crest of a hill. I had a chance to really admire that clear, blue sky while sliding off the track alongside the bike; then I hit the grass, and as the world went ground-sky-ground-sky-ground-sky, I reflected on how completely in love I am with modern gear, which kept me surprisingly comfortable during the duration of what I'm pretty sure was a 20-minute slide 'n' tumble. The most uncomfortable thing about my first crash, in fact, was the ride of shame back to the hot pits. Plus, there's really nothing like scraping part of the "X" in Road Racer X off the rear of your leathers to injure your pride (and transform you into a freaked-out, flinching field-mouse for the next hour or so).

That's about it for me this morning—we're due in the lobby in a half-hour to start a day of touring "Kawasaki Good Times World" and the Akashi Works factory, and presumably there's coffee down there somewhere. This blog should become somewhat more coherent in the days ahead, during which we'll move from Kobe to Hakata to Kumamoto and more, visiting a slew of Kawasaki facilities as well as a round of the All-Japan Road Race Championship. I'm looking forward to starting the day ... peering down from my hotel window, I can see as many bicycles, motorcycles, and scooters as I can cars, and there's something kind of wonderful about a world with that many two-wheelers in it.

Days -2 Through 1

Greetings from Kobe, Japan, where I'm currently installed on the 20th floor of Hotel Okura Kobe with a cup of green tea, a view of Kobe Harbor, and a distinct conviction that it's either Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. Adding to my confusion is the fact that all the instructions for this blog are suddenly showing up in Japanese instead of English, so here's hoping I actually manage to publish this thing.