Lost in Ogawa

A month ago, I went to the “Tokyo Motor Show.” My brother in L.A. had informed me of this event a month before so I thought I might as well go check it out. Besides, my family and I are fans of Japanese cars and I thought it would be cool for me to find out firsthand from the source what new models of cars will eventually be hitting the States. I think my brother wanted me to go in his place also to see what the new Infiniti G35 would look like so he can decide if we should wait for the new model or buy the current year’s model. It’s always exciting when our family buys a new car but for once, it’s not exciting for me because I won’t be there to drive the new car =( Nevertheless, after 2 hours of train ride and about $13 bucks of train fare, my friends and I arrived at the car show.

I was looking forward to seeing prototype cars or really fast sports cars but when we entered the first convention hall of three, we were pleasantly surprised to see buses, and trucks, and not pick up trucks, but those giant freight trucks. We looked at each other and thought, OK, cool, lets check it out, and we’ll work our way to the zoom zoom cars. Apparently, we were looking at the next generation of buses and how handicap or elderly accessible they are. It was intereting to see how many Japanese people were very eager to go inside these buses to take a look. There were many long lines forming but I didn’t have the patience or the interest to wait with them. I really wanted to know what excites them about entering a bus! Some people even went as far as getting on their backs and sliding their head and torso under the truck. From my point of view walking by, I thought they got run over!

As we entered the second and the third convention hall, it soon became reality that the motor show we came to was not the Vroom Vroom type of car shows we were expecting. It was all buses, trucks, cars or vans that were wheelchair accessible. How did we not realize this earlier? How were we to know this type of “Motor Show” was this?? Then we looked at the fine print on our ticket and the signs saying “Tokyo Motor Show” and below it, in small prints, it says, “Commercial and Barrier-Free Vehicles.” Even from that, I wouldn’t guess right away it wasn’t the car show I expected. But after seeing the show and looking at the fine prints and thinking about it, It does make sense if you make some educational implication and inductions. I guess it wouldn’t sound very politically correct or very nice at all if the fine print read “Buses, trucks and cars for handicaps!” Yes, I was a little disaappointed but for very good reasons, we still had an fun time and took many pictures. No, I didn’t take much pictures of the buses or trucks but rather the ladies standing next to them. OH yes, they had SHOWGIRLS!!! When I went to a car show in Taiwan, it was the same deal, showgirls! It must be an Asian car show thing. I think America should adopt that same philosophy. I’m sure they would attract twice as much visitors! They even had showgirls for car parts and tires. What did they have to do with car parts or tires? No Clue! But the companies that have showgirls gets more attention than those that don’t. Good business strategy. The many camera flashes going off sure wasn’t aimed at the vehicles or the car parts that’s for sure!

Pics from the “Motor Show”
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/tonykao0627/album?.dir=4f0b

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Monday, December 13th, 2004 at 1:22 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.