Finding Zen through Audi A5 Driving Vacation in Japan
Feeling like a Jetsons
Driving around Tokyo on the elevated ring roads reminded me of one of my favorite cartoon shows, the Jetsons. At about a twenty story building high, I was cruising at 70 km/h in a very comfortable and confidence 2009 Audi A5. To my right, the view of the urban jungle landscape was whizzing by. When the traffic slowed down enough and I was in the thick of the urban jungle, my eyes wandered to the skyscrapers and caught glimpses of the people living in their penthouses.
The third generation (3G) Multi Media Interface (MMI) warned me about the upcoming traffic jam. The right side of the dual view mode showed my location on the map while the left side view illustrates the traffic ahead. The orange color that bled to red enhanced the visual cue about the traffic condition. I was somewhere above the Shibuya district. My destination was the Audi Forum Japan in Harajuku neighborhood. I decided to get off on the next exit to avoid the traffic jam.
This Audi A5 came equipped with the built in transponder for the Electronic Ticket Collection (ETC) system. After the MMI screen, along with a very friendly female voice, informed me that I just paid 700 Yen, the dual view came back. I was descending rapidly to the ground level from the five story high elevated highway. I felt like a Jetsons descending to the lower ground in a flying car from where ordinary lives take place among the clouds.
This time, the left side of the dual view MMI showed me the computer generated graphics of the real view before me. The details were amazing. It was as if someone took a picture of this exit complete with the buildings on the left side, the complex elevated highway structures in front and to the right, and the trees on the left. All those details were presented in the computer generated graphics. At this time, the Navigation computer had calculated the new path because I took the exit to avoid the traffic jam. The blue arrow, in this computer generated graphic, showed which street I had to take from the three streets fanning before me. I wanted one of this at home!
All navigation data, both for display and for entering addresses, are in Kanji. So entering an address in Kanji was a surmountable task for me. The 3G MMI is equipped with an integrated flushed thumb joystick. This joystick also functions as the original button in the previous generation MMI on the top of the large center dial. This joystick is required to select the variation of a kanji character once you select a character using the dial. It also makes browsing the map a heck lot easier. But this was not the way I entered the address to the Audi Forum. Luckily there is another mechanism to enter the destination, very clever actually. I entered the destination by entering the phone number of Audi Forum! Ingenious!
After going through a maze of Tokyo roads, we arrived at the Audi Forum (http://www.audi.co.jp/audiforum). I had been to several Audi Forums but I had never seen the one like this. The all glass exterior that zigzags upward and the glowing interior reminded me of the Superman’s secret ice palace. Contemporary design is my favorite, so I really enjoyed the view of this building. Inside, the first two stories are occupied by Audi show rooms and café. It showcases the latest car models behind the backdrop of Audi history and heritage. The friendly and courteous Audi Forum representatives gave me a tour of the location. If you are in Harajuku neighborhood in Tokyo and looking for a place to take some pressure of your feet, this will be a nice relaxing place.
Japanese Delicacy
I love sushi but I had never seen the stupendous selections of raw seafood till now. I am adventurous as far as seafood, but I could not get myself to eat a raw Conch. I would rather enjoy its empty shell as an ornament than to eat its flesh even if it were cooked. But according to my dare-devil food aficionado California native friend, this Conch sushi is heavenly. I took his words.
To my surprise, there was a wide variety of pasta dishes here in Japan. Had I never been to Italy, I could easily be led to believe that pasta was from Japan. Vegetable pasta gratin, a bed of fresh vegetable and angle hair pasta topped with melted baked cheese, was one of my many favorite Japanese pasta dishes. Okonomiyaki, seafood and vegetable egg pancake over fried noodle, was another one.
The foods not only tasted heavenly delicious, but they also looked very ornate. Japanese people take pride in quality and presentation. They go through elaborate preparation to ensure that the freshness, the individual taste and aroma, the seductive color, and the unique form blend together to form an ensemble of culinary delight.
Similarly, Audi designers and engineers go through intricate design and manufacturing processes to ensure the best craftsmanship. This was not something that I learned from reading a brochure. This was something that I felt and experienced when I sat in this progressive sporty cockpit of the A5. The sport leather seats cocoon the passengers. The white glow of the instruments gives a soothing ambience. The piano black inserts accentuate the already elegant lines and curves of the spaceship-like cabin.
On the exterior, the LED daytime running lights, the sporty grill, the bold hood lines, the sinuous waist lines, and the sweeping roof create the stunning form that oozes dynamism. Even at stand still, this A5 invokes the feeling of energy, speed, and agility. I would not want to be its prey. My tired spirit from a long day at work was rejuvenated the minute I climbed into this A5.
One more thing, my favorite wake-up drink in this 30 degree Celsius 100% humidity weather was the Starbuck tall lite Frappuccino with grass jelly. After this trip, I would be bringing a can of grass jelly to my neighborhood Starbuck so I could add the grass jelly myself. Delicious!
Needing more space and Zen
My weekday life was filled with meeting with many people in black suits, packed subway trips, and crossing intersections in a sea of people. One of the positives of being in the crowded and electrifying place like Tokyo was the fact that I could sense the buzzing of people’s energy around me. There were so many things to do after work. Different neighborhoods have different characteristics and offer a wide variety of nightlife activities.
World clothing designers come to Shibuya and Harajuku to search for inspirations by watching how the teenagers dress and try to outdo their peers in fashion creativities every night of the week. The thirty something crowd dressed for success congregate in Roppongi Hills high end luxury district. The bright and colorful neon sign lit up the Shinjuku neighborhood where the locals go to their favorite restaurant and karaoke bars.
After many long days of work and long nights of socializing, I started to long for something more subtle, something more Zen, and something more open. Rural Japan was perfect for my longing as the whole country is located on one of the most tectonically active regions in the world. This is where mountains grow daily and the landscapes never stay the same.
So, quickly I made several weekend-gateway plans to explore mountainous and lush rural Japan. After spending a lot of time with Google map and talking to many people in Japan, I selected three regions and they are all within a few hours drive from Tokyo. After all, I needed the rejuvenating work-detox plan.
Hakone and Fuji Go-Ko
Hakone is where the car magazine editors send their writers to test drive the newest Japanese sport cars. Recently, the Audi R8 and the Nissan GT-R were test driven and compared here. It is about 100 km south of Tokyo. Additionally, roads in this region are featured in many car racing video games.
Aside from the roads, Hakone is famous for hot springs, outdoor activities, natural beauty and the view of nearby Mt. Fuji. Hakone is one of the most popular destinations among Japanese and international tourists looking for a break from Tokyo. This green lush mountainous region is even more charmed by the calm Lake Ashi.
Due the weather system in the region, it is a very rare occasion to be able to see the famous Mt. Fuji as the backdrop for the already amazing postcard perfect view of caldera Lake Ashi. Most of the time, the thick fog curtains Mt. Fuji.
Finding exhilarating roads in this region was very easy. By zooming in and out the navigation system, I was able to see the stupendous serpentine mountain passes. My co-driver and I decided to drive Toyo Turnpike, Hakone Skyline, and Route 401.
Toyo Turnpike is a very swift wide twisty road with mild elevation change. Looking up I saw the fast large radius bend followed by a few tight zigzags. The drive up was very leisurely in this A5 3.2 Quattro. The precise steering, the sport-tuned suspension, and the 265 hp V6 made the climb up effortless. We devoured the S turns and zigzags at almost double the suggested speed and the 19 inch 255/35 tires didn’t even squeal. It felt like we were on a roller coaster track. We were even able to chat about rice fields while I was maintaining the angle of the steering wheel and adjusting the throttle to get the fastest speed through the S turns.
Black tire marks forming all kind of shapes on the parking lot on the connecting road between Toyo Turnpike and Hakone Skyline entrance gave me enough proof that the scenes I saw in The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift are common occurrences here and they are not just a Hollywood imagination.
Hakone Skyline is a narrower road than Toyo Turnpike. It is a slower road but it is packed with a different kind of fun because it has more elevation change and tighter turns. We stopped at some vista points to enjoy the green lush panoramic scenery. No matter where we look, the mountains, layer after layer, filled the landscape. At a distant, the thick fog rolled down from the top of the mountain slowly turning the landscape from fluorescent green to moist grey.
Japanese road engineers installed convex mirrors on every blind turns. This made the drive through hairpins a lot safer and more joyful. I adjusted the navigation system zoom level so I could see the upcoming turns clearly and match the speed to get the best line. The F1 style pedal shifters enabled me to maintain my nine and three o’clock hand position on the steering wheel as I smilingly attacked the hairpins and switchbacks. The almost 50/50 distribution and the 40/60 front/rear Quattro torque split made this A5 extremely easy to rotate around very tight hairpins.
Earlier as we were browsing the map through the 3G joystick control of the MMI, we found a road that had more bends and curves than the line drawing of two year old kid. We marked the most crooked section of this road and asked our car to navigate us to it. Route 401 is even smaller than the Hakone Skyline. We passed the brow of the mountains where the vegetation was extremely dense. It was after lunch and the sun occasionally broke through the cumulus clouds, but it felt like dusk on Route 401.
In the late afternoon, we arrived at the Fuji-Go-Ko, the land of five lakes. Mt. Fuji, with the highest point at 12,388 feet, appeared and disappeared behind the thick fog. It was a very elusive mountain to admire. I met a few photographers at the popular vista point near Yamanakako. They had been waiting for the perfect fog-free moment of this magnificent since dawn.
Nikko and Iroha Highway
Nikko is about 150 km north of Tokyo. We entered the phone number of the Nikko visitor information that we had obtained from the hotel Concierge into our A5 navigational system. The rest was a blur of highways, toll booths, and friendly female voice of our MMI to let us know how much Yens we paid for the tolls.
The cultural highlight of this region is the Toshogu, Japan's most lavishly decorated shrine complex and mausoleum of Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. Unlike most Japanese temples and shrines, the buildings here are extremely gaudy and ornate, with multicolored carvings and plenty of gold leaf. There is the famous three wise monkey wooden carving. These wise monkeys embody the proverbial principle to "see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil".
The Nürburgring, known as simply "The Ring" by car enthusiasts, is the famous motorsport race track in Nürburg, Germany. All German car makers and international car makers who are continuously attempting to match and outdo the Germans in driving dynamics come to the Ring to prove their prototypes. The Ring has unprecedented level of technicality and challenges that are respected and feared by race car drivers, car designers and engineers. Not only it features hairpins, zigzags, switchbacks, straights, and elevation changes, but also a carousel turn.
Now, imagine the following. Ihora highway is like The Ring slapped on the steep brow of Mt. Natai. Additionally it has a lot more hairpins and several carousel turns! This public highway connects the town Nikko and lake Chuzenji, the highest elevated lake in Japan at 1269 meters above sea level. The highway is two lane one way up, ascending about 400 meter, and two-lane one way down on the another side of the mountain. Slow drivers and riders stay on the left lane and this makes the climb up and down extremely invigorating, especially during the off-peak hours.
On the way down of this pure driving ecstasy, I noticed the long sinuous rubber marks on many hairpins. Some marks went on a distance of three consecutive hairpins. Looking at this, images of Subaru WRX STI and Mitsubishi EVO drifting down the hill came to mind. I could only wish to have the skills and the defiance of the downhill racers who probably came here every weekend at midnight.
Fortunately, this A5 is equipped with the Audi Drive Select feature. This feature adjusts the variable-ratio steering, suspension, throttle, and gear shift programs based on three driving modes; Comfort, Auto, and Dynamic. The new damper regulation system has sensors at twelve points measuring road holding, steering motions, and the loading of the car. The data is used to calculate the millisecond adjustment on the dampers. Of course, I had selected the Dynamic mode for this rollercoaster-track-like road. I didn’t have the experience of the downhill racers nor their dare-devil spirit. But, thanks to the Drive Select and the Quattro, I surely devoured the hairpins and the switchbacks at a tingling pace.
We were very grateful that we had the A5 for this drive. Otherwise, we would not be able to delightfully and fully appreciate what the Japanese road engineers had done here. The immediate 243 lb-ft torque available to me at any given time, the precise steering, the firm dynamic sport suspension setting, the Audi Space Frame, the oversized disc brakes, and the rear biased Quattro system created an engineering harmony designed for just for this kind of roads.
Japanese Alps
Japan is located on the Ring of Fire. It is a zone of frequent earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that encircle the basin of the Pacific. The land sits on two tectonic plates, the North American plate and the Eurasian plate. The boundary between the two plates is in the middle of Honshu Island, the largest island. So, it is no wonder that the Japanese Alps are located here and it is only about three to four hour drive from Tokyo.
We decided to make Nagano town to be our base to explore one of the most dynamic landscape in the world. A visit to Nagano would not be complete without a stop at Zenkō-ji, a 7th century Buddhist temple which overlooks the city. The complex is immense and features many beautiful ancient ornate structures with intricate colorful wood carvings. Many people from all over the world come here to retreat from the merry-go-around of daily lives. Strolling inside the complex and absorbing the serene ambiance was the best way to let all of my jumbled thoughts and restlessness wash away.
The mid-west part of Honshu Island is not only the home of Japanese Alps but also the home of two feudal era Japanese villages in Kiso valley. Tsumago and Magome are practically next to each other separated by a beautiful twisty mountain road. These time capsules were as timeless and traditional as I could have imagined.
Walking around these villages, my mind wondered to images from movies depicting the Japanese feudal time. I day dreamed to the time when the Japanese Samurai Warriors in their colorful armors, ghostly masks, and terrifying swords marching down the narrow alleys of these villages. Nowadays, the wooden structures with paper screen doors and artful bonsai gardens gave the sense of peace and tranquility.
Another highlight of this region is Kamikochi, the Japan Alps National Park. We had to take the natural gas powered bus to get in and out of the park. Once we arrived, we were greeted by not only the most pristine air my lungs had ever experienced, but also the mesmerizing Ansel-Adam-like views of the mountain tops that rise upward from the 1500 meter plateau.
This picturesque dreamy region is dotted by many hiking trails. Groups of hikers were lining up in orderly fashion to start their hiking through the lush forest filled with birch and Japanese larch trees. The alluring Azusa River that flows through Kamikochi and feeds Lake Taisho makes the already picturesque dreamy region a perfect weekend sanctuary.
Our minds were overwhelmed by the number of mountain passes we saw as we browsed the 3G MMI navigational system. We were like little kids in the colorful candy store. We were paralyzed by the options. We looked at the gas gauge to make sure that we had enough gas for this driving excursion. The rest of the day was something that could not be described in words. We took turns driving this agile A5 through the narrow corkscrews, hairpins, and switchbacks with steep elevation change.
We didn’t speak to each other because our minds were empty. My fingers wrapped around the perforated sport steering wheel. Occasionally, some of my neurons fired in certain rhythmic order because of the stimuli that came through my eyes, ears, and spine. The next thing, I downshifted, braked, turned, revved up, accelerated, and up shifted. The syncopation repeated again and again. No more jumbled thoughts…it was just a blissful time.
Pure Enjoyment of Audi Driving
Many car manufacturers make reliable and comfortable utilitarian cars. Others make luxurious cars that give certain status of the person driving them. And they find their customers and they make profit. Very rare, a car manufacturer builds car out of passions for engineering, craftsmanship, and performance.
Audi is one of those rarities. Additionally, Audi always have the driver and the passengers in mind when they design and build a car. Audi makes sure that the enjoyment of driving is not lost in translation of marketing requirements, product specifications, and engineering constraints.
I know this not because Audi told me, but because what they have done with this new A5 (http://www.audi.co.jp/a5), and what I experienced in driving this engineering masterpiece. The car not only moved precisely the way I told it to, but the car generated so much positive emotions inside me. I found Zen through driving this Audi.
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