Arigato mr roboto – 2009 World Tour Progress Report

[Original post by Elliot Mogerman – Transferred from yahoogroups.com]

I carried my heavy freakin luggage around on trains, and buses all morning until we finally end up at a hotel right by bmw, but we arrive past closing time. So we go for a wakl and explore down alleys and main streets. I pick a fast food noodle looking place and have the best spicy raman and meat soup. The miso isn’t half bad either.

In the morning, we check out of the hotel, and head over to bmw. The bikes arrive a few minutes after we sit down with the contact at the dealership. Mike of course gets all of his stuff out of the way for an hour or so and makes sure, after several confirmations, they know what to do with his bike. Then we get to mine and they start laughing after I pull out the laundry list of issues. They assure us both will be taken care of, but mine might take 3 weeks. Getting an engine from germany to japan isn’t the easiest thing in the world.

When finished, the associate calls some nearby hostels and hotels to find out they are all full. So we have to take more trains and buses an hour or so away to an older city outside of tokyo called Akasuka. It is more traditional and very quiet. We arrive and go for a long walk around. Eat dinner at a chinese restaraunt and mike ordered something similar to what i had the night before. the fried rice was much better, go Chinese! Tomorrow we might try and find a cheaper place to save some money and switch locations. But having my own room does give me plenty of time to think and get Zen on this shit. 🙂

WOOHOO! Just received an email that BMW has approved the engine under warranty. So they will replace the engine, do a full maintenance and pay for the labor. Some of the small things like normal wear on tires, brake pads, etc i will have to cover which is fine. I’m still working on reimbursement for transportation. Keep your fingers crossed, but this is good news. And the start of a new kind of adventure.