Another post….. This time I went to Taiwan and China in 2023….
Landed in Taiwan in 2023 with the family, it was late and the only place that was open was this place selling fried stuff aka “pop corn chicken” the favorite of boba goers in SoCal….
I was staying in Xi Men Ding aka the Shibuya of Taipei, to an extent….
Fried Chicken With Basil, yeah.
Big ass “Fried Chicken Steak”
Caught this sweet lexus LM. Easy $100k+ car in Asia
Followed by a mid Itasha Civic. At first glance the cars rolling on the streets of taiwan are okayyyy at best in execution.
Armed with Jet Lag the next morning I paid about a $1 something and got a Scallion cake thing from this dude. Came with Egg and all.
Breakfast spot. Got Soy Milk
Toyota Hilux is good
Taiwan is heavily influenced by Japanese culture and Gatchapon Machines are all over…. this one had a cool RX7 figure. Familiar stores, like 7-11, Saizeriya, Sushiro, Donki, are all present.
I spotted this in a taxi cab. Porsche 996 GT3RS, something we never got in the USA officially…
I hitup a night market in Taibei….
sausage casing stuffed with sticky rice with a glizzy inside. Pretty good
I got the stinky tofu too…
Freshly made shao bing… these had meat inside
Sweet Suzuki Jimny… They are starting to roll in now, but I wish we had them earlier.
Took my wife surfing…. Got this as a rental car. It was okay…
The countryside of Taiwan was really beautiful.
Taking a picture of the plate because a lot of places require your plate number to pay for parking….
Another night market, except this one was in Keelung, if you are to visit Taiwan, go to this nightmarket and skip Shilin.
I love the traditional vibes of Taiwan… please don’t change.
Next day I was on the freeway and passed this Subaru GC8…. Taiwan did get the turbo Gc8 in LHD unlike the USA. They are usually 4 doors and have this ugly molding on the side. This particular car looks like it must have some work and said advertised components.
This face is closer to our USA spec 1998 Subaru 2.5rs…. They got “JDM” clear corners.
It looks like he is rocking some later model STi rims…
GC8 with Taibei 101 in the background
Blurry picture of an Toyota Alphard in downtown Taibei
Caught this GF wagon pulling into a parking spot near my hotel….
Just a middle aged man showing up for work…
Next Leg of the trip I went to visit Family in Beijing China…..
Green plates means EV and they are a lot of them…. I caught this car as an “uber”. they don’t really have uber in China anymore it’s a company called Didi Da Che.
“BRIDE” moped
fmy “uber” was driving this it felt like a barebones EV
At the mall near where I was staying there are a ton of Chinese made EVs on display…. not gonna lie they were all pretty nice.
Interior felt better than my Tesla….
Very nice 3 row EV van..
This brand is called Nio
Lidar bump
cool purple interior.
Huawei car
got some Tea from Heytea… at the time it was super popular…
There key selling point is using fresh as fruits in their drinks… like a drink full of peeled grapes….
across was the moutai flavored ice cream… aka alcohol flavored
grape drink with with lots of real grape slices…
They got a Tim Hortons in China…..
This restaurant went for the full jdm theme with rep train ticket machines….
This place had good mangosteen drinks…. mangosteen costs a fortune in the USA…
Hong Qi EV
BYD EV
a Maxus?
China has so many EV Brands it’s hard to keep track, mind you this was 2023… imagine now.
I went to a mall to kill time. The malls in China are massive, like absolutely massive, and the shear amount of them in tier 1 cities like Beijing is insane…..I went to a cafe that had random ass animals…. like this lama.
And this Goat.
They got the standard variety cats
And this Wesel?
Outside of San Li Tun aka the fashion hotspot of Beijing… was this EV car
The green plate is for EVs
They got the Toytota Velfire in China…. another easy $100k + car…
Went to Tian Jin.. a quick train ride from Beijing.
This place has their famous dumplings
Cool land cruiser
Man People in Tian Jin love their land cruisers
USDM JDM culture reach is far and wide… like this “stance” toyota van with a “no good racing” sticker
My dinners in China always seem to look like this
House Tea
got drank
The next day I went to get the “alcohol” flavored latte… it was pretty good
Family time over.
Myself on the flight to Japan…..































































































Aforementioned E30 M3 that is in my possession. I'll give a deeper dive into this
My GC8 Daily... I've been working on this thing....I'll go deeper when I got more time.
Alright let's get back to business. I'm going to go through 2020 and the events that have occurred that year. We all know what happened in 2020....
Grocery stores were looking like this.....
My S2k was looking like this....
Yes that is an ASM Ti 70mm Exhaust just sitting on top of my car...
With my 2003 Lexus LS430.
It really all started with these JDM Celsior Window Visors I installed.
Sourced by the guys at Formula S in La Habra.
Next came some TOM'S boxes to chill next to the Mugen Boxes...
Then a TOM'S rear Bumper....
Then a TOM'S front bumper.....
And then one thing led to another and a TOM'S Supercharger for the LS430.... I did as much research as I could and I was 75% sure I can make it work, since these are designed for the JDM market UCF30 aka Celsior...
With the stock manifold out... I found this damn coolant leak on this hard line... Of course I replaced it. This is where I should of just replaced the starter since I was in there.... But I did it years later...




Later I installed JDM headlights and wired in the JDM fogs on the bumper
On the S2k Front, I bought some brand new OEM red carpet from Honda for the 2006+ model years since that's all they had...
I picked up this block that was built in Japan with Toda F20c high Comp pistons, fully balanced and blue printed.... I had it shipped in from Japan.
Off went the OEM brand new F22c short block to get sold at Formula S.
Around this time, I picked up this beat ass Mugen Gen 1 S2000 Intake. In 2020 Mugen Intakes for the s2k were still being made. I actually sold a brand new in box one to pay for this one. I still have it in this condition waiting to be restored to a more functional state.
She has some potential...
I love how the intake inlet goes all the way down to the bumper. It's kind of like what RG-O does with their mugen intake kit
she got good bones.
Of course I had to rock my
Later that year I picked up a TOM'S Strut brace and TOM'S Carbon Fiber Cover that is made for the TOM'S Supercharger.
Again back to the S2k.....
I wanted to do a proper Ap2 tail light conversion on my Ap1. I picked up an AP2 rear panel from Formula-s years ago.... Off comes the old panel. 200 spot welds later. When you cut the Ap1 Panel for Ap2 tails, the sealing is just never correct. You can also buy a plate that is made by JSP to weld in.
On for a test fit. I didn't do a final mount of this till like 2 years later... Yes I was using the S2k to store my crap.
I picked up a full works Toda Racing Cylinder Head from Toda Racing. They did everything they can possibly do on it. Porting, valve guides, equalization, etc.
Beautiful ports
Of course me being me... I had to WPC all the valves.
These ports are a work of art.
How I kept it all organized.
Around this time I picked up a set of Ganadors for the Is300..... just some hot boy stuff.
Towards the end of the year I copped some TOM'S wheels to complete my look.
Tom's Side Skirts and Tom's VP-1 Wheels in 19" on the LS430...... Sadly the wheels are not in this condition anymore.
Of course I couldn't help picking up other TOM'S goodies.
And a super rare trunk mat for the Is300
In 2020.... I sold this spoon spark plug cover that ichishima san signed... for really under recent market price....

Closing out this post with a Mugen tool kit I put a bid on that year.... but ultimately lost. It sure looks cool.
Sorry I was all over the place with this post, but this what happened in 2020! Next post is 2021.
