It’s been, well… more than five years since I decided to take on this challenge, and it’s been one thing after another,as if to say
“here, try this too” — that’s what this Peking to Paris challenge has felt like, test after test.
Honestly, even the road to entering this challenge in the first place was nowhere near simple.
I sent letter after letter declaring my intent to enter, got nowhere, and eventually forced my way to England to negotiate in person — a memory that now feels like the distant past. That was 2016.
Then came the COVID crisis, the global upheaval that began in 2020. Free travel around the world became impossible, and as I pushed on toward 2022 I was, along the way, given a diagnosis of malignant cancer — and on top of that, the war in Russia forced a major change to the route.
Starting from China, driving through Mongolia’s Gobi Desert and Kazakhstan’s hidden wilderness, avoiding Russia, this time the route now crosses the Caspian Sea, a stretch never used before.
Classic cars crossing the Caspian Sea by ferry, aiming to reach Azerbaijan — a brand-new route with no precedent in the event’s history — and after that, apparently, comes the brutal stretch through Turkey, Greece, and on to the French Alps.
The dates have been moved a month earlier,
18 May to 23 June, 2024.
2024 . 5 — starting in Peking; 5 weeks later, finishing in Paris: 14,000 km over 37 days.
The weak yen has driven the burden far beyond anything I’d budgeted for, and there were plenty of times I nearly
gave up on this challenge, but the support of so many people kept pushing me forward.
Among the international entrants, announced from nine countries, I’ll be driving representing Japan, as the first Japanese woman to take part.
Announcing a start date I’d only dreamed of, with everything I’ve resolved behind it, leaves me trembling.