23 October 2017
Fortunate train cancellation
Hiking in the plum tree gardens near Ome station
Finally, some photos of something mildly interesting!
I awoke to grey and rain, the typhoon raged on, despite this I slept solidly on a rock solid bed. Typhoon Lan raged all night as Shinzo Abe won the snap election and a 2/3 majority of the Diet (Japanese parliament) to allow him to first strike North Korea. No, really, that why he won such a huge majority, the Japanese election was all about North Korea.
First I had to have the free hotel breakfast, not available before 7am, I was waiting for the clock to tick over, and then all they had was 3 kinds of fried rice and various breads. No fruit. I had a couple of pieces of bread with margarine. No butter.
Anyway, pending nuclear destruction and fried rice breakfast aside, the weather forecasts had forecast that the terrible typhoon would pass by 9am and they were ABSOLUTELY RIGHT! Even at 7AM I could see out of my hotel room window brilliant blue sky on the horizon, and thats the way I was headed, so I decided to not cancel my plans for a small mountain today. But the train system had other ideas.
I had planned to go to a specific station, after two train changes. When I got on the first train at Ikebukuro, it was apparent that the train system was chaos, even the Tokaido Shinkansen, the main train to Osaka, was not running.
Many services were cancelled, and most rapid express services were operating as local services, stopping all stations.
I needed to change trains at Shinjuku, the worlds busiest station, and when the train got there, it rolled onto the platform at walking pace.
So many people were waiting on the platform that it was actually not possible to get off, we had to sit and wait with the doors open for enough people to clear.
Anyway, I didnt plummet onto the tracks in the crush, and I managed to find a train claiming to be going to my next change point, along the Chuo line, this was also chock full of people and would be my tomb for the next hour.
It was of course full of sick people, one guys mucus overwhelmed his face mask and was running out the bottom. Another guy was literally gargling snot. Great!
But then we were all kept amused when a guys apple airpod stupid no headphone jack thing fell out of his ear, we heard it hit the ground and people were looking around and he was saying things on the otherwise silent train pointing at his ear.
Of course it was way too crowded for anyone to bend over, his only hope was we could collectively kick it to someone sitting down to hold onto it for him, this game went for a few minutes and then everyone lost interest. His stupid $200 wireless ear piece, lost.
Finally we got to Ome, second station change point, except the service was suspended! I cant get to my mountain. Not to worry, Japan is all mountains and all hiking paths, I decided to find my own path, and I found about a hundred to choose from.
Ome station is warning about bears!
Here is what typhoon rain in a river looks like. Dangerous. Apparently a handful of people died in floods, probably like Australia trying to drive across a flooded river.
Tricky light, so bright, but nice blue sky and hills in the background. I actually am not overly pleased with my photos today, and I am also displeased with Adobe lightrooms ability to demosaic Fuji X-trans foilage photos (dont bother googling, its hugely complex).
Lightroom struggles to extract the detail from raw Fuji files because fuji cameras use a different style of sensor that has more green pixel receptors. Yeah still too complex.
Detail in green foilage is lost and looks like water paintings in tricky light.
Here is the town of Ome, photo appearing out of order because I changed the time on my camera, this should be 3 positions higher. Actually quite a nice town.
Also appearing out of order because its too hard to reorder photos in lightroom... this is the part of the line that is suspended, for the entire day.
As you can see here, this is just as the last of the grey passed, for the rest of the day, blazing sunshine, I wished I had worn shorts.
Near Ome is a plum tree garden. Except they cut down nearly all the trees for 'renewal', they say that a lot in Japan, when they change the design of store displays they just have a big sign saying RENEW!
At this point of the day I was still kind of following the train track looking for things to do, hoping the train would resume. But those mountains or hills across the other side of the valley, thats where I ended up!
The plum position to photograph the plum tree garden without any plum trees. I kept looking at those mountains across the other side...
Not a great photo, but a great view.
First one of these for this trip, hair out of control, it was periodically very windy, but then very calm.
Yes, I want some emergency water. Except the gate is locked. Luckily the town was full of supermarkets to buy water.
I crossed the river a again using a different bridge, thinking I was walking back to the train station trains were actually operating from.
These sirens were going off and lights were flashing. Probably warning that the bridge was about to be washed away.
I stopped to see if these people would be washed into the river 50 metres below. So bright and everything is so reflective! I have never experienced a day as clear as this in Japan before.
I walked past this temple / cemetery with the awesome tree, ruined by a power wire. I hear its easy to photoshop those out these days, I have no time for such things though.
Then I found a path. I was excited, a map suggested it would take me back to my station. The lower parts were a real challenge, the water had decided the hiking trail was the course of least resistance.
I dont have waterproof boots for this trip, I have trail running shoes, so I stepped carefully trying not to get wet socks.
Eventually, the torrent of water disappeared and I was in a great forest, taking crap photos. Hmmm, need to get better at editing.
There were a few lookout spots along the ridges, this is the best one, you can see Tokyo in the distance, well maybe not at the resized photo resolution. I wished I had zoom, but I do not, my camera has a prime lense.
Me again. I think I got sun burnt. I now refer to myself as old grey beard.
I was so happy to find this excellent path back to the station, I saw only 2 other people and they had safety vests with something written on them. I am guessing they were volunteers checking for typhoon damage.
Right where I had to head back down was this buddhist temple, I chose the angle carefully to make it look good, theres a lot of rubbish and building supplies strewn around the place. Filthy buddhists.
Shortly thereafter I arrived back at Ome station. The Ome line was still not running. Japan has vending machines selling chocolate coated potato chips for less then $2 Australian. I resisted.
Finally back in Tokyo, and I had to go buy my discount advanced purchase Shinkansen tickets from a travel agent hidden inside a government building in Shinjuku.
I save about $50 by doing this just for the first 2 legs of the journey, so its worth it.
In other news, the atrium is enormous and has a giant clock.
One last photo to appreciate the clear blue skies of Tokyo and its surrounding area today.