26 October 2017
Shimizu ghost town
Taking a train from Shizuoka to Shimizu for dinner
Its not that theres nothing to look at in the evenings in Shizuoka, theres probably a lot, but tonight I felt like going to the next town over.
Shimizu is not really a different town as far as I can tell, it is more like the shipping port of Shizuoka, about 10km away. To get there you have your choice of 2 trains, the JR train and the tiny little local line which starts at Shizuoka and ends at Shimizu.
So now I can say I have ridden the entire length of the Shizuoka Tetsudo line and not everyone can say that.
I arrived in Shimizu with no prior knowledge of what was there, I chose the destination based on the train line, and the apricot colored shading on google maps that tells you where there is food and shops.
Theres not really much of either of those, Shimizu is a ghost town.
There are old shopping streets, the main one is even called Ginza. There are a few Ginza's around Japan and now I dont know if they are named after the luxurious street in Tokyo or if it literally means main shopping street. I am sure my mother will be along to tell me soon enough.
The selection of restaurants was alarmingly low, most places were 6 seat bars, not very inviting, you need to be accepted by the locals to even enter so you can breathe their smoke and all cough together.
However I was determined to not go back to Shizuoka and make an easy choice from the 100 or so eating places in and around the station there. Eventually I found a Chinese restaurant serving Japanese food, just like in Australia!
Inside this restaurant, of which there is a photo below, I sat at the bar which had ash trays but thankfully no one smoking. There was a giant tv next to my head at head level, turned up loud, showing the amateur Japan hiphop competition, which was as terrible as it sounds.
During this they had some interesting ads, including one for trinkets to fill in the holes in your crocs, so you can now have a foot full of cartoon characters.
The tiny train to Shimizu. The train and the track was quite old, and when it made a turn it did not slow down and it was quite sudden, everytime people went flying, people that ride it every day.
Ginza, Shimizu edition. Nearly everything was shut apart from school uniform shops? Other than that a team of people were hanging up halloween decorations, and all the street furniture had hidden speakers playing crap music turned up really loud.
Covered shopping street, also shut apart from small 6 stool bars.
One exception, on the left of this photos is a scale model builders shop, open until 10.
Actually this place was also open, but I dont know what it is, a permanent halloween haunted house? Or have they rented this storefront just for the month leading up to Halloween? I will never know.
The area with the most vibrancy is Shimizu was the JR train station and bus station area, it has a mcdonalds and a lawson convenience store!
There were lots of school kids hanging about, looking bored. They could have been at home practicing their hip hop.
Here is the kitchen area of the restaurant I selected. Its mainly a huge pile of junk with a very tiny food preparation area in amongst it all.
The sign out the front said it was a Chinese restaurant, and there was Chinese writing on the plastic menu, but it was all Japanese food, including ramen.
The blurry thing in the foreground is the tv remote. I probably should have turned the tv down or changed the channel.
I chose Yakisoba. It was ok, oily but quite flavourless. I liked that it had a lot of things in it which I had to taste to identify.
This one is here for my girlfriend/defacto/partner/notmywife, you cant buy omurice in Australia or anywhere in the world thats not Japan/China/Korea, which is annoying cause we love it. But in Japan they have ready meals at family mart with multiple kinds of omurice to choose from.
I suspect whilst I am overseas a lot of canned food is consumed in my absence at home.
This/description/had/a/lot/of/slashes.
And this one is here for my benefit, these are my shoes, the only shoes I brought with me for this trip, and they are awesome.
So far I have not had to tape my toes at all!In a few years time I will wonder what shoes I wore on that trip where I had no foot issue, Altra Lone Peak 3.0 size 10.5.
I wear Altra shoes exclusively, these ones are trail running shoes and have rubber lugs on the bottom, that have been working well, I clean the shoes after I have been in the mountains.
I also have another pair of Altras in a different style at home for long distance road running, also awesome.
They feature a huuuuge toe box for my stupidly wide feet, and are 'zero drop' which means the heel is the same height as the toe, which encourages forefoot striking rather than heel striking.
They cannot be found in any store in Australia, I have to order online, which is annoying.
Thats probably enough about my shoes, now I need to go to bed early.