20 November 2015
Closed at seven
The shops in Shimonoseki close early
Everything in Shimonoseki closed at 7pm, on a Friday. I was shocked.
Maybe not everything, Sake bars, Hostess bars and a cool supermarket were open.
I had a good wander around, and didnt really see much.
Theres an area called the green mall, which is a street with shops selling Korean goods with green awnings. Most of these had closed down. There is a ferry to Busan from here, hence the large amount of Korean stuff.
There were signs pointing to a shopping street, and I think I was on it, but couldnt really tell.
So I retreated to the station area, which wikipedia tells me is where everything happens, and was very confused by the supposedly huge 'Sea Mall'.
The layout of this place was unlike anything I had ever seen, it was like a house with rooms, and hidden doorways to another room. Sometimes you had to walk through one shop to get to the next.
There was no actual mall area, where one would walk along outside the shops, apart from one very small atrium. One end is a Daimaru which was very sparsely stocked. I had no way of telling where it ended and the next store started.
Imagine my surprise when they promptly shut, everything, at 7pm. Including the restaurant floor, and fast food outlets at street level! Its Friday not Monday.
I saw a lot of people running around trying to get to places as they were shutting, in Japan wouldnt most people still be getting home from work at this time?
I was by now starving, so it was time for a supermarket dinner, which was great!
Giant phallus changes colors at night. I couldnt find anything of interest around the bottom of it. By all accounts the restaurant at the top is terrible and expensive.
I marched up 155 steps on what appears to be a man made mini mountain to this temple. It was creepy up there all alone.
There are no people. I might have actually been too early for this area as theres big neon signs for hostess bars that are still turned off at 6:30pm.
There is also no English anywhere, apart from this sign, telling me in English how to speak Japanese.
My only friend was this cat, who is proudly guarding what remains of a once thriving Little Busan area.
This building is a civic centre, I cant tell if its fake or not. I am fairly certain what looks like a grand library on the roof is fake and made out of polystyrene.
I took a seat and waited for the xmas show, but it never started.
The layout of the mall was infuriating enough, before I realised theres no way to go from one half of it to the other, note the gap between buildings here.
Heres how you get to the other half after walking through the multi level car park.
And on the subject of car parks, they are absolutely everywhere. Most of the tall buildings are car parks. Pachinko is one level of machines, 10 levels of car park.
Theres also no real underground, Daimaru has no basement, probably because we are on the ocean.
SHUT! Those people down the bottom are running. Was I about to be locked in? The lights went out.
Mister Donut, shut, Lotteria, shut, KFC, shut. Starbucks stayed open, I almost had a cake dinner.
But instead, I found a fantastic supermarket that stays open until 10pm. Seems to be quite an upmarket supermarket based on their meat, bakery, food and veg sections.
I got some sushi including dessert sushi, pickled cucumber Sichuan style which was awesome, and then a fantastic green tea flavoured dessert. It was all discounted too I think it cost about $5. Maybe I will get food poisoning.