After a bit of a nothing day yesterday, today was a most excellent day.
The importance of having good internet on your holiday when you are me cannot be understated.
I wake up, look out the window, see blue sky, decide its a day to head somewhere to walk.
Go to google maps, trace the train lines away from my location, until I find stations near mountains.
Then start googling the station name and hike.
After about 3 minutes of searching I discovered an unofficial hike along an abandoned train track through many long tunnels, dont forget to bring a torch I was warned.
So off I set, stopping first at a station on the outskirts of Osaka (all of 10 minutes away) called Amagasaki. I only now found out that this was the site of the worst rail accident in Japan in over 50 years when 106 people were killed in 2005!
Anyway, I bought a torch from a convenience store near there, staffed by a 12 year old who helped me put in batteries and test it. She was so happy to be of assistance.
Then it was just a few more stations on the local train through idealic looking hamlets in the hills to a station called Namaze.
Once you exit that station, you have to walk along the road for a while and find a hidden turn off, then a hidden path. Without the internet you would surely need a guide to show you the way!
I took too many photos, so onto them now.
This is the streets of Amagasaki where I bought my torch. Little did I know of the rail disaster at the time. Now that I think of it there was a statue in the station, but theres lots of statues all over Japan.
This is what the countryside looked like out the train window. I estimate the whole trip was 45 minutes from Osaka main station, and I was on a local train stopping all stations.
This cost under $3, and is a considerably shorter commute than many Australians would face every day. Food for thought.
Namaze is a bit of a nothing station. Near what appears to be a quarry. There is a busy highway and a shinkansen line nearby.
Getting off the train with me was a troupe of boyscouts, with more gear than they could possibly carry. I thought they might be going where I was, but they set off in the other direction.
Good, following them would get me arrested most likely.
My supplies. I dont actually know how long this hike will take, just that it starts from this station, and ends up at another one to catch the train home.
Nuts, coke zero, and my trusty one half lumen torch that puts out about as much light as my mobile phone.
The train on the newer replacement line for the one I would be walking along. The trains spend a lot of time in tunnels here, something I found out later when I reached my destination where the station was actually in the tunnel.
There appeared to be no town above it either, just walkers like me using it. How considerate. OK back to the present...
Looking back towards Namaze. Those huge apartments on top of the hill are a couple of stations prior.
I found my turnoff which took me through someones farming land. I think this viaduct thing is a shinkansen line.
And finally after about 30 minutes I find myself on the old rail line. Now to find out where it goes. I was super excited. Also, photo number 200!
The view back down stream is impressive. Would make for a good white water rafting course.
Heres my first tunnel, time to discover if my torch works.
The best way to experience this is to stop reading what I am typing now! No seriously...
1. go alone...yeah right who besides me would travel to Japan alone?
2. go when no one else is going, you want to be in these tunnels alone
3. have no idea how long the tunnels might be
4. take a torch of questionable quality with questionable battery life
There are about 6 tunnels in total, the shortest probably 100 metres, the longest felt like 500 metres, and curved around. It may have been less or more than that, I was walking quite fast but also acutely aware of my surroundings!
Theres quite a few puddles and water dripping, but no rubbish, graffiti, or anything.
You just need to remind yourself this is Japan, there will be no drunks, rapists, assholes of any kind.
No flash! My camera takes awesome photos in the dark by stacking frames.
The raging river below continues to be impressive. An interesting blue green color.
Here you can see the old sleepers. Some of the tunnels had them removed, others didnt. Hence you need a torch!
I saw one other person, a jogger with night vision goggles! He had on some kind of strip lighting on his sleeve to alert people he was coming, but he really didnt appreciate me shining my torch in his night vision goggles.
I was apologetic but really what was he expecting? Also I had no idea what he said and he probably didnt understand me either.
A particulary rocky section of the river.
At the end of another tunnel you get to a cool looking bridge. If a train comes now I will have to jump into the river below.
Its not that high, and you dont actually walk across the track bit, but the walkway seen to the left.
One last photo from the bridge.
By now I had been walking about 90 minutes, and enjoyed every minute of it.
At about this time you get near the end, theres signs and proper fences and lights etc.
I spotted a path heading up one of the mountains, yep I followed it.
It was quite overgrown in parts, lots of leaf litter. But good fun, I slipped over a couple of times. Worrying when you never see anyone else.
You dont seem to get to a summit, this is the best I could do for an elevated photo.
After an hour walking on this side track path thing, I got back to where I entered it from the abandoned railway line. A large group of people had arrived to disturb my serenity.
Time to head up to the station in the tunnel and head back to town.
Along the way back I spotted a huge mall at Itami, an outer suburb of Osaka. I decided to get off here for lunch.
I noticed most stations have something similar as far as large malls go. These dont really exist in central areas of big Japanese cities, only in the outer suburbs or regional towns.
Inside it was very large, and much like a Westfield in Australia.
Complete with food court. Perfect for the solo diner.
Would you eat Korean food in Japan? Of course you would. Especially if it comes in this wooden thing to shield the tray from the volcanic heat of the dolsot whatever the bi bim bap comes in.
This was actually delicious, and healthy.
For the rest of the journey back I watched the driver closely. He had 2 observers. They all simultaneously point at something all the time, probably to show that they have seen the traffic light and that its green.
I also observed him pressing the dead mans button as it lit up. Very cool.
And arriving back into Osaka station, theres the ferris wheel I went on last time I was here.
This afternoons snack, black and black.
I made it home in time for the Malaysian prime minister press conference about the missing plane! Confirmation of all the rumors, could be in Kazakhstan or Turkmenistan!
Now to enjoy my in room massage chair.
I set out aiming to walk from Shin Osaka to the Tenjinbashisuji covered walkway, as my mother challenged me to find it.
It only took about 30 minutes to get there, including walking over the bridge that crosses the river. Not much of a challenge.
This covered shopping street is indeed longer than the other one, but it is a ghost town. Even on a Saturday night.
Once I had my dinner, see below, I then decided to just keep walking...and walking. Eventually I got back to Namba, and kept walking. Did a quick lap of Den Den Town which was mostly shut other than anime and porn stores.
I wanted to see old second hand electronics and such, but they seem to shut early.
I did manage to see inside a place that had set a new record for Japan. It was a maid cafe, with puppys and cats, full of people doing karaoke whilst playing video games.
Another highlight was seeing a Japanese girl wearing a t-shirt that just said in block letters 'I GOT BIG COCK'. Try as I might I couldnt photograph her.
It was much warmer tonight, so I took a lot more photos, probably too many, I should edit more, but I am tired and cant be bothered with selectivity. Enjoy overload.
Crossing the bridge from Shin Osaka. Surpisingly not cold. Hands not needed in pocket even. Speak good I do.
Osaka homeless population has dwindled.
Here is the start of the 2.8km long covered shopping street, Tenjinbashisujifukuizakayamatumotohigashimori.
At first it was busy, for about 50 metres....
Then it became very quiet, with lots of stores shut at 6pm.
Attention mother / Jenny / Adriana / whatever other alias to get past my spam filters - Isnt this what you call your cat?
Today was no Japanese food day.
Pizza was good, but Osaka famous cat curry would have been better.
I was still hungry cause my pizza had no cheese. No bother, these green tea chocolate coated cashews were great.
Iron chef mode on: The natural crunchy saltyness of the cashew combines with the creaminess of the chocolate, infused with a bitter green tea flavour to delicately balance the pallete and allow for a pleasing experience not to be missed.
These characters pointed the way to yet more low rent covered shopping street.
Back at Shin Sai Bashi after a long walk through not much, and its neon overload.
Its a lot busier, despite being a lot later.
I dont even know what the running man sign is advertising, but everyone takes the photo, including me. Because I like to conform.
Dotonbori eating street, no chance for a party of 1 to eat here on Saturday.
Inside an anime / hobby / trading card / video game / porn store, and heres a bizzarre model of a public toilet with poseable figurines.
Collect the whole set.
The outside of a multilevel nerd utopia.
Proof I walked all the way to Den Den town
Last spot to visit this evening, giant video game centre. Now to pass out immediately from exhaustion.
In a rather familiar order of events, this morning I took a train some place and climbed a mountain, because I am just so predictable.
Today the destination was Kobe, which isnt too far from Osaka, and I have been before, and I have written before about how it was destroyed in an earthquake not that long ago.
I was thinking about this whilst wandering about, there really hasnt been a big earthquake in California for ages. I dont know what that has to do with Japan, except Japan keeps having theres but California gets none. So much stored energy.
Last time I was here, I went up a tram thing pulled up a mountain quite a distance from the city proper. It was cold, there was snow in spots, and a golf course and not much else except a great view and a vending machine.
This time I stuck to the centre of the city and went up the most popular of mountains to a herb garden. Yes! a herb garden.
As you will see, there is a cable car thing, which I ended up taking down the mountain so I could make it back to my hotel in time to watch the grand prix (a familiar challenge for me whilst on holidays, as I speak justin.tv is working great for stealing streams once I logged in as nobody89876878 password 12345!).
The walk I was going to do was to a waterfall, which I read was a good half day activity, not overly strenuous if you take plenty of breaks....
Well after 6 minutes of taking stairs 2 at a time, shoving weak senior citizens in my path, I was at the waterfall. Plenty of other people were doubled over looking longingly at the automatic electric defibrilators installed here.
This was not a mountain to have all to yourself, the photos below show that, and as is often the case, theres too many photos, none are funny, and many are similar.
I did manage to get lost and find paths that I dont think were meant to be paths, those I had to myself.
Important to start the day with a healthy balanced breakfast. Balanced on my hand as I take the photo.
Flower street in Kobe, near the Sannomiya station.
I stopped to smell the flowers. I also walked up the street to the foot of the mountains even though theres a number of subway options under where I am standing here.
Looking back towards the bay area, which is massive, and polluted as the sky will show in later photos today. Japan is full of giant LED screens giving live PM2.5 readouts so that people will buy more gas masks that do nothing at all.
Finding where I want to be proved very difficult. All roads funnel you to the cable car, which I consider to be for old aged pensioners and cripples.
Not even joking, the way to access this mountain on foot requires you to go through the Shin Kobe station car park under the station and out the back.
After a few minutes you are at the waterfall. Its nothing special. Lots of people thought it was magnificent.
This is number #17 scenic waterfall in all Kansai region Japan.
Lots of people.
It was much warmer today, my jacket was certainly over kill. That doesnt stop your average Japanese person from making the arduous 6 minute hike with enough gear to survive a trip to the magnetic south pole.
About half way on my journey, a good spot to stop and use one of the many public toilets and take a progress shot. China levels of smog unfortunately, on what appeared a clear day from ground level.
Some kind of an ancient dam.
Turns out it wasnt so ancient, theres a whole hydro / sewerage / drinking water plant up here and quite a few dams, damn it.
Getting nearer the top now and I find myself at a herb garden.
The idea of the herb garden is to take the cable car to the top then walk down to another cable car station.
Its probably not the best time to visit, as most stuff is dead or being re planted.
One advantage of entering from the bottom is theres no gate to actually pay anyone.
The garden itself is on a steep slope, steeper than much of the rest of the climb. I can imagine old folks tumbling down the hill.
Potentially I have entered the paid area of the herb garden via an access path to check on water salinity or the structural integrity of the cable car pole or some such thing.
The hazey view from the top.
Its me! In my commando pants. These are my favourite pants by far.
Every time I wear them is to be celebrated, I have a special dance I do each time I put them on which shall remain private.
Theres a nice chalet thing at the top if thats what you want to see. You can buy herbs and hot dogs.
Hot dogs seem to be the only food option available. I did not have a hot dog, the sauce and mustard dog had lettuce on it, and enough sauce to last a millennia.
Guilt at not paying got the better of me, so I went and asked at the information desk.
They were confused as to how I got in.
It seems the admission fee is the cable car ride. So I guess I better ride it back down.
I think she issued me a ticket for using a procedure for people who lost their ticket, but I did pay.
More view. City still standing, no sign of Godzilla.
Left view.
Once back around the station area, where there are about 4 stations belonging to different railway companies, and theres thousands of places to eat and shops and a labyrinth of above and below ground corridors.
I tried to find the place I ate last time I was here, a counter in an alleyway called pyramid curry. I couldnt find it.
Perhaps the guy that runs it who I recall chasing me bowing in a super excited fashion accidentally knocked himself out doing that at some point and the store got replaced by a seven eleven.
Instead I had ramen. Pretty average! But cheap. Now to race home in time for the grand prix. How boring.
Also I think this marks the half way point of my holiday. For most non existent viewers of this nonsense, the second half will be less interesting than the first, cause no one besides me ever seems to go to Taiwan.
Due to increasing levels of exhaustion, tonight I caught the train to an area called Shinsekai, which as it turns out is near Namba.
I decided to take the loop line to get there, the long way. This took ages, as it stopped at nearly every station for 5 minutes to let an express train of some description go past.
It was also really full, mainly of people taking their gas masks off to cough and sneeze, further highlighting the stupidity of these things.
This gives me an opportunity to make a few generalisations and observations about Japan.
Why are so many guys taking ladders with them on the train? What do they need a mini ladder for?
What is inside those big long padded bags people take on the train? Too long to be a guitar, too wide to be a sword, too wide to be skis, they are almost like body bags.....just had a thought, its a ladder case.
Why do females out number males 5 to 1? Is it because all the men are driving cars to pubs and not venturing outside? Perhaps they are sleeping at home having worked 16 hour days whilst the women folk eat crepes and go to cat cafes.
Blonde hair looks stupid, stop doing it. This applies to boys and girls.
Where are the rubbish bins? Theres bins everywhere for plastic bottles with round holes, but as for a bin to put anything else in, bad luck. I generally bring stuff back to my hotel room to put in the bin.
Why do so many people still have flip phones that are not touch screens? I would think a touch screen for Japanese character input makes sense.
Learn how to walk properly! Or perhaps more correctly, stop pretending you dont know how to walk properly anytime you are out in a populated place.
This is the area near Shinsekai. Apparently the seediest dodgiest scariest area in all Osaka. Hmmm, I am not really seeing that.
This is the tower, its the main attraction here. All the food is deep fried stuff on sticks. The tower is fairly new, the original was built straight after world war 2 for some kind of worlds fair for defeated ww2 countries and was a copy of the Eifel tower.
The busiest part. It was very quiet.
After looking for food for quite a while I relented and went for deep fried. This cost like $15, what a rip off! Deep fried Tonkatsu Pork. I guess the salad was refreshing. Interestingly, or boringly depending on your level of interest, they serve it with hot english mustard, not wasabi, I saw the jar.
There are currently 4 comments - click to add
David on 2014-03-16 said:
Japanese girls all seem to walk with their toes pointing inwards. If they are out on a date, more so, to the point of ridiculousness where they can barely walk at all
mother on 2014-03-16 said:
what's wrong with the way they walk?
David on 2014-03-16 said:
I saw no shoe shops or strange cars.
jenny on 2014-03-16 said:
does kobe still have lots of shoe shops and bozozoku (speed tribes) young guys in bouncy cars and pathetic motorbikes/scooters making broom broom noises?
My plan was easy enough.
Take the train to Minoh station in north Osaka, and walk the 3km in each direction along a picturesque canyon path lined with shops and shrines to a waterfall.
Reportedly, 'One of the 100 waterfall in Japan', not one of the best 100, top 100, biggest 100, just one of the 100.
Anyway, I started out by going to the main Osaka station to transfer to a private rail line, which I wouldnt normally bother mentioning, except it was peak hour, and a blind guy was busy following the knobbly raised tiles to his gate.
How they do that in peak hour I shall never know! Anyway, he got to a spot where a woman was standing in his path, on the tiles, on her phone. He asked her to move. She did not. She wishes she did because now she has bruised legs form being beaten by a blind mans cane.
Anyway, I got to the waterfall, it was very polluted today, but once you are in the mountain canyons you dont notice.
The walk to the waterfall was very nice, paved the whole way, little temples and tea houses everywhere, lots of vending machines and public toilets.
I looked at the waterfall for a while along with all the senior citizens, and noticed a path going up some steep steps with an old faded map......
The area around Minoh station, on the side of a hill. This building seems to me to basically tell the earthquake threat to piss off.
This represents the path to the waterfall. Its very much in a steep ravine with very extensive landslide protection. A nice river/creek/stream runs along side the manicured paths.
Pictures dont really do justice to how steep the canyon walls are. I was reminded of various canyoning disasters where people get washed away and found 20 miles down stream. Seems unlikely today.
It seems this is a place to observe autumn leaves. The local specialty is deep fried battered maple leaves, really! Unfortunately I am here in spring.
First glimpse of the waterfall. There are many such bridges crossing the stream for the entire journey.
I did my best for a waterfall shop, F11, 1/20, cant do much more unless I have a UV filter which would require something other than a point and shoot. OK enough camera talk, enough waterfall, this is where I went slightly insane.
This is above the waterfall, and was blocked off, sort of. Not enough to stop me getting down there and over that bridge and along the dilapidated path to see where it goes!
About an hour later I came to a parking spot on a road, and rejoined a real path. As it turns out, the start of the main walking trail that goes the length of Japan to Tokyo.
The ancient pilgramige trail or whatever it is.
I didnt realise this at the time, probably a good thing I might have taken it and walked to Tokyo. Instead I went nature trail number 4, which joins number 5, which goes to a temple.
I remember seeing pictures of the temple near the waterfall bus stop.
The path was overgrown in places, again I saw no one! And there was no phone coverage, and no one knew where I was. There were occasional sign posts showing some sort of plant or insect to look out for if you were a school kid I think, hence it being a nature trail.
Once it becomes nature trail 5, it turns into pine forest. Thankfully the path became a bit clearer. I think I was really up quite high by this point, but it was hard to tell as I never got to a look out point.
Finally, started to make the descent towards the temple. Still didnt see anyone.
I was amused by this, still a good couple of kilometres from any road, and the Japanese have erected a bike barrier, in the middle of a forest, it was all in a state of disrepair and covered in lots of leaf litter and branches.
Perhaps in years gone by it was a bike path.
And then, here I was at a temple, somewhat exhausted, I had basically gone up hill the whole time...I later worked that out because I had to walk all the way back again!
The temple is called the Katsuo-Ji, and the area I had walked through is the Meiji No Mori Mino National park.
As you shall see, this whole temple area is full of small versions of whatever these things are. You can buy them and place them wherever you want. I didnt.
The main hall, its nothing special, the gardens and location are however pretty spectactular, and would be much more so in Autumn. Feel sorry for whoever has to rake the leaves off the paths and fish them out of the ponds.
Many of the little dolls under the huge gong / bell you can go crazy on. There was hardly anyone about so I had 4 goes smacking the log into the bell.
I think they just collect up some of these doll things and re sell them again and again.
Time to appreciate the view some more.
Time to appreciate my commando pants some more.
Periodically they seem to put dry ice in the water under the bridge some how, if you look closely you can see a bit of it left near that gate. At one point when I was at the top I thought a bomb had gone off or something was on fire.
After this, I went into the gift shop and bought a pocari sweat and a tea.
I then went to catch a bus, nope missed it by 5 minutes, next one comes in an hour, and I dont know where it goes. Better walk back then!
It was much quicker walking back nearly all down hill, and I jogged most of the trail bits where theres no one to look at me and be worried.
A great day out!
Having had many back to back days of mountain climbing, tonight was recovery night.
Tomorrow I am going to Taiwan, specifically Taichung, which should be written as Taizhong and soon will be. Taipei should also be Taibei for that matter, stupid Taiwan and their non pinyin romanization.
Getting there requires multiple modes of transport.
Fast Haruka train to Kansai airport in Osaka which is a manmade island.
Boeing 777 (non Malaysia airlines) from Kansai to Taoyuan, which is the airport near Taipei.
Bus from Taoyuan airport to the Taiwan High speed rail line, because the MTR line to the airport still isnt finished!
High speed rail from Taoyuan to Taizhong high speed rail station, which is out of the city.
Regular Train from Taizhong high speed rail station to the centre of town.
I am excited.
I believe there are even bigger mountains near Taizhong than I have been up so far in Hong Kong and Japan. Brace yourselves for more photos of trees and view.
This is inside the Hankyu Umeda station. For those that dont know, most of the private rail lines in Japan are actually owned by department stores.
They build train lines to bring people to their stores.
Apparently there is a super profits rule on railways in Japan, so they had to diversify their business, or something like that.
I have been on this. Not tonight.
There are lots of people getting into Osaka station from all angles. It is called Station City, the city is very much ruled by rail.
This blue whale isnt blue.
If you are bored whilst heading home to wherever, you can stop and play ten pin bowling, or darts, or ping pong or lots of other things in a multi storey adult amusement centre with beer and smoking.
I was surprised to find you can get out on the roof of the JR station building. More surprised were the young couple also out there who thought they had the place to themselves. I may have prevented an unwanted pregnancy.
Dinner time. A selection of kit kats and some korean chocolate.
There are currently 6 comments - click to add
mother on 2014-03-18 said:
no never been to insect museum. googled the area as the first part looks suitable for us geriatrics to go for a walk
adriana on 2014-03-17 said:
What, no Mister Donut?
David on 2014-03-17 said:
I didnt go to the insect museum, it looked shut. I presume you googled this or have you been here yourself?
jenny on 2014-03-17 said:
Nice water fall picture. You didn't go to the insect museum on the way to the waterfall!
bobule on 2014-03-17 said:
i hope you take a penknife on these long rambles, just in case you need to amputate a limp to escape or for food..
mother on 2014-03-17 said:
might be a good idea to take some overnight gear with you on your next walk. They seem to be getting longer and longer. Is this a new type of obsessive compulsive disorder? must look it up. Now what would it be called? Non-stop walking disorder?
There are currently 6 comments - click to add
David on 2014-03-16 said:
Dead mans button is something thats on all trains, every minute or so it flashes and you have to press it with a few seconds, or the train stops. This is to prove you arent dead.
bobmule on 2014-03-16 said:
please explain the dead mans button
David on 2014-03-16 said:
My feet are absolutely fine, however this is because they are wide enough for my strangely shaped feet. I bought sneakers that are 6E, not 4E but 6E. They look like flippers.
mother on 2014-03-15 said:
how are feet holding up? much easier to walk for ever in the winter isn't it?
David on 2014-03-15 said:
Photo will be provided later. I have never been to Hiroshima
mother on 2014-03-15 said:
You have an in room massage chair?? Photo please, I believe you not.
Sounds like an interesting walk you had. If you ever go to Hiroshima again, I can tell you one where you can be lost in the mountains for 4 hours + caves and all.