Hong Kong / Japan / Singapore... Hongpan! - March and April 2025 - Page 5

Here is Mino-o station, it is a popular spot for day trips, over 9000 school kids are getting off the train and will follow me up to the waterfall. Yeah, complain about over tourism, and then send (without exaggerating) at least 300 kids on an excursion to the same place.

I think I remember this crazy external lift / elevator hotel entrance from the last time I was here.

The path up to Minoh falls is paved, and goes past many little shops and cafes.

There is also an insect museum, unfortunately the school group did not stop there.

The red bridge is falling down.

Nice view of the stream below.

More green view, not many blossoms along the path up to the waterfall, but stay tuned.

Red bridge and a waterfall.

Behold, the waterfall. I managed to get a shot without other people, but the school group was fast approaching! I fled in terror.

After walking out of the ravine, I walked along the road a bit, on the left here is a bit of covered road in case of landslides. Colours very subdued today due to the grey skies.

After maybe 300m of road, the real hike starts. Go right up the stairs.

It was a really nice trail.

It crosses the road at one point, where they have placed a public toilet. There was no one around. On the trail parts of this hike I saw only one other person all day.

Lots of steps.

Another spot where you have to cross the road.

From the bridge you can see a nearby dam. It looks like a gravel car parking area but is actually a dam wall.

The trail then got excellent for a while.

There was a fully landscaped grave at the top, in the middle of nowhere.

More excellent rocks.

Bear fence, that can mean only one thing, I am approaching Katsuoji temple.

I descended down into the temple area.

Nice, last time I was here I had the place to myself and it was still under construction, now it is a major tourist attraction with lots of bus tours.

This woman was live streaming (in English), smash that like button etc.

The photos today look crap for some reason.

Even the blossoms look subdued.

Since I am doing this in reverse, here is the way up to the temple that I came down.

This place is so touristy they have fog machines under the bridge.

More blossoms and a geyser.

I think I took too many temple photos.

OK last one, those little statues litter the whole area, also it seems you are supposed to buy a postcard and stamp it at various spots, I did not.

Instead I crossed the road to join the last third of my hike.

The first part is a long staircase, but after that it was downhill for the rest of the journey.

The trail down was a nice lonely mini ravine.

I exited the trail into suburbia.

And finally, I arrived back at Minoh-Kayano station, which is also a giant Q-mall.
So I turned a stroll up to the waterfall into a decent hike, because the threat of rain never materialised.

I exited the subway at Umeda, and it was now indeed raining. To the overpasses!

A view from an overpass. That is Osaka station, but that is NOT the bullet train station, it is mainly a shopping mall, the bullet train station is north of here at Shin-Osaka, I will go there tomorrow.

I like the reflective roads.

Next I headed down under the tracks, and peered into a bunch of stand up drinking and eating establishments, who had no desire for a weird looking round eye to wander in whatsoever, especially since I do not drink, and am carrying a camera.

Time to head into the Yodobashi electronics store. I have been here a few times before, it is overwhelming, tonight I looked at clocks, and one other weird thing you will see below. I only look at things I have zero interest in buying.

For my dinner I thought I would have Okonomiyaki, the Yodobashi has multiple food floors and probably 40 restaurants to choose from. Once I got to the Okonomiyaki I decided I was not hungry enough for the whole experience, so instead I went to a 'Thai' place and ordered something with kim chi. Yes, you read that right. It was quite delicious.

And then I made my way down 8 levels of electronics store, and this took my eye. These are not wheels, the wheel looking things are foam, that you mount a fancy watch on. These things are robot and car looking constructions, for between about $268 and $792, that you mount a watch on, the watch is not included.
Now I will spend 5 minutes to pack my bag for my train ride tomorrow.

Bonus pic, the Shinkansen gate at Shin-Osaka station. Not too busy in the station.

Here is my train (on the left). It is of the pale blue variety.

And inside my train, very brown, but only 4 seats in each row.

Arriving in Kagoshima, here is my hotel, directly across from the station. Solaria Nishitetsu, about $120 a night, but it is over a weekend in a tourist town, so I think that is a decent rate.

There is the station from the door of my hotel. Hopefully if the volcano erupts (it often does), I will be on the ferris wheel.

Now for my room pics. It is a nice, brown room, with an arm chair. TV in the wall on the left. Great view of the ferris wheel.

And for my final pic of the day, the all important bathroom pic, with an extra room within the bathroom on the left that houses a huge shower and separate bath in a sealed cubicle. I have already had a shower to wash the train sneezes off of me, and greatly enjoyed filling that little room up with steam.

There is a tram network in Kagoshima. This is one of the main road junctions where the trams go in 3 directions. Older tram on the left, newer on the right. I hope to ride on a tram before I leave.

There is a donki, and a Daiwa Roynet hotel, an enormous one. I was going to stay in that hotel but changed my mind because I wanted one closer to the train station as one of my hikes has a very very early start otherwise it is impossible to get there before noon.

Here is the start of the Tenmonkan shopping area, all though this is more of a bar area, most places were only just opening when I walked back through here a couple of hours after this photo was taken.

The Shotengai are long, wide and relatively new. You can see it continuing on the other side of the road.

Nice sunset.

In addition to the covered shopping streets... the streets that are not covered have the footpath covered, and covers for where you cross the street. Yeah, I know what I said.

One of the lesser Shotengai, ending at a department store.

This is a different main road, also with a tram line, also with grass on the tram line.

Grand looking department stores on both sides of the road.

Art installation? All hail the cube.

Seiko medical beauty clinic, not just watches anymore.

Ramen again. No egg but a lot of pork, chilli and garlic. It was great.

Nice wide streets here. Also, I was out after dark.

And as I mentioned above, what passes as a red light district was only just starting to open for business at 8pm, with boys in cheap suits putting the inflatable light up signs in the street as I walked back to my hotel.
Will it be raining when I wake up? Forecast says 40% likely.

Here is the station at Hirakawa. This station does take IC card, as do a few more beyond, but beyond that you need a paper ticket if you get on at a station that issues them, or pay on board if you do not. It is up to you to know if you should have used an IC card to get on, because if you tap on and then get off beyond the IC card zone, you're in trouble... Generally this involves paying and then having to go to the office back at a major station and explaining what you did wrong so they can 'fix' your card.

This is not a popular hike at all, it was a Saturday, and I saw ZERO other people up and down. It is not on alltrails, it is on yamap. However there is good signage right from the station, probably because there is nothing else in Hirakawa at all, no shop, and not even a toilet on the train platform.

There is my 'mountain', it is not very high, but I am starting from sea level.

I passed a tiny home on the back of a truck showroom. I have seen a couple of places in Japan with a heap of these setup like a hotel, just like a mining camp in Australia.

Here is the trailhead. I do not know where those people who parked here are, as I did not see them on the trail.

The path was a road of sorts at first.

I will go up there. It was getting cloudier, but understanding what was cloud and what was smoke was hard to understand. I like to understand what to understand.

There were a series of Torii gates along the trail, as you shall see.

Soon it became a steep rocky trail, just as I like.

Parts of it were mossy and ravine like.

Possible spots for a tree to fall on my head.

I saw a tiny snake near here, brown with blue rings, probably poisonous, but probably too small to bite me, I decided to move away rather than mess about trying to take a photo of it and getting bitten on the nose.

That is actually the only view from this hike, which should be of the Ocean and the volcano. You can see a bit of volcano sticking up, but you can see no ocean, just a smoke layer. At the end of my hike it was worse, I could not see any volcano at all from the coast.

Almost at the top.

The top has a shrine that seems to get used some of the time. There is actually a road that connects to the back of it, which kind of ruins the magic of a shrine appearing in the middle of nowhere.

Here is the summit marker at the shrine, covered in jars, yes jars, of strong alcohol.

On the way down I noticed a field of azaleas or camellias, I am never sure which. No red flowers yet.

And then I exited where I started, into a farm of sorts, where the yuzu are covered in brown paper bags.
Today the short trail was great, but the view was almost non existent, and when it did exist, it was obscured by outdated farming practices. I will send a fax to the relevant authority registering my concern.

The rain, a tram, and the grass lined tram track. All taken from a convenient overpass.

Surprise, another Shotengai. I had no idea. These things are everywhere here.

When the Shotengai in the station area runs out, you come to an old part of town, with covered footpaths only, and a traffic jam.

I walked around the back of the station and discovered the local Bic Camera store.

Next I headed up to level 6, the food floor. Exciting. Probably 20 options. There was also a ramen street in the basement,

I had omurice with demiglaze sauce and extra complexity, the hot plate is balanced on an alcohol burner, not sure why. You can see the ipad ordering device behind here, no English, but it had pictures.

I mentioned the dance competition above, here is proof. It seems to mainly be for little kids, so me taking photos was not creepy in any way.

And just when I thought I might go back to the overpass to avoid getting wet crossing the road, I found that there is also an underpass, that directly connects to my hotel.
Hopefully when I wake up tomorrow it is not raining too much so I can run a lap of Sakurajima. There is a 10% chance between 7am and late afternoon of any rain. The paths are all roads so there wont be volcanic mud. And hopefully the overnight flood will put out the farmers fires.