Uto Peninsula from Ishiuchi-Dam to Uto Station
Today I walked the length of the Uto peninsula. There are a couple of noted very small mountains along the way, Odake and Yudake, but there is almost no view and the mountains are not really the point.
It is a bit of a strange 'hike', you start on an unused road, then a trail, then a very rarely used road, more unused road, more trail, more unused road etc.
A map is probably a good idea as there are a few turns, but there are also signs specifically for people completing the Uto Peninsula traverse.
Now for the stats -
26.76km - sounds impressive but read on
6 hours 36 minutes
38,900 steps
912m vertical ascent
1,477 calories burned
That last number is the interesting one, 2 days ago the volcano in the hail hike burnt more calories in under 5 hours.
Photos today are a bit bland due to no view and when there was, smoke.
Here is Ishiuchi-Dam station. There are direct trains from Kumamoto station and it is only about 45 minutes away, however despite being a JR line, IC card does not work beyond Uto Station, so buy a paper ticket. There is a toilet at this station, but there is no vending machine.
These are the signs you can follow all day if you wish. I believe there is a trail running event at some point.
Here is the dam. Nice picture!
This used to be a dam observation building, now abandoned. A lot of what you will see today is abandoned.
Below the dam is mainly farmland, I guess they never let much water out.
And since there is almost no water in the dam, I now know why they do not need to let much out.
The dam has a public toilet, I think it is still functioning.
You can walk along there if you wish, it does not go far.
There was an area of plastic lined crops under yet more plastic near the dam. They change all the plastic once a week and put it in a big pile and burn it.
This is a semi abandoned road. I will point out at this point that I saw 2 cars all day, 0 hikers, but I did hear some logging activity.
First of the trail sections.
I think this is the shrine on the top of Odake, there is no view from here.
The trail up to the top of Odake was actually steeper than I thought, my hydration requirements were on my mind.
A very smoky view, of power lines.
Sections of the trail were bamboo forest. It was a little windy but nothing like yesterday in Kagoshima, the sound of the bamboo smacking into each other can be disconcerting.
This is the section of real road that runs through the middle of the peninsula. This is where a couple of cars came, maybe once every 20 minutes.
Middle of nowhere mini shrine.
Here is a farming village in the middle of the peninsula, and they had a vending machine for me to re-hydrate. I saw no people, but probably had lots of sets of eyes on me from old ladies hiding in the fields. Also, nice solar cells.
Next was an abandoned section of road, fast low calorie burning progress.
It looks like people sometimes use this section of road, to illegally dump garbage.
Also a good spot to abandon a car.
My next goal (I think), weird light again due to smoke.
Some time later, another dam.
The next and I believe more popular section of trail starts here.
This section of trail was filled with signs explaining the local bird life, but I did not see any other hikers today.
Shrine near the top.
The last bit was quite developed.
At the top of Yudake there is some abandoned roped off picnic furniture.
And also a view! Uto is down there.
A little bit of the other direction.
I descended down into this village. Uto station is near the right edge of this photo, so it is still a decent walk from here.
And finally after many hours, I arrived back at the gloomy looking Uto station, it is some distance away from the centre of Uto. The bullet train runs through here but does not stop here.
Traverse completed. Today's word of the day, traverse.
Kumamoto bar and entertainment areas
Just a short outing tonight due to a lot of km earlier.
First I saw a bunch of white lights and assumed there was a street full of dentists, but no, the curtains, care bears (?) and 18+ signs everywhere signalled this was the red light district, now with white lights.
There were a lot of interesting looking love hotels, but of course I was there too early for most of the lights to be on.
I then remembered that I had better eat dinner early or go without (or go to a stand up bar and eat stuff off sticks), so I headed up to the top level of an otherwise closed department store. The food floor was mostly still open, but one place was full of a boisterous office party, one had zero customers and the chef was asleep, and that left Din Tai Fung.
As far as Din Tai Fung's go, it was a bit unauthentic, but it was still ok, I think it was Taiwanese food Japanified.
Kumamoto generally appears a bit shabby, here is a good example, the streets all have bits of bitumen where repairs have been half arsed, just like Australia, where anyone can just dig up the street whenever they feel like it, and or draw all over it with various colours of spray paint to indicate where you might want to cut it up, some time in the next 10 years.
Not only have they stolen the name of the once British now Chinese car company, but they have also stolen the font. I think they are selling real estate and or trading cards?
Here is the red light district, with care bears, that is now white.
Although this building is still red, surrounded by white lights.
The top floor of the department store was largely open, but still quite sparse, especially compared to the food court I showed last night in the newer style mall.
Din Tai Fung beef noodle and xiao long bao combo, no chilli oil was on offer. Poor photo, there was a very bright but very focused spot light shining on the tea.
The Shotengai area was still doing ok at 8pm, there are a lot of restaurants along here and some were still open.
The edge of the bar district.
To find the bar you want to go to in Japanese cities, you have to go into the bar information booth. A lot of bars are on upper floors and have seating for up to 8 people! I think the prices include drinks for a period of time or something like that.
Tomorrow is a rest day, I feel a castle in my future.