Japan for the 10th time (Finally!) - October and November 2023 - Page 1

I think a recent trip my first photo featured the blight of all society, the rental scooter. So to celebrate the fact that people keep dying on these things while drunk weekly, and occasionally killing innocent old ladies, here is a photo of the government sponsored population control devices.

The Virgin lounge had nutri grain. Very important and exciting news. Without this there would be a niacin deficiency in my diet today.

And now for jet 1 of 2 for the day. An older 737. This one will take me to Cairns. It is the model that is not famous for plummeting out of the sky, I will be on one of those new ones later. This photo deliberately shot through filthy glass.

Here is the Cairns international departures hall. The Virgin desk is manned but it seems almost everyone is transferring from other cities, they even mentioned it on my Melbourne flight, 'for all those heading to Tokyo...'. Cairns is the spot to transfer as it is the only airport in Australia from which Japan is in range using such small jets. Why does this photo look blurry?

This is my plane. The terrifying 737 max! Famous for a software glitch that so far murdered about 350 people and nearly sent Boeing broke. I made sure to also take this photo through dirty tinted glass, it helps with the realism. Note it's ridiculous wing tips inspired by star wars.

And for the last pic from Australia unless something interesting finally happens, here is the departure area of the international terminal. There will probably be a third update tonight when I get to my Tokyo hotel, because I know everyone is super excited about hotel photos for some ridiculous reason (this sentence is not sarcasm, unlike most others).

Here is a photo of the sunset I took out the window of the plane. This is also an unusual activity for me. You see, on long flights on big twin aisle jets, I prefer an aisle seat in the middle block of 3 or 4 seats. But since this is a tiny plane with only one aisle up the middle, there is no middle block. I normally do not take my laptop out on flights either, but since I have a whole block of 3 seats to myself, there is room for my elbows, and I can also press my camera against the window for a sunset view. Soak it in.

Time for a monorail. As seen in Ogdenville.

Proof that I went on the monorail. I do not look as dried up and wrinkled as usual due to it being a day time flight with lots of room to sit.

Now prepare yourselves for peak excitement, here is my hotel room. It is Sotetsu Fresa Kanda. I have not stayed at a Fresa Inn before, I normally seem to prefer the Nazi imperial Apa chain, but when I booked my accommodation a year ago, Sotetsu was the only cheap chain available. The room seems identical to Apa except there are no free books declaring that the owner wants to cut my head off.

A toilet. Bed time!

My hotel is a street away from Kanda station, which is a station on the Chuo line, which has a special rapid train that comes regularly. I would take it today and change only at Takao. All up about an 80 minute journey. Here is... the view from Kanda station

Here is the view from Fujino station. I was surprised when I woke up that a rain storm was clearing, that was not forecast. Anyway by the time I got off the train, the rain was gone. Already talking about the weather.

The first part of my journey required going through this tunnel. It has a bit reserved for pedestrians and bikes so it wasn't too death defying.

I followed a road for about 2km. Nice scenery as the storm clouds cleared.

Take the left hand path! Actually the right hand path is ok too I think, but as a general rule, always take the left hand path.

Behold, hiking trail! Too early for good leaf colours, there will be plenty of that later.

Tree roots.

More tree roots. The trail was soft under foot, but not muddy. No rocks.

Some sections were smooth enough to run along, so I did. So did many others. I do not know how they run down slippery bits as fast as they do.

This part would be spectacular once the leaves are red.

Not too many steps on the first half of the hike today, these lead up to the summit of Jinba.

View from Jinba.

Very developed trail today, little cafes dotted all the way along at each peak as you shall see.

There it is, the Jinba marker. Person and horse as one body is a Japanese four-character compound describing unity of horse and rider which is pertinent to Yabusame, Japanese mounted archery. It is generally known as penis head horse. I made jokes about this last time. However I remember penis head horse being much larger?

View without penis head horse.

Penis head minus horse.

Here is the next peak of sorts. This cafe has fallen into disrepair. There are views of Fuji along this trail, but it was covered in cloud today.

Behold the devastation!

I was getting closer to Takao now, there were more people. All of them have bear bells. Should I get a bear bell? At times I could hear 20 bear bells at once. The bears prefer people to have a bell ringing, makes it easier to find you.

Hiking trails do not get much smoother than this.

Low bamboo. I know its not actually bamboo, but I like it and I will continue to call it low bamboo.

There is a small part of Tokyo.

Another of the many hikers cafes. Some have seating for at least 500 people.

I went to that lake and the mountains behind it last time I was here. The trail had been destroyed by a typhoon and my descent was perilous.

Time to appreciate some more tree roots.

The final mountain hiking cafe hang out spot before getting to the horrors of Takao itself.

Stairs lead the way. I can hear crowds of people cheering.

Heres the main view spot that people go to. On a clear day you can see Fuji from here. There were really many thousands of people up here, my photos don't show it. I moved on quickly.

The descent down to the cable car station goes past some shrines of course. The idea being that when you catch the cable car up, you go past the shrines to get to the view, and probably pay them.

A bit of colour.

Different kind of shrine. Warnings about staying away from Shibuya for Halloween are very prominent at the moment. Especially if you are a foreigner.

Look in that bag. They bought their little plush toys with them to enjoy the view. There were also many dogs being pushed around in baby strollers, and at least one old lady with a life like baby doll dressed as a princess.

I continued past the cable car station and found this view, and a sign saying alternate path to Takao station. Which is exactly what I was looking for.

The path back is about 2.5km and very lonely. There is a closer train station run by Keio corp, but that then changes at Takao anyway, so I decided to use this mystery trail and walk back to JR Takao station.

And speaking of the station, here it is. That's all for now, it's probably enough?

Nice. I like to take photos of trains and the things under the elevated train tracks.

Behold, Tokyo station. That reminds me, I think I need to go scan a QR code to get a ticket for my trip to Hiroshima on Friday.

This is character street. Shops for people that enjoy brands and corporate profits. Too busy for me. No hello kitty purchases tonight. Ramen street was also too busy, no ramen for dinner tonight.

I headed away from the main underground mall area to the adjoining Yaesu underground mall area. Far less busy, but mainly underwear and old man shoe shops.

I have no idea what's going on here.

When I saw this spot, which is 4 curry restaurants clumped together, I thought for sure my dinner would come from here. But no, a man ran out of one of the places and projectile sneezed across the corridor, followed by his wife running out with a tissue. He then sneezed a few more times and went into a coughing fit before being lead away while his wife apologised to everyone. So I moved on.

Omurice it is. I got the seasonal mushroom special. Quite a small serve, so now I am eating some crab flavoured peanut snacks.

My journey back to my hotel went past the end of the main Ginza street, but I bypassed it for now and walked back along some back streets instead, thus ensuring I cracked 50k steps for the day. Needless to say, tomorrow is not a hiking day.

Payback is a bitch. Taiwan has now invaded Japan. This is a famous bookstore brand from Taiwan.

The flipside of that, Mitsukoshi stores are all over Taiwan, which is somewhat more surprising that they lasted beyond the occupation.

Japanese police station. We really need a few of these police posts in central Melbourne these days.

Here is the entrance of Hamarikyu gardens. It was built Goku, the feudal emperor of the ancient land of Wakoku in 1100 4D.

Great weather today, tricky light for this crappy cameras low dynamic range. Nice bridges.

I climbed the highest peak of the park.

A bit more lake.

The flower garden was in the process of being replanted, it is generally much larger, but still large enough for me to make it look large in this photo. I had to politely wait for that girl trying to photograph butterflies to stop bending over.

The title of today's update is a direct quote from this sign. There really is a monument for the souls of dead ducks.

I reflected on the tragic loss of millions of dead ducks by staring at the reflections of these buildings.

The guy you can see here was taking photos of this, so I did to. That is a bullet train overhead.

Tokyo station. I do not actually need to collect tickets, the QR code from my online purchase is the ticket. Actually it is more complex than that. When you buy online tickets these days, you can choose to generate a QR code or not. If you generate a QR code, you cannot collect a ticket, as you already generated it. If you dont generate the QR code, you can go to the machines in the station to generate the QR code. At least I hope that is correct.

I treated myself to a 7-eleven lunch of salad, sandwich and tea. Very delicious, and cheap! I was excited at how cheap lunch was. Tonight I will go somewhere new.

Here is the view when you exit Kinshicho station. Multiple department stores.

The Parco looks to be the newest. I did not actually go inside though.

Some overpasses made for a good view of the very end of the sunset. The sun sets very early in Japan already. You need to think about that if you are planning on long hiking adventures.

Here is the area behind the station. Looks like a fun park for kids, it is probably a brothel.

The big mall shown on the area map is 10 minutes walk from the station, Olinas mall. I went in to investigate their ramen free food court.

Inside looks much like any mall.

And finally, my Tomato ramen. The black stuff is egg plant. It was OK, but not as good as I remember. A quick google suggests it is part of a chain, but the one I remember most in Shinjuku is gone. The menu for a couple of the other locations is also not what I remember. Hmmm!
Also, tomorrow is a hiking day.