Japan for the 10th time (Finally!) - October and November 2023 - Page 3

Apparently train and hotel toilets are the photos people like the best, so here is inside Tokyo station, a less busy bit where I could actually get my camera out of my backpack.

And now for the first of 2 train pics. Pic one of two has 5 trains. The front of that train is filthy.

Pic 2 of 2 has just the one train.

This is the outside of my Sotestu Fresa Inn, in Hiroshima.

And as mentioned above, the station is being rebuilt, exiting was via walls of white plastic. Also, bonus tram. I think Hiroshima has the largest tram network in Japan.

And now as a special treat, multiple hotel room related photos. The first is my room. Much the same as the last, except the tv is on the wall at the foot of the bed.

And of course, the all important toilet photo, featuring another fine example from the artisans at Toto, the very same who bless the rains down in Africa.

And in a super rare treat, my room has a view. I am in the last room on the top floor, which is the murder room in most scooby doo related tv shows. But the cost for being in the cursed room at the end of the hall is you get a view.

First I had to cross a bridge. The water was very still. No wind. On the way here today the pollution out the train window was horrendous, so a bit of wind would probably be a good thing.

Here is the start of the covered shopping streets. There are a lot of them here. Yes I know what they are called in Japanese. No I will not be using the Japanese word.

I guess this is the main street. I am almost certain I took a photo from the same spot in 2015.

A Parco appears, dissecting all the covered shopping streets.

This is probably the main outdoor undercover mall. See what I did there?

The local book off had a good collection of used musical gear. I do not know why I bother looking, importing anything to Australia would be a massive drama.

I climbed up the tram gantry for this view of a random street.

For dinner, udon, with what was claimed to be wild local vegetables, which I suspect was frozen vegetables out of a bag. For my deep fried surprises I chose pumpkin and lotus root.

Harsh, but fair. I don't eat Gyoza.

The big Sogo lives on. It looks like a relic.

And for tonight's final shot, the abandoned MUSTY underground mall. Actually it did not smell musty, it had distinct odour of leaded petrol.

Here is Yano station, in the suburbs of the south east of Hiroshima.

I walked up through the back streets towards the hills in the distance, the sun was still shining at this point.

The first part of the trail was concrete, because there was a little shrine thing. Already cobwebs though. Cobwebs, spiders webs, spiderwebs? I think I am supposed to say cobwebs. Cobman, far from home.

View, with wires. Cloud coming.

The trail at this point was ok, but a lot of secretions from the anal area of spiders.

A summit of sorts. With no view. It has a nice new marker.

The path now became somewhat ferny for a while. No spiders.

Time for another polluted view shot.

Summit area number 2. Also no view.

Here's a view. Nice clouds.

I was definitely on a trail of some description, as there were occasional steps. Just not a lot of signage and no signs of recent use.

More view with a bit of inland sea on the left.

The is the view from Egezan park, cyclists were behind me. I could have run back down the road but I was not done yet.

Back to the trail for me, the first bit near the park was very well used. But then it was blocked off.

I found another trail, with some view spots.

This trail was not well used, no steps, just ropes.

I think this is where I ran into the old woman, possibly a witch, smoking a pipe.

Presumably she lives here, which was a bit further on.

Nearing the end now, the trail became well defined again.

I headed down there along the valley all the way to the sea.

I came out at this park, which had every activity ever invented happening in the park complex.

Including remote control car racing. Squint and you can see them.

After walking down the road for maybe 30 minutes, I arrived at Kure-Portopia abandoned amusement park. That is a pool. It is green.

There were surprisingly high number of people using the abandoned park. All that was left was bike hire and vending machines. No shops were open.

Behold, the inland sea.

For the final pic, the abandoned shopping street of the amusement park. You can sit in the old shops and have an indoor picnic. There was also some wedding photos being done in one of them. Today's hike was at times frustrating, at times technical, at times full of arachnid netting. But in the end, pretty good. I might be the only human to hike some of those trails this year.

Behold, a mall. OMG a Zara, just like there is metres from my home in Melbourne.

But alas, I was comforted by the food court. My first food court experience of this trip. Taiwan had so many food courts to enjoy on my trip earlier this year.

I wanted pasta for dinner, I chose the more expensive place, in what would turn out to be the more expensive food court. Baller. So fancy that it comes with a salad bar. Or a sneeze bar as I fear they have become.

You might think my serve of pasta is tiny, but it came out on a joke plate. The salad bar plate along side it is a full size dinner plate. I mixed my salad in with the pasta to try and kill off sneeze residue from all those who used the salad bar before me.

OMG a second food court. And it is cheaper than the one I ate at. Mistakes have been made. I have many regrets. Actually I recall last time I was here I ate a cup of ice cream from this food court which is on the children's floor of the mall. A great day that was indeed.

On my way out I visited the actual Aeon. Their fruit was not peeled, sliced and plastic wrapped, so I was not interested.

Back right by my hotel, what I thought was an office building is actually a multi level electronics and book store. A kind of more upmarket Yodobashi. It was almost closing time, they were playing the go to sleep music, but I went in for a look.

Lots of interesting things, all very expensive, but then there was a guy bright red coughing, sneezing, choking, making growling sounds, and being held up by two brave employees while a third fanned him with a brochure, so I fled.

Which was a shame, because I wanted to buy a personal organiser, which are still a thing somehow, and I missed out on going to level 4, which is all fax machines.
Tomorrow I am going on a boat. The first of 2 boats on this trip.

There is my ferry. It is Sunday on a long weekend, I expected more people even though I was early.

The ride over is about 10 minutes, with a lot of smoke to look at. Also you do now have to pay the 100 yen ($1) tourist tax to go here. This adds a lot of confusion for everyone, locals included, as you have to get that ticket from a different machine, and present it to the person at the entrance to the ferry. This fee is part of the governments half arsed program to limit tourism, seriously, that is what it is called. Miyajima exists only as a tourist place, so limiting tourists from going there via a $1 fee seems well thought through.

The ferry sailed directly through the oyster farms.

There is the gate in the water. Well, it is sitting above the water at low tide. Most people at this early hour were not too interested.

Sadly, I was too early and Starbucks was not open yet.

I got a better pic of this last time I was here, with deer in front of it.

This is the best I could do for the pagoda thing. Most of the temples and shrines here are pay to enter.

Nice early morning light street view.

That guys yellow puffer jacket is excessive. It was 26c again today. Unseasonal!

I walked along a street full of closed ice cream shops.

Tide definitely out.

Here is where I started my hike up the Omoto course. I saw no other people for 2 hours, all the way to where the path rejoins onto the main path up to Mount Misen. I was amazed by this.

The path was concrete steps most of the way, no cobwebs today!

Plenty of mini shrines along the way.

Lots of dark areas with huge moss covered rocks. Why is there no one around? This should be one of the busiest days of the year.

Once up on the ridge line there were a lot of view spots.

Bright sun and green ferns make for good photos.

I sat here taking photos and having a drink and some calorie mate block for at least 20 minutes, still no other people.

Not too sweaty today.

Nice small tree on the right.

Nice enough to warrant, THE STANCE.

I think this is on Komagabayashi peak. A shame about the pollution.

Smog layer looking back to the mainland.

Here is where I rejoined the main path, there were a few other people but not nearly as many as I expected.

The summit. A lot of sick people choking on mucus! I could not wait to get away from them.

View from summit.

Inland sea, it is there if you squint. I have been fighting with lightroom to try and mask out some of the pollution. My laptop is getting angry with me about it. Very frustrating. This photo seems to have no colour in it for some reason.

View from the actual lookout seen a few photos earlier. There was a girl going up the stairs that seemed so sick I thought she would need a helicopter rescue. No mask, just projectile sneezing and full on phlegm firing coughing. I put my mask on in the summit area.

This is the main shrine near the summit I guess. A lot of smoke! Enough with the smoke already.

Vertical view.

I went about 3/4 of the way down the main path. Still not that many people, everyone must be taking the cable car. It was near here that the rat snake slithered across my path at great speed.

This is near the bottom, where I was looking for my next path back up a different peak. Colour at last.

These were really the only coloured trees around.

Time to head back up again. This path was fern encrusted for much of the 1 hour or so journey.

Some more fern view. Parts were quite overgrown with ferns. The ground was very sandy, so a thin canyon had formed, one foot in front of the other required.

That is the main part of Miyajima, the gate is there, just. I could have lined that up a bit better...

And here is where I came out at the hard to type Tsusumigaura park. There were a lot of these cabins here, but all were empty. They must be abandoned, if they cannot fill them on a long weekend with perfect weather, when would they ever get used?

A horned deer! Generally they remove the horns, but some avoid dehorning.

An entire flock of deer. They were all looking sideways at me.

This is advertised as a beach. OK then.

The last part of my journey was back along a road, and through this awesome tunnel. It had fantastic reverb. I stood in it for a few minutes making stupid noises. There was no one else around!

If you come back this way, which is the wrong way, you get to go past bonus mini gate. And if you time it right, there will be a ship inside the gate.

Time for the ferry ride back. I stayed away from people, first hanging out here until I was told to move on.

And then I found a spot near the engine room with my own personal window. This ends my second visit to Miyajima.

This place is in a side street by my hotel. Grilled seafood I think.

At first I was planning to go to the Okonomiyaki theme park tomorrow night, but when I headed to this restaurant street and noticed most of the little restaurant only places were shut, I realised 'mostly shut on Sunday' might be a thing. All along this street are restaurants, bars, pachinko parlours and brothels. Only the Pachinko parlours seemed to be open. Do you call them parlours?

That is a lot of small bars inside one small building.

I could have gone and got crabs I guess.

Ahh, here it is, Shintechi Okonomimura. Hard to type, but a good place to go.

Nothing is clean in here.

And there is my selection. I chose a slight variation which added kim chi so that it was 1000 yen exactly, because I did not want any coins. Also I like kim chi.
Tomorrow is not a hiking day, but I will be going to a place with a hill by bullet train for a day trip. Although rain is forecast so who knows, plans may change.