Back to Japan for the 11th time - October and November 2024 - Page 3

If only I knew! Why are they not open for Breakfast! I spotted a hooters on my walk around Tokyo before it was time to check out. Check out the eyes on that owl.

If offices all looked like this no one would want to work from home anymore.

Here comes my train. My top tip if you are waiting for a train at Tokyo station is to go up to the tracks and walk to the end of the line where there will be no other people. The waiting areas in the station are way too small for the number of people using the station.

This is the outside of Nagoya station. I remembered the tall buildings from last time. They look good at night so expect a night shot of that later. It was starting to rain...

Nagoya is skipped by most tourists, so the shops here are struggling to remain open due to the declining population. This was very evident!

Recognise this? I had exactly the same salad for lunch a few days ago in Tokyo. The one I complained was too expensive. It still is.

The underground area around Nagoya station is huge, which is great when it is raining, but a huge percentage of the shops are closed down.

And now everyone's favourite, boring hotel shots! And if you think I am joking the only comment I got requesting anything so far was more info on the hotel I stayed at in Tokyo. This is Sotetsu Fresa Inn Nagoya-Sakuradoriguchi, it is just east of Nagoya station, and I am paying about $90 Australian a night for what they call a Superior double room. The bed is actually very large despite this photo. It is slightly bigger than the standard double room I stayed at in Shimbashi in Tokyo, but the desk of this one is a more annoying layout. The bed is of a medium firmness. The TV has no English channels, um... there is a humidifier, there is no coffee or tea provided but you can pick it up at reception, there is a fridge, there is a window that opens slightly with a view, it seems quiet, there are enough lights, you can stand at the foot of the bed, there is no room under the bed, there are 2 small bins one for rubbish and one for recycling, you can control your own air conditioner settings, there is a smoke alarm and sprinkler, check in is from 1500 and check out by 1100..... ALL THINGS THE HOTEL BOOKING SITE WILL TELL YOU!

I can go on and on for the bathroom too? The toilet is fancier, it has multiple sphincter pulsating programs and you can select the tune you want it to play. OK now to figure out if it will ever stop raining.

Yes, I will stand in the rain with a non water proof camera on an overpass just to take a photo.

Here is Mirai tower in Sakae. A good thing about a bit of rain is no one else wants to get 'the shot'. I think a bunch more shops have sprung up in the central park area above ground here since my last visit.

I remember this as being the bus station, and signs say that it still is, but I did not see a bus. You can get on the roof, I will probably do that on another night.

Underneath that roof is this. Did this use to be bus parking? Now it is called Oasis 21 and has a strange plastic floor. I will have to look back to my first visit here and check.

Underground malls really do go forever here, in multiple directions. I had no idea which way I was facing most of the time.

I decided I wanted ramen for dinner, so I looked on google maps, went up to the surface where it was almost not raining... and then walked to the nearest one with a good score. Apparently it is historical in some way, and ordering was a bit different. The machine really only had one thing to select, so I ordered it and sat down at a really old tiny wooden booth facing the kitchen with a little blind.
The blind was lifted and a guy did a bow and handed me a sheet of paper to customise my order - level of spice, noodle chewiness etc. So I filled that out and rang the bell and he came back and opened the blind again, closed it, and repeated the routine to deliver my ramen. Also, the egg was in its shell, I had to peel it, I cannot remember the last time I peeled a boiled egg.
As for the ramen, hmmmm, nothing special, not much flavour, noodles were a bit ordinary. I feel as though they are trading on history.

And for my last pic, a bridge, with lights, in the light rain.

Here is the view from my hotel room window. I can open it a crack and hang my camera out in the rain.

The train museum is in the port area south of the city next to Legoland on the Aonami line. I was about an hour too early to go in, but that gave me time to splash in some puddles. First up, Maker's pier, which has a number of places to learn different crafts, but also a lot of places for school bands to practice brass instruments. Also a petting zoo.

I did not actually know Legoland was here before I spotted it from the train station. There is not really anyone lined up to get in, even though it is probably 30 minutes from opening time when I took this photo. It is over $40 to get in and is mainly rides for small children. I have read numerous reports of men who love lego getting arrested at various Legolands around the world for daring to go to one without a child in tow. So if you do plan to go, abduct a child first.

The Legoland hotel looks great. I assume everything in the rooms is made of Lego.

Here is the hotel reception. It had a strong smell of urine.

Time to head over to the strangely named SCMaglev and Railway Park. Look at the line! I am standing at the back of the line here 5 minutes before opening, but it really took no more than 5 minutes to get in from here.

Train time. This is some kind of interactive movie presentation where the lights go on the 3 trains briefly as the movie plays. They did not allow photos in this area, but I saw those signs only after taking this photo.

I took no interior photos on my bullet train journey yesterday, I will make up for it today. Modern bullet trains still look exactly like this.

Here is the main hall. It was quite impressive really.

4 generations of bullet trains. The N700 I rode on yesterday is closest to camera. The noses get progressively longer, unlike mine which seems to get progressively shorter and more pig like.

They have most of a busted bullet train outside, which you can sit on to eat your lunch. The cafe sells overpriced themed bento boxes, when they opened at 11am there were at least 100 people in the line to get a lunch box, I did not join that line.

At the back of the main hall are all these other trains in a closed off area. Not just a sawn off front bit of each one either, but the full carriage. I am not sure why you cannot go and explore these ones a bit more.

Probably the emperor's magical space train from pre ww2 when he had confirmed super powers.

Of course there is a diorama. I got in trouble for photographing one at the Tokyo train museum because there were children present. And so now that I think of it, I got told off at that museum a couple of times for taking photos while other people were taking photos. So I am not even safe at the most popular middle aged sad lonely man activity of all, train spotting.

Bonus train shots of the outside of trains.

Time to go inside. Since trains in Japan do not have eating areas anymore, I will focus on eating areas on trains in a museum.

Here is a kitchen.

This dining car area is on the top level of the old double decker bullet train. OK, that is enough train museum.

Next up I caught a train back to Nagoya and walked in the rain to a covered shopping street. Apparently a historic (code for semi abandoned) Shotengai at Endo-Ji, which is north west of Nagoya station.

It is not particularly long, and for some reason, Paris themed. There were signs saying it is Paris themed but mainly it was closed garage doors with French flags out the front.

The main place of activity was the bouldering studio. We now all know what bouldering is due to the recent Paris olympics, thus solving the mystery of why they think this historic area is a part of Paris.

I was now nearby the Nagoya castle, which I visited in great weather on a previous trip. I thought I might as well pay the $5 admission and go up to the top of the castle and observe the rain. After buying a ticket there is a sign, main castle closed. Cool. Glad you showed me after paying. Anyway, this is a crap photo, but there are 5 people here doing the changing of the guard, with umbrellas. They were comically bad so I am genuinely wondering if it was just some self appointed cosplayers.

Here is the closed castle. Closed while they install more lifts, escalators and gift shops, you can see a lift attached to it at the bottom right corner of this shot.

OK one more castle shot, it is a very modern re-creation, 1980's I think.

And for my last pic on a very rainy day, the moat. Most of the moat is full of building rubble and tractors, here is a section that still looks a bit dark and mossy. Will it stop raining at 5pm? Only time... will tell.

Tonight's highway overpass photo is of clearing skies. Handheld 1/4 of a second photo because the bridge bounces up and down as people walk on it.

Here is the temple near the start of the Oso shopping area. I took a similar photo last time just before my dress photo. 0.4 seconds handheld for this one, note the blurry person walking.

Time to head undercover, above ground.

Even the crossing streets have little rain covers.

This area has a large number of Italian restaurants. I briefly considered pizza, probably should have had pizza.

OK last one of these. It is a nice area though. I remembered the curry shop I ate at last time but that appears to be gone and replaced with a trading card shop.

I thought this was just rubbish made to look like art in the middle of a bunch of small shops selling second hand electronics. But then I noticed a small man in the middle of this pile of garbage messing around with a soldering iron and a magnifying glass, de-soldering things from motherboards. It remains unclear if he is actually selling anything, or if the stores just let him occupy this spot in the middle of everything to enjoy his hoarding.

There is a very minor car accident behind me causing the street to be blocked. The police were not keen on anyone taking a photo of that, so instead here is a photo of a police car. They all have those cantilever extending lights on the roof, which are still lower than the height of the average SUV and therefore useless.

And so for my dinner, HAMBURG! It was a strange restaurant, very old fashioned, menus looked like they were from 1970. A huge number of chefs grilling hamburgers for the 10 or so customers. It was a bit pricey ($12) for what it was, I should have got the set meal, although I suspect that came with booze so that would have been a waste.
Now to figure out my trains for tomorrow morning, one of the lines is cash only!

I took 2 trains to get here, the very fast express Kintetsu line to Kintetsu-Tomida where I changed to the also very fast but very rattly Sangi line. Be aware the Sangi line is cash only paper ticket. It is particularly tricky because it leaves from inside the Kintetsu line station area which is IC compatible, and there is no English signage explaining this. I was caught out last time. The fact that it is still does not accept IC card and their only other line is being upgraded to do so soon tells me that this line will soon be shut down, so check if it is still running before you rely on it.
Also there is a 7-eleven near Kintetsu-Tomida station, about 10 minutes walk, so if you time your transfer you can go to it, but there is no shop of any kind at Nishi-Fujiwara station, so plan ahead. Probably best to carry everything with you from Nagoya.

Here is Nishi-Fujiwara station, the terminal station of the Sangi line. There is a little old man at the station today, who was thrilled to see me. They still have their collection of old trains as you can see. I do not understand how this train company exists, they run only 2 lines, both basically to nowhere, and yet run a train every 40 minutes 7 days a week. Last time when I rode it on a week day I was the only person onboard.

The station building is train themed. There is a toilet and a vending machine, but no shops at all.

It is only a 5 minute walk from the station to the start of the trail. I feel as though the station really only exists for hikers. The internet tells me that on the weekends this car park is full by 4am, as are most hiking car parking spots. This hike is part of a multi day camping hike along the Suzuka range, today I will be doing just part of it, up and back.

There were many other people, mostly carrying tents and gas stoves and enough food to feed a hungry bear.

The hike up is very steep from the start...until the plateau, there is not much view. Here is maybe the only view until we get all the views.

The 8th station has an open area, yes they number the stations like this is some kind of epic climb. There is still no view from here though.

The path was at times very rocky, autumn basically does not exist this year.

A view emerges.

Satisfyingly mossy, but not slippery, and dry despite the huge amount of rain from the last couple of days.

The views are about to commence.

Behold, the view from the 9th station. One to go.

I like moss covered rocks.

Arriving at the top. Those are the toilets at the camping area. We will now be all about the plateau. I really should have worn sunscreen.

I believe that later this afternoon, despite all the rocks, people will put up tents here. The building is possibly bookable to sleep on the ground under the tin roof. I have no idea how all that works, I like beds.

The whole area is very green still, last time I was here it was all grey, the ground and the sky, and reminded me of a post apocalyptic planetscape. I disagree with my spell checker, planetscape is a word.

The camping area is in the middle of 3 peaks of similar heights, today I will continue up 2 of them, which involved some doubling back, because I was enjoying the view so much.

A large number of other people were going up the path.

The rock fall there is natural, but there is extensive quarrying on one side of this mountain, I will show where shortly.

It is very different to the tops of other mountains.

The main summit, and all the people. Most of them cooking lunch. Yes, cooking.

Only 1144m, but I started from 40m above sea level, so a decent climb, especially because the start is very steep.

Now for a lot of redundant views before I start the descent.

In the centre of this pic you can see the top of the quarry, with a couple of excavators. I feel as though I could walk over there, but I won't.

You can walk over all of these mountains from here, and many people are. I will climb up a different one on my next hike. That one has a cable car, and I think quite a few campers will have taken the cable car up and walked along ridges to here.

More rocks.

More ridges. It was actually not that clear, despite the rain. I could see a layer of pollution hanging around in most photos.

From one of the peaks I saw some people hanging out on this rocky outcrop, so I wandered over as well, to be greeted by more moss.

And a lot more rocks.

Here are the people I saw, you can see the main peak behind them.

More plateau.

Time to head to one of the other peaks, where it is more greener.

But also rocky. And of course, very green.

Peak green. I am starting my way down from peak 2, and will soon go past the tin shed building for the last time.

The first tent of the day has been erected. It was only about 12:30pm! So this guy is just going to sit there for 18 hours now?

The path down was the same as the path up. It almost looks like Autumn, some trees have no leaves, but there really isn't a lot of colour going on.

Still time for more moss.

Much of the path down is tree roots and steeper than this. Here is a relatively smooth bit.

And then I remembered, I did no selfie, and no stance...until now! REAL ULTIMATE POWER. Feel the stance. I held it for much longer than the self timer on my camera required just to make sure everyone on the arriving train could fully appreciate.

Here are the towers over the station. I remember them as having blue lights. They do not. I do remember they are this weird grey colour that somehow seems more greyer at night.

This is a girl playing the free piano under the station. We have similar pianos in Australia. Big deal. But there is a line full of people waiting for their turn. Most of them have tripods and expensive looking cameras. So it seems the thing to do in Nagoya is film yourself playing the piano in the station.

This is right opposite the Piago variety store in Nakamura. It is a soapland. A soapland is a brothel - with Japanese characteristics. There are a lot of similar establishments nearby. The fact that I have typed 'soapland' here means that this photo will get linked more times by other websites than every other photo of this trip combined. So consider this clickbait.

Inside Piago and everything is slightly yellowed. I think a lot of the stock is many years old.

I love a sad food court, and this place had one. There are a couple more choices around the corner, but they were all slightly too cheap for comfort. Yes, too cheap even for me.

The back streets around here were very interesting. Many shops such as this with furniture placed on the street on a Sunday night.

I was still looking for dinner. Denny's? Research suggests you need to be drunk. Tonight I learned this is also now owned by Japanese 7-eleven holdings, and will therefore soon be owned by Canadian megacorp Couche-Tard.

I know you can get pepper lunch in Australia, but I could not resist. Plus it comes with more vegetables and is half the price I would pay at home. It was actually delicious. I also observed that Japanese people do not seem to stir it all up, but rather delicately cook each ingredient individually. I think this is very wrong, perhaps all the people sitting near me were on their first ever visit and I am the expert?

Japanese people take karaoke seriously, this building is all karaoke, all the time.

And for my final shot this evening, my snack that I consume while typing this. Chocolate covered potato sticks and pink grapefruit lemonade that is yellow.
Tomorrow is not a hiking day, but the two after it probably are!