Back to Japan for the 11th time - October and November 2024 - Page 6

Here is Tsurugi station. This is an actual station with an attendant, but no IC cards are accepted. Many of the other stations on this line are just a concrete platform in the middle of a farmers field.

The Shishiku highland pavilion. There is a cable car here which you shall see shortly and later, and also a lot of paragliding. I have done a hike here before, but on different trails, on a very windy day.

There is the cable car. It does not start running until 10am. I was kind of interested, the cars are not on the wire permanently, they take them off when not in use. I do not think I like that idea, I would prefer that they were very well attached to the wire in such a way they cannot come off.

Here is the infamous sign I have been seeing a lot on yamap. Bear sighting on 26 October. Well it has not been seen again since then so that is good. To make matters worse it was a bear and cub, and apparently that is when they might get violent, if they feel their cub is threatened. So this is why I am here today on a weekend instead of Friday when I originally had this hike planned.

There are a lot of warning signs! The bottom sign here is warning about a bee hive, but I think the translation has that wrong and it is probably a murder hornets nest. Hornets kill a lot more people compared to bears! I seem to recall in Taiwan recently 5 people died in the same incident when someone disturbed a hornets nest. Also the other sign is saying to go on the hike, and show a photo of the summit marker to get a discounted coffee. Mixed messages.

Everyone else seems to post this photo on their bear and cub sign report of their hike, so I will too.

Now I joined the trail, with my bell dinging. There were a lot of other hikers around. Behind me were some children, in front of me some elderly people. I adjusted my pace to remain in between, thus travelling with my bear shield. Although this was potentially now the 3 Goldilocks and the bear, we have the young, the old, and in the middle aged (me), which for the bear might be just right? AM I NOW JUST PORRIDGE?

Here is the low down view back up the valley towards Kanazawa. I remember a similar view from the last time I was in this area, but I am quite certain I was on a different trail today.

Same view, slightly higher. Still in the wooded bear country.

Now the colourful leaves started and the sun was shining through the foliage. For whatever reason, this is not where the bear is expected to be. I really don't think anyone actually knows, they are just going on a recent sample of 1 sighting. Probably on every hike I pass 50 bears without knowing that are just relaxing near the path.

A cabin in the woods. Bear warning sign, but the old style one, no mention of a recent sighting.

Today there was quite a colourful leaf tunnel.

Probably picture of the day. Looking further up the valley, beyond the end of the train line.

There will be a lot more photos like this.

The trail from the cabin shown above onwards to the summit was quite flat, I could run periodically.

More view towards the coast, with power lines.

Near the top the greenery became less green and the trees got a bit shorter.

I think that is my summit. Although I know there is a big cleared area for people to cook their lunch.

The scenery was still fantastic.

And after making great progress I was already at the summit. Look at all the people.

Photo of summit marker in case I want to claim my discounted coffee (I did not).

View up the valley.

The peak in the middle with a bit of snow on it is Hakusan (I think).

Back down to the coast. The best views today were not from the summit area, but they did put in a bit of effort to clear some trees so that there was any view at all.

Now to skip all the way down enjoying the scenery.

There were a few clearings like this to get to electricity infrastructure.

Here is, electricity infrastructure.

I did not show this on the way up, but the trail crosses this road. Look at these cheats! This is 2/3 of the way to the summit. I bet they wait for there to be no one else around before they park or go back to their car.

Great views and great clouds on the way down. This type of cloud makes for the best photos.

Same valley from a different spot than earlier.

One more of these...

Back in the mossy section, about to head back into bear territory.

Last time I was in this area, the trees were actually blowing into each other and making a loud cracking sound almost like lightning. No wind today.

And then I came out of the woods, once again free of bear bites.

I know this is hard to see, but here you can see the cable cars on the wire, and if you squint, 5 or so paragliders. More on them shortly.

I made a small detour to go past their landing area, and they seemed to enjoy flying very close to me on their way to the landing spot. It is amusing to me that there is a graveyard in the left of this photo, probably full of paragliders.

Here is the landing spot. It looked very graceful for the 5 or so that I watched land.

And for my final photo, even the walk along the road back to the train station was very picturesque. Unfortunately the train back took ages, I had to wait at Nishikanazawa for over 30 minutes for the connection. I probably could have jogged back faster.

Some people will be really excited by this. In Australia, one of the more exciting things entire extended families can do is go and hang out at Chemist Warehouse. Well here in Japan the equivalent is even larger, and comes with a car parking.

Here is tonight's moody looking dark scary restaurant in a dark back street. It is ominously named 13.

Attached to the station is a large souvenir selling area. It actually seems quite nice.

And now for my dinner, okonomiyaki, Hiroshima style (with noodles). Look at the great job I did assembling it? OK I did not really assemble it, and there was a metal hoop involved.

Encased within is pork, prawns, squid, cabbage, pickled ginger, noodles, dried fish flakes and seaweed sprinkles on top of the sweet sauce. I do not add the mayonnaise. This has never really caught on in Australia, I really only know where there is one proper grill it yourself and potentially burn yourself restaurant in all of Melbourne.

The exhibition and over zealous security guard is gone from the station square underground square area. But that means I got to take my photo of vast areas of nothingness.
Somehow I will turn tomorrow's 35 minute train journey into a full day of travel. There will not be many photos, but there will be photos of a new hotel.

Before departing Kanazawa I did another lap of the market. I was surprised to find out you can get upstairs and take photos from above.

I also went back to the night shrine I went to the other night in the day time, thus making it a day shrine. In the day time it has a little lake. I have no evidence the lake was there at night.

First photo of Fukui, dead grass, castle walls and prefectural office.

A historic bridge over the moat has been restored, so I took a photo through its restored historic wooden slats.

The grass is greener when the sun shines. Also there is a big shrine over the other side of the grassed area.

Here is a bit more castle walls. Weather was still great today, low 20s (celisus/centigrade, refer previous rant).

Around the new bullet train station, there are dinosaurs everywhere. They move and make noises. The bullet train only started coming here earlier this year, hence everything is its vicinity is brand new, possibly to the detriment of the rest of the small city.

I had an acai bowl for lunch. That is how new Fukui station shops are, they have acai bowls. Also it had a lot of honey on top of the fruit, which was unexpected, some would find that too sweet.

You can get out onto the roof of the new station, where there are more dinosaurs. I will at some point go to the real dinosaur museum, which is actually quite some distance from Fukui city.

On my 3 hour stroll I even found a Korean style drain to appreciate. Those mountains are surprisingly between me and the coast, although the mountains behind me are significantly higher.

Now for the 3 (three!) hotel photos. This is a dormy inn premium. I got it for under $100 a night by paying in advance a year ago. I just checked, and it is currently $250 a night. Anyway it is just a hotel room like any other, I know people hyperventilate with excitement that the dormy inns have a public bath which I wont use, and after 9:30pm will give you free instant noodles which I wont eat. Other than that, it is the same as APA, Tokyoko, Sotetsu, Daiwa Roynet etc. They do get some credit for a proper desk area with a decent chair.

Much like my last hotel, the sink is outside of the bathroom.

But the actual bathroom itself is more of your standard hotel variety. I know I said I was intimidated by the weird shower at the last hotel, but it was actually fantastic. I wasted megalitres of Japanese water.
Tonight my challenge will be to find somewhere open for dinner on a Monday.

If you need your trousers pressed, Japan is your place. I bought 4 pairs with me and pressed them simultaneously, while standing there in my underpants.

Here is a kind of shopping street near my hotel. It is all nice looking, but a few places along here were either closed or abandoned. The old department store that is not part of the station here in Fukui is Seibu. I will probably take photos of that on another night as they have a restaurant floor.

Here is Hungarian Shotengai. It is very short.

Random street scene. Note the tram tracks. The actual tram cars are all very new, I was hoping to see some old rattly ones.

This is one of the new funky shopping / eating areas near the station. You can tell it is new because all the air conditioning ducting is visible, and they did not put anything over the concrete floor, as is the style of the day. However there were probably 10 or so tiny little places to eat in here.

So I ate at one of them, and had... taco rice. The pride of Okinawa, although they have it with spam. It was quite nice actually, and $7!

And as we started with the trouser press, so we must end with something nearly as ancient, another dinosaur.
Tomorrow is a hiking day. The hikes around here are all a bit shorter.. so I will find a way to make them longer!

Here is Echizen-Takehara station. Very picturesque. It is about 2.5km from the station to the start of the trail.

I had to cross this nice bridge.

And then some fields. Great scenery.

A Family mart in the fields, it would be great if there were no cars parked around it. I bought my pocari sweat and muesli bars.

This is a bus stop. But is there a bus? I have doubts.

There is a shrine at the start of the hike, I will pay it a proper visit on the way down.

Surprisingly, they have a sign in book at the start of the trail. And the obligatory bear warning sign. This is only a very short hike so I am not sure why they want people to sign in.

The trail was mostly well defined, but overgrown in places. There is one section in the middle that had eroded away where you might slip off the trail, but you would not fall too far.

The low down bits were woody.

First view, in high contrast.

More view. Look at those farmers fires, grr.

Surprise giant rock.

Then the trail got nice and colourful.

View across to the next mountain. The looks like a road zig zagging up it, but if it is a road it is not on any map.

Nice.

The trail started to become a bit overgrown.

More colour.

More view of the smoky valley.

Summit time. Nowhere to even sit.

View further up the valley.

And back towards Fukui.

My train station is down there somewhere.

Here I am. I was very sweaty today. It is still hot.

Time to go back down, the same way I came up.

At times I had to duck under branches.

Half way down, back into the woods.

Steep. But it is impossible to photograph steep, as I often say.

Last bit of the trail.

And right at the bottom, a rather small shrine, but it has a few statues.

My socks were filled with prickles. Despite walking through a few blackberry bushes, my shins were scratch free.

The view across the fields up the valley on my jog back to the station were great.

Last pic for the day as I cross back over the bridge.

This is all I could find in the Katamachi area. I noticed in Kanazawa the busy part of the city was also called Katamachi. I just looked this up and it is not a word like Shotengai or Ginza, it is just a coincidence that they are named the same thing. Also the Fukui town website describes Fukui Katamachi as "Fukui City’s main center for nightlife is the Katamachi neighbourhood, a few minutes away from Fukui Station by foot. Katamachi is densely packed with some 450 bars and restaurants, with a lively yet approachable atmosphere."
Yeah, not anymore.

I retreated to the rainbow night shrine.

From the shrine, the blue hue of castle walls caught my eye. I headed straight back to the historic bridge.

Peak blueness.

Here is tonight's random street shot... right near the station, not in Katamachi.

Back at the station now and we have another animatronic dinosaur, with the concert hall sphere behind it. That building also has 2 levels of restaurants.

So I went up to near the sphere and had soba and a schnitzel. Pretty good it was too. A bit pricey but that was mainly for the tiny cold mushrooms on top of the cold soba. I might die from mushroom poisoning.

Something different for my last pic, you know how they tell you not to put cotton tip things in your ears? Japan is on a different level and invents new ridiculous things to shove into your ears.
Now I must work out how to get to my hike tomorrow. I think a bus is involved...