Back to Japan for the 11th time - October and November 2024 - Page 8

Here is the bus stop where I got off and from where I will start the hike. Yes a bus. But I managed to get on the first bus after my train arrived. Getting to here was via Shibusawa station on the Odakyu line. It is a 2 hour journey from Tokyo. The bus back was packed to the rafters. I have a recollection that the last time I came here it was almost a punch up to get on the first bus after the train arrived at Shibusawa. No such drama today. This was a very disjointed description, but no one reads this far into each one anyway.

This is a very popular hike. There are a lot of hiking clubs, and also people who do nature conservation work. I am not sure why they need helmets though. This was the brightest the day would be, it just got cloudier and foggier all day, but never actually rained.

I remembered this bridge from my last visit, where the light was great, blue sky etc. Not today. Why am I messing about at the bridge taking photos? I need to get running so I get back before dark!

My mountains are around to the left, in cloud.

The path today is almost all stairs until you get over the first mountain, Tonodake, at which point it becomes a lot of mud as you shall see.

There were the occasional flat bits to run on more comfortably.

There are also a lot of guest houses and cafes on this hike. Most were strangely not open yet, this one was very busy as I came back down, it is the one closest to the bus stop.

I very much remember these raised planks from last time. There are less now, they have been replaced by wooden stairs in a lot of places.

Still not a lot of colour. Last time was blinding leaf colour. I will stop talking about last time eventually.

This is a rare downwards bit on the way up. The hike has a reputation for being an unrelenting sets of stairs. It is hard on your feet / calves because of all the different types of stairs.

Another cafe, this one was open.

I don't think I was ever more than 100 metres away from another hiker today. This meant no bear bell needed. But also difficult to pull off public urination, but I did...

A lot more stairs.

Last chance for a view, a bit of fog rolling in already.

Here comes the fog.

I like the dead looking bits of hikes in grey weather.

Low bamboo time. This hike is the best low bamboo of any hike I am aware of.

This is the summit of Tonodake. There is a place to spend the night here. A lot of people turn back at this point as on a normal day there is a very good view of Fuji, but the best parts of this trail are between here and Tanazawa.

A lot of fog now, and mud, and low bamboo.

But still more steps. I actually wish there were a few more of those plank things as my shoes got mud through them.

There were however still some of my trusty elevated planks.

Overgrown in some places. My pants also got soaked, but it was not actually cold or raining.

Nearly at the peak of Tanzawa, where I would turn back and re-trace my steps. There is another bigger lodge to stay at just beyond Tanzawa that serves a famous curry, but I do not have time for that before it gets dark.

Tanzawa summit. No one around, where is everyone?

They are all using their bunsen burners to boil water for their noodles in here. Time for me to turn back.

Not the worst of the mud, but it was consistently mud for about 2km. I never fell over in it, I saw evidence that some others did.

Another overgrown bit.

Great fog, but I know the views across the valley towards Fuji are amazing too.

Back at Tonodake summit. I was 2 hours faster than sunset... I clearly went way too fast on the way up.

A lone orange tree to remind us all of what is yet to come this season.

Here is a rare bit without stairs, just rocks. It looks very wet but it was not actually slippery.

I am about to get back to the bus, a concrete driveway and no stairs.

After my packed bus ride back to Shibusawa station I had about 10 minutes to kill before the train back to Tokyo came (they come regularly), so here is a photo from the station up into the mountains I had been up and down still covered by cloud.

This station actually has a full sized Odakyu supermarket inside the station building. Exciting.

And for my last pic, waiting on the Shibusawa platform for my rapid express Odakyu train back to Shinjuku.

Here is the entry to the restaurant and bar area by Kanda station. I think this is the 4th time I have stayed in this area. It is very convenient for the Chuo rapid line, which takes me to the mountains.

In this area, a lot of places were, 'smoking ok'. Not OK!

I recall last time I was here wanting to eat at this ramen place, however since I basically had ramen last night, I decided to look elsewhere. Fascinating stuff this!

And so I ended up with a hamburg steak as they call it. I chose the avocado option (it is under the bean sprouts). These hamburg steaks are always a bit over priced, but the lack of people smoking and lack of a line assisted in my choice.
Tomorrow is definitely not a hiking day!

Shinjuku has many great tunnels, but this is the greatest. There is a travelator to the left, but since most people stand still on that, walking is faster.

I stopped here for my first coffee, nice leaves, nice water feature.

Japan really takes xmas seriously. Obviously it is known as fat man gift giving kfc day (seriously). Most office buildings will have a display equal to this, with a security guard who now has a job.

This is the Chuo park in Shinjuku. Most of it is roped off.

Here are the metropolitan towers, you can go up and enjoy the view for free, but not for me today (I have been before).

It was now late enough to head into the area west of the Shinjuku station and check out some ridiculous light fittings and aquariums and fax machines and new ghetto blasters with tape deck and holographic Christmas trees that project a Colonel Sanders on the roof.

There are lots of camera shops, many of them may be parts of the same shop spread across many buildings. My camera is still sold out everywhere. I could sell it for more than I paid.

I suspect this is the first Yodobashi camera store in all of Japan.

Time to leave Shinjuku.

This is the craziest level crossing anywhere in the world. A train comes every 30 seconds. You have to run to get across. It is right by the Sunroute plaza hotel in Yoyogi, which really should just be renamed the Australian tourist hotel.

Time to take a walk through the Meiji Jingu shrine area, without actually seeing the shrine. I have seen it many times before. This photo came out weird, the tree canopy looked great to the naked eye.

The shrine area has the loudest loud speaker system even encountered. I had to put my fingers in my ears. It makes announcements about smoking, littering, crows, dogs. Not at all peaceful despite the announcement declaring that the area is a peaceful place. I saw some other tourists joke about this while I was thinking it, they even offered up the classic "how's the serenity?" line.

Time to flee the loudspeaker onslaught.

Next up it was time for a brief visit to Yoyogi park. There were a lot of people but none of the silly fun stuff that used to go on here.

A lot of Indonesian indentured servants have the day off on Sunday. Just like Hong Kong. Really, they have been holding protest marches about poor treatment in recent times... just like Hong Kong.

Now for the new things in Shibuya. Here is one of the new buildings on one corner.

And on the opposite corner is this fancier one. They both have outdoor gardens. It was very busy here, so I did not go in. Also damn hot.

Instead I headed to the brand new Fender cafe. That entire building is Fender guitars new building, complete with hello kitty guitar ad on the screen, more on that shortly.

Inside is a whole lot of expensive guitars that are 1 of only 2 allowable designs, strat or tele. They really stretch this concept to death, releasing 'new' models all the time which are always the exact. same. thing.

The store is nice, there is a very basic cafe in the basement.

This is the only guitar they have that is remotely different. Hidden in a corner as if they are embarrassed by it.

This is what they should be embarrassed by, but no, it is a giant poster in the entry. Am I now cancelled for picking on Billie?

No joke, this is currently, easily the top selling Fender worldwide. There is a wait list.

I stood here to take a photo of a ridiculous line down the street for a hamburger store (at least 100 people), when the even more ridiculous thing of westerners driving annoying go karts in onesies went past. There are so many of these go kart groups now they are at risk of smashing into each other. I think I saw 10 different groups in the 1 hour I was in the area.

This star wars toy shop was actually good. A lot of huge things to look at that are not for sale, and they were happy for you to take photos. A lot of shops in this area, including the Fender shop above, are actually not selling anything, they are just trying to outdo each other for band awareness.

Time to head into Shibuya proper. I was here the other day at night for the cancelled Halloween display. Now I am back in blazing sunlight.

I headed up to the fairly new roof garden that looks like it is on an old train line, but I do not think it is. Very busy. A lot of it was also roped off because it looks like it is falling apart, and then another area was roped off for a Sake tasting event.

It was very hot on the roof garden, too hot for rock climbing and skate boarding. So instead I headed back to the subway Ginza line, which because Shibuya station has been under re-construction for 20 years now, was very difficult to find! Signs pointing to Ginza line were wrong. Temporary fencing made many suggested routes impossible. For all the time I have been coming to Japan, the Shibuya station has been a frustrating experience.

Here is the palm, in all it's glory. It is quite long too.

Mixed messages. It is the palm, there are Italian flags everywhere, and a lot of giant heads of this guy. Stay on message! They need to get to Fukui fast.

Here is my dinner. If it is possible to deep fry, Japan will find a way.

The shopping street has some offshoots too, which quickly become abandoned and gloomy.

At the end of the gloomy bit, a really dark NIGHT SHRINE. All caps for possible band name.

After shrining for a while I decided to head back to the light, Italian flags (light poles) lead the way.

And for my last pic of the night, strap in, this will be peak nonsense. This is a French themed all frozen food supermarket named 'Picard' as in Jean-Luc located in Japan, which is similar to the 'Iceland' chain that is based in England. Yes, I managed to fit 4 country names into a sentence describing bags of frozen peas.
Tomorrow is not a hiking day, due to a combo of rain and remaining days in my schedule on this trip.

Although it was a bit rainy when I woke up, by the time I took this photo while I was standing on a platform with no trains coming (behind me, they were coming in the opposite direction), the rain had almost stopped. The possibility of rain is why today was not a hiking day. The mountains near Odawara, which is where I will go hiking tomorrow, were covered in cloud all day.

Many hours after starting my journey, I was in Odawara, and exited the station on the wrong side.. which lead to me going through the castle backwards.

I was on the wrong side of the tracks, but since I like these photos, that was a good thing.

Here is the castle. Just kidding. It is castle ruins under excavation, and probably future extension to the recently re-created Odawara castle.

There is an actual castle. It is fairly modest, but they have found a measure that puts it in the top 10, stay tuned.

The flower festival was packing up. Time to pay the $6 fee to go in, they take credit card.

Look! Odawara castle is the 7th highest in the country. I have been to most of these. Osaka is actually number 1? Himeji at number 5 seems wrong, and where is the excellent Matsuyama? I have doubts about how they are measuring this.

The inside of the castle was pretty boring. They had big tv's with ads for things like bike hiring and a local video game tournament, so instead I will focus on the view with 4 x view shots. That is Hakone over there, a place I have never actually been to.

The ocean. I shall head over to the ocean once I am done with the castle.

Odawara city. As you can see, it is an actual city, too big to be called a town.

Over there, in the cloud, are the mountains I climbed the day before yesterday including Mount Tanzawa. The one about 2/3 to the right is where I will go tomorrow, Mount Oyama. It looks to be just out of the cloud. I am hoping for clear skies tomorrow.

I paid the extra $1 on the castle admission to get me into the tiny Samurai museum. Here is the whole museum. Could have saved a dollar.

The inner moat has been de-moated. But it has a red bridge.

I thought there might not be a moat, but it turns out the outer moat is extensive.

The outer moat also has a red bridge.

Time to hit the beach. Ahhh, here is a typical Japanese bridge, under a freeway overpass. This is the main beach in this area! It is advertised as a tourist feature of Odawara, known as Miyuki beach.

I declare this to be photo of the day.

Tsunmai watch. This area is listed as one most likely to be destroyed by a Tsunami! Not joking, I read that when researching where to go in Odawara.

Whoever teaches all these activities at this gym is very skilled.

There are quite a lot of shopping streets around Odawara station. Also a lot of new construction going on.

And here is the station, from the grander side where the bullet train stops. Quite grand.

Final shot for today, some more silvery clouds creating an almost twilight effect.

Kawasaki station is very large, despite not having a bullet train. There are a few non JR lines going through here as well.

These buskers are named 13c32%, I have no evidence that they actually sing, but they do great detailed intros thanking their fans for commenting on their instagram.

Time to cross the road and get away from the station.

A lot of neon around here.

This is La Cittadella, an Italian themed mall with a lot of Indian restaurants and a basketball court.

It also has a glowing blue space laser.

These guitars are all killer. I will show myself out.

Grilled vomit! This is actually ready to eat. It is supposed to be runny!

There is one decent Shotengai in the area. It was a bit late by now so many places were closing.

As always, the far end of the Shotengai over the road fades out pretty fast.

When in Kawasaki it is vitally important to make sure you enjoy the music & the glasses.

Last pic of the general area of Kawasaki. Tomorrow is a hiking day. Current predictions are for a sunny day.