Back to Japan for the 11th time - October and November 2024 - Page 1

The traditional departure photo, taken the evening before departure. What is this? It is the view of the new feature from my apartment window. Scaffolding. A few years ago they added 3 more levels to my building, and wisely constructed them out of highly flammable petrol soaked plastic. So now they have to rip that down and rebuild it. I predict the scaffolding will be there for a year. I get to watch hi vis guys swearing and smoking all day.

This is just a space filler photo really. The Virgin Lounge in Melbourne. At least you can get a quiet seat in here, unlike the Sydney one in which you generally have to fight 10 guys just to get a cup of warm tap water. It is a good thing I can sit far away from others as the roof structure in here really helps amplify the sounds of everyone's horrific expulsions of holiday ruining pathogens.

And here are some jets (photographed through a blurry window), including mine. I will go all the way to Japan on a tiny 737 Max death plane supplied by the fine folks at Boeing who no longer tighten bolts.

Here is the little 737 max 8 that will take me to Japan. Again this is shot through blurry tinted glass. You can tell it is one of the new faulty Boeing's by the wingtips that are overly complicated and prone to failure.

This is basically, all of the international terminal at Cairns airport. The cafe must hate it when the connecting flight is delayed as mine was, there was basically no time for people to get any food. I was almost first off and barely had time to inhale half a sandwich and burn myself on a terrible expensive coffee.

LOOK AT MY COOL MASK! I am the only person wearing one, including all the Japanese people. I guess they are going home and do not care as much, perhaps they wore one on the way here. Now to sit back and wait for the tiny drip feeds of water they offer on this 7.5 hour flight. They bring the communal bottle around maybe 3x if you are lucky.

Hotel room photo lovers rejoice, for your time is now. This room is small and dated and cheap. But the bed is big.

The toilet. Also dated.

OMG it is me. Proof I was here. This could also double as a hostage photo.

And then as mentioned, time for a wander. A nearby street. Lots of people around, but then it is Saturday night. Some girls had actual prices stuck to themselves, and they were not all the same price. I wonder how it feels to be the discounted one standing next to the premium product?

And for my last photo of a long day with the rare 3 updates, here is a restaurant. With more school girl quasi sex workers standing out the front selling octopus.

First up, I went looking for early coffee, on a Sunday. Impossible. Instead I boarded the train to cross the city to Ome where it was 8am by the time I arrived which means coffee was then available. No coffee before 8am on Sunday in Japan! I will get elected on changing this to 6am.

I changed trains at Tokyo station, and enjoyed some liminal space all to myself. OK, apparently liminal also is not a word, despite liminal space being the cool thing for kids to say these days.

Here is Ome station. If you continue along this line you will get to Okutama via Mitake. It is a popular route on Sunday's for hikers, they run a couple of holiday special rapid services that only stop 4x from Tokyo to Ome. These are not limited express trains, just regular price ones that stop at only a couple of major stations. Ome is the very start of the valley with mountains on both sides, hence it is the start of the Ome hills route.

I crossed over the tracks and passed a cat cafe. No time for feline fondling today.

The view from the bridge. I cannot resist a train track photo.

No need to go to Fushimi Inari. This is where I joined the trail, although there are many places you can start from.

I picked a few tasty mushrooms to snack on all day. Maybe I could send some back to a remote church community in Australia to commit mass murder with?

It seems I chose a lesser used trail to join the main trail from. Fallen trees and lots of spider webs, which accurately confirm no one else has walked along here recently.

But then as soon as you join the main trail, lots of other people. As you shall see parts of it are wide enough to drive a car down.

A surprise abandoned Buddhist temple, complete with a gold statue inside. There were a few construction vehicles scattered around suggesting they might be trying to fix it up, but also a lot of falling down sheds full of rocks and rusty bits of previously fallen down sheds.

Behold, the main view photo of the day. Not much view today.

Next I passed an orchard. There was a nearby sign warning of a bear sighting in June 2023.

There are a lot of side trails to go on over little peaks such as this one. But none have a clear view down.

The main trail seems to come and go. This bit is over the other side of the ridge complete with retaining wall.

But then it becomes narrow in places. It does not really make sense.

I like the ankle snapping tree route trails.

Thankfully Japan's relentless logging industry provides the occasional suggestion of a view.

Grey clouds all day, but no rain to speak of, yet.

And then right at the end of the journey, Mount Raiden. The mountain named after the dude from Mortal Kombat. No view at all. Also just to the left of the photo there were a bunch of Ham radio nerds with their various antennas hanging from trees. They really did not want their photo taken, as I arrived they said 'please no photo', so I did not photo. I kind of wonder if they were spreading last minute election misinformation.

The path down was very well maintained with an almost brand new staircase.

And then I exited to the road, and realised I have been to this road junction before. On the last hike of my last trip, I took the left fork here and went to Mount Takamizu. On my first hike of this trip I came down the right fork from Mount Raiden. I did not plan this and had no idea I would pass this point until I got here.

Approaching the sky train.

Here come some other hikers who I would guess are doing the Mitake gorge trail as it starts / ends here, in the middle of nowhere. There is a station here but not really a town.

And here is the station. Tiny. I probably photographed it last year when I would of got off here to go to Mount Takamizu. Today I will get on here to get back to Tokyo. Short hike today but I almost fell asleep on the train on the way back!

I started my journey following the train tracks and found a lot of places to take photos of lights reflecting off the underside of bridges. Here is the first one.

This is a very long section of new looking under the tracks restaurants and boutique shops. The restaurants looked too fancy for me, date nights were going on with guys handing over flowers and puppies. There is a similar section of tunnels beneath the tracks between Ueno and Akihabara, so I guess they are doing similar things everywhere.

Under bridge neon shot number 2.

Occasionally I came out from the under the tracks tunnels and followed the street alongside the tracks, which was also photogenic.

But my hunger soon got the best of me, so it was time for cheap ramen. The ramen man yelled at me in Japanese a lot, I just glared at him. That is not racist, if he yelled at me in English I would just glare at him too.

The local gambling den has halloween decorations and cartoon motifs to entice the kids in. Wait until they learn about same day multis! Japan is great, but it is even better with a same day multi!

My camera is still out of stock everywhere in Japan. For 5 years it has been out of stock. Also electronics are more expensive in Japan than in Australia, even with the favourable exchange rate at the moment.

It was now time to head out into the rain. At first it was just a bit moist and reflective.

I found myself Ginza adjacent, standing in the middle of the road above a freeway tunnel. People looking through clear umbrellas were concerned for my safety.

I decided to leave the main drag at Ginza for another night, this is a crossing one street over.

And then it started raining a lot more, so I walked back to Shimbashi and got wet. I have taken a photo in this spot before, on my last trip. Now I am staying in a hotel about 100 metres from here.

This photo is just to show that it is raining. Even though that is kind of a cool looking old brick building over there.

Nearby was this park. I believe it is a disguised smoking area. Since it was raining it was just me.

Time to do an environmental rant. Every single light pole in Ginza has these 2 fabric flags affixed advertising the season and some kind of event. They both have 2024 printed on them so they cannot be re-used next year. In a month or so a few thousand of these are garbage.

A very grey and damp Ginza.

I can never resist an overpass photo.

Now it was time to regret coming to Tsukiji. Last time I was here I got chased by an angry sushi chef wielding a meat cleaver who decided I was a homosexual (true story!). There are way too many people here lined up to get the same stuff you can get from every 7-eleven for cheaper. I think that the Japan food market game is weak compared to other Asian countries.

A less busy bit. I avoided the busiest bits. A lot of it was knocked down to make way for the Olympics that sort of happened during Covid. But they never actually built anything in it's place, construction is only just starting now. There has been a giant hole in the ground where the wholesale market used to be for many years now.

Time to start crossing some bridges. I have become very familiar with the very grey looking Sumida river.

That sky bridge connecting those 2 towers is kind of like the extending bit of the aerobridge you use to walk onto a plane. And I thought that was a bit weird. But then I thought about it and I guess the inner bit is on rollers so that when there is an earthquake and the towers sway that it does not pull off the side of one of the towers.

Next bridge.

Artificial islands and grey skies.

Here is one of the whaling vessels in dry dock being serviced ready to join this years hunt.

Apparently it is actually the maritime college. I do not know what this building is, perhaps an old observatory to teach people how to navigate by the stars.

Garden time. The yellow arrow helped me avoid confusion.

If you are going to take photos like this in a place like this then I am going to take your photo and put it on the internet.

The water was slime green. Maybe it is St Patrick's day?

The guy in the boat has the loudest of 2 stroke motor's, which means I must type, how's the serenity?

OK, one more green lake shot.

This would look really nice if the sun was shining.

The final bridge for the day is a blue bridge, the greatest bridge of all.

And in a rare treat, a real lunch. I was the only guy in here, I made all the women nervous. A bit pricey, but it was the Takashimaya department store basement on Ginza.
Will it be raining this evening? No idea. Will it rain enough tomorrow to stop me going hiking? Hmm, that will be a more difficult decision.

Here is one of the busy streets around my hotel. I should have had dinner here, many many more choices than can be found around the much larger Shinagawa station.

Just a regular back street, but with the Tokyo tower in the distance. Would be better if I had zoom, but I do not.

Stain glass Starbucks. The newest kind of Church. In Australia Starbucks is owned by 7-eleven, which is in turn owned by 7-eleven Japan since earlier this year (Seven & i Holdings Co) which is about to be bought out by the hilariously named Canadian owned convenience store mega conglomerate 'Couche-Tard'. If you were to call someone a couche-tard you might get accused of committing a hate crime.

Here it is in all it's glory, the ruins of the Takanawa gate, right in the middle of a footpath with construction equipment parked on it.

Shinagawa station is a bullet train station, so there are a lot of people. The department store food courts however are pretty disappointing, mainly hamburger places.

My aforementioned dinner from Sukiya. A beef bowl with kim chi, yes I know it is called gyudon. It was so cheap that I added on the side salad, and then tipped it in with the beef and rice. My lunch was expensive so here is the result of that, cheapest dinner possible.

Not many photos tonight, so here is a bonus pic back at Shimbashi where there is an old steam train parked in front of the station. There are a lot of old people playing multiple phones worth at once of Pokemon Go (read that twice). Hopeless addicts.