Trip 13 to Japan - October and November 2025 - Page 5

It appears to have rained all night. Lots of puddles but no rain now. There is mighty Mount Bizan, with some fog hanging around. I headed straight to it hoping to experience fog.

Looking back towards the station, and there are palm trees. It does not seem very tropical at the moment.

Japan is so peaceful and quiet, except it is not. There are thousands of idiots driving around in a van equipped with huge loud speakers. Normally they are preaching the greatness of Donald Trump and the desire to return to being a country closed to foreigners, this one however is advertising an animated film called Dragon Heart.

Bottom shrine is a red shrine. Stay tuned, there are a lot of shrines.

At first there was a staircase. It was a bit crumbled and possibly about to slide off the mountain. I expected this to last to the top.

The staircase ends at this bizarre makeshift seating area with coke crates and bamboo. What was strange is that there are numerous real seats very nearby, including some undercover.

After the strange rest area, the mossy ascent commences.

The cable car was not running yet for customers. It briefly did a test run just as I went under it.

Tokushima below. There will be better views soon.

Fog time! I love fog.

There was also fog yesterday but I messed around trying to find a good spot to take a photo of it, and it disappeared while I was not taking a photo. I did not make that mistake today.

Nice view. Nice clouds.

Once at the top, and here is the promised smoking area, Buddhist facility of some kind, and communication tower covered in blue shade cloth.

Tokushima is large, but not very dense.

It extends a long way around the coast.

Time to start my descent. More fog!

Below the fog line, surprise ferns.

There were a huge number of similar structures all over this small mountain.

Next shrine. Not red.

The bottom shrine is behind me. I had to focus on not falling down these stairs.

And then as soon as I was down from the mountain, glorious sunshine.

Next up, the castle. Nice moat and bridge. The sign talks about this being a historic wooden bridge and various battles. It is now however, concrete.

A rose garden. Not as extensive as the one I visited in Tokyo a few days ago, but not bad.

All of the grounds around the big hill the 'castle' is on were nice.

Here it is. The castle. There is nothing left, not even foundations. It is hard to believe there was ever one here.

And finally, they have also seemingly tried to ensure there is no view. This is the best I could do. There is Mount Bizan from earlier too.
That was a lot of photos for a rest day.

Tokushima is the king of pedestrian overpasses in Japan. Taipei still has it beat overall, but in Japan, nowhere I know of has so many of these, including the great 4 way ones to assist you in crossing diagonally, or just running laps.

Because I can read Chinese characters, I now realise this is a rice vending machine station. There are a few grades on offer, the most expensive being 5kg for 5,000 yen ($50). I don't think we have unmanned rice vending stations in Australia. Also, new style bank notes not accepted, 500 yen coins not accepted, yet it is cash only. It really seems as though they prefer to not sell rice.

I entered the Aeon mall through the Aeon supermarket.

Tonight is the super beaver moon (seriously), so I wandered out along here to look at it. I have no zoom so the photo is useless, instead check out the Aeon mall sign.

Inside is much the same as all mega malls, except carpeted.

This shop sells nothing but bean bags.

Now for the food court. It was large enough and nice looking, but then I noticed upstairs was a restaurant floor.

And so I headed up to the slightly more expensive food. In hindsight, cheaper would have been better.

Because here is my small serve of pasta, over priced at about $12, although I think it may have included all you can drink coffee and soft drinks. It was not a Salzeriya (popular chain store), they had one of those too, those are super cheap. Also I did not expect it to have bacon, in fact I think it translated to vegetable pasta.
Tomorrow is a hiking day, with a bus, cash only bus that comes once an hour.

The bus stop to get off at is called Takara. It is about 1km from the bus stop to the start of the trail. There are no convenience stores, there are drinks vending machines (cash only).
Today I will walk up the right side, all the way along the mountains in view, and down a ridge just off to the left of the screen.

This is as close as there is to a shrine today. Very surprising.

Also surprising, the first part of the trail behind the gate in the above pic, is the hardest part to follow, there are many other ways up, I think one of them is more popular than the circuitous route I had selected.

Lower parts were nice and ferny. I saw a foot long black worm of some description, or maybe it was a baby snake.

The odd bits of sun add drama.

Not great light for this excellent view, but not bad anyway.

I will go up there.

I suspect this is going to have some big power lines added to it soon. There are plenty of others with similar gouges in the landscape.

There are a couple of roads to cross on today's route, including one that comes to this secret base in the woods.

Here is the next shrine. Who has seen Spinal Tap?

Arriving at the summit of Nakatsumine (I think), and you have to go through a hole in the wall. Maybe the shed through the hole is a shrine, but I don't count it as one.

Official summit area has no view.

Because of the nice warm dry weather, farmer's have commenced burning piles of plastic all across Japan.

What are these things hanging from the branches? Some sort of warning? The only person I saw all day is sitting behind me playing a harmonica, an old lady with no teeth. Is she a witch?

OK, I know what this whole area is, but if I did not already see it on the map before I started the hike I would assume it was a ski field, without ski lifts.

Apparently, this is a practice area, but for what?

This whole area is a hang gliding park. There was no one at all here, and I am not convinced it is actively used.

The reason I think it might no longer be used, this departure ramp runs straight into big trees. Also if you squint you can see a few big wind farm style windmills in this pic, in my experience these are a rarity in Japan, there are solar farms everywhere but very few wind farms.

I stopped here for a protein bar. 20g of protein, I'm ripped now.

Nice tree cave, small amount of Autumn colour.

After departing the hang gliding park, it was time to go along a long ridge joining 2 summits. It was quite rocky at first.

I was tempted to use Adobe Lightroom's new AI replace feature to get rid of the wire, but that is a slippery slope.

So instead I doubled down, here are some more wires.

On the way down, bamboo time.

Bonus view photo.

Now it was time for some more ferns.

This reminded me of the bonus bit of the hike I did a couple of years ago on Miyajima.

And then finally, back at the bus stop, and my bus came right on time. Great relief.

There is a river running through Tokushima. They put some lights and things on the various bridges, but the water front seems very under developed.

This is Awaodori Kaikan. A tourist information building (with cable car station) that specialises in paid Buddhist dance performances. I was too late to see the dance.

The bottom of the dance exhibition cable car station also features a tourist souvenir shopping extravaganza. The dark blue (indigo?) theme seems to be a local speciality, I noticed dark blue dyed flowers in many of the local florists.

This is the night club area. I really do think I am too early to see anyone at all here. Oh well, I will have to go clubbing another time.

Back near the station, and there are people, look at them all!

And finally, time for my dinner, at ubiquitous Coco curry. So ubiquitous they have an outlet in Tokushima. It is not as good as it was many years ago, and much of the menu on the touch screen was unavailable at this branch, but you do get to customise, which for me means less rice more spice.
Tomorrow I go to Takamatsu. I could just about walk there.

Before departing Tokushima, it was time for another lap, at dawn. Here is the river, with boats, none of them were moving though.

A random Tokushima street with mostly closed down businesses. I suspect Takamatsu will be quite different in this regard.

One last view of a basically completely closed down Shotengai.

Here is my 2 carriage 1/4 reserved seating limited express, covered in cartoon characters, because of course it is. A lot of people were excited to take photos.

Inside is a train. I was surprised it is only 2 carriages. Admittedly the bus is cheaper, maybe most people take the bus, but does the bus have cartoon characters on the ceiling, probably.

Here is my lunch, because I was too early to check in. The fruit and vegetable smoothie drink is a favourite I discovered on a recent trip to Korea, it really is thick like a smoothie, I do not want to know how they thicken it. The sandwich from left to right is, corn, tomato and cucumber, potato salad. All nice enough, even the corn, but the potato salad is my favourite.

Now for my hotel room, it is a Daiwa Roynet, same chain as in Tokushima, but an older style of room. Although located a bit away from the station, it is attached to the WORLD RECORD HOLDING LONGEST SHOTENGAI, and is on top of a shopping mall too. Annoyingly you have to take a lift up to the 8th floor, where the hotel starts, and then transfer to another lift. Convenience with extra steps. However, under $100 a night, and a great desk and chair.

The bathroom is nowhere near as good as the excellent shower blaster room within room setup that Tokushima had.

But it does have a great view, shot through glass, with a view of the nearby flat top mountain.

OK, at first I thought, this is a parallel non related bit and I will just walk down here and find the start of the proper one.

Then I just cut across to the main one with this perpendicular one. I am tired of typing Shotengai, so I will just use non descript terms.

Here is where I thought the start proper was, and I expected 2.7km of uninterrupted roof.

There is a domed section near the start, I couldn't capture it all in one shot.

Christmas illuminations have commenced.

This bit is my hotel, which is on top of the mall with the escalators. I am already annoyed about waiting for the lifts with the mall crowds to get to the 8th floor so I can change lifts. A stupid system. I think my next hotel in Okayama has the same setup too.

Here is the next bit, I think there actually is a roof covering the road.

Free concert, Jesus of course.

As you head further along the main bit, it thins out a bit, but not to Tokushima levels of desolation.

No roof over this bit!

Off to the side is a big shop on top of a non JR train line. I did not properly explore. It was about here that I saw the map explaining that the total length is all the different non related bits of Shotengai combined, and I am convinced Kobe is bigger.

I gave up trying to measure 2.7km once I realised it was all lies and went for ramen, an unappealing colour, but very nice.

The back streets between all the Shotengai areas are also quite busy, much more so than Tokushima. Apparently by population, Takamatsu is 414k, Tokushima is 250k, but the way they count population here is misleading as it is not metro area or built up area, it is by council or county area, similar to the USA.
Tomorrow is supposed to rain... hiking may be delayed.