Japan 2015 - Tokyo - Nagoya - Hiroshima - Shimonoseki - Fukuoka - Page 4

The local NTT Docomo building needs a lot of antennas, so they stacked a heap of platforms on top of each other to make a delicious earthquake platform sandwich.

I passed city hall on the way to the castle, which of course had a few vans with huge speakers out the front screaming obscene political messages.
There is something about the way the commentators speak when they do this, I think they are mocking politicians by deliberately speaking as if they have mental issues. They change the pitch of their over a huge range of octaves and deliberately stutter.
It is hugely annoying and can generally be heard all over every Japanese city at all times.

The moat around the castle has no water.

Instead its full of plastic bags of rubbish. Welcome to landfill castle, 500 yen entry.
I guess the cleaners just lob bags over the wall.

There is of course a flower show on, and WHAT A FLOWER SHOW. I looked at this for longer than the castle.

I was amazed by these bonsai flower things.

So much so that I kept taking pictures.

I thought I better include the castle also.

One more particularly amazing example. I will be pissed off if I find out its an old log with flowers glued to it.

Castle time.

There are people everywhere ensuring you do not sit down. They have a few decoy chairs and benches around to see if you dare ignore the sign.
I hung around for a while to see if anyone was stupid enough to do so, but no one was.

These are the famous Osaka fish, now in Nagoya.

The view from the top was great, lots of color, very clear day.

And so many mountains.

Last one of the castle.

Except for the deer swimming in the moat. Yes, Nagoya has deer in the centre of the city.

This samurai guy is wearing a smurf hat and eating an ice cream. Thats worth a photo.

Someones wedged a ball in the street.

Homeless people here have elaborate set ups. You can pay for a tour of their pile of crap, but I was out of 100 yen coins.

Lunch was a delicious vegetable curry, apparently distinct from the others due to it being Kanazawa style. It was identical to all others, which means it was great.

And heres a post box. Somehow it doesnt get vandalized.

On my way to Oso I went past an entire street of xmas decoration shops. Litreally 20 stores in a row. What do they do the rest of the year?
Perhaps xmas is year round in Japan now.

The temple suggested the start of shopping streets.
Wherever theres a temple, its to pray for a bargain.

Theres a network of 4 or 5 covered mall areas.

I tried on a maid outfit.

Then I waved at the giant cat for a while, whilst smoking teenagers got uncomfortable by my presence and left.

Crazy cyclists.

This second hand guitar shop was awesome. Its a shame I dont need or want anything.

I wasnt particularly hungry, so ordered what appeared to be a small meal in the plastic window version.
It was however quite large, and came with some flower petals, clear noodles that may have been potato or possibly tapeworms, and 3 green beans. Perhaps they are magic beans.

I wasnt sure if I had got off at the right place, its a tiny station.

My walk to the monkey park was with this cat. My loyal feline friend followed me the entire journey. I never saw a person!

I saw lots of solar cells like these though.

One of the only other adults in the monkey park, this guys is recording monkey noises. It was really very noisy in here, and when a fighter jet went over they all went crazy.
Thats when our friend with the microphone got really excited.

The enclosures werent too bad by Japanese standards.

I was on high alert.

The park had a lot of elevated walkways like this, and they seem to move the monkeys around the park to different enclosures using them.

This was absolutely fascinating to the amassed children below. Every school group had a different colored hat. I dont know if they all agree, or if they distribute them to kids at the gate. I did not get offered a hat.
I did get yelled at a lot 'HELLO!' the best answer is, 'Ni Hao Ma?'.

Some monkeys have a great view.

But they mainly prefer the ground.

Two will enter, one will leave. Also, high school kids wear dental assistant uniforms.

You can go onto islands filled with smaller monkeys such as this Bolivian squirrel monkey. They are super fast.

I could have been killed.

The common Japanese monkey gets a really poor enclosure, these ones are getting injected with aids next week.

The view was pretty good though.

I was alone at this point and couldnt see any monkeys, they were above my head all along.

OK, thats probably enough monkey photos.

My walk through the forest was good, I could see various roller coasters and this huge ferris wheel, but none were operating. The distorted music piped through the forest made it somewhat surreal.

Not only was it a theme park, but also a graveyard. Possibly from the monorail. Maybe thats why it stopped running.

Every time a jet went over, I tried for a photo. This is the best I could do.

I have no idea whats going on here.

The other side of the river is another town. I thought about walking to Gifu but it was too far (20km).

I had to time my run across the bridge because trains came quite regularly.

I spotted the castle.

Kyoto does this better.

Behold, a real castle. It may be small, but its not constructed from pre fabricated concrete.

You had to remove your shoes to go inside so as not to damage the wooden boards.

The view from the top was rewarding. I took a nice panorama shot too which I might upload later.

I think those huts on the bridge are used by fishermen, I recall seeing a sign in the town about it.

Last photo of view.

Oh the shame. I could feel the gaze of disapproving Japanese grandmas. Every sock I own has holes in it about 30 minutes after I put them on.

At first this shot might be superfluous, but I was surprised at all the blossoms on trees. I am here for leaf season not blossom season. Must be El Nino.

The walk back to the station, along the official tourist route, all looked like this. I avoided it on the way to the castle due to my excursion to the monkey park.

When walking from my hotel to the station, I kept seeing what I thought were pedestrian underpasses to cross the road.
Turns out theres the saddest mall of all down there. Most of the shops are old man hairdressers, used book shops, fortune tellers and best of all was a place that sells old fishing gear, presumably salvaged from the bottom of a river.

Japans version of the twin towers. Actually quite impressive. Theres another very tall building too, which has double decker lifts like they have in Dubai.

The malls under the twin towers are a lot more modern and shiny, with a whole heap of starbucks stores.

I settled for some kind of eggplant surprise stew, because they would seat me.

Underneath what I think was called midland is an entire row of high end chocolate shops all serving high tea. A triple stack of little cakes and sandwiches was only about $20. Too bad I had already eaten.

This Maserati would have to be a special order color, the same dental uniform green that high school students wear.

Christmas decorations in Japan are out of control. Inside every shop, on every street corner, in every tree.
In this alternative version of the nativity, Joseph is looking for a place to land so Mary can have baby jesus.

The canal through Nagoya is not quite as impressive as the one in Osaka.

And this is as close as I have seen to vandalism on these little statues that are everywhere. A person nearby seemed annoyed that I wanted to photograph it.

The station I changed at had no convenience store! Just a vending maching on the platform with cakes. I had a pink custard filled something. It was my only fuel for the day other than bottles of Pocari Sweat.
Should probably ensure I have something for breakfast on mountain day, its often a rush to get to the trains and transfer, and then I end up at the end of the line greeted by nothingness.

Just me and my train.

Getting off at the last station and theres no one there to stop me wandering around the tracks to look at their locomotive graveyard.

This photo is deceptive, as the actual peak is behind this and to the right, I think. Shame it was so hazey today.

I had no problem finding the start of the trail. Thankfully it was only concrete for a few metres, then became an excellent path of varying composition. Tree roots for a while, then gravel, then jagged stone, then slippery mud.

There were not a lot of colored leaves today, mainly big green trees.

Thats not to say there was nothing to look at of course.

Mainly these very tall cedars, blocking the view, and the wind.

Suddenly I arrived in the fernery.

It was a rare opportunity to see a view of sorts, about half way up here.
This used to be a looping course, but an avalanche destroyed the alternate way down.

Time to head into the cloud. It was actually cold when I stopped long enough to realise.

The first summit of sorts, has an emergency hut. Theres a couple of choices from here, I chose the one that goes to the highest point, about another hour away across a fantastic plateau.

Still have to go up the top of the bald mountain.

I greatly enjoyed the relatively flat plateau area. Being between 2 peaks it was shielded from the wind.

The view was excellent. By the way, I did not see another person, at all, the entire time I was on the mountain.
The internet warned of extreme crowds during autumn. That must only apply to weekends and holidays.

And after only a few moderately exhausting hours, I was at the summit.

Its a different sort of a view due to the haze. Either I am getting fit fast, or this mountain was a lot easier than the one from a few days ago.
There were no chains or ropes to pull myself up, and no water running down slippery rocks. The scenery was a lot different despite being only 50km away.

Here I am! I dont need any fancy gear, jeans and a long sleeve tshirt.

The most interesting thing on the walk was this old mall, which has a statue clearly stating 1989, probably its peak year. Despite all the harsh lighting, nothing was open here.

The food court in the Aeon however, full of people. The restaurants on the other floor all had line ups, so I went for the food court.

My noodle soup with pork and beef was delicious. Also had lots of vegetables. There were no napkins anywhere to be seen, and I saw some other people were using chux superwipes they presumably brought from home.
Therefore I ate extra carefully.

Boring mall pic. Quite a large place for Japan, very modern.

Row after row of claw skill testing machines.

I spent all my money trying to win a small piece of mystery sausage in plastic.

And heres the Nagoya dome. The walk from there down to the subway had pictures of all the players form the local baseball team, the Nagoya Dragons.
They have more than 200 players. All of them are Japanese.

Part of the 2015 touring expo for the non touring 'band', Exile. They are nowhere near as good as GLAY, the greatest Japanese band ever, with the worst name.

And here they are, all 19 of them each with their own unique personality and hair style, but matching leather.
You can get the Exile card which is part of the mastercard network and gets you 5% off all Exile merchandise.
I got my card with a picture of Nesmith, the tough guy with a heart of gold and an evil sense of humor.

UPDATE: It seems Exile were made famous due to a collaboration early in their career with GLAY. Proof I know my stuff.

Back near my hotel, and there were thousands of people out on a Friday night. The local Don Quixote was packed out. There were lots more lights on than other nights.