Japan 2015 - Tokyo - Nagoya - Hiroshima - Shimonoseki - Fukuoka - Page 7

At the suggestion of my mother and because I had heaps of time before my train, I went up to the roof of Fukuya to enjoy the view.

Would have been better to do at night. I climbed up on things to hold my camera over the dirty glass.

Time to enjoy my sandwich and lemon water. I have developed a real taste for white bread sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Mainly because of how cheap they are.

Todays bullet train was a different kind. Seating is 2 x 2 not 2 x 3, and its also empty apart from me.

It was nearly all tunnels today, apart from the 5 stops we made. I believe this one was at Tokuyama, which out the other window was a huge oil refinery as far as the eye could see.

I am the only person who got off at Shin-Shimonoseki. No one is anywhere on the platform. So I wandered about and missed my connection to the local train.

Which means I had plenty of time to examine in detail the stations tributes to Fuku. I will only use the correct Japanese spelling from now on.

Outside the main station in the city proper was a nice building, obscured by construction of course.

And then the giant phallus monument and observation tower which overlooks everyone in Shimonoseki, and mocks the sister city across the ocean in KitaKyushu.
This photo does not convey its true massiveness.

My hotel is a dormy inn premium again, it is identical to the one in Nagoya.

Bathroom also the same. Now to go back to the washing machine and see whats going on in the ladies locker room.

Giant phallus changes colors at night. I couldnt find anything of interest around the bottom of it. By all accounts the restaurant at the top is terrible and expensive.

I marched up 155 steps on what appears to be a man made mini mountain to this temple. It was creepy up there all alone.

There are no people. I might have actually been too early for this area as theres big neon signs for hostess bars that are still turned off at 6:30pm.

There is also no English anywhere, apart from this sign, telling me in English how to speak Japanese.

My only friend was this cat, who is proudly guarding what remains of a once thriving Little Busan area.

This building is a civic centre, I cant tell if its fake or not. I am fairly certain what looks like a grand library on the roof is fake and made out of polystyrene.

I took a seat and waited for the xmas show, but it never started.

The layout of the mall was infuriating enough, before I realised theres no way to go from one half of it to the other, note the gap between buildings here.

Heres how you get to the other half after walking through the multi level car park.
And on the subject of car parks, they are absolutely everywhere. Most of the tall buildings are car parks. Pachinko is one level of machines, 10 levels of car park.
Theres also no real underground, Daimaru has no basement, probably because we are on the ocean.

SHUT! Those people down the bottom are running. Was I about to be locked in? The lights went out.

Mister Donut, shut, Lotteria, shut, KFC, shut. Starbucks stayed open, I almost had a cake dinner.

But instead, I found a fantastic supermarket that stays open until 10pm. Seems to be quite an upmarket supermarket based on their meat, bakery, food and veg sections.

I got some sushi including dessert sushi, pickled cucumber Sichuan style which was awesome, and then a fantastic green tea flavoured dessert. It was all discounted too I think it cost about $5. Maybe I will get food poisoning.

All drain covers in Shimonoseki are of the beloved fuku, that can kill you dead if its prepared wrong.
Apparently the city is the only place in the world where you can study to be a licensed preparer of the fish.

My hotel is quite near the docks, this is the view between Honshu and Kyushu, from sea level.

Nearby along the coast away from the station is a fun park. It has a ferris wheel. Ordinarily I would go on it, but I had tunnels to go through.

The internet says they still drive this bus around town. I think the internet needs to be updated.

This is not Shimonoseki city area, its near the aquarium where you can see dolphin shows and the fun park pictured above.
I feel the restaurants here might be open past 7pm, but I could be wrong.

Next up is the wholesale fish market, where every kind of fuku is available.

I think its actually more for locals and tourists, since they sell a lot more than just fish, including plush toy versions of fuku.

My first view of the impressive bridge. More to come!

This is the big local temple with an impressive history I cant remember anything about now. Very nearby is a building where the treaty ending the Sino Japanese war was signed.

Behind the main temple, and the tourist buses, is another temple.

To get down I went through this. I kind of felt I was wandering around someones backyard though, so I used my ninja sneaking skills.

There were lots of cannons and gun fortifications on my journey today.
At some point, Japan signed a treaty to open up the place for trade. The local samurai decided they didnt like this version of the trans pacific partnership.
So they installed guns and sunk the ships of foreign traders.
France the UK and the USA all sent ships to bomb the place for a year or so. I think this was whenever the American civil war was.

The entrance to the tunnel was a rather bland building.

Now I go under the ocean, for about 750 metres.

Im straddling the border between 2 cities, 50 metres under the sea, BELOW the car tunnel and train tunnel.
It was quite windy at times, which I am guessing is the ventilation system.
Also it was much warmer the deeper I went.

I felt as though I walked downhill the whole way, but when I got to the otherside and turned back, I realised that was not the case.

To get to and from the tunnel on each side is actually a long lift ride down.
It is free to walk, theres s fee to wheel your bike or scooter.
One guy was riding his scooter, and a very very VERY angry voice came on over the loudspeaker system, absolutely screaming at him repeatedly. The guy just rode on with no care.

Now I am on Kyushu, lets get walking some more.

I came to a large food fair at a tourist port called Mojiko. Seemed like an excellent place to spend the whole day. But I had plans, stick to the plan.

More of the food fair in Mojiko.

This is a Russian designed building, identical to one in Harbin China. It symbolises the new peace between China and Japan, or did whenever it was built.
The big thing behind it has an observation deck on the top designed by a very famous architect whos name I now forget. Its not as new as it looks.

I believe this is a building that was constructed in 1920 to attract foreign thinkers to spend time in the city. Germans primarily.
I think Japan has had some selective history re writing done about it, because they mention Einstein came to stay along with other important figures of the era. Which means nazis.
This building is probably where they formed their alliance.

The paddle steamer is a HUMBURGUR shop.

How the hell do you eat this? Its Okonomyaki on a stick. Look at the fried egg wrapped around it. Theres no way that would have the structural integrity to be eaten.

Todays cat stalked me all the way back to the tunnel.

Cat did a good job protecting me from the gnomes.

Now for todays hilarity. This woman ignored the flashing lights for the rail crossing, and got stuck between the gates. You can see the train in the background.
The driver got down and absolutely yelled at her, taking photos, noting license etc.
The woman, middle aged, got out of the car and yelled at everyone, including me and others taking photos.
She then left managing to spin the wheels in anger in whatever tiny engined car that is.

Its only a small tourist train, but it would still cause serious damage to your car!

Back over the Honshu side, and no epic day is complete without climbing something. It was a short climb and the only option (apart from driving), because the cable car seems to no longer operate.

Dead cable car at the top, now for the view.

The view...

..was amazing...

...in every direction.
I took the best panorama ever, I really should upload it full resolution

Lots of foxholes etc. up here.

The view in the other direction, also awesome.

There is a revolving restaurant to appreciate the great view.
There is food on every table but no people? Maybe they have a booking and the bus is on its way.

Link to Hi Resolution 3000x2000 version
And the enclosed viewing deck is free, probably a great place to hang out in winter.

There is also a shop to buy frozen fuku at the top. Not sure why you would suddenly decide here is the best spot to buy some fish.

I thought I could walk over this mountain and down the other side, but I could not, so had to re trace my steps. This butterfly kept me company. There were no people, cause you can drive up.

Once I was back down, and another huge ship timed going under the bridge perfectly.

I walked / jogged along the coast for at least an hour between cities, I had drank a lot of water....I was very 'relieved' to get to this gian Aeon supermarket with hardware store attached.

This thing is the Toyota mascot. We dont get along.

Now I am in the historic Samurai town of Chofu, which has something to do with the Kamakura clan from up north. It was a beautiful town, all huge houses with gardens such as this.

There are castle ruins, they havent rebuilt it, shrines and famous Samurai houses everywhere.
Tonight and tomorrow is their xmas light festival, boy scouts were busy putting candles and things up every street.

This place seemed legit. Somewhere here is one of Japans national treasures, another one of their lists of things.

There was no English, but I think this is the tomb of the head of a shogunate or similar.

The streets of this place are all like this.

A lot of private houses are also open, some you have to pay to go in, others are really fancy cafes or antique shops / galleries.

Which contrasts with the actual main street of Chofu, which is a place 1965 forgot.

Kokura station is not only huge, its also where the famous monorail track ends. Normally more is better, except for tracks, when one is better.

Kokura has numerous covered shopping streets to wander around.

Now I stared at this for a while and I am convinced its an excavator on the bottom of the river that should not be there.
There were floating spill pontoon things surrounding the area, but they might put those up when they are digging anyway, however if it is a machine designed to work under water, how does it get power?
It would have to be diesel powered, and theres nothing there that looks like it might power it, so I think it was on a barge and slid off or sank.

Kokura is also encouraging buying day December 25.

Night castle. I climbed over a garden with keep off signs to take this photo.

There are at least 3 impressively sized department stores in the station area.

So, I wandered into one of the stores, and it had 50 places to eat, its 7:30pm, the signs said restaurants open until 22:30, but no, closed signs started appearing. Time to decide where to eat, fast!

What I ended up with was like a pot pie you would get form a pub in Australia, only with rice on the bottom and an egg on the top. Very delicious.

The Shimonoseki ferry terminal and immigration detention centre.

Like everywhere in Shimonoseki, you can get to the ferry terminal without ever descending to street level, thus ensuring there is no commercial business of any kind in the city.

The Hakata station in Fukuoka is quite a distance from the main downtown area called Tenoji, but its still a huge commercial area itself. this is Yodabashi.
Inside the train station gates there was a mini ramen festival going on, more on that later...

You can smoke inside burger king still.

The lobby of my hotel is impressive. It is an APA Excellent hotel, Im not sure what separates APA hotels from APA Excellent.
You will see soon how this hotel chain is a religious cult.

I headed into the excellent Loft store, and bought a scandanavian toilet seat cushion.

Mitsukoshi is huge but dated looking. Its also the Fukuoka station area, which is not where bullet trains go from.

This bullshit is the scourge of Japan. More idiots on a truck screaming all day with the huge air cannon speakers. Their voices echo across the entire city at all times.
It looks like a nazi rally. There are literally, 2 people watching them.

Now thats a department store. This is all Daimaru. The huge red building on the left and right, the central atrium and the glass tower in the middle.
I counted 17 levels plus 2 underground. I only ever go into the stores for the restaurants, but I have no idea how they can all be sustained financially.

This is the down town Ramen festival and competition of sorts, there seems to be judging. Tonight is the final night, so I guess thats dinner if I can get near the head of a queue and find a seat.
I cant eat ramen whilst standing, and I saw a lot of people wandering around looking uncomfortably for a seat at 3 in the afternoon.

The local big boss guitar store is fantastic.

More Bodens. These things are supposed to be rare. Every guitar store in Japan has at least 2.

I refuelled on some seaweed and dried fish flavoured star wars star shapes. They were terrible.

This is my room, probably the nicest room I have had so far. Its a bit dated but has been done up. Paper cranes on the bed.

You can tell that under the facade of new, is a lot of layers of old.

My late afternoon snack, pickled cucumber again, and fruit salad. Delicious, so healthy, need to go on diet or do more exercise, 40,000 steps a day isnt cutting it.

And now I will settle down to the free book provided in my room - Japan Pride - a proposal for revival.

Chapters include -

We must take back Japans glorious history.
The asahi shimbuns reporting on the comfort women issue is the medias worst crime in the postwar era.
Other media outlets are greatly responsible for permitting the asahi shimbuns reckless actions.

Out of 12 chapters, 3 are on 'the comfort women issue'. I mention it often here and when in China and in Korea, it really is a big deal.
The hotel group owner is a huge supporter of Shinzo Abe, and wants to invade China. Seriously.

Mitsukoshi is doing their part to sustain the power industry of Japan by putting millions of lights around the perimeter of their massive store.
Lots of people were enjoying them, including small children running and rolling down the grass hill. It was dangerous standing here, a mini Pikachu almost got me.

I dont even know what these places are, big stores in every direction.

Iwataya on both sides of the road, joined by the bridges above the road and the huge food area underground.

I wandered away a bit, and came across this store covered in tentacles and or tree branches. They continue throughout the interior of the store also.

Quite tasteful.

This is a working cuckoo clock. Its on the outside of a whole complex of covered shopping streets.

Star Wars Crocs.
How did Disney convince every single brand for every single product to pay them money?
I think they went to all of them and talked up how they were targetting them specifically for a Star Wars exclusive partnership, must maintain media blackout until whatever date.
Then on that date, every company in Japan revealed their Star Wars merchandise, and the cheese factory was annoyed that the shoe factory was annoyed that the toilet paper company was annoyed that the fridge company all had Star Wars everything.

I did indeed return for my Ramen. It was not as popular at night, didnt have to line up long and easily found a table.
All serves were the same price, you had to buy a meal ticket from a different stand, and then the stall you buy from puts their stamp on it and it gets counted to the total for best Ramen in all of Japan!

My ramen was pretty good, not sure it was the best I have had though!
It was whilst here I remembered tomorrow is a national holiday again, for 'Labour Thanksgiving Day' whatever that is.
I thought it was weird the ramen festival finishes tomorrow on a Monday. This may alter my plans.

Heres a streetside food stall my mother mentioned in the above comments. They are everywhere. Very much like the ones in Korea.
The difference is theres no smoke pouring out of these ones because they arent charcoal fired barbecue.

The shopping and dining streets around the Tenjin area seem to go on forever, I am yet to find where the neon ends.