Back to Japan for even more - Oct and Nov 2017 - Page 4

There are 41 photos to get through, so done expect witty banter, just matter of fact descriptions, in other words, get your scrolling wheel / swiping finger ready.
This is at the bottom of a valley after getting off the bus at Takao before ascending to Jingo-Ji temple.
I took a direct bus from Kyoto station which took just under an hour.

There were many red bridges today, at least 4.

Ascending the steps to Jingo-Ji shremple (shrine and or temple). It had a small admission fee, I paid cause I heard theres a sporting event to participate in.

Its not peak color, but already quite colorful. Lots of old people are here. Old German people filled the bus, they seem to have a thing where they get stamps for each shrine they visit.

Quite average looking, but I guess its old.

Nice colors, I will say that a lot today.

I nearly missed the best bit. I decline the map at the admission booth, but when I went back out I asked where the thing I was here for is, and took a map.
Should have taken a map in the first place. The walk up to it was splendid. Yes, SPLENDID.

Here is the view. I was ready to jump cause this probably cant be improved on, its all downhill from here.

Me pondering existence.

This is the sporting event I mentioned. You buy these clay discs and fling them off for luck, if you get too enthusiastic you might accidentally fling yourself off too.

I gave this one more of a matte look, for variety in amazing colors.

Once back at the bottom, I had to joing the nature trail along the river, this is not the way! I went over thinking it was.

Instead of the trail, its a big open air restaurant. There is without exaggeration about 100 metres of seating like this along the cliff.

Now I am walking along the magnificent river, yes MAGNIFICENT.

There are lots of places where you cross over on little bridges, allowing for great photos.

The light was really tricky, but I think some of the photos are OK. I took a lot, many appear similar and were removed.

Now I am at the start of Mount Atago. They give you a map! How convenient. This hike to the highest mountain in the Kyoto area is popular, and impossible to get lost, they have a sign marker every hundred metres.

Which means this guy 'went to the forest'. Missing since 2014, hes a skeleton now.

There was actually not much of a view, and none from the top, so I am glad I took this on the way up.

A bit more view, hard to see Kyoto all the way down there.

The top was a huge shrine complex. They have electricity somehow, and toilets, but there is no road up. So this was all constructed at the top somehow, long ago.

When you think you are at the top you actually have to keep going. The markers on the trail are to the toll gate. Thankfully there is no toll anymore. I couldnt believe how much work has gone into the shrine village at the top.

The shrine itself is all wooden, and apparently houses a stone tablet of some kind, which is all sealed away not to be opened for years.

This is the best I could do for a view from the top, actually a few hundred metres down from the top.

Just a random shot of the mountain path. The lower bits were all wooden/stone stairs cut into the mountain and steep. The upper bits were a wide rolling trail, I could jog down.

Now I am back at the river. I turned the color DOWN on this shot!

Most of the restaurants along the river seemed to still be in use, but not this one.

Another red bridge! There were so many I didnt even photograph them all.

Although I did photograph this one twice, I almost managed to hide the sheds behind it.

At times the path along the river was slippery rock, but most of the time it was a very well developed path, with excellent signage, and only 10 people in total.

More river, I am running out of adjectives.

Red bridge plus tunnel, what a combo!

And now surprisingly, to get back to Arashiyama I had to leave the river. You can continue along the river to another station, and its actually shorter distance, but for whatever reason I was determined to get to Arashiyama.

That is a railway bridge. This trail over the top of a smaller mountain was bitumen, but only used by cyclists.

Some really tricky light, but thats the river I was walking along.

More railway bridge. I missed the train going over by seconds.

And then I descended along the cycling road through a dark wooded valley into Toriimoto, which I had no idea I was going to, but was very nice, quite a few tourists.

Its a mix of businesses and private houses, I think these people are quite wealthy, I saw nice cars in garages.

One last one of Toriimoto, there were lots of expensive tiny eating houses. It was now that I realised I had forgotten to eat all day! I wasnt even hungry though.

To get back to the station I still had other shrines to go through. This one is Seiryo-Ji and is apparently a temple not a shrine.

Last photo finally, I enjoy the contrast of the temple gate and the coke machine.
I will re read this later, its probably typo riddled, time to go get dinner.

Sanjo Dori, a beautiful expanse of metal roller doors.

My favourite way to drink it.
Actually I have no idea if real beer is fizzy? I had fake beer at the Tokyo motor show in the form of Asahi Zero, and that was really fizzy, and tasted like my socks smell after a 40km hike.

Kyoto is very popular with cyclists. This is a supermarket, everyone comes by bike. Then they all aim at me.
Also bicycle lights are way too bright, my retinas are damaged.

These cats are now my only friends in Japan. They live here, the white one is a lot friendlier, and as a result, a lot fatter. He doesnt seem interested in moving at all.

My mother asked if there were any fabric shops in Shizuoka. No idea. Heres one in Kyoto. I am very helpful.

And finally, my dinner, a long time coming.
This may be close to the greatest pasta I ever ate! It took ages to prepare, I watched as it was prepared fresh.
It is beef and mushrooms and the last stage of preparation involved a blow torch.
I dont eat pasta often, but on this occasion I was very glad that I did.

Another great day of weather here in Kyoto. The BBC should take note.

The first train was a double decker train, just like in Sydney. Except here in Japan they are fully carpeted!
Imagine having a fully carpeted train on the run from Sydney Town Hall out to Blacktown.

My second train making the run up the valley of hysterical leaf experience is tiny. I like it. At each stop the driver opens a window to take your payment.

I caught it all the way to the end of the line, Kurama. Where the famous shrine is.

These pinocchio demons are very popular here.

The streets of Kurama are quite traditional. The light today was absolutely blinding.

Now we start to ascend the steps to the shrine in brilliant color.
There are bear warning signs, an elementary school and a kindergarten on the grounds. A tasty combination.

THWARTED! At first I thought I would just ignore this sign and take the path to Kibune anyway. But that proved to be impossible.

Yes, quite colorful.

Here is an enormous tree. Lots of people were looking up at this tree, so I looked up at this tree.
A Japanese man standing nearby had his hands on his hips looking extremely satisfied with the tree. He then decided to excitedly tell me about it in Japanese whilst pointing at its features.
No amount of telling him I dont speak Japanese could stop him, so I just let him run his course.

Todays view, nice clouds. Hard work in such bright sunlight.

Pretty close to peak color here! The sky was also extremely blue depending on the direction I was looking. I had to stop and marvel at various points.

A bit more marvelling from here.

They caught a baby dragon and bronzed it.

There are a lot of steps to the top if you are a pathetic weakling. If you are even weaker than that, theres a cable car. That will save you a good 5 minutes of walking and ensure you get no view.

The Temrine (temple/shrine) at the top is underwhelming compared to the view.

View from top. Too much sun.

More Shremple (shrine/temple). Still no way to get over the top.

I climbed to the top and was standing in front of this bell when a small Japanese grandma used her ninja skills to sneak up behind me and dong the bell with full force. I nearly plummeted.

After climbing back down to the bottom and finding an alternative path, I briefly followed a lesser quality path which I thought was heading more towards where I wanted to be.
Unfortunately it disappeared and became a sea of fallen trees so I had to double back.

However, here is a random spot deep in the woods, where my poorly formed path meets 3 others, with a plethora of signs and maps. I really do think this was quite a remote path, it really doesnt go anywhere anyone would want to go, and yet, Kyoto has provided lots of info to assist.

After a while the path became a bit more like a real path, so I bounded along, not really knowing where it would come out.

Then I came across this, deep in the woods. Its not a toilet. I think someone lives here! There are curtains and signs of life. No electricity. I didnt hang around to find out what goes on in the mysterious rape cabin in the woods on Halloween.

And then this is where my path came out. There were signs further up the valley to various shrines, but I needed to head back to a station.

My path took me past a huge quarry. I enquired if they needed me to run the rock crusher for a few hours, they didnt speak English.

Whilst I was mainly walking down a road, there was plenty to see. And unusually for Japan, most of the way had a footpath, so I would not get run over by quarry trucks.

After about an hour I arrived at Ichihara station. A tiny station.

And here is the previously mentioned leaf spotting train, with window facing seats. In certain areas with high levels of colored leaf density, the train slows down to walking pace, and the carriage echoes with gasps of astonishment.

After such a nice day I stopped off for a natural dandy perm. Everyone in Japan is a dandy.

On my way up the hill I passed a huge number of bowl shops. I also learnt from posters affixed everywhere that from tomrrow, it is officially Kyoto bowl week. It goes from the first to the eleventh of November.
This means Japanese weeks last 11 days.

The view from the top of the street. The actual temple area is closed and guarded, from 6pm. Security guards were convinced I was going to leap over the chain and ignore the signs and flashing lights and go in.
I get approached by an angry little man with an LED lit baton a lot in Japan.

All these shots are handheld, some are 1/20. Quite sharp, low noise, camera nerd.

Dark.

Still dark.

This is the main photo spot. Millions of photos have been taken from here. Even now I jostled past 5 guys with huge tripods.

Last one, lower down a few shops were still open selling I heart Kyoto t-shirts and sashimi flavoured toothpaste etc.

JAPAN STILL SELLS IVORY! Its even banned in China now.

My dinner was great. Yes its a ramen shop, but they are advertising an unedible style of Ramen from Chongqing containing Sichuan death peppers. Challenge accepted.
If you look closely at the photo, there are two spoons, the white normal one and a metal one that had lots of holes in it like a teabag strainer, for those too weak to eat the soup.
The waitress gave me all kinds of warnings when I ordered, but I really enjoyed it. It was actually numbing and spicy, I cried a little and couldnt feel my lips. Good times.

Another clear blue day! Tomorrow is cloudy I think, but theres no rain on the forecast at all. Enough weather talk, onto the temples.

Higashi-Hongan-Ji. This is the main one everyone sees walking from the station to Gion.

Made from real gold.

The grounds of temple number 2 have the flowers on show. The emperor sits on a throne made out of these and hurls insults at his daughter.

NishihonganJisensodoriyamaguchibashi. 'Possibly the largest wooden structure in the world'.

Still quiet here this early.

5 storey pagoda lurking in the distance, this sect of buddhists collect money for everything, get ready to run when you visit, they chase you.

Toe-G

A bit more of the Toji pagoda, I snuck around the back but the militant orange/brown robe army was in pursuit.

These are normal residential houses, between 2 train lines. The ultimate trainspotters paradise! I noticed the streets around here were littered with garbage, rent is probably cheap here.

Tofuku-ji. Everything here costs a huge amount of money! To climb up the gate, $10, go inside $10, go in the garden $10, use the bathroom, $5, get your shoes back when you exit $5.

They are also running a market on the grounds selling I heart Kyoto and 'KEEP CALM I'M A BUDDHIST' t-shirts.

I managed to get a view of the $10 garden without paying. A huge number of Japanese grandmas also were not paying, and standing here and making noises interspersed with coughing fits and uttering the word MOMIJI over and over again - clearly suffering from early onset leaf dementia.

Heres some more leaf view, I started to feel a bit dizzy.

And now heres my hotel room in Osaka, its marginally bigger than the one in Kyoto. Fantastic location about 100 metres to Dotonbori.
It is a dormy inn.

The bathroom has some alarming features. I cant work out how to correctly position this lever or why I would even need a lever at all.

Then there is this mystery tank of petrol below the sink. The text at the bottom says FEI CHANG YONG, which is important use, or perhaps, very useful! For what?

Glico man. And what is Glico? Nobody knows. When you type it into google, all the hits are for the neon sign in this photo, however they make Pocky! I should have known that.

People on a boat enjoying the view.

Shinsai Bashi, and lots of people.

Some more Glico man from the rivers edge.

Dotonbori, with added lighting. Those are bags of shopping rather then bags of rubbish. Future rubbish. Most things people buy are useless rubbish.

I was starving so I stopped off for some Fugu, fresh from Shimonoseki. Deadly poison, deadly poison, deadly poison... tasty fish.

I thought if I was going to die of fugu poisoning then I had better see the 6 boobed woman before I die. I waited in line but they never opened.

VEGETARIAN curry. And its lots and lots of colorful delicious vegetables. Why dont we get more Okra in Australia?

This is the window display cabinet of the Admski nerd goods store. Plain blank cassette tapes. Some of them are $70 AUD each! Glorious analog wow and flutter.

I forgot that running perpendicular to the above ground Shinsai Bashi covered streets that there are mile long underground malls either end. I dont understand how they need so many shops and restaurants, but they are all full, on a Wednesday.

We had the cock lever early, so why not Cyunt 2 by Katy 3? Katy 1 and 2 died testing Cyunt 1, an earlier version before they perfected the formula.

One of the quieter streets running off the busy streets.

It is actually the 300th anniversary of Shinsai Bashi shopping street. Here it is in 1909, quite busy back then too.

And this is the very colorful corner my hotel is on. There are disaffected youths hanging about. I joined them and they all left because they knew I was way tougher than any of them.
Or maybe because a nerdy white grandpa had turned up and dorked out their hangout spot? I am fine with either version, cause I am the winner.
Pleased with my achievements I headed to the family mart and bought a warm cocoa to enjoy on the steps.