Of course I am back in Japan yet again - Oct and Nov 2018 - Page 2

The monorail ends here abruptly. This is a rather large man made island, theres another 2 smaller ones between here and the mainland.

Another very bright very sunny day. The sun seems very burning. I should have applied sunscreen. Everything on this island is large and spacious.

A lot of whats here is brand new. To give you an example, that bridge was not even on google maps.

OK, this is the main part of the fish market, the intermediary wholesale market, except its 2 levels below me and you cant even see it. Instead you get rushed up an escalator into this gift shop area. Theres maybe 20 shops, some selling t-shirts.

That building is the actual market, which you cannot visit.

There is a much smaller wholesale market, where there are a few restaurants, maybe 10. But you still cant go into the actual market.

Instead you can go to a museum explaining why the new market is better, the most interesting thing is this mascot, which is apparently based on an electric car crossed with a cat. The old market had blue electric cars moving fish around.

You have to wear this visitor pass to identify you as someone not allowed to go into the market. This is Japanese thinking at its finest. The regular buyers and sellers carry no ID at all, and are allowed to go down to the selling floor, visitors wear this pass to keep them out. I see no reason why you could not just take this pass off and put it in your pocket and pretend to be a buyer.

What does the pass get you into? A view out of this double glazed smudged with snot window. And thats all. Theres not many windows. Luckily there is no one else visiting so I got a window to myself.

This is the entire publicly accessible area of the fish market viewing gallery.

Much more interesting than the market is the roof garden. I bounded up many flights of stairs when I saw the sign.

And I had the whole garden to myself! I stripped off and ran a lap.

The grass still looks dead from the winter, but its a huge area with great views and almost no other people. Even on a day like today with excellent weather.

They have even built me a little bridge to get a better view.

Thats the rainbow bridge that goes to nearby island Odaiba, I have been on that before a few times. Not today.

There are plenty of cranes on that island. I think whats being built there is something to do with the upcoming olympics.

I retreated to the mainland and started to look for the old market, which is not really closed down at all. Along the way I passed this huge Buddhist school / temple / whatever they call it. LENS FLARE! OMG.

I have noticed on this trip that nearly every street corner has one of these traffic counter guys punching numbers into his little metal counter things. Seriously, hundreds of guys doing this.

Anyway, heres the old fish market at Tsukiji. First up we have this cool cat they shot and stuffed to guard the fake crab meat wrapped in plastic.

The old market is still very busy and full of tourists. Probably Australian, probably upsetting a nearby stabby sushi chef.

I found an elevated position to take a photo of the chaos below. The main chaos is to the right of here.

Unlike the actual fish market, the closed down fish market still has hundreds of shops to buy fish from.

This store needs to read up on how much everyone seems to hate Johnny Depp now. Its like proudly stating that your store was visited by Adolf Hitler.

This unremarkable photo shows how a Japanese construction site likes to soften the inconvenience of closing part of the footpath. With kitten and puppy posters.

And now I will be on google street view. I am famous! If you see a guy making lewd gestures on google street view in Tokyo with his face blurred out, its me!

Pictures tonight are a bit disappointing, just like Shinagawa. Here is the station. It is a massive station and the best eating options are inside the station inside the gate area.

There are a massive number of people coming from somewhere at the end of the working day. There are a lot of tall buildings surrounding the station but its mostly businesses. I think many western businesses have their Japan headquarters here.

This is all the non station shops and eateries I could find.

There is a small river / open drain nearby where I could take a long exposure for some smooth water reflections.

I dont know what this building is but I was hunting for a few more photos so here it is, bonus shot of slightly unusual building.

The main street through Shinagawa, Shinagawa Prince hotel is just to the right. Actually its about 10 towers of hotel, with an imax, golf driving range and waterworld park thing.

I wanted dinner from here, there were 2 places I had selected something to eat from, but there were no seats.

Which inevitably meant I would have ramen, but I did choose vegetarian. However I did not get the vegetarian option I asked for, the one I pointed at was mainly mushrooms, what I got has zero mushrooms. It does have carrot though, good for night vision.

There are so many nice stations along the Chuo line, Sasago is the worst. There is no shop but there are a lot of abandoned cars with trees growing through them.

I could not really tell which mountain was the one I would be climbing, actually I would be climbing 3, so until I knew where I was going I just took photos of wheat / canola or whatever this stuff is.

Here is a nice house with some nice topiary and a nice backdrop. Those mountains are the other side of the road, not the ones I was going to. Still its quite nice.

I stopped off at this small factory to perform a waste audit, and advised them on how to better separate their plastics to increase their value and lower their environmental greenhouse climate change carbon ecological footprint.

It was still quite cloudy, resulting in muted colors, that would change.

This cat waved me off as I followed a road briefly to the start of the trail.

The road went through this red lit tunnel to get the blood pumping. I quickly developed some film under the red lights.

My journey took me past a power station, possibly hydroelectric. The actual trail starts just past here.

First I had to examine this giant retina destroying slippery dip.

The start of the trail had a detour, and the detour was overgrown and muddy and very hard going. Eventually I re joined the proper trail and there was some leaf color to appreciate. This trail was very well signposted, especially the detours.

There were a couple of fences you had to untie to get through, I believe this is to keep deer out of certain areas.

More canola. I quickly made some oil for later. You never know when you might need some oil on the mountains.

The power plant and associated infrastructure adds a great buzzing ambience to the landscape.

Getting to the top of the first peak was quite quick, and easy to find. Mount Seihachiyama. I think Yama kind of means mountain anyway, maybe, I dont know. Anyway, this is the mountain thats actually on the map, even though the next one is higher.

Now we start our photos of Fuji. The cool tree makes a great view even better. I think this tree is probably what puts this peak on the map.

Have a bit more of the cool tree with Fuji getting in the way.

You cant really see it, but that is the city of Kofu. It looks very large, possibly a good base for hiking on another trip.

Wider angle view of tree and Fuji, more to come!

My big head and the tree and Fuji. I look hot. I was.

My awesome stance, the tree, and Fuji. OK, no more tree, but there will be more Fuji. If you like Fuji you will enjoy todays update.

Getting between the peaks was still an easy enough to follow trail, although there were a few rock scrambles. Fantastic view!

OK, more Fuji from the next peak.

Mount Hongjagamaru. These are the only other people I saw all day, including at the station! 3 hours hiking either side of running into this group I saw absolutely no one.

After the second peak, it started to become harder and harder to follow the trail. I dont think it was used much, and it now seems as though this area is past peak leaf time, as there were lots of leaves littering the path.

There was still a bit of color to see.

There was always a reminder that there is a powerplant nearby.

The big power poles do however provide a clearing to appreciate a bit more view. A view of wires.

Low bamboo time! This made it easier to follow the path.

Around this point, the path was just gone, I was down to following the ribbons. I had already missed my turn by this point, but had gone too far to double back, plus I was never sure where I was or if I had missed my turn, I only found that out later, I just followed the ribbons hoping that all ribbons lead to somewhere.

It became really steep and just got steeper, but it was still very colorful.

Photographing steep doesnt really work, at the end it got so steep I had to properly put my camera bag in my backpack and slide down, no chance for photos.

Every time I thought I was about to get to the bottom, no, there was still further to go. Great weather all day as you can see!

I was very relieved and elated to get back to the station and start my 2 hour return journey to Tokyo.

Now I will try to photograph the crush of people, I should have gone for a higher shutter speed and let the iso go up, most of the photos are no higher than iso800.

A wolf with a real looking machine gun, it was an actual person but he would not move for a minute then move suddenly and frighten people.

Here is the crossing and the crush.

A bit more crush.

This is taken as I was halfway across, getting crushed, the police have set up a hole in the middle and would occasionally drag people out of the crush.

Once out of the crush I tried to find things to photograph. Heres some pumpkins.

I am a few blocks away from the crossing by now, but still theres a crush of sorts.

This person put some effort into their facial tumors.

The crush kept going and going.

I have no idea who or what these guys are.

Here is a clown, with blood. Actually it was printed on the suit I think?

I ended up in the love hotel and massage parlor streets trying to get to Harajuku. I dont really know whats going on behind the glass but lots of guys are watching and cheering.

My dinner choices were limited due to everything being full, so I chose curry from a place called J.S. Curry, where I ordered the J.S. Curry without knowing what it was. It was good, mystery meat, some vegetables, nuts and an egg!

Yesterday a waving lucky cat was at the start of my hike. Today this curled up cat, possibly dead, is completely ignoring me and will not wave.

Here we have a static display of a boat that shoots steam out of it. I could not work out what was going on. Is it volcanic steam? Why is it coming out of a boat? Volcano powered boats?

These boats have failed to understand that they are supposed to be in the water to operate correctly. Out of the water they are as useless as a turtle on its back.

There were lots and lots of divers at many points along the coast. I dont know what there is to sea in the ocean near here, mercury, nuclear power plant fuel rods, that kind of thing.

OMG there will be lots of photos of rocks and clouds. I deleted lots of them, but should have deleted more.

The bottom half of the screen here is rocks, the top half is cloud. Now that you are familiar with the rock and cloud separation and how it works, read on.

These sort of photos would be great if there was sunshine, instead we have silver skies and dark trees.

A wave could come through that gap at any moment.

This area is a bit like the great ocean road in Australia. There were lots of similar rocks sticking up out of the ocean, ruining someones ship whenever theres a storm.

Here is the bridge and the lighthouse. This is where most people came to do the coast walk. Except they came to take 100 photos for instagram 50 metres from the car park and then leave.

View towards land from bridge. I describe it as it is. No more no less.

You can climb the lighthouse and the view from the top is good, but you cant open the windows, and they are all smudged where people pressed their face against them to exchange fluids.

I would be going that way, along all those jagged inlets along the peninsula.

Just one of many, with a nice dark blue ocean.

About half way along you get to a spot where the path ends prematurely and you have to walk around the car park of the bizarre concept that is the New York lamp museum.

Like everywhere, theres a temple. This one looks old but I suspect its just weathered. I dont think anything this close to the ocean in Japan can be that old due to Tsunami. There were tsunami warning signs everywhere.

No chance of losing the trail today, there were even yellow bee harboring flowers to guide me.

This cat was keen to show me which way to go. There were a few cats in this particular area.

I have nothing more to say about this.

RIP Golden Bear.

Smugglers cove.

Have a bit more view.

I wish there were sunshine, I think the colors would have been great.

The whole coastline is actually pretty nice, there is a lot of development but since the mountains basically meet the see its dramatic cliffside construction, threatening to fall into the sea whenever the next earthquake comes.

Redundant at this point.

So very redundant.

OK, this is the only guy I saw for a couple of hours, which was surprising. More surprising, he is playing a trumpet, very badly. He is also filming himself playing the trumpet. He somehow was slowly going further and further out of key and getting slower. I think on purpose. He was filming a movie called sad trumpet by the sea.

There is a second suspension bridge! Someone tell everyone to get down here and take more photos, build them a car park!

This fishing village marks the end of the journey. I dont think a lot of fishing happens here anymore, there seems to be more diving going on.

Back at Atami to change trains, and I found I had 20 minutes to spare until the limited express departed, which makes the journey back to Tokyo an hour quicker than normal trains. Just enough time to run a lap of Atami and take photos in the glorious sunshine! Really, I had to run to get to the beach and back. Heres the shopping street, I ran through it.

The beach, the sun, the holiday resort buildings. Apprently Atami was the place to go in the 1970s but has fallen on hard times. In my run through the city it still looked ok to me.

Atami even has a castle but I think its controversial. There was never a castle here historically, they built it in the 1980's and its an exact copy of another fake castle somewhere else.

I had just enough time before boarding my train to buy some banana water. BANANA WATER, it is water that tastes like bananas!

Here is the main street of Kitasenju. It is long and has even longer shopping streets running off of it.

There are plenty of colorful alleyways to wander down and wonder whats going on inside the dimly lit stores. Wander and wonder. Thats what I do.

The shopping street at street level, looking back at the station and department stores.

I found the Korean restaurant.

This food court is cool. They have worked out food courts are for sad lonely people, like me, and set up semi private one person booths.

My $5 dinner consisted of Soba in broth with salad on top, accompanied by deep fried shredded vegetables and deep fried sweet potato. It wasnt bad!

Here is the far side of the station, which was less neontastic than the other side.

The station here is really quite large, it seems to be the terminal station for the Tsukuba express. I dont think I have ever been on that, its not compatible with my train pass so I wont be going on it at least until my pass expires tomorrow night!

I went back over to the main side of the station and hunted some more neon from the pedestrian overpasses.

And there was just enough time left to snap a photo of the big department stores, I had dinner in the basement. I usually do.