Surprise rainy day visit to Institute for nature study
Japanese weather reports cannot be trusted. Last night I was planning my day, and checked the weather, bit of cloud, no rain, sunny periods. This morning I woke up, raining. No hiking today then.
Actually the tv weather in Japan is extremely and ridiculously detailed and complex. It involves hour by hour breakdowns of everything, including wind, rain, temperature, smoke, pollution, pollen, snow, leaf color, volcanic activity, earthquake likelihood. But then they overlay arrows and graphs that show you absolute change per hour, e.g. +5 knots wind speed, +220 lumens solar radiation etc. The arrow colors seem to range in intensity from yellow to red to blue to green to red again back to yellow and then finally grey.
A south east facing blue arrow is bad news, a volcanic eruption and change in wind speed is imminent!
Then they overlay onto that a relative % change per hour, e.g. temperature +3% from previous hour. Then they show graphs. Then they smooth the graphs with multiple logarithmic and quadratic overlays, then they compare to the same day last year and the mean deviation per hour for the previous decade, and the previous Japanese era. But still it rained all day despite the forecast showing no rain.
I have backup plans in case of rain, today I enacted backup plan 3c, which was to go to to an urban research forest near Meguro. It has a small entry fee and I had the entire place to myself. Parts were closed due to typhoon. I have no idea how such a closure could possibly be required.
When I woke the girl up at the entrance to pay my fee, she handed me all the usual paraphernalia I dont want, maps, 3 receipts stapled together, an explanation of the closure, an explanation of the price increase due to tax, and a pink ribbon with a safety pin on it. I assumed I had just donated to AIDS research. Despite all my assurances that I did not want any of that stuff, she was not taking no for an answer, so I took it all and shoved it in my damp pocket and went into the forest. I am deathly afraid of pins so there was no way I was going to pin it to myself. Anyway I digress.....
The forest was a forest, a couple of lakes, gravel paths etc. This is not a garden, they leave it wild to research forests in urban settings, a bit like the traffic institute art exhibition.
That is all quite boring, but then I left.
So I walk out the same way past the same girl who appears to be asleep again, and start wandering in the rain back down the main road. I hear yelling. She is chasing me down the street waving a pink ribbon. I already bought a damn ribbon leave me alone! I stopped and she caught up, in the rain, trying to cover her head with her hands. Her panicked and exasperated rantings in Japanese were all about the ribbon, I pulled my one out of my pocket and she snatched it! Then there was all kinds of relief in her voice and bowing. Thats when I worked it out.
They have x number of ribbons at the ticket gate, they collect them when you leave. At the end of the day if they are missing a ribbon, someone is dead inside the forest. So there you go, I nearly caused a helicopter rescue mission to find me inside a forest in the middle of Tokyo all by not knowing I needed to return my AIDS ribbon.
It is raining on the streets of Meguro.
This is what most of the Institute for urban development of forest walking paths and associated tree related infrastructure cultural zone looks like.
There are a few ponds, with dead trees in them.
2nd day in a row of being told I cant access a path. I want my $3 entry fee back!
This is a different pond to the other pond, but also features a dead tree.
After handing back my all important pink ribbon it was time to head back through Meguro and look for a drain.
Here it is! The famous cherry blossom sewer drain. It goes for about a km and ends up at the hipster location of NAKA-MEGURO.
The cherry blossom storm water channel is soon to be the home of a new rubbish incinerator, look how pretty it is!
Earlier in the day I thought it might just not quite rain enough for me to even get wet, but by now I was getting wet. People were looking at me like I am an idiot, they are 100% correct.
This is kind of the other end of the cherry blossom toxic sludge outlet.
Except then when you cross over into MECHA MEGA GURO there are even more blossomless trees. Along this section are all the little boutiques that 'top x lists of y things to do in Tokyo' like to go on about.
Now that I was fully saturated, I decided to walk via the upmarket area of Daikan-Yama (also popular with blogologist list makers) to Ebisu. Ebisu is a huge station complex, many shops, but most importantly, Tokyo Soup Stock. As always I got the 2 soup combo. One is pumpkin, the other is fish flavoured root vegetables with feathers. According to the weaher man, its not raining now. He is still wrong.
Eating pasta in Shin-Koiwa
It was still raining when it was time to head out for dinner. My challenge was to go somewhere in Tokyo I had not been before. That part is easy, Tokyo is the largest city in the world and despite all the times I have been here I doubt I have even seen 10% of it.
The hard part was to find somewhere that would have places to walk and look at things that are undercover. I headed to Google maps and started scrolling. Ueno is in the Eastern part of the centre of Tokyo, so instead of moving closer to the centre, I went further east, across some rivers and eventually ended up at Shin-Koiwa station, which has a traditional undercover shopping street running off of it.
Getting to Shin-Koiwa is easy, it is on the Sobu line, the shopping street is right across the slippery rain soaked road from the station.
The rain meant that people were riding their bikes through here to avoid getting wet, while still carrying an umbrella and using their phones all at once. Very dangerous.
I decided I best find some dinner and wait the rain out. No jokes at all in todays update, just the facts. Meanwhile, right now, its stopped raining.
Now to plan what to do tomorrow.
Here it is in all its glory. A place to escape the rain. Most of the shops were still open, and most of the shops were shops, not old closed down shops or storage spaces.
I selected a pasta shop for dinner. They only serve one kind of pasta dish. They grind their own meat and dry their own pasta on site. I liked the look of it. I was hoping they might feed an entire animal into the grinder, but unfortunately, they did not.
And I liked the pasta, a lot. A great thing in casual Japanese restaurants is the size selection. It is quite common to be able to select from S, M, L, XL, XXL when ordering your meal from the ticket dispensing machine. Yes this may be a traditional old fashion all made on site pasta shop, but you still have to order from a machine. No one ever talks in Japan.
The back streets on the far side of the station were also quite interesting. The usual pachinko parlours, massage parlours, just a lot of parlours really.
I have no idea why, but Shin-Koiwa was advertising these ugly MonChhiChi characters everywhere. There was even a MonChhiChi park somewhere. Imagine your main claim to fame being these ugly bear creatures with their name containing consecutive h's.
I like it when train platforms have a view. Not of the girls, of the shops behind it. Although thats some impressive shoes they are wearing to look slightly taller than 3 feet 0 inches.
Last photo for this evening, just because I had not taken many photos, the impressive line up of food places inside the barriers at the Ueno station. There are at least ten places I would eat at inside the station, including cake and crepe shops, as well as at least 5 bookshops, and somewhere you can buy live crabs to take on the train with you for entertainment.
Climbing three mountains near Mitake including Iwatakeishiyama
Awesome weather, lets get hiking!
Todays hike started from Mitake, the main village up the very picturesque and familiar to me Ome line. Most people go to the other side of the river and go up to Mount Mitake on the cable car. On a previous trip I had come from another train line and walked over the top of Mount Mitake, and down to Mitake station on what was an excellent days hiking.
Today however, I would go the other side of the tracks and scale three peaks. They were, in order -
Mount Sogakusan
Mount Iwatakeishiyama
Mount Takamizusan
Yes I know that I said Mount something-mount as san and yama both mean mountain (or do they? what about dake?) but I dont care, its easier for English speakers to find my stuff on Google if I call them Mount something-mount. I digress, as usual.
I feel as though I did this hike backwards, I started from Mitake station and ended at Ikusabata station. Most of the dangerous bits I found myself descending rather than ascending. It is much safer to ascend cliffs than it is to descend.
Also at the start of my hike there was no one at all but me, but towards the end, quite a lot of people were coming up the other way. It is also possible they were coming up and going down the same way rather than doing a loop course. Who knows.
In the first half of my hike I only saw one other group, two French guys that looked like soldiers. I know they were French as I heard them talking in the distance before they saw me. They were huge bald and very muscular. Now you may not believe me, but I think I saw them holding hands before they saw me. Which is ok in 2019. Anyway, as you do on a hike, as they approached I nodded and said hello. They gave me a death glare and said nothing at all, staring straight into my brain until I had passed. I turned back as I went past and they were still staring at me.
So there you go, I caught two gay French soldiers on a secret date in the woods that do not want anyone else in their platoon to know they are gay.
I nearly forgot to mention. When I woke up this morning, Tokyo was blanketed by thick fog. I had never seen that before. I do not know if the airports were impacted, but trains were, somehow! On the screens in the train a number of lines were listed as having major delays due to thick fog. This is the best photo I could take as I was straddling the emergency stairwell using my foot to hold the door open.
Getting to Mitake is quite easy, there are trains from Tokyo that go through Shinjuku that go all the way to Ome. At Ome you run across the platform to a waiting connecting train that goes all the way to Okutama. It will wait if your train is late. This is the view from the platform at Ome, so green and blue!
I have taken a photo from this exact spot before. Last time it was later in the month and a lot more colorful. It is still quite the site to behold even if less colorful!
The view in the other direction, is not quite as amazing. That comma was probably superfluous.
Finding the start of the trail was harder than expected. It is directly behind the train station, alongside the cemetery. There is a sign but its hidden in some trees. Once you find the start, you cant get lost all day.
The first part is very steep, but eventually it calms down to familiar tree roots, mud and rocks like this.
There are a number of shrines and mini shrines on this hike as you shall see.
This shrine marks the first peak, Mount Sogakusan. No view from this peak, just this shrine covered in chicken wire.
I had to descend down that cliff. If there were not pink ribbons I would have doubted this was the path. Probably the most dangerous part of the hike today.
Occasionally a nice view opened up, such as this one.
Some areas had active logging operations, creating a view! Without the logging there would have been a lot less views to appreciate. Japan logs for my view.
And here is the view from the main summit of the day, at Mount Iwatakeishiyama. Hard to spell that. Nice view.
The view back towards Tokyo is also quite good from here. Or it would be if I did not get in the way. Also, RETURN OF THE STANCE. Those are my new orange socks with 3 kind of technology built into them. So far they are working well! My previous sock purchase lasted 1 single run before I wore holes in them!
Here is my big sweaty head blocking the view. Remember last year when the big vein in my head was concerning me? It appears to be gone. Weird.
Three peaks meant going up and down a few times. I like going up more than down. Heres some more tree roots.
This giant pole for communicating with frogs marks the summit of the last peak for today, Mount Takamizusan.
I think that peak across the valley is Mount Mitake, which has a shopping street on the summit!
I was amazed when I came across this shrine. It is large and modern. There is no road. Its a minimum 2 hours walk to the nearest road. I am used to seeing shrines deep in the woods but they are not normally as modern as this one, it looks like it could be someones house.
Getting back down to the station was a bit damp and muddy, at times I had to climb down a waterfall like this one.
Eventually you will get back to a dam, and then soon after a road that leads you back to the station.
However, I had to appreciate the bright red train bridge. This photo doesnt really convey that I am standing on a bridge to take the photo, and the train bridge towers over the road bridge.
Have a bit more bridge.
The view from the station back down the valley towards Tokyo was very nice. But I had 20 minutes until my train would come, what to do?
I decided to run back down to the river and take another ravine photo from Ikusabata. Not quite as nice as the view from Mitake, but still, pretty amazing!
And just like at Mitake, the view in the other direction is not as good.
I ran back up the hill just in time for my train, here it is! Today was a great day of hiking, I would happily do the same again tomorrow, but I will probably have a rest day instead.
Ueno to Akihabara to Kanda for Sichuan style ramen
Just a short outing tonight, all on foot. I set off through Ueno, passed through Akihabara and then ended up where I was originally booked to stay at Kanda for a bowl of Sichan style ramen, which was delicious.
Allow me to explain why I am not staying in Kanda briefly.
I book my accommodation through booking.com, because you can cancel it at any point. Useful in case I feel like changing my plans. About 2 weeks before I came on this trip I somehow saw an ad for one of the hotels I was booked to stay in, and it was now cheaper than when I had booked. So I went to booking.com and re booked most of the same rooms for the same dates at a cheaper rate. It even asks you if you want to cancel the original booking and replace it with the new one.
So there is a top tip, you can re book cheaper closer to the date, but book a year in advance to assure you get a room. One of my locations is actually much much more expensive now with very few rooms available, so in that location I kept the original booking.
Actually I did not yet explain the initial point. Most of the rooms I kept the same, but for the first part of my trip when I went to rebook the same room, I saw the one where I am currently staying in Ueno for very cheap. When I originally booked a year ago it was very expensive. That was long winded.
Tomorrow is Halloween. I wont go hiking so that I can go to Shibuya in the evening and participate in the mass gropings and flipping over of trucks that occurred last year. I did go there last year after a long day of hiking, but I was very tired and got there too late. There really was a lot of trouble last year, tear gas even!
One last thing, as I type this senior citizens on the tv are demonstrating how after a few weeks of taking ground up dolphin fin powder they are able to leap at least 30cm further when performing a standing broad jump, like dolphins leaping out of the ocean!
Ueno has many many streets of Neon, heres just one of them, a less popular one.
Here in Akihabara there are people in huge groups on their phones. All of them are hopeless addicts playing Pokemon Go. The game makes you go to specific spots and meet up with other people to do battle. No one ever talks, so its not the great social thing you might think. Many people have multiple phones on the go. This particular spot is very popular because it allows your dinosaur super turtle to collect a slightly different colored limited edition version of his body armor. Really!
Since I was passing Akihabara, time for another Neon photo.
Kanda does not seem to get much love when people are talking about busy districts of Tokyo, but it is really quite large and colorful.
I especially like all the under the train line mini restaurants.
My dinner was good. Sichuan style Ramen. Basically Dan Dan mian mashed up with Ramen. From the ticket machine you can choose how numbing and spicy you want, I chose high on the scale for both, but still after I handed over my ticket the chef sent his young daughter out to check thats what I really wanted. A Japanese woman next to me took one mouthful and had a non stop coughing fit, but seemed to be greatly enjoying her coughing fit, I saw her add more chilli oil mid fit.
Strange last photo of the night. Here in Sichuan fusion ramen shop, they have kindly provided hair ties so that you dont dissolve your hair in the spicy broth.
There are currently 5 comments - click to add
bobule on 2019-11-04 said:
loving the tree roots
jenny on 2019-10-30 said:
No photos of the book shops in Kanda?
adriana on 2019-10-30 said:
weirdly sogaku means mt. So sogakusan means mt mountain.
adriana on 2019-10-30 said:
iwa = rock, take = mushroom, ishi = stone and of course yama = mountain as you know. So you have climbed rock mushroom stone mountain today.
Brian on 2019-10-30 said:
Good photos David, fantastic views.
Walking along the all but abandoned Sumida river
A rest day for me today. Hopefully a big day tomorrow. Also a big night tonight, for me, I might even get back to the hotel after 8:30pm, which will mean I will miss fat cat telling me its time to go to bed. A rest day means not many photos. But to most people, I am sure they are more interesting than another set of boring hiking photos.
I got up at 6 and set off. Once I hit the river I just decided to follow it. Theres a nice smooth, wide, jogging path. Bikes are not allowed. And basically no one at all was using the path. Very unusual.
After I had followed the river for enough time I turned back towards the Ginza region and saw a few people in their Halloween costumes early. The first one was a shock, I assume it was a Japanese guy, but he had on a full silicone fake face, with an eyeball missing, and blood running out of the hole. Actually gushing. I wish I could have taken a photo but whenever someone tried to take a picture he would disappear back into the doorway of a building.
Once I got to Ginza I visited the police museum, its free! It has bathrooms. It is actually quite interesting, but the interesting parts have a strict no photo policy, a policy that is becoming more and more enforced across Japan as every day goes by. Kyoto is banning all photos! No one will ever see pixels representing Kyoto again.
Anyway, the interesting parts of the Police museum were the departmental structure flow chart diagrams, and how it all links together via a series of hot wax stamps and the brave efforts of the secretaries. Also theres a group called the color pride girls, who perform dances and sing at events.
One entire level has a recruitment film playing on loop that looks like Fast and the Furious crossed with BMX bandits crossed with Airwolf. Extreme Shaky cam, explosions, swinging from the skytree on a rope, leaping from a flying 747 in a wing suit while on fire, standing in a Koban helping old people find their way.
The mighty, hazy, Sumida river. Note the lack of people, I think theres a grand total of 2 in this shot.
Here is a canal with some fishing boats parked, although I dont know where they fish as there are signs all along the river advising that the water is poisonous, no fishing. Yes I know they are not really fishing boats anymore.
I assume these were the old houses of old fisherman. Probably all craft beer places now, or vape huts.
The underside of this double bridge is mirrored tiles. Still no people.
This is a dog park. A few metres of fake grass under a bridge. There is a person here though! And her dog, which tried to attack me but I was saved by the fence. She seemed quite embarrassed that the dog was so angry at me.
FUTURE BOAT IS HERE TO SAVE US ALL. Many of the bridges are very low, they therefore have to design a boat that sits very low, and can have bow waves wash over the top of it.
Here is part of the police museum where you can take photos. I think its an interactive computer game for kids. They also have a section for kids to do CSI work on tyre tracks and footprints.
The entrance has a helicopter. The name of the helicopter is Otori.
Eventually I got to the main bit of Ginza. Last year it was under heavy construction. It all appears to be finished now.
My lunch was somewhere I have been before, design your own lunch box in Takashimaya - Annex - Basement - East Building - New. A lot of the choices today were mackerel based, I did not want mackerel.
Inexplicable single pair of womens underpants drying on busy street. I think it might be an art installation. It represents the struggle of the modern Japanese woman, without child, to find a place in society.
Braving the madness of Shibuya on Halloween
Tonight I went to Shibuya for the second year in a row on Halloween. It was not as busy as last year.
It was still madness, but I made it across the scramble straight away, last year I was in a crush for at least an hour before I could get across.
The most common outfit was slutty police girl, followed by the clown horror movie thing, followed by minions. Much like last year.
Actually the costumes are not as elaborate as you might expect.
Also there were a huge amount of foreigners there, and a ridiculous number of police, they took it seriously this year with elevated platforms and loudspeakers everywhere. Anytime someone stopped to take a photo they would pounce and tell you to keep moving.
Not all the streets are closed to cars, this was probably the most dangerous situation I encountered, a few guys were keen to Tokyo drift into the crowd.
My photos are not great, most people were not keen on posing for me at all! Racist!
I estimate there were no less than 50 police buses like these ones surrounding the area.
Crowd.
More crowd. I did not attempt a photo while actually crossing the scramble this year.
Can head and a foreign woman.
The people filling the windows and stair cases were making me anxious. Many shops actually close early to stop this from occurring. The Starbucks with a view was closed.
I suspect this is The Joker from the new movie, The Joker. There were lots of, The Joker.
Here is the clown from one of the 23 clown movies released in the last 3 weeks.
Asians love transformers.
MOVE ALONG! The loudspeakers had announcements blaring in English.
Wishful thinking.
I dont think this is a politician or a Japo-nazi. I think he is protesting something about the closure of clothing brand Forever 21. They went broke a couple of weeks ago. They probably owed him money. He was on an all day and all night marathon rant out the front of their now abandoned huge shop. I love a good rant.
Bat-bunny-girls? I dont know.
Easily the best costumers of the evening. I dropped my pants and joined in.
I plotted my escape to the far side of the tracks.
This lead me to some traditional alleys with very few people, just metres from the crowd.
Eventually I made my way away from it all and found a nice overpass to get my bearings.
From the overpass I spotted my dinner, Okonomiyaki. After which it was time to get the subway back across town and go immediately to bed! Have to get up early tomorrow!
There are currently 2 comments - click to add
mother on 2019-10-31 said:
Hiroshima style okonomiyaki - my favourite.
mother on 2019-10-31 said:
Like your interpretation of the undies. We have been on that boat to
Odaiba. Nice ride.
There are currently 2 comments - click to add
tester on 2021-01-05 said:
testing
jenny on 2019-10-29 said:
i need to visit this traditional shopping arcade -shootengai