Japan for the 9th time - Oct and Nov 2019 - Page 5

This is crossing the Shinano river from my hotel towards the station. They are also very proud of this bridge, which has 6 archways underneath. For whatever reason Niigata likes to make lists of the things it is 'very proud' of. This is my favourite light for photos, squinty but not full sun.

A view down the Shinano river from the city side. Not a lot to see.

I went through the station at this time to verify my plan for getting to Yamagata. I am going to take the slow train! There is only one per day! It takes 4 hours total to Yamagata, even though its not even 200km of track. The rapid (sic) Benibana listed here takes 3 hours and goes on 3 different lines, across the mountains to Yonezawa where it is timed to connect to a train that runs much more often than once a day to go the rest of the way to Yamagata. Expect photos from a moving train on that day (Saturday).

Here I am at the start of the lagoon, excellent light!

I passed this very unusual hotel, it looks like you get a car parking garage with your room on top. There were a few hotels around this lagoon, most looked like they were boarded up, this was the most interesting one and looks like its still operational.

The lagoon is not a popular tourist attraction, not even one car in the car park.

Across there is the main stadium, very remotely located, 10km from the nearest train. The gardens were quite nice in this bit.

I was lined up here taking a photo... look closely and you can see something just to the right of the middle of the ledge about to pop out!

Surprise turtle! He was a bit camera shy when I was close to him, always going back under the water when I raised my camera.

I ran a few laps. Really enjoying the light here for some reason.

If you sit here long enough you turn into a field worker made of straw.

A bit more garden, there are a couple of people in this photo. I walked into a huge spiderweb here, and spent the next 10 minutes removing my clothes convinced one of the huge Japanese spiders was somewhere down my shirt / pants.

Here, have a bit of color, me and 2 guys with tripods were taking the same photo.

The garden was very small, but had a few nice angles for photos.

On the other side of the lagoon, I passed this hoarders house. The photo does not capture the scale of the rubbish, it gets higher and higher the further back it goes. There was a cave through the rubbish to a house within. I am pretty sure the roof of the house was supporting tonnes of crap.

As I got around the other side, cloud had rolled in, ruining my day of awesome light. From this side you can see how strangely located that huge stadium is.

This is an establishment where people fled in terror as I positioned myself to take a photo.

Here is an older style restaurant. Smoky meat on skewers place like most places around here.

I dont know what was being cooked inside here, but it was very rustic looking. And by rustic I mean, probably rat infested.

One of the colorful streets near the station. There are a few on both sides of the station.

For my dinner, I had Xiao Long Bao in soup. Chinese food. Pretty good. The soup buns were quite authentic, they definitely had soup in them as well as pork, so yeah, soup filled buns in soup.

This company came to Australia for a while. For an unknown reason they chose Adelaide as their launch location. They lasted there longer than any of their other locations, but unfortunately the Adelaide one burnt down and they have not opened anywhere since. I thought of having one to reminisce, but no, I had a banana instead.

Here is Yahiko, and the small mountain range in the background. The train went through a smaller town with a ridiculously huge Torii gate on the way, Yahagi. I think this area has something to do with a deer and a rabbit. Probably an anime.

You know you are in a tourist area when the station is painted red.

Steam was coming out of various little shops to herald my arrival.

The little streets of Yahiko are lined with shops. Most were only just putting up their flags as I got there.

People have made a real effort with their gardens. It is now illegal in Japan to take a photo like this. People recently got arrested for doing this in Kyoto! True story.

There is a gate at the end of the street.

Behold the gate, and flowers.

So many flowers.

Ridiculous amounts of flowers.

There is no end to the flowers.

Finally after hiking through displays of flowers for about 2 weeks I got to the shrine. I would walk along all those mountains behind it.

It was a really nice area. Old people would love to visit here. Also just out of the picture was a huge public toilet made out of enormous intricately carved old growth forest, with heating and a seating area to admire the toilets.

MORE SIGNS LIKE THIS PLEASE! Very helpful.

The first half of todays path, which roughly follows the cable car, was all steps with signs everywhere, and lots of people.

About half way up a view appeared. This mountain is only 640m high, but you start at 20m, so its still sweat inducing. It is located very near the coast and as you can see the farm land is dead flat.

It was quite colorful, but the very grey sky prevented me from having a retina explosion.

Behold the Ocean, the East China Sea, and Sado Island.

Here is the view down the coast. It never rained once all day despite threatening to for most of it.

I have done well to hide the communication towers. This spot is a little bit away from the top cable car station, but theres a concrete path up to here, so quite a few people hanging about hacking up phlegm and chortling snot while eating cup noodles, and a mini shrine with a priest inside selling blessings.

Now I will walk all the way along all the ridges of the entire range. Whats that strange pole on the left?

Before we go look at the mystery pole, here is my head. Also a mystery as to how a head so large stays on my shoulders. That vein in my forehead still hasnt reappeared!

So flat.

OK, this pole has a cylinder full of people that goes up it very slowly, its near the top here. It rotates as it goes up. I dont really understand how its a better view than where I am standing, except that you get to go inside a strange contraption that looks like it was made 50 years ago. The cylinder thing is large, it has 2 levels of stadium seating. There were quite a few people trapped inside of it. To get down to the base of it you take a little step train thing. It seems like a lot of effort to go to so that you can enjoy the same view.

Theres also a lot of restaurants as you shall see. Here is the view from the roof of the restaurant complex.

All the standard Japanese fare. Very reasonable prices too. They dont serve dog meat according to the sign. Disappointing.

There are 3 levels of restaurants. Each with roughly the same menu.

Here I have walked a bit along the ridge away from the popular area. It is a semi manicured garden for a while. There is also a road up here, a Skyline as they call it. Skyline is not just a type of Japanese car, its a type of Japanese road. Generally it means theres a high toll to pay to drive on it. Look at all the communication towers!

Soon after, the path became excellent. There were only a handful of people for the next few hours.

Summit #2, which is only about 1 metre lower than the main summit, has almost no view. Theres a large weather station thing with the golf balls attached blocking the view.

Then it became my favourite kind of path. Colorful, silvery trees, gently sloping downwards. I love steep uphill, but prefer gentle down hill.

Every time the sun poked out, I was too late to capture the color before it disappeared again. The sun was teasing me.

I passed a number of mini shrines and graves on my way down. Heres a low down view looking back towards Niigata. A good spot to urinate I decided.

Once down from my small mountain range, I had a long walk back to the station. There were a few abandoned looking hotels, and this colorful place on its own that looks like Pachinko Parlour. I suspect it too is abandoned.

That is a smaller bit of the range I did not climb. I think I should of. I came down too soon and walked too far along the road.

As you can see, I had to walk a long way away from the mountain to get to the station. I walked all the way along all of those ridges. The angry geese in this photo chased me, but I am fast. I only had to kick one of them (in self defence of course).

After an unexpectedly long walk I arrived back at Maki station. During my 20 minute wait for the train the guard came and checked my pass 3 times. I suspect he had not seen one before? Today was a much longer and much more interesting day than I thought it would be! I used too many exclamation points!!

The train station has a diorama of the train station. This is 100 percent accurate.

Here is the bus catching area. Always a hive of activity. A team of brave men with whistles stand behind buses as they reverse in and create a deafening cacophony of bird like noises emanating from their metallic shiny mouth pieces.

The busy side of the busy side of the station.

The quiet alleys are nicer here too.

This restaurant has a koi pond that goes inside the restaurant. The fish can decide if they want to be outside or inside.

Coco curry always has a seasonal menu, in among (amongst?) their plethora of menus. The current seasonal offering, liver.

I have forgone the liver, and gone with vegetables, 10/10 spiciness. They always ask you, I always say 10 and point at the 10 chillis on the Japanese menu. They always go and get the English menu and make me point and say it again.

Here comes my small train to collect me. Its features included, a volcanic heating system powered by pure lava, a squatter toilet, and a lot of rubbish bins.

The inside of the train looks just like any other Japanese train.

Soon after we left Niigata, the scenery became great, however I did not do a great job of capturing it today.

At one stage I was called upon to drive the train.

I spent most of my time looking out the back window like this. Reflections in the glass were making it hard to take photos in the bright sun. This is an example of where I missed the ideal shot from a bridge between two tunnels.

Most of the journey was very colorful, this BODES WELL for my activity for the day after tomorrow, assuming theres some sun on that day.

Here is a snow plow train. The driver of this is one of the luckiest people in the world.

Those mountains you can just see in the distance have a lot of snow on the top, despite not being that high. I missed 3 earlier opportunities to get a better photo while the train was much closer to them.

Eventually we came out the other side of the mountains into a very flat valley.

Now in Yamagata, the street from the station to my hotel is quite busy.

Out the front of my hotel there are a series of street bells strategically placed to keep me awake all night.

Too early to check in of course, my next activity was to head to the Yamagata castle, one of the top 100 castles of Japan!

Here is the castle.

Wait... HERE is the castle.

Hmm, actually here is part of the castle wall, last reconstructed in 1890 something. I am unsure if all the construction going on is for a castle reconstruction. If they do reconstruct the castle hopefully they use modern construction techniques and install a fire sprinkler system, unlike the castle that recently burnt down in Okinawa which I visited last year.

The Addams family museum is nearby. Actually its an old hospital. It looks like it was probably a mental asylum, but the signs did not say that. Now its a folk museum.

This cat on the grounds of the former haunted mental hospital collects the souls of the dead. And actually he or she was the ONLY cat I saw. Which is unusual, where theres one cat in a park there are usually 50. Not here, just this scary looking cat.

The mountain over the city, Mount Zao, is actually many mountains, 20 cable cars, an Onsen, a volcanic lake etc. I plan to go there tomorrow and not use the cable car. Sunshine is forecast, so hopefully I get to see the turquoise crater lake.

Back near the station, I think this is the council building. It also has shops, and a Nepalese school orchestra playing Vivaldi?

The view from the station was quite good.

The view from the balcony in my hotel room was better.

My hotel room is fine. Usual sort of thing. An older building, room slightly bigger but a strange angle situation. The bathroom seems to have been redone. Internet is ridiculously fast as ever. In other news, I have discovered that 'google lens' is great, I can just point my phone at signs and it translates them on the go. Now I can 'read' all the weird APA propaganda in my hotel room.

Here is the main street in Nanukamachi. A lot of places around here are called Nannas this, Nannas that. Does Nanu mean Nanna in Japanese? Nanu Nanu?

This complex is full of little arts and crafts shops, staying open late on Saturday.

There is a warehouse complex converted into little alleyways of restaurants.

The far end of Nanukamachi.

There are 3 or 4 little department stores, all busy, all with basement food areas. Some with little restaurant areas too.

Unfortunately its raining, so only one fool is standing in the rain watching these 2 children receive some kind of an award from the mayor.

Another street full of shops and restaurants.

Many of the restaurants were busy, generally they were welcoming of customers. That might sound strange, but lots of small restaurants and bars in Japan are not looking for new customers. They are semi-private, you are not supposed to go in unless someone has invited you. A lot of Niigata seemed to be like that, no sign saying open, no indication of what was being served inside. Here in Yamagata its setup for tourists, no one is a local.

My dinner tonight was particularly great. Yes its noodles of some kind, but I had no idea what it was, and still dont now after eating it. I think it was called everything noodles, and it was delicious. It definitely contained potatoes! Possibly pineapple? And lots of big chunks of chilli.

Here is the key from my above extended rant. The existence and concept of this I despise.