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On this day, although we knew the final mountain tracks to our destination were going to be an exposure for soft Michelin, the 99% on the roads and touge there, meant the CX stayed at home.
The roads were indeed worth the Cayman, and the final mountain tracks not too bad...
We were off to a small shrine, hidden in the hills with a well-known hydrangea field.
Some of their jizo.
A kannon (I think) nestled in the hill.
Quiet, cool day, in the heat.
A banner warning of forest fires.
The road home, completing a big loop from our house, up and over the mountains, and back home down and along the coast...
Sun going down, and getting ready for another few days in Tokyo for work.
Walking the back streets at lunch.
Common residential Tokyo parking style - ZX and bicycle.
Showa-era, glass brick fronted barber.
Let's go blonde!
One of the remaining public telephones in the megopolis.
Local zaka.
Unlike many other roads and lanes across Tokyo, many slopes such as this remain as they were during the pre-Edo period.
They often have a history (battle, birth place, or similar), and are named accordingly.
The non-stepped sides are to allow you to walk your bicycle up or down, or to try and ride if you are 12...
Where people still wear traditional clothes for afternoon tea with friends.
Unlike other places in APAC, where the past is shunned, Japan often embraces it.
School run, two (or three) up, shopping on board.
Many with electric assist these days.
Local shrine with old movie posters and eggplant.
Famous gunkan (battleship) building near my office.
Hopefully, it will be preservable unlike other fave spots like the Nakagin...
Lazy weekends, with not much work outside because of the heat...
We did however call in to help some friends start the exterior staining their modern minka.
After which, we took a drive down the coast for a slow Sunday lunch.
Sitting under a big umbrella, with the cool sea breeze blowing is very pleasant.
Classic Japanese sando runchi - roast chicken, honey mustard, cucumber, and rough cut sea-salted fries.
Photographed only because who would believe?
Is this combo a thing in the west?
Mishima-ko jinja, famous to martial arts experts, who study the manner ronin had taught the locals to fend off marauders with their farming implements.
An annual festival draws foreigners from all over the world who come to see how to parry with a katana, as they did in the 1600s...
With ten days planned touge hunting, we hit the expressway north...
Single lanes off the main expressway, as we branch down to the coast for our first stop.
Fueling up in the heat.
Recently, some main expressways have opened up their speed limits to 120km/h, so you can safely cruise a few km/h above this, making sure you pull left for the Lexus and Benz that like to travel well above the posted limit.
We were amazed at some of the speeds others passed us with, and opened up the Cayman a few times too.
Our first hotel in Koriyama overlooked the shinkansen tracks, and you could hear their thundering through on the middle track at this distance.
It's pretty impressive to see too!
Down town Koriyama as people go off to work.
Stopping for some fresh coffee, before we hit the road.
Within sight of the plant, and on the day Daiichi started releasing their 'radioactive' water and China banned all seafood from Japan, a Fukushima-ken sushi lunch was in order.
Notably of course, as the tritium levels are well below the international standards, AND less than China routinely releases from their plant operations on a daily basis.
With scallops on the top of their banned list, we enjoy what was some of the best in ages.
Getting some stamps for post cards.
Not our hotel, but one we need to consider staying at in the future...
Best thread on Rennlist for me. I also have a 987.2 Cayman S, I also (started) shoot (ing) with film and I was in Japan for 3 weeks in May. Best trip of my life.
Please keep up the posting, makes me dream of driving my 987.2 in Japan.
Best thread on Rennlist for me. I also have a 987.2 Cayman S, I also (started) shoot (ing) with film and I was in Japan for 3 weeks in May. Best trip of my life.
Please keep up the posting, makes me dream of driving my 987.2 in Japan.
Thanks!
Japan is like that... the more you explore, the more there is to discover.
We are lucky to have the time off work, the Cayman, the roads, the food, the sights, friendly locals...
You should start a Schweiz im Film thread?
The scenery alone is surely worth it?
Here's the Cayman going off for the night at our first hotel.
Always entertaining...
This is a rough summary of the overall route we took over ten days recently.
Side trips, and some touge hunting diversions missing, as we did over 2500km.
Local homes and temples are always interesting to explore.
The somewhat mundane entrance to one set of sublime forest temples.
Post box in the rest area.
While the outside wasn't very special, the grounds were just amazing with a strong feeling of contentment and well-being.
The forest paths were filled with interesting stuff.
This lantern, we assume had some history with the stones.
Not the weekend, so we had the place nearly to ourselves.
Taking a little road to join a brief expressway run to the coast...
Last edited by Kuro Neko; 09-09-2023 at 12:28 AM.
Reason: YT borked?
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Crossing the country from Fukushima-ken to Yamagata-ken, we were amazed at the vast expanse of continuous rice, interspersed with the occasional field of corn.
Having toured North America and Australia too, we could have been in either perhaps with the fields and grain hoppers.
The only Japanese attribute perhaps being the collapsible wind / snow fence.
On the west coast, we stopped at Sakata town for a walk at some old warehouses, and a soft serve.
North of Sakata, the coast roads were deserted, and their curves and views greatly suited to the Cayman to enjoy.
We stopped in a few towns to explore, and I liked the Taisho-era barber and post office.
This preserved village too, we had to ourselves, and took some time to explore the inner spaces of some restored minka.
With no windows, life with the just exterior shutters and inner shoji would be harsh under snow, even with an open fire...
Driving north up the west coast of Akita-ken, you follow a train line, and we were surprised to see a few freight trains.
With such an excellent rail network, Japan usually prefers to leave the trains for passengers and force the freight onto trucks.
There's a transportation or logistics thesis in there somewhere...
The coast roads though are just great, and here we stopped with a series of BBQ shops right on the sand.
With the winds blowing constantly across the Sea of Japan, the coast too is heavily populated with wind farms.
This month too another great Japanese tradition - the political scandal - has some wonk in the government arrested as he took millions in bribes, race horses, and other 'entertainment' (wink wink) from the owner of these very turbines.
Why they keep doing it is beyond me... A previous PM was murdered in the street with a home made gun because of similar disenfranchising, but taking bribes and accepting influence still remains normal here.
One of our destinations on this day, was the Kanpuzan Panorama Line.
North of Akita town it's a great place to view the surrounding area, and the touge run is great too!
While we stopped for a cool drink, we did not pay the extra fee to sit down in the revolving lookout.
The view though is great!
You can always tell a good touge by the number of mid-week bikers out...
This is a good video summary of the touge and area:
The view from our hotel window in Odate.
Our plan was to drive off into the mountains, again exploring...
An early start meant the Akita Dog Museum was closed, but we paid our respects to the famous Hachoko regardless.
One of the touge we were to run today included the Iwaki Skyline.
On paper it looks, ahhh... challenging.
The views out over the surrounding countryside are quite dramatic.
The road itself though, was perhaps more suited to a Macan than a Cayman.
While most of Japan's roads - touge included - are glass smooth and have perfectly set cambers, the Iwaki Skyline isn't that.
Assume because it is a private road, but it looks as if it has been surfaced with those bags of cold asphalt you buy at a hardware store, applied one-by-one with a wooden roller, dragged behind a drunken horse, with only one eye (and maybe three legs).
The view from the top though is neat, and you can take a further ropeway into the mists if you're really adventurous.
With the road surface as it was, my professional safety experience suggested the maintenance schedule on a ropeway on the same mountain may be similarly compromised.
We avoided it accordingly.
The area is also known for bears, who unfortunately take a number of old folk each year.
Taking some back roads down, we came across a village full of minka and kura, and of course had to stop.
Two co-joined pics, mis-scanned by the DPE shop for some reason.
Local school no longer used, as is the case across much of Japan, with rural schools closing as the population ages and everyone moves to Tokyo and Osaka.
One day, Japan will get with the immigration understanding and allow repopulation...
Not only does it look like it was filmed at the same time of day, but also at the same time of year.
It also shows the Hachi-roku bumping and undulating up the touge, and if ever there was a reason for Toyota's typically languid driving it would be here...
06-24-2023, 01:22 PM
