Day 18 Japan - Fukushima

09 September
Day 18 Japan

Hard to believe it's been nearly 20 days since I've been in Japan!  I've still got about a week to go before I need to be in Tokyo and my JR Pass is running out so I've decided to make my way all the way up to Hokkaido so I've almost gone end-to-end using my JR Pass.

The goal will be to end up in Sapporo on the last day of my pass.  Haven't decided how I'm getting back to Tokyo yet.  I'll figure that out as I go.

That means I have 3 nights of stopovers as I work my way north.  And I'm just going to stick to the Shinkansen routes so it's easy and comfortable.  For no particular reason other than "I've heard of it" I've settled on Fukushima as my first stop.

I'm also in actual hotels for the next couple of nights as these smaller towns don't really have any hostels.  At least not on the booking platforms I've been using.

So I arrive in Fukushima and dump my bag at my hotel (directly across the road from the train station) then go out to explore.  Fukushima is a very small city.  I think the reason I know it is they had some sort of nuclear meltdown a few years ago but the place wasn't glowing green so it can't have been too bad.

The lady at the tourist information desk tried to be helpful but she didn't seem to have much to work with.

Honestly - I didn't find very much.

There was what appeared to be a JR Bus Expo going on down one street.  It's not entirely clear what was going on but the JR company seemed to be showing off their entire range of buses that service the area and showing a new long distance bus that they might be seeing shortly.  Exciting stuff!  There were actually a couple of pretty fancy looking buses there but not many people looking at them.

After that I found a fairly sad downtown area with not many people and not many open shops.  Not really what I expected for a Saturday afternoon.

When all else fails follow the Ingress portals.  Ingress has more than once proven to be a pretty good tool for exploration.  Since portals in Ingress are theoretically supposed to be places of cultural significance in one way or another (religious, architectural, artistic, knowledge, local meeting spots) the theory goes that where there are a lot of portals there is generally something worth having a look at.

So I followed the most dense path of Ingress portals.  I ran across a few small temples, the local council offices, some castles ruins and the river running through town.

I did not find anything terribly exciting but it was a pleasant enough walk.  The river was quite nice and had a couple of nice bridges crossing it.  I think the most amusing thing I saw was knock-off time at some local company.  Must have been 4 or 4.30 on the dot and a group of about 20 old dudes came out all dressed identically in their black suits and wing tips carrying almost identical briefcases and just scattering in various different directions.  It's like they were going out to sell insurance door to door or something.  Ah salarymen (and a few women in skirts instead of slacks).

Headed back to the hotel after that because they had an onsen or something similar.  I figured it was early enough that I might get it to myself.  Sadly not.  It was a pretty big hotel and I walked in and was immediately greeted by a couple of naked Japanese dudes in the locker room and I could hear some more in the baths.  I promptly walked out.  No thank you.  I'll just have a shower.

I did pick up a small box of grapes for a reasonable price in the train station on the way back so I drank some water, munched on those and did some bookings for the coming days.

The room was pretty nice though it was absolutely tiny.  I think it was even smaller than the room I had in London last year. It was a good thing I had the large sized bathroom because I'm not sure I would have fit in the small one (the next hotel has proven me wrong on that).

I headed out later for some food and the town transforms after dark.  All the neon lights are lit up and there are heaps of people out and about going for dinner or meeting friends or whatever.  I walked around for a while trying to decide on somewhere to eat.  The place I eventually ended up at was really nice.  Like expensive nice.  I hadn't planned to spend much tonight but once I walked in I couldn't convince myself to leave.

The meal was delicious and the waiters could speak the phrase "I don't speak any English sorry" very well :).  It didn't cost as much as I feared but I could feel some of the backpackers I've met saying they could eat for a week off what I spent on that meal.  Whatever - money is there to be spent and I refuse to live on noodles in a country with such great food available.

That said - I probably didn't need the ice cream from 7-11 on the way back but I enjoyed that as well :)

Back at the hotel and did some writing and watched the only thing on TV that I didn't need to understand the Japanese commentary on ... Women's volleyball.  USA v Japan.  Not beach volleyball sadly (yes - I'm a dirty old man) but it was entertaining for an hour or so before I went to sleep.