My friend/boss Atsushi stopped by our apartment for the first time with his son to see Aki and spend some time together. He brought some wonderful sushi that was a nice break from cooking or crap food I pick up somewhere -
Among the salmon, rolls of tuna, and two assorted sushi plates was a fresh block of katsuo. I just looked that up and it turns out it is "skipjack tuna" in English-
One of my favorites was this seafood covered plate of rice-
Aki was still only less than a month old at this point-
And, Yukino took ninja photos of us sleeping together-
On the weekend I went out to take photos at the aforementioned car event. To get there I usually take the 4 mile tunnel the mountain between Osaka and Nara and continue on through the center of the city. While I don't due that anymore thanks to finding a nice one lane shortcut that most of you would be scared to drive down, I did take the main thorough-fair this time which passes right through the most popular and famous parts of Nara. If you didn't know, Nara is famous for friendly deer and while sitting in an incredibly traffic jam I saw this one that I had to take a photo of-
Insert car photos here - http://www.roryfollowscars.com/
After spending some good time at the track I left to use the remaining daylight to have fun in the mountains. While taking a tiny, windy road back I spotted a dirt road off to the side with some signs that I couldn't understand. A few minutes down that road I stopped at a haikyo that I had to explore.
If it weren't for the crazy amount of spiders the size of my head, I would have many more pictures. Stupid Godzilla spiders....
Continuing on despite my map not showing any roads our here at all brought me to some curious trails off to the side. My curiosity got the best of me and before I knew it I was jogging along the trail with my camera in hand. Turn after turn I just had to find out what was worth making a trail in the middle of nowhere. Soon I was confronted with a climb instead of a hike-
But, the view was worth it-
At the top of the climb was a nice open space, despite being inhabited by more Godzilla spiders, that looked rather odd in such a wild area. I am always surprised to find wilderness intruded upon by humans with roads and useless wooden structures-
I took these photos mainly for reference so I could look up this area later on. I did follow the road as far as possibly but...it was a dead end. Not too surprising. Just another well made road in Japan that took an incredible amount of money in time to make just to be a dead end.
Perhaps the road engineers here are incredibly geniuses when it comes to nice viewpoints though?
6 comments:
Aki looks just like Yukino :o)
Really? No one else seems to think so. A has a few features of hers but I think I won the war on this one ;)
Either way, he is ADORABLE :o)
Hello Rory,
I found this blog while i was searching for driving in Kyushu during winter on Google.
I like your blog very much.
I am living in Toronto, Canada. and I am planning to visit Kyushu in January 2012. I have rented a car via the ToCoo! website. One of the winter driving options they offer is tire chains, do you think it is necessary get that for winter driving in Kyushu? I am very familiar driving in snow condition with snow tires in Canada. However, this option is not available through the car rental company. It seems like Japanese people only use tire chains during winter.
I really hope to get some advices from you.
Regards,
Tony
Hey Tony,
Your trip sounds like a lot of fun. Kyushu is a big place with a lot of mountains and countryside to explore. The cities are quite fun too.
As for driving in the snow, after looking at the ToCoo website it seems that snowtires might be an option if requested. I would try to do that at least.
I am sure you would be fine with normal tires if you are careful like I was but snowtires are always nice in snowy conditions. You know the rules. Go slow on the downhill and don't loss speed on the uphill. There are plenty of ups and downs in Kyushu.
Snowchains....bah. I think those are a bit overkill.
Ah, one important point is the highway. Frequently I find that they limit the use of them to cars WITH snowtires if they think it is necessary. How they enforce that, I do not know. I hate the highways anyway and just took the mountain roads anyway in that situation. Kind of counter intuitive if you ask me.
Have fun!
Hey Rory,
I did select snow tires when I made my reservation from the car rental company. I got a reply saying that snow tires are not available. The staff told me that only Budget has snow tires option but their rental fee is way too high (i.e. 20000 yen for 2 days).
However, I have no problem getting snow tires for the reservation in Fukuoka.
Once again, thank you very much for your advices.
Tony
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