Nagoya to Nagasaki to Kumamoto and Back

Some companies in Japan, north of Tokyo were asked to work an alternative schedule this past summer.  Working from Saturday through Wednesday and taking the weekend off on Thursday and Friday.  The idea was to save energy by shifting high power consuming activities like large factories to run less during the week and more during the weekend when power consumption is less.  This indirectly was applied to my work schedule too, for the past three months I have been taking the weekend on Thursday and Friday and this gave me the opportunity to take some long distance trips around Japan.

The first such trip I took was from Nagoya to Nagasaki to Kumamoto and back to Nagoya.  The total trip time to Nagasaki from Nagoya is about 6 hours by bullet and express train, but I had an over night stop over in Hakata, so the trip did not seem so long.  

Tain mania in Japan is people who run around and take photos of trains.  So get ready, here is my train (and other mass transit) mania blog post.

Above is a map showing the JR route from Nagoya to Nagasaki.  You can see were the transfer at Hakata Station is, the google map flag near the lower left.  I took the first part of the trip to Hakata on the Tokaido shinkansen in an empty green car, four seats across.

Below is the shinkansen platform at Hakata station, on the right is the Tokaido train, the kind of train that run to Tokyo.  The train on the right is a Kyushu Shinkansen, it run south to Kagoshima.

The next morning I completed the trip from Hakata to Nagasaki, below is the ticket between the two stations.

It's really amazing the amount of space in Japan used for rice production.

Below is the train I took to Nagasaki, a 787 Kagome.

Nagasaki station is a terminus station, the tracks end here.

Around Nagasaki city, you get around using these old school trolly cars made by Mitsubishi.  There are now newer one, but these are more fun.  They have wood plank floors.

The next leg of my trip was from Nagasaki to Kumamoto.  This trip used three different mass transit services to get to Kumamoto, the JR train to Isahaya, private Shimabara rail to Shimabara port, a ferry across the port and a bus to Kumamoto.

Below is the JR sea side liner to Isahaya.  If you are using a JR rail pass, it is possible to go around the bay to Kumamoto, it's actually faster and easier and the only option shown on google maps.  The map above is the car route, but it is approximately the same route I took using trains and boats.

Below is the Shimabara private rail car, they run only one car trains and collect cash money at the end of your trip.  At Isahaya, the Shimabara rail company uses platform 0.

In route to Shimabara port.

Below is the Ferry from Shimabara port to Kumamoto port.  The paint job kind of reminds me of ferry's in Seattle.

Pushing away from Shimabara.

The route I took to Kumamoto takes a long time, about 4 hours.  This is because none of the different services line up their schedules.  Between each transfer was a 30 minute to 1.5 hour wait.  Below is the bus to Kumamoto.

On the bus.

Kumamoto also uses old school trolleys with wooden floors.  I guess if these things work since forever, no need to really stop using them.

Traveling back to Nagoya, this was the train I took from Kumamoto to Hakata, very pimp.  At Hakata, I had only 3 minutes to transfer to the Tokaido rail, so no photos there.

The Kyushu shinkansen has a really nice interior, very modern seats.

In Nagoya, I was lucky to have a shinano train as the final leg of my trip home!  Shinano is the train to Nagano, I will post about that later (the second long distance trip I took during energy saving work schedule).

Hong Kong: Food

Maybe cliche, but chinese food and dim sum in Hong Kong is good.  Kind of like how Korean BBQ is better in Korea.

 Much better compared to Seattle, Windsor or even Japan (but I have not had dim sum in Yokohama yet).

There are many good places to eat in Hong Kong, but let me recommend Luk Yu, it is not far from Central station.  Really good Dim Sum, breakfast at 9am or 11am, dinner at 7ish.

Dim Sun is served by people walking around with the food on the menu in tow. Short blog post about Luk Yu.

Below is the menu, it is best to ask the people walking around to just open the wicker warmers and look inside.  You can always order by pointing.

Another popular food in Hong Kong is fresh juice.

It's kind of all over and cheap.

Looking north just before the nightly light show!

Hong Kong: Domestic Helpers

It's typical that more developed countries in asia have domestic helpers that live in-home from less developed countries.  These helpers help take care of babies and manage daily family things like cooking and keeping the house clean.  I don't think Japan has domestic in-house help.

Domestic helpers in Hong Kong work weekly from Monday through Saturday and have Sunday off.  For some time now many of these workers have been protesting in central Hong Kong for the right of abode.  Basically, domestic workers from over seas don't have the right to residency.  Without residency, people are often considered second-class to everyone else and can lack basic human rights.

Without knowing what was going on, I walked into the middle of this peaceful protest in central Hong Kong.  I had to go back and this look this up in Google news to understand the situation.

Good news, there was a landmark case, Hong Kong high court has struck down the law that banned all foreign domestic workers from applying for permanent residency:

Hong Kong's High Court has ruled that a domestic helper from the Philippines should be allowed to apply for permanent residency in the city.

The case was brought by Evangeline Banao Vallejos, who has lived in Hong Kong since 1986.

The ruling follows a landmark judicial review and could lead to more than 100,000 other foreign maids winning rights to residency.

BBC Article

Hong Kong: The Peak and the Buddha

Victoria Peak or the Peak is a mountain top just west of the city center.  You can take a bus or a strange tram to get to the summit of the mountain where you can find a great view of Hong Kong, shopping mall and a Burger King.

Looking over the back of the mountain, you can see out into the East Lamma Channel and the South China Sea.

All over the Peak (and China) are cute lion statues.  Here are a few looking out over Hong Kong.

I guess they are actually looking away from Hong Kong, more towards the South China Sea.

The tram down the side of the mountain is less on rails and more pulled by a rope.  The angle is about 12 degrees down, kind of a strange feeling.

The Tian Tan Buddha or the big Buddha made of bronze, also atop a mountain.  One way to get there is to take the ropeway.  Below you can see the cars of the ropeway out over a channel.

It's actually kind of scary, it seems extra far between pillions that holds up the rope way.

As the car travels around the mountain, you eventually get to a clearing and see the big Buddha.

This Buddha looks old, but construction started in the early 90's and completed in 1993.

Asia loves stairs.  Although the ropeways gets you 98% of the way there, you still have to walk 100's of stairs before getting close the the Buddha.

This statue was the tallest-outdoor-bronze-seated Buddha in the world, but this is no longer the case.

Around the base of the Buddha are bunch of other Buddha's.

The Buddha's symbolises the harmonious relationship between man and nature, people and religion.

Returning to the base of the mountain, you get a better idea how many stairs it took to get to the top of the mountain.

The ropeway also goes over people fishing or catching something in the water.

Hong Kong: Tramways

Kind of mentioned in the previous post, but I made my first trip to Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China and once a colony of England. Now, for me, it's a fun and easy place to visit because I don't need a visa and it's not to far from Japan.

I'm going to put up a few post for Hong Kong but this one will focus on mass transit options, for example below is old-school Chinese boat. I'm not sure this is normal as a form of transit, but I like to think it is.  Also, I think that is gas powered, those sails don't seem to be doing anything other than looking nice.

In fact, there are boats everywhere, Hong Kong is divided by a series of rivers and harbors. Below is a boat used for dinner tours and a place to enjoy the nightly Hong Kong building light show.

Another interesting boat on the water used to travel to and from Macau from Hong Kong is the B929 jetfoil.

B made these things in the early 80's and they are difficult to find now. But many of them are running daily in Hong Kong, seem to be trouble free.

These jetfoils use to run between Seattle and Victoria too, but this ended many years ago. Today much slower boats run between the US and Canada.

In addition to a subway, the other main form of transit is 2 level trams.

First things first, you have to remind local people how to behave on the trams, there was other signs too keep your arms in the windows.  The other funny sign was where the emergency exit was, in the event of an emergency you had to use the front or rear door to exit.

These trans are really cool and convenient. There are so many in the system that you rarely have to wait long to jump on and ride, but they do get stuck in bad traffic.

I assume this is basically how London people get around the city.

All streetcars (but the few used to train the tram drivers) now have advertising on them.  I guess in the past cars were painted solid color green.

Here is mid-day streetcar traffic jam.  These trams sat here for 20 minutes waiting for traffic to clear.  There is no air conditioning in the trams, so all cars have windows open, which is nice when the cars are moving.  When they are parked in traffic you can see people in each car looking miserable.

Everyone kept walking in the streets too, I think because there is to many vendors and stores spilling on to  the sidewalks.

Cars are used for transit too, but looking at the situation I would not want to drive here.

American Tourist, trusted all over the world, since 1933!

Learning English

Between the Central–Mid-levels escalators and Central rail station of Hong Kong is a quick lesson in English. Located in a hall way connecting two buildings, the area is set aside as a kids play space. Although all the letters were there, these were my favorites.... 'B' is for Bag.

'E' is for Enough.

'K' is for Keep.

'O' is for Only.

When I was learning this, I think 'B' was for Ball, 'E' for Elephant, 'K' was for something and 'O' was for owl. 'K' might have been kite.

The Central–Mid-levels escalators is the worlds longest non-continuous escalator, about a half mile long.

You can see it snaking through the neighborhood in the photo above. It is considered mass transit and only goes up the hill. Going down, you are on your own.