Kyushu: The Return
I got back last night, but I've been too lazy to do anything at all since I got back. -_-
First! Statistics. This is based on leaving Takanabe Town, in Miyazaki, at 4am on Wednesday, and arriving home in Toyama at 5pm on Thursday. Of course, the time only counts for when the navi was on (aka, not when I was sleeping).
Distance Travelled: 1142.4km
Avg. Speed: 53.7km/h
Stopped time: 3h 10m
Max Speed: 83km/h (this is subject to some debate, as the navi frequently claimed I'd gone 180km/h or higher in the stats section -- I reset when that happened, because I think it was just error arising from it becoming confused about my location, during loss of sync, or while I was 'offroading' on new roads it didn't know about)
TOTAL DISTANCE: 2798.7km
(That leaves my car 3km from it's next oil change D:)
Anyway, I left the hotel so early because (1) I knew it was going to take bleeding forever to get home (2) I'd spent too much money and so I did kinda just wanna go home and (3) I wanted to take pictures of a sunrise.
Sunrise at the Hyuga Michi no Eki, in Hyuga City, Miyazaki Prefecture. Didn't end up being the best location (turned out, as I set off after spending an hour there, that there was a much better situated beach about 10 minutes up the road D:).
Then I drove and drove and drove, and drove some more. In the wilds of Oita, I started getting drowsy for no apparent reason, but since there was no REAL hurry beyond my own desire to be home, I pulled over at a convenience store and napped for two or three hours. I kept seeing weird zippy lights, like someone was teasing me with a laser, but they weren't, and that is generally for me a sign of near total exhaustion and about-to-pass-the-fuck-out, so napping was the right answer.
Woke up, drove drove drove again. Navi wanted to take me on the asshole tiny narrow bendy road in the mountains above Beppu again to get back to Kitakyushu, which cannot possibly have been that much faster (I did have the navi set to find fastest route, not shortest route). It was getting quite annoyed when I refused to take its turns to reach the crazy batshit mountain road. It finally recalculated a route that didn't use the mountain road, but I was sure it was up to something, so I pulled over, and looked at the full route, zoomed out. IT HAD ME GOING TO KITAKYUSHU FROM BEPPU VIA NAGASAKI. THAT IS NEITHER SHORTEST, NOR FASTEST, NAVI. Here is a graphic for the benefit of those of you without knowledge of the geography of Kyushu.
Yeah. Yeah that was batshit dumb.
After that, she finally picked me a route that wasn't asstarded. I kept driving. Got to Yamaguchi, and instead of following Hwy2 to Hiroshima (which is a hellhole, don't go there, ever, you're only encouraging their WE WERE BOMBED, YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD mentality), I turned north and took Hwy9. It was kinda dodgy for a bit but then it opened up into some of the most beautiful valleys I've ever seen, but with nowhere to stop and take a goddamned picture. Oh well, such places will have to live in my memory for the time being.
Drove and drove and drove. Drove some more. Drove drove drove. Stopped for a little bit at Hamada, and got a picture of the sunset there.
Drove and drove and drove. Drove some more. All during this time, the navi was having a fit because someone had rerouted 9, and not informed my satnav. Several times, it was directing me down roads that went through the heart of small towns and had lots of stop lights, but the roadsigns were pointing me towards bypasses, roads that carried the same number and the same destination, but had fewer (or no) stop lights, and often had elevated speed limits (or no speed limits), so I'd take those. My favourite one was in western Yonago in Tottori Prefecture, when I took a bypass instead of faffing about in downtown Yonago, and it took me over a river. Unfortunately, the entire road was unknown to the navi, so it was like OH GOD DO A U-TURN NOW, DO IT, or TURn LEFT, but I'm already in the river as far as its concerned, and it just doesn' t know. I laffed.
Anyway, I kept driving, finally stopping just before midnight at a Family Mart in Tottori that I've slept at once before, in 2005. I napped there for 4 hours before carrying on. At that time, it was too early to visit the sand dunes, but I've been there twice, so I don't feel too upset about it. I have to say, Hwy9 in Tottori is friggin' sweet to drive. It's straight, it's smooth, there's lots of Eki no Michi, situated near what are supposedly good place for photos (I couldn't tell -- it was night time ._.), etc. All road authorities in Japan should take a hint from what they're doing there, frankly. There's also a portion with like, 20 giant wind turbines. Again, had it been daytime, i would have stopped for pictures, because they're pretty impressive. As it was, they were just creepy with their single red lights that blinked seemingly at random and made me feel uneasy.
Anyway, when i woke up at 4 am-ish, I kept driving and that's when the rain hit. Damned rain, making shit dumb. I didn't drive for too long, though. I ended up somewhere in northern Hyogo around 5:30, and bought gas, and then maybe 20 minutes later I had the zippy lights and I had to concentrate very hard on making a very profoundly angry/alarmed face so as to keep my eyes open. Found another Family Mart and pulled over, sleeping for another 3 hours or so. Somehow broke the plastic that holds the strap onto my left Croc when I got out of the car after the nap, which annoys me... ripped the other side off, since the strap was useless then anyway. I just got those a few weeks ago :<
Anyway, woke up and made a mad dash for it again. In northern Kyoto, just before Maizuru, I stopped for picture taking because the way the clouds were hugging the trees in the valley I was in was purdy. Haven't even hooked my cam up to my computron to move the files yet, let alone started processing, so please wait a little longer.
Saw that Maizuru, in addition to having an Air Self Defense Force base and a Marine Self Defense Force base (with a variety of middling-sized ships in dock), is home to the World Brick Museum. JOY. BLISS. I didn't go, fuck that noise.
Next up was Obama. Perhaps you have heard of Obama. They're so thrilled to have a name that sounds the same as the name of the US president that they've gone Obama-mad. All through town are I <3 OBAMA signs and posters, and there's a variety of Obama goods to be had. There's also a new pachinko parlor, just completed, called DAITORYO (which is romaji for 大統領, which means president, or chief executive, or Big Leader, or, literally, large ruling collar) which has Obama shizzle all over it. It's silly.
Drove drove drove, stopped for lunch and a break at the Circle K in Tsuruga that I stop at whenever I'm in the area. I've done this ever since my first road trip to Tottori in 2005. It came after a particularly challenging (at the time, for me) portion of Hwy 8, and it was scenic, and I said I AM STOPPING HERE, at that time, and it has since become a tradition. It was raining and cloudy, so I dunno how well the pictures I took will turn out, but when it's sunny it's very pretty there.
Continued driving, and it had been raining all the way from Hyogo at this point, so that was fine, I was used to that. Then the torrential rain started, and that was pretty fun. Then I came out of a tunnel and it was super foggy, like mad, pea-soup fog, which, coupled with the torrential rain, made for a really fun drive.
Drove drove drove. Nothing else of note really happened until I got to Oyabe and the navi said I'd be home at 5:05pm, but then I got behind some asshole in a dump truck doing 30km/hr. I turned off, and then it became a game to see if I could find a route that would gain me back the 10 minutes the navi said I lost by not taking route 359 as far as I ought to have. I succeeded, nearly. Gained back 8 minutes, so arrived at 5:07 instead.
Since then I've not done much of anything. Just sitting, vegging, relaxing. Did laundry today, but took bleeding forever to do it because I just didn't care. it's good to be relaxed, I guess?
Oh, my plants didn't die while I was gone :) My fern that I'd sat in water nearly up to its rim was surprisingly still dryish, but was in as good condition as normal. My Rubber Tree Plant had gained a new leaf and a new spike-that-will-be-a-leaf-one-day. The new leaf came from a leaf-in-waiting spike that's been there since last September, so that's pretty neato.
Yup. That's it. If I ever get around to processing pics, I'll picspam here.
Then I drove and drove and drove, and drove some more. In the wilds of Oita, I started getting drowsy for no apparent reason, but since there was no REAL hurry beyond my own desire to be home, I pulled over at a convenience store and napped for two or three hours. I kept seeing weird zippy lights, like someone was teasing me with a laser, but they weren't, and that is generally for me a sign of near total exhaustion and about-to-pass-the-fuck-out, so napping was the right answer.
Woke up, drove drove drove again. Navi wanted to take me on the asshole tiny narrow bendy road in the mountains above Beppu again to get back to Kitakyushu, which cannot possibly have been that much faster (I did have the navi set to find fastest route, not shortest route). It was getting quite annoyed when I refused to take its turns to reach the crazy batshit mountain road. It finally recalculated a route that didn't use the mountain road, but I was sure it was up to something, so I pulled over, and looked at the full route, zoomed out. IT HAD ME GOING TO KITAKYUSHU FROM BEPPU VIA NAGASAKI. THAT IS NEITHER SHORTEST, NOR FASTEST, NAVI. Here is a graphic for the benefit of those of you without knowledge of the geography of Kyushu.
Yeah. Yeah that was batshit dumb.
After that, she finally picked me a route that wasn't asstarded. I kept driving. Got to Yamaguchi, and instead of following Hwy2 to Hiroshima (which is a hellhole, don't go there, ever, you're only encouraging their WE WERE BOMBED, YOU SHOULD FEEL BAD mentality), I turned north and took Hwy9. It was kinda dodgy for a bit but then it opened up into some of the most beautiful valleys I've ever seen, but with nowhere to stop and take a goddamned picture. Oh well, such places will have to live in my memory for the time being.
Drove and drove and drove. Drove some more. Drove drove drove. Stopped for a little bit at Hamada, and got a picture of the sunset there.
Anyway, I kept driving, finally stopping just before midnight at a Family Mart in Tottori that I've slept at once before, in 2005. I napped there for 4 hours before carrying on. At that time, it was too early to visit the sand dunes, but I've been there twice, so I don't feel too upset about it. I have to say, Hwy9 in Tottori is friggin' sweet to drive. It's straight, it's smooth, there's lots of Eki no Michi, situated near what are supposedly good place for photos (I couldn't tell -- it was night time ._.), etc. All road authorities in Japan should take a hint from what they're doing there, frankly. There's also a portion with like, 20 giant wind turbines. Again, had it been daytime, i would have stopped for pictures, because they're pretty impressive. As it was, they were just creepy with their single red lights that blinked seemingly at random and made me feel uneasy.
Anyway, when i woke up at 4 am-ish, I kept driving and that's when the rain hit. Damned rain, making shit dumb. I didn't drive for too long, though. I ended up somewhere in northern Hyogo around 5:30, and bought gas, and then maybe 20 minutes later I had the zippy lights and I had to concentrate very hard on making a very profoundly angry/alarmed face so as to keep my eyes open. Found another Family Mart and pulled over, sleeping for another 3 hours or so. Somehow broke the plastic that holds the strap onto my left Croc when I got out of the car after the nap, which annoys me... ripped the other side off, since the strap was useless then anyway. I just got those a few weeks ago :<
Anyway, woke up and made a mad dash for it again. In northern Kyoto, just before Maizuru, I stopped for picture taking because the way the clouds were hugging the trees in the valley I was in was purdy. Haven't even hooked my cam up to my computron to move the files yet, let alone started processing, so please wait a little longer.
Saw that Maizuru, in addition to having an Air Self Defense Force base and a Marine Self Defense Force base (with a variety of middling-sized ships in dock), is home to the World Brick Museum. JOY. BLISS. I didn't go, fuck that noise.
Next up was Obama. Perhaps you have heard of Obama. They're so thrilled to have a name that sounds the same as the name of the US president that they've gone Obama-mad. All through town are I <3 OBAMA signs and posters, and there's a variety of Obama goods to be had. There's also a new pachinko parlor, just completed, called DAITORYO (which is romaji for 大統領, which means president, or chief executive, or Big Leader, or, literally, large ruling collar) which has Obama shizzle all over it. It's silly.
Drove drove drove, stopped for lunch and a break at the Circle K in Tsuruga that I stop at whenever I'm in the area. I've done this ever since my first road trip to Tottori in 2005. It came after a particularly challenging (at the time, for me) portion of Hwy 8, and it was scenic, and I said I AM STOPPING HERE, at that time, and it has since become a tradition. It was raining and cloudy, so I dunno how well the pictures I took will turn out, but when it's sunny it's very pretty there.
Continued driving, and it had been raining all the way from Hyogo at this point, so that was fine, I was used to that. Then the torrential rain started, and that was pretty fun. Then I came out of a tunnel and it was super foggy, like mad, pea-soup fog, which, coupled with the torrential rain, made for a really fun drive.
Drove drove drove. Nothing else of note really happened until I got to Oyabe and the navi said I'd be home at 5:05pm, but then I got behind some asshole in a dump truck doing 30km/hr. I turned off, and then it became a game to see if I could find a route that would gain me back the 10 minutes the navi said I lost by not taking route 359 as far as I ought to have. I succeeded, nearly. Gained back 8 minutes, so arrived at 5:07 instead.
Since then I've not done much of anything. Just sitting, vegging, relaxing. Did laundry today, but took bleeding forever to do it because I just didn't care. it's good to be relaxed, I guess?
Oh, my plants didn't die while I was gone :) My fern that I'd sat in water nearly up to its rim was surprisingly still dryish, but was in as good condition as normal. My Rubber Tree Plant had gained a new leaf and a new spike-that-will-be-a-leaf-one-day. The new leaf came from a leaf-in-waiting spike that's been there since last September, so that's pretty neato.
Yup. That's it. If I ever get around to processing pics, I'll picspam here.
