What To Do At Ôwakudani

Friendly faces on Dôtonbori

Dôtonbori is the street to go restaurant crawling in Ôsaka (if you have the stomach). As there's a lot of venues, there's a lot of competition, so a lot of wacky stuff to draw the passer-by's attention.

If anyone knows why this restaurant is called Shôwa Hormone, please let me know. Shôwa, I can guess, is nostalgia for the post-war Shôwa era; but Hormone needs a good story behind it!

Is this guy mad at people double-dipping their fried skewers?

By the way, that's two fronts featuring another monument of Ôsaka, Tsutenkaku tower, just in case you forgot where you were.

Finally, we have this guy, a true local hero: Kuidaore Tarô. This animatronic was introduced in 1950 as a mascot for the Cuidaore restaurant, which has since closed, but Tarô and his drumming were such a stable of Dôtonbori, that people clamoured to have him back.

I dunno. I think he looks like Brains from Thunderbirds under the influence of the Mysterons. A figure of his time though.

"Kuidaore" by the way, is from the proverb:

京都の着倒れ、大阪の食い倒れ Kyôto no ki-daore, Ôsaka no kui-daore Spend all your money on clothes in Kyôto, and on food in Ôsaka

Today, "kuidaore" is colloquially translated as "eat until you drop" - so go restaurant crawling if you can!

The "Witch's Eye" - Engelbourg Castle ruins, Thann

For what it's worth, Prince Albert II of Monaco is visiting Thann in the South of Alsace this weekend, as he is also Count of Ferrette. Held by the Austrian Habsburgs for a while, the title was bestowed upon Cardinal Mazarin, a prime minister to King Louis XIV, following the French conquest of Alsace in the 1640s. A member of House Mazarin married the Prince of Monaco in 1777 and that's how the title ended up where it is today. I don't plan to explain the origin of the other bazillion oddball titles the Prince of Monaco holds...

It's just a pretext to mention Engelbourg Castle, built by the Counts of Ferrette in the 13th century on a hill above Thann. The French Counts wouldn't benefit from it for too long: as it lay too far from the German border to be of strategic value, the same Louis XIV ordered its demolition in 1673. But, as you can probably tell from the photo, something weird happened during the process. The cylindrical dungeon came apart in segments, and one of these landed on its side. For whatever reason, it was left there, creating a unique landmark known as the "Witch's Eye", as an echo to the "Witch's Tower" in the town of Thann, but all it reminds me of is Polo mints.

A short hike uphill from Thann, it also offers nice views of the valley and the vineyards on the neighbouring hills.

Le moulin rouge du Moulin Rouge a perdu ses pales!

Was going to take a break from posting today, but we had a bit of breaking news out of Paris: the famous cabaret Moulin Rouge's red windmill has lost its sails! They fell off at around 2 in the morning apparently, cause unknown. No injuries.

Article France Bleu Paris

"Stick an aircraft engine in it" part 2b - the TGV

"Wait, the TGV's electric, right?", I hear you say. You're not wrong: all TGVs in commercial service since 1981 have been electric. But this is the 1972 prototype TGV, and back then, those initials stood for Turbotrain à Grande Vitesse, continuing the development cycle of trains with helicopter engines that had already been introduced on intercity services with the RTG.

This prototype would set the standard of what French high speed rail would become: articulated units of carriages between two power cars, and the distinctive, iconic orange livery I wish they would have kept around in some capacity. The train regularly ran over 300 km/h, peaking at 318 km/h in Southwestern France in December 1972. The difference, of course, is that TGV 001 was equipped with four helicopter-derived gas turbines, two in each power car. As the oil crises hit before the production TGV was properly defined, SNCF were able to redesign the project around electric power in time for the 1980s.

After 15 years of service as a test mule, the train was due to be scrapped, but fortunately the two power cars avoided that fate. Their interiors were gutted, but the cars were saved and put on display as monuments to their builders, Alsthom, at Belfort and Bischheim (North suburb of Strasbourg). UNfortunately, they've been put by the motorway of all places, at both sites, so visiting them isn't very pleasant. At least at Bischheim, there is a footpath on the bridge over the motorway and railway yard, so it's possible to take one's time and get some decent views of the machine that started it all.

Japan's first Concorso d'Eleganza

A Concorso d'Eleganza is basically a beauty pageant for historic cars. Based on similar contests for horse-drawn carriages, called Concours d'Élégance, the Italian name references the fact that the most famous competition in the genre for cars has taken place in Italy since 1929.

The Japanese version was launched in 2016, with the amusingly-named "Artistic Cars at the World Heritage, since 2016" exhibit at Nijô-jô, Kyôto. I say amusing, because they were using the "since 2016" tag in 2016, and... it hasn't used that name since! Nonetheless, the sight of these immaculately preserved cars in the lovely palace gardens was impressive.

Among the cars built between the 1950s and 1990s, there was an exhibit with rare Zagato specials. Particularly obscure is the Autech Zagato Stelvio, shown above and below. Of the three names, Zagato is the best known: they are an Italian coachbuilder, who make unique bodywork. Autech is a Japanese tuner, working most closely with Nissan. And the Stelvio is a late-80s mix of all that: a modified Nissan Leopard with very unique design choices, such as the wing mirrors in the fenders.

The Concorso d'Eleganza Kyoto is set to resume this year, having been put off due to the pandemic and the restrictions surrounding it since 2020. The principle hasn't changed: they're going to show some remarkable historic cars in a historic Japanese setting - at Nara this time.

World's Loudest Prius

In 2012, apr, one of the big teams on the Japanese GT scene, decided to do... Well, I'll just tell you what they did, you can make your own opinion: they took a Toyota V8 originally designed for American open-wheel racing, which was due to be used for Toyota's return to the Le Mans 24 Hours, plopped it in a mid-rear position on a race chassis, cobbled together a hybrid system with various parts from production cars in the Toyota range, and covered all this with a Prius-shaped bodyshell with an ultra-aggressive aerokit.

To me, the result is both brilliant and ridiculous in equal measure. Brilliant because it worked: as the first full-time hybrid competitor in the Japanese Super GT Series, the mid-engined Toyota Prius apr won 4 races, scoring 16 podiums, and finishing as high as second in the GT300 championship twice in a 7-year career.

Ridiculous because it's the complete antithesis of a road-going Prius, to the point of being the loudest car in the field! When I first witnessed the Prius apr at Motegi in 2016, I could only gasp and laugh; there's no way a Prius should be this loud! And it was a joy to see it again testing at Suzuka in 2018, in what would be this version's final season.

In 2019, the next-generation Prius apr would not be mid-engined, as per the rules that forced manufacturers to put the engine where it is in the road car, and the screamer was replaced by a growler - still ludicrously loud, and I wouldn't want my Prius race car any other way! By the time I visited Super GT a third time at Fuji Speedway in 2023, the Prius was no more, but I jumped on the chance to get a miniature of this remarkable car.

For more on its history, development and results, Roflwaffle has a 35+ minute video on it.

Temples on the high street: Kyôto Teramachi and Shinkyôgoku

A typical Japanese covered high street, right? Yes, there are lots of shops left and right, but this is Kyôto, a millennial capital and centre of cultural and religious tradition in Japan. So what happens when a modern high street encounters a centuries-old temple, bearing in mind that it would be very bad form to ask the priests to sell up?

Well you leave the temple alone and build around it. So, in between the big name drugstores, Animate, clothes shops and cafés lined with the street's signature bricks and tile floor, here's the entrance to Seishin-in, with traditional wooden doors and tile roofing. It is also just visible in the first picture - see if you can notice it.

Seigan-ji is easier to spot, further illustrating the contrast. Online maps show that this temple even has a cemetery in the middle of the next block, completely encircled by shopping streets and businesses.

It's a similar situation for Tenshô-ji, though, this far up the high street, the commercial tissue becomes less dense. These temples seem a bit larger and own more land. Still, we've gone from a towering, mineral, covered street in the top photo, to an open path with low buildings and plenty of vegetation, with no transition.

These scenes of coexistence fascinated me when I first visited Kyôto in 2016, with a hotel in this area, so it was great to see them again on my brief return to the city in 2023. More fascinating still is the fact that one of these "just off the high street" temples is not only very old, but hugely historically significant... and I'm yet to mention it!

Nijô-jô

In my experience, Nijô Castle in Kyôto is one of the most unusual in the Japanese castle landscape, in that the main focus of the conservation and tourist attraction is on a palace, the Ni-no-maru Goten, rather than a dungeon (whether reconstructed or original). It is true that, as the Tokugawa shôgun's residence in the Emperor's back yard, it was a focal point of Edo-period politics.

The palace sits behind a grand gate, decorated with lots of gold and colours. And as all noble residences from the Edo period go, there's a vast, carefully crafted garden on the side, complete with tea houses.

But all this is part of the Ni-no-maru, the area around the Hon-maru main keep. Given that the mountains around Kyôto are largely occupied by temples and shrines, there's not much of a height advantage to be gained in the city, to the point where, when the Hon-maru burned down in the 1780s, nothing was rebuilt, it was left bare!

Eerily, the Tokugawa shôgun's Kyôto castle has a similar story to the one in Edo: there was a keep, but it was destroyed during the Edo period and wasn't rebuilt, and both castle grounds were transferred to the Imperial Estate at the start of the Meiji era. It was in the 1880s that the Hon-maru palace was built, in the space the Tokugawas had left vacant.

Climbing Toba Hinoyama

The road (and I guess that is the only downside: it is a road all the way) to the top of Hinoyama starts with the welcoming entrance to Jôan-ji temple.

After some 800 m uphill, past a rather large resort hotel, a chance for a break appears: a viewpoint with a camera stand (which may have been the first time I noticed one! very handy for group shots, though I was alone of course), and an art garden called Medaka no Gakkô, or the school of rice fish. Not knowing that at the time (I looked it up for this piece!), I didn't notice the fish, but I did notice the art and the wisteria in full bloom.

Most of the climbing is done at this point, and it's only another 300 m to the entrance to the shrines at the top of Hinoyama. Shrines, plural, and of various sizes, as the modest Hakuryû Inari-jinja sits next to the grander Toba branch of Kotohira-gû.

On the right, at the bottom of the stairs of Kotohira-gû, one finds the donors' board, and an inviting path... to the views shown in the previous post.

A quick post in response to Ferrari's second consecutive overall win at Le Mans, with a few sights from the manufacturer's home town, Maranello. Everything here is Ferrari: their road car factory with the classic entrance gate (above), the more modern F1 team base, the Fiorano test track, the Scuderia museum, the statues to founder Enzo Ferrari and the Prancing Horse, a park featuring Ferrari's most famous road car models...

Yep, everything is Ferrari here. Except, well, this store front apparently. It's rather gutsy to show off a Lambo badge here, but then again, historically, middle fingers to Ferrari was what Ferrucio Lamborghini was all about!