#206 Failing to reach Mount Nokogiri, Chiba, Japan

Transcript

So, the end of the line is coming in Chiba. A lot, a little sooner, not a lot sooner, a little sooner than I expected. I guess because I had it in my mind, I seem to do this a lot like when I was in Yokohama last year. It's like, wow, that seems like a long trip. Two whole weeks. And in this case, because I was so wrong about that assessment, it's like I can't wait to go back to Yokohama, but because there was a bit of time before that room was available.

It's like, alright, I'll just book in Chiba, but that's kind of a long time to be in Chiba. Is it though? Because tomorrow, I'm out of here. I thought I had one more day. But no, tomorrow, I am heading out. So today is my last day. And man, do I need a coffee? I actually want to get the more expensive one just so I'll have less coins back out of the machine. This one's a whole dollar 40. Wanda, there's Wanda Black, but then there's Wanda Low Sugar. So presumably, it's not also Black. And yeah, this ties into last episode. I was noticing this. The Low Sugar Coffee, just all of a sudden, it's just strange how fast things can change. I haven't been gone that long, and that was a very distinct runner when I got to Japan last year. Black coffee is just a little, it's a little harsh for me. I do like some cream or sugar, but then everything else was mega, mega sweet. Seven are very hard time finding Low Sugar Coffee, and now I seem to be finding it all over the place. However, due to the very nature, I guess, of these sudden changes, by the time you're hearing this, and whenever you might get to Japan, maybe it just won't exist anymore. Who knows, maybe this won't be a thing. But it is right now.

It's still overcast, but pretty nice today, but I was trying to decide, all right, so what do I do on my last day? If I was going to go north, I went up to that lake and that windmill. There are further lakes and further windmills, and of course, just an endless world of stuff, the further you go. But I feel like that was a pretty good, that one in Sakura, that lake was a pretty good middle ground, of like it was nice to see what was up there, but not to go crazy far. And then for nearby, there's the monorail, where I didn't quite go all the way to the end of the monorail last year, I went to the Shell Mounds, but I looked and I essentially was at the end. There's only like two more stops, so, you know, I could go do that again, but there's not really more to see up there. I think down south is the main thing that's missing in my Chiba excursions, so I went and looked up the YouTuber currently Hannah, Australian vlogger, who came to Chiba and did a bunch of stuff, so part of it was down south. Mount Nakogiri, I think, let me double check, but I'm pretty sure that's the name.

Well, the mountain name isn't on my pre-downloaded map, but it seems like a really cool hike, it's like an ancient rock quarry, and there's like a giant Buddha statue in there, and apparently the hike itself is about an hour. You can get to the trailhead with like a 20 minute walk from the station, so that's all, you know, pretty good, but the ride on the train is like two and a half hours, because Chiba is fucking huge. It's coming up on noon already. I mean, this is all doable. It's certainly doable, but I mean, this is definitely a spend all day on the train type of plan. And being in Busan and Jeju and Taipei, it's nice because they're so mountainous. I've really gotten my fill of mountains. Like, obviously, last time I was in Japan, Ome was like my gold star, the Ome hiking trail that's north of the station. It's like, man, that's my favorite place. When I had one more place to go on my last day, that's where I went. But where it's funny that this time, I'm like, oh, I'm sure I'll probably get up there. I'll probably get around to it, but it's not even high on my list, just because hiking is a little tougher in Japan, you know. It was easier and Fukuoka more accessible, but around Tokyo, you know, you got to get away from the city, much like this situation in Chiba.

That's, I guess, why Mount Takau is so freaking famous, just because it's accessible, and it has trains that go to it, which I will mention at Nokagiri in our Australian way. Hannah was like, just quietly, just quietly, this is better than Mount Takau. That's my Nigel McGinnis accent, that's not Australian.

But I was like, yeah, throw that sheet at Mount Takau, I'm with it.

But yeah, I've gotten my fill so much of mountain hiking in Taiwan and in South Korea that I feel like I can chill a bit on that in Japan.

It's all right, if I don't go out of my way to go hiking. So yeah, just a two and a half hour ride each way, and I'd still be kind of pushing it just because it gets dark so early.

I'm not sure that that's what I want to do. And even if I wanted to do a lesser trip, part way down the coast, there's this peninsula that juts out that's very evident on the map. It's only a little more than an hour on the train to get there. However, the train just doesn't go that close to the coast at that point, because the coast is jutting away from the center. So apparently, again, these deceptive sizes of Chiba. Apparently, if I take the train for an hour or so, I then still need to walk 90 minutes just to get to this thing. But I mean, I guess that's my forerunner, my main plan. I guess that would all kind of time out similarly to Nokigiri. I just don't want to sit on the train all God damned it. I'd much rather walk for 90 minutes and walk 90 minutes back to the next train. That doesn't feel so bad. Standing on a train for that whole time, that does feel bad. I don't want to do that. So yeah, I don't know basically though. I'm just heading to Chiba Station, and I guess I'm just going to get on the train and start heading down the coast. I guess I'll just head down the coast and look at the window and just see how I'm feeling and just pick a plan as I go. And then if I don't do any of these plans, that's fine. Fuck it. Who cares? Who cares? It's been very nice being back in Chiba. The time's gone by very quickly. I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad I booked the extra time. And yeah, as with all places, I mean, I don't know. I guess it's hard to book too much time.

I need to just relax on that front. There's always more to do. Any of these neighborhoods in Japan, I could have spent more time and there's plenty to do. Seoul is a bit of an exception because that is the one place I actually looked into if it was feasible to cancel my Airbnb and it wasn't. But even there, you know, I started figuring out Bukansen. There was still a lot of Bukansen stuff to do.

Jetchan, I could have done more stuff if I got on buses and started spreading out a little more. Busan, a million more things I could have done. Juju, I did pretty good. Walked around the whole thing, but still lots to do. Taipei, I was there for the whole Visitor Visa, the whole 90 days. And I for sure could find some more stuff to do. I still feel like if every few days, instead of my door taking me outside to Japan, if it just teleported me to Taipei, you know, every once a week or something, that'd be fine with me. I could work with that. So yeah, my basic plan today is no plan. Don't overthink it. Just be here. Just soak it in. But yeah, since I technically have not really gone south at all, just going to get on the train and start going south and just see how it feels. See what happens. That's plenty. That's enough.

But I am starting to think like maybe trying to find Airbnb's in other parts of Chiba might not be the worst idea if I want to explore more Chiba. Hey, man. How are you doing? Say that to my last day, tomorrow I'm leaving. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So how do you think I will do a lot of time? I'm not sure. I have all day. Can I get by the way? I'm not sure if I have your email. Can I find your email address? My address. Yeah. If you know, if you know, I can get it at home and get it later. You know, key. Oh, it's on the key. We have my name card on the key. I didn't check it. Okay. We're going to go.

Well, speak of the fucking devil. I was thinking to turn it off the recorder, but I was like, I fuck it. I'll just leave it on. So that's not where he go. That's what I'm staying with. And as I was just saying, he's delightful. I very much enjoy staying at his place. But it does seem like it would be a lot easier to see the East Coast of Chiba or the southern parts of Chiba. You know, if I was closer, Chiba is just real big. I think you can't just say like, oh, I'm in Chiba. So now I'll just go see Chiba stuff. It's similar to Tokyo and West Tokyo. It's like, yeah, that's just like a different place, like a whole different place. Yeah, I wanted to make sure I had his email address because he mentioned if I come back, he's starting to try to get out of the Airbnb game a bit. Sorry, all this construction noise all of a sudden. So he's like, yeah, just email me. You know, we can just sort something out. Don't tell Airbnb. Sneaky. 10:00 But okay, also, now that this coffee is cooled down, just to touch, let me just give this a try. I got to guzzle this down before I get to Chiba Station.

Yeah, very similar to the coffee I had yesterday. So yeah, this is definitely a thing that's sweeping through. Sweeping through some of these brands. It is a non-sweet, mostly bitter coffee, but it's not black. Like it actually doesn't really taste so much like a cream or milk in it. It almost tastes like there's like slight mochanus to it, but I don't think there is. I think that's just the way the beans are.

Anyway, that's wicked good. That's wicked good.

It's nice to just bump into Noriko and I did message Sataru this morning just to confirm that I'm not going to make it up north on the trip he's doing to Fukushima. But I also confirmed that I didn't make anybody sick, because you know, when I got to Japan, I definitely was a little under the weather. And I mean, I spend all my time traveling by myself. The least I can do is be by myself, right, and not give someone a cold. So I was a little nervous a bit on our Ezekiah trip because it's like, I feel better. I think I'm okay. But I don't know. I don't know how colds work. But yeah, just to confirm that I didn't make anybody sick. Nobody's sick. Perfect. Perfect.

So wow, this train has a washer on it. And I guess that's how you know it's a pretty, pretty long haul train. But yeah, definitely find with some of these plans, it seems a lot less daunting once you're doing it. Once you get up and get going, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. Like when I was back at the Airbnb and I rewatched Hannah's video and then I was plotting out how to get to these places and seeing the sheer numbers on Google Maps and it's like, that seems long, man. That seems slow. But it really doesn't even seem as bad. I wonder. I mean, I don't know. The numbers wouldn't be wrong, right? But maybe I'm on some kind of express that I didn't know about. That's possible, too, because I don't know. With Google Maps, I just checked the kiddo. Whatever it says is the next train leaving and use that as the guideline. I didn't really dig into the details, but I suppose that could have been maybe some kind of local. Because yeah, I feel like I'm, it's only 1230 and I'm a third in the way to the Noko Geiri stop already. I mean, it seems pretty fucking doable. I think I got time. And the sun came out, which really helps. This is actually the first properly sunny afternoon I had since I got back to Japan. And I was saying last episode, it's actually nice to be here in the rain and to experience the rain. It's a nice little change of pace.

And you know, it was still overcast this morning. It definitely could become overcast again, but that the sun came out now. It's a little spring in my step. Yeah, I got on this line. It was made by Don't Recall now. It starts with a U. Looking at the subway map of Tokyo and it's like, what am I even doing?

J.R. East Railway Line's network for so many lines. Okay, well, there's Chiba.

What's Chiba Line? Is that it? UCIBO Line. I believe that's what I'm on. Holy shit, I found it. Can you believe that?

But also as we went, you know, it was obviously most crowded at Chiba at the start, but even that wasn't really especially crowded.

And now I'm at Soda Gaurastation. And the same thing is going to happen here as has happened at all of the stations. Some people are going to get off and fewer people are going to get on. So yeah, it's just been emptying out more and more and more, which is why I'm talking to myself. Like there's enough space on this train. Like there's nobody really even near me. I can just do what's stupid as podcast.

So yeah, that's the other thing too, I guess, is that, you know, I do try to stand as much as I can in the day. You know, it's not healthy for me to sit for long periods, but standing the entire way on a long subway ride. You know, I guess we'll see tomorrow when I go to Yokohama. I think I'm going to take that, the secret line that I found at the end of the monorail that goes into Tokyo for the first half. Yeah, I don't know, I've never been to Yokohama. I don't think through Tokyo before. I always came in from West Tokyo, from Hachioji. 15:00 So we'll see how that goes. I might have to stand the whole time for that. But for this one, yeah, I just kept getting emptier and emptier and it's a nice sunny day and I seem to be going pretty quickly and it's just comfy. I could just go take a seat and nod at all feel like I'm taking up space. There's entire, entire rows of seats that are just nice and empty right now. There's a Ferris wheel in the distance. Can't quite see the coast. A lot of this looking up the window has reminded me actually of Yokohama, which makes sense because it's, you know, forked town's coastal stuff. And until you get further down the coast in both cases, it's a lot of industrial concerns, a lot of smoke stacks and stuff. That's how it's been here, too. But it's given away now, given away to a Ferris wheel and more and more countryside stuff. So yeah, holy crap. Maybe I'm going to do it after all. No Kokiri, last day in Chiba. Works for me. Brother, it works for me. This is all going really well.

If you hear birds chirping as is Japanese tradition, that is not a real bird. That is just a station bird. They still do. They do the bird chirping to, I don't know, just to be. I mean, I knew the first time I noticed that was in Fukuoka in the subway. And I knew it was like an underground thing.

Just to have some nature sounds when you're underground, you know, to normalize it, make things feel, you know, more chill. But yeah, it's a little funny at an above-ground station. And a very rural one. It's very quiet around here. A lot of overgrowth.

It seems a little strange to have bird chirpy sounds. But yeah, basically I realized looking closer at my little mapy map. So I was on an express or a rapid, not an express, but a train that didn't stop at every stop. So I did have to transfer to a local halfway. But I wasn't at the station yet where it said I had to transfer. And then...

Whoops, a train arrived sooner than I expected. I don't know if I can talk to myself on this train.

Okay, here we go. Over by the washroom again. Definitely a spot. But yeah, I was like, okay, I gotta be mindful. I might have to transfer soon. But then before we got there, the train stopped and some people got off and some people got on. But then it sat there for a while. And I was like, hmm, that's suspicious.

Is this the transfer point? Perhaps the transfer point is a little before. Google Maps says. Because again, I don't know, you know, when I did the search, I did the search at home. And then by the time I got to Chiba Station is, you know, I'm not on that exact line that I did the Google search for. But I thought I would take it as a learning opportunity. It's like I'm very respectful that this train is going to go back the other way. But let's see. Let's just see in case I'm wrong. It'd be weird to get off the train. And then it continues on the way I want to go. But I've gotten off the train. But it did in fact go backwards. So I think that's a good rule of thumb. If a train just stops and it sits there for a few minutes, maybe get off that train. Because it might be going back the other way. So it did do that. But it became so local that it stopped at, you know, I just went to the next stop. And I just zoom away in on the map to even find what the heck even wears this station that they're saying we're going to.

So I went there and then yeah, it didn't take very long for this train to show up. But this one's a lot more rattly. It's the noisy train. But on the plus side, I mean, this has to be a local because only a local train would stop at this teeny tiny little station. So I still, I guess, need to be mindful just in case this train also turns around and goes back. But I feel like there's probably a pretty good chance this one will just keep going and they can be dense up. But I guess this could also account for the longer train times than what I was seeing. Because yeah, like I said, I was on a rapid. Not anymore. Now I got to stop at every stop. 20:00 But I'm still over halfway like I'm down beyond Yokohama. I feel like if you line it up with what's across the bay, I'm getting closer and closer to Yokosuka. And by the time I get to where I'm going to hotel station, it'll be just below the tip. Miura is down at the very tip underneath like south of Yokohama and Yokosuka. And I will be, oh, maybe not beneath. I'll be pretty much right in line with Miura. And then Chiba keeps going. Chiba goes even further south. But yeah, so I guess this will slow things down a little. But hopefully, now that I'm on a local, I can just chuck my way all the way down there.

And I didn't get a chance to drink it because the train showed up. But from a coffee machine, I got that exact same coffee that I got this morning. The Wanda Low Sugar Coffee. But I'm paying rural tax. It was 140 in Chiba. It was 170 down here. It was by far the most expensive coffee in the machine. It's premium. You got to pay premium price to not be super sugar. Okay, so here we are at the same station where I turned around last time. And yet it's like, again, half the people got out, but half didn't. So surely, surely we're going to keep going because there's no way that these half of the people who stayed in the train want to go back up toward Chiba, right? There's no way.

I guess we'll just wait and see who will see what happens. Because if this train goes back, then I don't know what to do. And then I will not know how to progress past this station. This is like the mini-boss of the journey. Yeah, no real English in the announcements down here either. Or on the LCD stuff. Besides that lady saying, please stand clear. That's the only English perfect.

Okay, we're still going south. We've continued south. I made it past the checkpoint. Awesome. So that's my lesson for today. Yeah, if the train really stops for like four or five minutes, take a hard look at what's going on around you because that train might have reached the end of its line and it might start going backwards.

All right, I'm getting a chance to put some of these theories into practice immediately because yeah, where I got turned around at that station, the station where my little Google search from earlier said I would have to transfer. Komitsu station, K-I-M-I-T-S-U. Also, I did in fact have to do a transfer. So I only made it two more stops. And then I got to this station and the same thing happened. Train stopped. Almost everyone got out. I saw one other guy still on the train and I was like, hmm, could that be an indicator that the train's going to keep going?

Is this guy trying to go further south? But because it was literally one guy, either going south is just fantastically unpopular as an option or maybe this guy also doesn't know what's going on. What if we're both using each other as an indicator that this train is going to go somewhere? And the train did just kind of sit there. Like, oh, that's not a good sign.

But then I realized one nifty thing you can do is just go look at the platform and look at it as though you're getting on this train. What are the signs around here saying? So I looked at the platform that we were stopped at and it's like, yeah, this is the train for Chiba and stuff in that direction.

Because when the train came into the station, you know, it switched over. It's sneakily switched over to the other side of the tracks. So it would park on the Chiba side. So it's like, all right, no question. No question. That's not where I want to go. Let's get out of here. Now, here's where I guess I'm going a little rogue. I'm actually quite near that peninsula I was talking about. So I mean, as a backup plan, it's quarter past one now. I could just go do that. There is a station closer. 25:00 But this is as close as you can reasonably get because, you know, this is where the trains all seem to stop. So it would take me a little while to walk there from here. But I could. As a backup plan to the day, that's certainly in the cards. It is still more than early enough. But basically at that station, as I go, okay, let me go explore this little station. Not the Eugest station. But it was pretty clear that I was on the Chiba side and on the other side are the trains going to Tatayama, is basically the end of the line down south. So you want heading toward Tatayama. So I went over to that platform and I milled around for a minute, drank my coffee, delicious. But there was nobody. You know, we're getting pretty rural at this point. That's where I mean, I had this experience in New York as well. It is a shame you can't just get on a train and point yourself in the right direction and just sit there long enough to get there. That would be nice, but I'm sure the logistics of the overall train systems, I'm sure it just doesn't make sense.

I mean, I'm just obviously getting further and further toward an area where there's just no need for trains to run, you know. A train can't just run all the way the length of the system, all the way south and all the way north, because they just need way more trains in the north and way fewer in the south. But it is a shame it's not easier. And yeah, I was on that platform and it's like, probably I could just stand here, but I don't know for how long because I don't have a data plan and there's no Wi-Fi. I can't see when the next train is actually coming. All of the writing is in Japanese and I tried Google translating the LCD signs, but they're too flickery. I can't get a picture.

So I could stand there for God knows how long and it would probably be fine. Probably a local train would show up eventually. But it's a little uncomfortable because there's nobody there, not one other person on that platform. Really makes you feel like you're just doing the wrong thing. Even when the train does show up, maybe there's something going on locally that people know that you actually don't wait on this platform. Maybe I'm supposed to be on the other side. So if a train showed up on the other platform, I'd have to determine if that's what I actually need and run up the stairs and run over top of the platform. It's just uncomfortable. It's like the hurry up and wait feeling. And I don't actually know how it all works.

So I'm breaking out an old chestnut. I don't think I've done this since Fukuoka. But I was like, I could either sit here and wait because it might be a while. Like, you know, that long travel time listed on Google Maps was clearly because of this. It's not the literal travel. If the train just traveled all the way down, it'd be pretty fast. It's all the transfers and the waiting and the local trains. So instead of that, why not just hop out of the station? And now I'm in just kind of a nice little, nice little random ass neighborhood. This reminds me a lot of when I took the line northwest from Naka, Izabashi, and ended up near Kawagoa. Feels a lot like that.

And I'm just going to walk to the next station. Because then the next station will just be a fully local station. No weird transfers. No different train lines. Train comes in one side, goes out the other side. You know, if I get on at that station, it's just instantly the easiest thing in the world. There's only two trains. They only go two ways. And I did this in Fukuoka because I didn't like dealing with the big train stations. They're fucking confusing.

Where little train stations are delightful. So I still might have to wait a while.

I still don't know when the next train is coming. And in fact, I might miss one by doing this. Perhaps the local train will go by as I walk, but perhaps not. You know, it might be slow enough that maybe I'll just get there before the next train. And this just feels so much better. Walking feels the best. Being on a train feels less good, but at least you're on the train and it's moving. Literally just standing there at a train station or a bus stop is my least favorite feeling. Like, I fucking hate that feeling. Especially when you don't know when it's going to be over. When you're just waiting for the... It's like, I don't know, you're waiting for a handoff from the heavens. And you don't know when it's going to come.

The relay race of the gods that I'm not privy to is a mere mortal. This way, I just get to walk through this neighborhood. And again, like I said, if something goes weird and wrong and I can't for some reason figure out what's going on, 30:00 I'm at the source of the secondary adventure. I could just go out to the peninsula whose name is also not on my Google Maps. So what is going on with this? I swore I downloaded a Google map of this area. Where's all the names? Google Maps, man. It's great to have, but as I've found throughout this adventure, when you don't have a data plan, like it's definitely not designed with a person without a data plan in mind.

Though I realize, too, that's got to be why the convenience stores don't have Wi-Fi anymore. Like it's kind of a bummer because there was so much Wi-Fi in South Korea and quite a bit in Taiwan. And there's just fucking nothing in Japan. But it's got to be because everybody has... You know, from what I understand, the cell service is really good. Everybody's got data. And I guess even a lot of travelers they go and get hooked up with that stuff. Whereas I do not. But anyway, just walking down a nice little road. Here's a store called Yellow Hat that sells car stuff and possibly construction gear, such as yellow hats. A little pharmacy type store. Just a nice little hood. Nice little chill hood. And I'm near enough to the train line that I'm basically just following the train line. No trains have gone by yet. So so far so good.

I suspect, too, the way back will be a lot easier because this was also what happened to me in Yokohama. A little tricky as you push out further and further from the center. But then the train rides back would always be shockingly easy because nobody wants a local train on the way back. Nobody wants to stop halfway at night. They just want to get home. So in that case, all roads led to Yokohama. And I suspect that around here it'll be the same thing. All roads will lead rapidly to Chiba. So I got enough time in the day to keep pushing at this. Keep trying to wriggle my way further and further south. And then yeah, I suspect that when the Yokohama goes its way back up, it'll be a lot easier.

Alright, pretty long walk to the next station, though I made it. I am at Aohori Station, A-O-H-O-R-I Station. It's just me, very small little station. I'm in the little center part. So theoretically, if a train comes by either direction, at least I don't have to like try to run upstairs and mess around, I can just hop on. I can't go by on my way. It was quite a long walk. Definitely took a while to walk here. But I'm glad I didn't wait, because yeah, it was like 35 minutes probably before I saw a train go by. So just standing there that whole time, not really sure if I had the process down right would have been very uncomfortable for me. Where here, who knows? Yeah, who knows how long I'll be here? I'm the only one here. There was a lady sitting at the entrance, but she wandered away. This is one of those stations, though, where it's unmanned. You know, you're just siding in on the honor system. So on the plus side to that, if I want to bail out, I mean, I suppose if I was going to bail out, I would still just wait for the train going back towards Chi-ba. But theoretically, I can at least leave the station. Like, I'm not sure what will happen if I try to sign out without going anywhere. I'm sure it'll give me an error, and there's no one here to help me. But at least there's no turn style. I don't literally have to hop anything. I could just walk out of here. But as it stands, yeah, I'm on this little center island. There's tracks on either side, and it's one of these situations where it's very overgrown. I actually feel like I could, it might not be the worst place to go use the washroom. There's a nice little washroom here, but it is up some stairs across the track down. I just have this bad feeling that like, what if as soon as I go over there, train shows up, because I cannot really miss this train. It's going to be a long time before the next one. Oh, look at that. There's actually a map outside of the station, but yeah, it's all the way over there. I didn't notice it on the way in, but it does have local sites. There's this big statue, one of those big cannon giant religious statues that was also in Hannah's video. But yeah, this is definitely tricky where to be fair, that video currently Hannah made about Chiba, it was made in association with Chiba Tourism, because yeah, you'll always get this straight dope from me for my little obscure podcast. This is hard to get to, you know, this isn't just one transfer. This was two transfers, and then I did this little extra jaunt that was obviously not necessary. 35:00 But yeah, this is the most local of the local. Like, there's nothing here. There's nobody here. Across, like, the train tracks and across the street, there's a guy. Oh, it looks like he's with this wife and they have a dog. There was that lady before, but she left. Okay, there's a parking lot way over on the other side. There's somebody getting into their car.

Yep, that's that big crowded Japan, huh? Wow, the population density, not in southern Chiba. It is empty as fucking hell, and it's like this way the whole walk, just like garages and stuff. I did stop at a family mart, got a pudding crape. Have you ever seen, I don't know how to describe it. It's like this pudding that's very popular in Japan where it's like a yellow orangeish pudding with, like, brown sauce on the top. Anyway, it was that stuff, but in a crape, really fucking good. Stopped in there, nice little rural family mart, had some stuff, had a nice little stroll. And basically, I guess that's what I have to always remind myself on these trips. It's like, don't worry about the goal. The goal just makes things more stressful than they need to be. Because I'm like, yeah, this is a longer walk than I thought, and it was getting very twisty, and I had to keep kind of checking my map and going on these little weird streets. But it's like, yeah, who cares though? Who cares if I get there or not? It does not matter. If this was the day, like, if this was the goal, just to go explore random southern Chiba, just to put it on the checklist, just okay, now I have a sense of what southern Chiba is like. That's fine. All this mountain stuff, giant statues, whatever. Who cares? If it happens, it happens, if it doesn't, it doesn't. But, yeah, because Hannah's video was done in association, you know, she's like, hey, just take the train. I know problem. It's definitely a problem. It is definitely a problem. It's very hard to get here. And this does tie in exactly to that Mount Takao stuff. Mount Takao was not my favorite. I bet this mountain I'm heading toward is way better, but there's an express train to Mount Takao. Like, you really can't just tell somebody unless you're being paid by Chiba to do so, to just go here. I'll just go here. The hard truth, the hard truth that the Roman holiday podcast will give you is that this is not an easy journey. This is not just like, oh, no problem. Just head on down there. It's like, prepare for some Tom Foolery to get down there. So anyway, on the map, this giant statue that apparently you can go inside and walk up and it seems pretty cool. But it's so hard to get to that even in Hannah's video, she did mention this one's a little hard to get to. So, if what I'm on right now, if this journey I'm on currently is not hard to get to, I can, I admit, it boggles the mind to think how tough that other one must be to get to. Fuck me. And all of it, too, it is, I guess, just because I didn't get started at 7am, just that it gets dark so fast around here. That's the only problem. It's a little after 2 o'clock now. You know, it's not really that big a deal. It is still just train transfers. It's not the end of the world. But the end of the day just fucking runs up on you. So fast around here. That yeah, the longer this takes, the more I'm like, if I get to a trailhead, it's like I really got to take a hard peer into the sky and be like, do I really want to be doing this right now? You know, as the day is slipping away.

But again, forgetting about the supposed quote unquote, destination. Just forget all that. If I just look at it as, hey, what's Chiba like? What's Southern Chiba like? Let me just have some sense of it. That's plenty. And I've already accomplished that. I've already pulled it off and the answer is it is empty. It is fucking empty. There's nobody down here. I'm amazed this station is even here. It doesn't seem like it should be.

Because I am the only mother fucker here. And if anyone else shows up before the train, I will be shocked.

Well, still at the station, the couple with their dog are still sitting where they were before. It's so quiet that I can hear their conversation. A lady did show up one other person other than me. I don't know which way she's going. If she's going my direction or up to Chiba, but we're still just sitting here waiting. 40:00 And then I'm just sitting here and there's like a walkway that just goes up and over the station, you know, for locals that are not catching a train. And I saw an older guy slowly making his way up the steps on one side. And I'm sitting here and I pulled out my phone and I was just like, man, it really would be nice to have data. Just to know when the next train's coming, just to know when. I mean, if this other lady's here, I was like, oh, maybe she knows. Maybe she knows the timetable. There's none of the signs that have the times here. Because they did learn how to read those out in Hachioji, but I don't see one here. I was like, oh, maybe she knows.

I heard that the voice is quite quiet. I was basically just looking trying to listen for Chiba because I forget what the name is of the place I'm going.

Yeah, forget the name of the place that I'm going, but I didn't hear them say Chiba. I don't see a train yet, but I'm just hoping that this train is going the way I'm going.

Although the lady got up and she's on the other side of the station, dang it. Is this going to go the wrong way? Anyway, what I was saying is that, yeah, just to even know when the next train's coming, sure would be nice. And then I went on my little map and I just counted the stops and it's like, yeah, here I am. I'm like two-thirds of the way. I got here pretty quickly, but I've just been stranded ever since. And I counted the stops and it's like, yeah, whenever the train does come, I've only got like seven stops to go. It's really not that bad, but I'm just at a full stop just trapped on the island of the little station. And then after all that dinking around, I looked over and that old man he had crossed over the top of the station and he was slowly making his way down the stairs on the other side. It's just like, man, this is slow life. This is the slowest life possible in Japan.

Because I remember questioning this out in Hachioji, because some of those weights were like 35 minutes for the train, but it never seemed that bad, or even like once you get out past Ome, and it's a single train track instead of a dual line, so it really goes slow.

And I was like, yeah, I wonder what the longest possible way it is for a train. It can't be too long, but this is way longer, way slower. Why do you keep announcing? There's no train, man. What are you talking about? There's not a fucking speck of motion in any direction.

Wait, though, the lady, I think she's on the side I want to go on. What is it called? I keep forgetting. It starts with the tea.

Tatayama. Okay, so she started to going over to the Chibasai, but now she's on the Tatayama side, so maybe this is the train I want. Assuming there is a train. I don't know, it's interesting to see that maybe the locals don't have it all sorted out either, because once those announcements started, that lady got up, and she has a cane, you know, like a pretty serious cane.

So she obviously doesn't want to just get up and stand for a long period of time, but she got up to stand, and there's still no motion anywhere. No activity anywhere. Oh, there's a third person, one last person showed up.

I know Abu Nai, that means danger, means be careful, so maybe that means there's a train coming. Anyway, whatever, surely there is an actual train coming, but man, man, is like somebody pushing it? How can it be this slow? Why are there all these announcements? And it's still like I can't even see it in the distance. What is happening? Anyway, presumably a train's coming. I'm going to shut up now.

Alright, it's continuing train shenanigans. So the train at the last station I was at when it finally showed up, it was going the wrong way. It was the one to Chi Bhat, and I was like, you got to be fucking kidding me. But there was the lady who had the cane with the arm brace, like the serious cane. She was going my way, and she was still waiting, so it's like, okay, there's got to be the train coming my way, arriving as well. And then it eventually did, so that's nice. And then yeah, it's a much smaller train now. This really like I just did not expect things to get this rural.

This is like, it's really surprising how fast things get mega mega empty in southern Chi Bhat. Here's a map with different stuff, but I believe I'm heading basically the right way. And yeah, even though it's a much smaller train, the English on the train got a lot more prevalent. You know, it was what I've kind of come to expect in Japan in general is, you know, every like third time through as an LCD thing scrolls through it tends to turn to English, but that last train I was on just wasn't doing that. This one did though, so that's good.