#42 Returning to the best view of Fukuoka

Transcript

Alright, I'm walking near my old Airbnb from 2019 that I stayed at by Uma Bayashi Station in Fukuoka. I came here like last week or earlier in the week. The other day when I was way up on the mountain and I came down at night and it was all dark and it started raining. I walked past here that night as well. And now I'm walking past it again just because today I'm going to hike up the mountain. It is like, you know, I got a circle the block. I kind of got to go out of my way just a little to go by here, but I just like it so much. I'm like a stalker of this apartment. It was such a nice, but it was like seriously one of the best places I've ever stayed. Even though it was only for three weeks, I would put it up there of like top three apartments I've ever had in my life. I just loved it. Love the location, love the place. Just feels nice to walk past it.

Whereas on the other hand, some, I guess some just like Japanese apartment updates, or I was talking recently about, I think I just called the episode like the weirdness of Japanese apartments. Just all the little details about living in a Japanese Airbnb, a little temporary apartment, little things that are odd or difficult or unusual. So yesterday evening was laundry day. No more choice because I was out of stuff. It was my last pair of socks and my last t-shirt perfectly timed out together.

And I noticed something kind of cool. My plan was to do laundry in the laundry machine and then take it up the street to the laundromat and pay for a dryer. But as I pulled out my little phone to translate the buttons on the laundry machine, I saw that it had a built-in dryer thing. So I was like, oh, that's a nice bonus. This is a washer slash dryer. And you could set the dryer to 30 minutes, 60 minutes, or three hours. And I was like, what the hell is that? Three fucking hours. But it turns out it's because it barely works. It's some kind of like a, I don't know, I guess it just passes air through the tumbler drum, the drum of the washing machine and agitates things around.

The washer part works great. My clothes look excellent. They're so washed. But after half an hour, no particular difference. I tried another half hour, nothing really much. At this point, it was getting kind of late. I didn't want to walk up the street to the laundromat. So I just did the classic hang them on the rack and hope that they'll dry on their own. But then I had the heat in the room set really low because I was going to bed. So today, not really. Not all the way dry. My pants were still kind of wet as I put them on. But they dried real fast from being on my body. But it's like, okay, so not really. That's not really a thing. And I looked it up and it's kind of interesting that I found a recent article about using Japanese washing machines from this year. And I found an old thread from 2008. So just out of curiosity, I checked them both out and they were identical. Like I don't think the technology has really changed. The pictures of washing machines from 10 years ago. Look just like the one I'm using now. So that's a little thing, I guess, to know is that even if you have one of these combo units, it's not a dryer. Like we would think of a clothes dryer, where you know, you'll whack it in there for 30 minutes. It's going to be goddamn dry.

It seems like it's more just something to vaguely help you out during rainy seasons and stuff when it's hard to hang up your laundry. If it in fact does anything at all, which I'm not fully convinced that it does.

Ah, here I am at the old building. God, this view of the mountain is fucking out of control. It's so fucking good. As good as the view is from up on the mountain, this is my favorite view of the mountain from the ground.

And it was just here as part of living here, just a bonus.

So twice so far, I've found signs up in the mountain. Only twice, but they've both been very inconveniently placed to ruin a view. So now that I'm looking from here, I see a little sign. So that has to be the peak I was at the other day, which is that's my plan. I'm going to try to get back up there.

Because the other day, I went up a path behind the Aboriyama Canon Shokakuji shrine. There's a really, really good path that is just like steps into the rock and into the, you know, built into this side of the mountain that go literally all the way up, all the way up the dang mountain. 5:00 And then I found this spot where there's the Aboriyama Kitai observation deck, which is the kind of famous landmark because you can just drive and walk up there easily. It's a pretty good view of the city, but I found this place where you hike just a little bit higher up. You got to go on foot, but it is the best view in the world. It's absolutely out of control, this view. Except there was this weird sign there. And I couldn't tell what the sign said, and I couldn't see it from up there. So from down here, I can see way up there a little sign. So it's like, okay, that has to be it. But it doesn't solve the mystery in the slightest because it's not a big enough sign that you could ever read. So I certainly can't read what it says. So I still have no idea what it is. I don't know what it's for. Who is it alerting? And what is it alerting them of? Like, unless you're flying an airplane, in which case it's far too late, it's not that big of a sign. If you're heading toward that sign, you're fucking dead.

Like, what the hell is that, man? Maybe today I'll try because there was a pretty obvious path down to the base of the sign. I just don't think I'll be able to see the sign even from down there, but maybe I can. And maybe it'll just have Japanese writing on it, which won't help any. I don't know how this mystery is ever going to be resolved. It's so strange because it's right in your view. It's the only part of the view that's not perfect. But that's kind of cool, like that has to be it. It has to be the place. I'm staring at it. There it is. That's where I'm going today. What's 400 meters between friends?

But yeah, beyond just sort of, you know, my clothes are more or less sort of half kind of dry. I guess not the worst, but it's like, okay, well, it didn't totally work out like I wanted. The other thing was, so I've got these electric hair clippers because this is the gift that keeps giving as I had wireless ones, but I left the charger in Canada. So that was like, whoops, silly me. So I used the last charge in them when I was in Akiruno, because I couldn't find a replacement charger cord, very specific cord. But in Montreal, I got these plug-in clippers for 12 bucks that are really good. They're like better quality. So I haven't used them in Japan yet, and I couldn't really figure out even where to plug them in, because the showers in Japan, the shower rooms, it's like all the contained unit. There's no outlets in there, and I just want to don't want hair flying all over the apartment. So I was like, I don't know what to do about this. But I realized there was a plug outside on the wall that could work. I could plug in the cord, could wrap around the corner. It's just so I could stand in the little tub with the curtain closed, just so my hairs will stay contained, and I can clean up easily. But as soon as I tried to use it, all it did was really painfully just hurt. It just hurt my hair. I think it was yanking at it. And it didn't cut at all, and I was like, yeah, what's happening? What is going on? And I looked at it, and it's like, it's buzzing, but it's not buzzing like it's supposed to. It's supposed to be like a monster. This thing is a beast. It is like a big metal fucking barber-grade thing. And it's just kind of quietly been buzzing. So I was like, what's going on? So just as an experiment, I had like a little stray hair grown out of my chest. I am not like, oh, I'm a manly man with hair I've grown out of my chest. I've just got stray, occasional little hairs or little hair growing out of my chest. But I was like, well, let me just try to make sure this is working. Let me just try to shave this one hair. And it's clearly not working. I could not cut one single hair off my chest. I kept trying and it just did nothing. So I was like, what the heck is going on? And it's surprising how hard it is to figure out information about these things that you just are completely over your head that you've never thought to look up ever before. Because you know, it's just I guess presumed that people know already or whatever. But apparently it's some combination of, there's voltage differences, how Japan, basically you can just plug your North American stuff in. It's no problem. But there's no triple pronged plugs. They don't ground anything. Which again, I got to admit, I don't truly know what that means. Something about surges, like if lightning hits your house, I don't know. But they don't do that here. So you have to get an adapter for that. And I guess luckily, computers just work at the voltage, this lower voltage that they have. They only go to like 100 volts, where North America is generally a little higher than that, I guess. But luckily with computers, it doesn't really matter. So I was like, maybe that's it. Maybe it's just not enough voltage. But then there's something about hertz as well. Japan is split into two power grids, 50 hertz and 60 hertz. The Tokyo side is 50 hertz. And then wait a second though, I'm not in the Tokyo side. I just realized I'm in Fukuoka right now. 10:00 Because I thought the problem was I was in the 50 hertz zone.

So it wasn't enough. But I believe Fukuoka is in the 60 hertz zone. So maybe it is not that. I don't fucking know. I don't know. For whatever reason, the stupid fucking clippers don't goddamn work. That's all I know. I don't know how to fix it. I don't really know what the problem is. So yeah, man, leaving my charger, that's again, just the ripple effect, the cascade. Luckily again, it really doesn't matter. It's why it's taken so long for this to even come up is because who cares? If I don't buzz my hair, who gives a shit? I just gave myself a little buzz two weeks ago. It really doesn't matter.

But now it's like, should I keep dragging this thing around? I mean, it was only $12. I don't know if it just isn't going to work. I'll try it at the next department. But then there's also another little detail I never would have thought to notice or ever care about. That the plugs in Japan are uniform. The two prongs where this North American thing I've got, one side is a little wider than the other. I guess you don't plug it in upside down. So a lot of the Japanese outlets I can't plug into. This one by the bathroom I could plug into, but yeah, just for whatever reason it's just not working. But I guess I'm getting my wish because I was just saying how it's like, oh, it's shopping's kind of fun. It's kind of a shame I don't have a goal. I don't have anything to buy. I don't have anything that I need. So I was just kind of looking for gotchas, but I just solved that last episode. I found Eurocamp. I found two Eurocamp gotchas. Now I don't want to find any more gotcha machines for anime that I watch because I don't think I will. But I've got enough little chachkis now. I got like three of them. I got two Eurocamp things and a super cup thing that are absolutely useless. But that's okay, just for keepsakes or whatever. Fun little things to have. That's fine. But more than that is getting excessive. Taking up space, yo. And I kind of just look at headphones sometimes because you can't really go wrong with headphones. But I guess this gives me something to look for. I could look for hair clippers because my thinking was if I could get rechargeable hair clippers that charge through USB, that would be perfect. That would be like that wouldn't need a specialized cord like by old ones. And you know, I'm just always going to have abilities to charge through USB. That would be the best. So I think that's what will keep my IPL4 now. I briefly glanced at Yodobashi camera at just some hair clippers as I was walking by. And they were really expensive. Like really expensive. I mean the one I got in Canada was like 50 or 60 bucks. They used one I got in Montreal was $12. This stuff was like starting at 140 and going up to 250. Like just crazy prices. So I don't know. We'll see. I look around. I would just let myself become a shaggy hair to hippie. But I actually have too many gray hairs now. It really makes me look younger when my hair is short. You know, you just can't determine at least at an immediate glance that I'm an old fucking man. Like when I was hanging out with the people in the Izakaya, they were very shocked to learn that I was over 40. And it could very well just be politeness, you know. But I don't know. Maybe they really were surprised. No, or even that guy. Nor he could. The guy from Chiba. When he left his review of me on Airbnb, he mentioned that just based on my picture, he expected me to be younger. Which I was like, oh yeah, what is my Airbnb picture? And it is a picture for eight years ago because that's when I joined Airbnb. I was like, I wonder if I should update that. But his review was even though I thought this guy was younger. Once we started hanging out, he very much felt the way I expected him to be. You know, he just seemed, he doesn't seem like an old guy. That's basically what he said. And I took that as a compliment because nor he goes older than me and he doesn't seem like it either. It's a nice trait to have, I think. I mean, I guess it's luck of the draw in some ways. If I had a harder life, I would no doubt seem like a crankier old man. But because I have a pretty easy life, I can, the least I can do is try to keep from becoming an old crank.

And yeah, try not to be particularly vain. It's just... It's just, hey, if I can just buzz my hair and I don't, you know, and it keeps me from looking grey, that's fine. It's utilitarian. Let's do it. But it's surprisingly, I'm having troubles with this. So basically, I was just having a vaguely annoying morning. It's like, alright, it doesn't really matter that my buzzer isn't working, but it's not working. You know, it's not like the laundry didn't work, but it's awkward and strange and it's like, the dryer thing is like, if you say so, I wouldn't consider this a dryer. So then it was becoming like one in the afternoon and it's just like, I just need to get out of here. I'm so stir-crazy. So my plan is, because I hiked up Aboriyama the other day and found this awesome look-out point. But then I took just a man-made path down, which was really rough and tumble and pretty rough path. And it took me to the forestry 15:00 road and I escaped the mountain. I never actually got to confirm that that look-out point connects to the Aboriyama observation deck with the hot dog salesman and the drink machine and the way I thought that it did. So that's what I'm going to do today. I've got the little path that starts near Uma Bayashi Station, see previous episodes for details. Where you're like, walk up these big steps to the edge of a neighborhood and then a path up the spine of the mountain. So I'm going to go up there, see if I can, in fact, from there, get to the new observation point that I found the other day. And even though it is, it's almost 230 now. I've only got a couple hours of light. But that's okay, because from there, if I do just end up at the observation deck with the road that connects it and everything, it's a fine place to be in the night, it doesn't matter. It's okay. It's all connected to the city grid. It's not like being on the mountain. Being on the mountain at night, which would be a very poor idea and probably terrifying. If anything, it's kind of nice to be at the main observation deck at night, because you get this beautiful view of the city at night. So I don't know if I'll see that or not. But it wouldn't be a bad thing. This seems like a nice, relatively short adventure I can do today, which importantly, much like going to the center of Fukuoka yesterday.

It's okay if it gets dark. Some of my adventures, it is not okay if it gets dark, because this one, no problem. So I'm going to go hit up the local 7-11, walk up the mountain, and see if everything connects up the way I am. I mean, I'm pretty dang sure it does. But why not? Why not check? And just an excuse to go in a nice hike. It's a bit overcast today, although the second I said that, the sun came out. But it's been pretty overcast all day. What is this?

Man, a truck drove by that is just blasting stuff. What the heck was that all about? Anyway, yeah, it's been pretty overcast all day. It's supposed to get quite a bit chillier tonight, but right now it's very comfortable weather. And yeah, I think this is perfect hiking weather, because once you're on a mountain in Japan, they're so tree covered that you can't really see the sky anyway. It doesn't really matter what color the sky is. What's important is that it's not deadly, brutally hot. So today it's a nice and temperate. Should be extremely good hiking weather.

So next step 7-11, because the Lord knows I can't hike without some coffee and some snacks. That would be what a wild idea that would be.

I actually met a guy on this mountain trail. But unfortunately, he just asked if I was going up, and I said, sure, I'm an observation deck. Beautiful day. But that's about all we could say. I feel like it must be a little surprising to people.

When I'm wandering around Tokyo and I can't speak Japanese, that's not so weird. But to be in the edge of Fukuoka, we probably just presumed. Hey, here's some guy probably trying to learn Japanese. You know, we can at least exchange a few sentences, but it's like, I'm afraid not. I'm afraid I have nothing, but it's still cool to meet somebody.

It's nice too to fill in the little blanks of, as you first start coming up, this trail, and on the right there's these openings in the trees where you can see out over the city. And there was always just this big tree mound, this big hill covered in trees, not that far away, that I was always like, what is that thing? And then I would not think to look it up once I was back down on the ground. But I did find out what it was recently, a few episodes back. The episode where I bought frozen strawberries out of a machine, and it turns out it was a shrine, although now I've learned that sometimes there are shrines combined with temples.

So come to think of it, I don't know, was it both, or was it just a shrine? I don't know, but a cool religious place, where you go in, and then you travel up to the top.

And up at the very top, there were no lights, there was just an extra little cool temple slash shrine thing.

And that was where I ended that episode, but I just remember, for whatever reason, my poor old dad was on my mind, and I dedicated the episode to my dad, so I'll give you the secret finale of what happened after that. It's like, in a way, it's like, guess kind of a sad memory, but it's like a good memory, too. It's definitely, it's not a day I'm going to forget. Where I had these fucking frozen strawberries, I bought out of this machine, just because I, it's just an unusual thing to see in a machine, so I wanted to try it. So for 500 yen, I got six strawberries, and it turns out they did have cream put in the center, because I was like, man, how are these? So there's like a weird, there's the strawberry taste, and then it tastes like candy inside. How could you ever make a strawberry that tastes like this, but because it was still partially frozen, I couldn't really tell from the texture, and it was getting dark, so I couldn't see. But it turns out that that was, in fact, there was like a weird candy cream on the inside. But since they had gotten to the point that they were now very cold still, but edible, not frozen anymore. And it got dark, and it gets dark so fast that it was just pitch black, and I was up there sitting on the little bench.

And you had to already go up some stairs to get to the main temple area, and there was nobody down there, but that's where the lights and stuff were. And then up way more stairs to get to where I was. So it's just like, no one's coming up here. I'm all by myself.

And being up there all alone in the dark in this weird kind of cool place, kind of up above everything else that's around up on this hill, in this pseudo religious place. You know, this theoretically religious place, I'm just not a spiritual person, so you know, it doesn't mean anything to me on that level, but it's still just kind of a neat, cool place.

And just thinking of my poor old dad who he died of cancer, but it was during COVID times, so it was very awkward for the hospital stuff. They really wouldn't let us go to the hospital till right at the end, because of COVID protocols and stuff.

Oh, speaking of, there we go through the trees. I can see it again. There is the little mini mountain I'm speaking of.

But you know, I got to see him. I was in fact, the last person to see him besides nurses and doctors, but yeah, up on that mountain in the dark, I could not shake the image of my old man.

So I sat there in the dark on the little bench in front of the shrine. And I ate all five of my remaining fancy pants, frozen strawberries while I just had a little cry.

A little cry about my dad. I don't know, it's kind of a slightly funny image in a way of just like unwrapping each individually wrapped fancy pants, strawberry, and just like, just like, oh, dad, all these are so good.

Man, swacking past another Joro spider. There was one that had a really big web right above, I had to kind of duck under just to make sure I didn't hit it right above the trail. And it was an especially big one. And I'm glad I researched those spiders and learned that they're not dangerous, because they're fucking so scary. I mean, they're very beautiful.

But the yellow coloring, they have some green and some red as well, but it's mainly black and yellow.

And it's such a striking, weird color combination. I mean, apparently they are in North America now. They've made their way over, but I had never seen them before. So it's like, how is this fucking real? This is not even what I think of when I think of a spider. Spiders in Eastern Canada are just nondescript. They're just spider-shaped spiders. They don't have colors and shit. See, these things, they look so scary.

It's nice to know that they're not.

And I feel like every time I come up here, I can hear distant sirens in the distance. But I guess it's just that, you know, because I'm up on a mountain, there's nothing really in the way besides some trees. It's just open air. It probably is that if there's a siren going pretty much anywhere down there, I can hear it. That's what's going to cut through.

So to get fully shallow, instead of my memories of my forebearers and all the deep shit like that, let's talk about something completely stupid. 25:00 So one thing I did while hiking in Western Tokyo was I bought a carton, a whole liter carton of coffee with a straw in it. And I was like, this is the best for hiking. You can just sip on it during the whole hike.

But that was a relatively flat hike. This is a hike up a mountain. It's a little more awkward to have a carton that you can't seal. So I was already thinking, like, maybe I shouldn't do the carton thing, but they were out anyway. They were sold out of those. So I was going to get, instead of the liter carton, you can get a 900 ml plastic bottle with a screw on cap. But it was all black coffee, sweetened or non-sweetened, but I really need some milk in my coffee.

Then they had the 600 ml bottle, but it's like, I don't know, it's called a one day or something.

It's just, it's real shit. It's so cheap. It's the weirdest thing. It says gigantic coffee, the cost like a dollar 30. It's like, well, that's going to be shitty, you know. And if there's one thing cheap coffee does, is they over sugar the product. I guess you can't tell that it sucks. Because I don't mind a little sugar, but I need milk. You know, I'll take too much sugar and milk over no milk. I just need, I need milk in my coffee. But I was like, I just don't think I really want this. It's just going to be so shit.

It's going to be so sweet. So I saw the Starbucks ice latte, which is unfortunately smaller again. It's probably 500 ml, but maybe not. It doesn't say it's a little bit small. It's significantly smaller. No, I just 500 ml, all right. And it was a lot more. It's like a dollar 80. But Starbucks coffee is a bit famous for being bitter in North America. People complain that the drip coffee is bitter. But I thought, let me try that because maybe that'll counterbalance the sweetness a bit. And it is. It's very good. It's like, yeah, this is actually very nice. This is a nice coffee milk sugar mixture. It's just not enough. I really should have bought two of them. It's half gone already. And I'm going to have water. It's fine. I should just be drinking water anyway. But for a moment, I was like, man, I can't come all the way to Japan and drink Starbucks. What a waste. But I mean, as if the other ones are fucking important. I've been here for weeks and weeks. And so what if I'm drinking like the Japanese shitty coffee? It's not like I'm going to some local mom and pop coffee shop. I'm just buying the Japan version of trash rather than the North American version. What is the difference? It's fine to drink Starbucks instead of boss coffee. Who fucking cares?

But yeah, I do think getting something with a twist on cap probably a better idea.

Just not being able to close the carton. It's a little weird. Not as bad on flatter terrain. But definitely not really appropriate for up a mountain.

I also bought some crunky. I haven't really had, I only bought crunky once the first day I was here. I used to always buy crunky. And it's just these little chocolate balls with different stuff inside. So I got a strawberry one and one that's just like super size ultra. I don't know what it is. Mega crunky. But yeah, for whatever reason I used to always buy crunky coming up this mountain.

So today I decided to go back. Be orthodox. Be traditional. Get my crunky.

In fact, let's try. Let's try the super duper crunky. Let's see what it is.

This is what my dad would want me to do anyway. Don't, don't dwell my son.

Don't dwell on the past. He'll be dead too soon enough. So take this time to talk about candy.

Talk about candy while you still can. See, I got strawberry crunky. Oops. I'll save that for later. And the sun also came out like the second I got on this mountain, which is not a bad thing. But it's getting a little warm up here. All right, these ones are called crunky by Lot. L-O-T-T-E. Get wild. Big. 30:00 And then a bunch of Japanese writing I can't read. It's all right. You want to get nuts? Let's get nuts. Inside, I don't know. It's just like crispy looking stuff. They kind of did that in North America. It was fucking weird as shit. It was these big oversized Reese peanut butter cups, but they supposedly had chips in them. It's like, hey, we crumbled up potato chips and put them in here because nuts and gum. Finally, like, what the fuck? I don't know because we just haven't tried this. It's the only thing we haven't done yet. We haven't tried it yet. So, yeah, inside these cups, it's like this weird little nuggets of pseudo potato, chippy type stuff. Certainly wasn't good, but it's not one of those products that immediately disappeared. I just kept seeing it around. So I'm like, yeah, okay. Maybe this worked. All right, let's see what you got, crunky.

Hmm. So the outside is kind of coffee-colored, like pale coffee with milk in it, like the kind I like, with some like black dots, and it smells kind of coffee-ish too. It smells really good. And inside is kind of like a little cookie thing sort of. I don't know. I don't know if coffee is what it's supposed to be. The thing on the side kind of looks like crap.

Caramel, maybe? It's really fucking good, whatever there is. Yeah, I guess the aftertaste is like salted caramel. Maybe that's what they're going for. And unfortunately, Google Translate can do nothing with this. I got cocoa and cream powder. I think, okay. I mean, it's already miracle technology that Google Translate shit on the phone works at all. But that would be the next step. If you want to double down on the miracle, read Japanese characters that are surrounded by wacky, extremely busy packaging, that would be cool. But that's probably asking a lot. But it definitely hurts the functionality. Japan's not a huge fan of clean, austere packaging. They like things to be fucking buck wild. But yeah, these are really fucking good, though. Get wild, big, cranky. It's real fucking tasty, whatever it is, I recommend it.

All right, I made it up to the end of this path where you bump into the paved road, the paved forestry access road that I walked down the other day. So there's signs with distances.

It's also easier to see. So yeah, there is this 0.4 kilometers is the little path down to the Aboriyama Katai observation deck that you can see on Google Maps, the major one with the road and the hot dog vendor. So 0.4 kilometers very close. I noticed too well as up there a little sign with an official elevation. Welcome to Mount Katai. It's said.

So that was a question I had the other day. Is this just called Mount Aboriyama? And I saw a street sign today too that said Aboriyama this way. So I believe the region is called Aboriyama. And this must be the Aboriyama mountain range. But these specific peaks have different names. So this is Mount Katai, I'm on today. What was the one the other day called? It had a welcome sign also.

Here we go. I had to look through my pictures. Welcome to Mount Saru. So this is Mount Katai. That was Mount Saru as on the other day. Who knows how many different mountains there are within this Aboriyama range? Because yeah, again, I don't feel like this thing is extremely huge and each specific mountain isn't that big, but big enough, certainly big enough. So yeah, then the sign leading back to where I came from, 1.6 kilometers. So that little hike I did up the hill, 1.6, not so bad. And now if I head on, so like I said, there's this little 0.4 kilometer path down to the observation deck that I will probably circle back and come back to that later. Yeah, just for anyone interested in specific distances. So this mountain access road that I was saying the first time I walked down this was at least two hours. And then the other day I scrambled down the mountain, but I was still most of the way up. I don't know exactly how long it took, but definitely over an hour. It took a long time to get to the end of this road. So it is 6.3 kilometers. And it's an extremely easy walk, not even a hike, I would say. It's just a walk on a road. It's paved like the whole way. Really no particular issues are going to run into there. It's just really gradual and really long.

Whereas the route I'm going, it says 2.7 kilometers, but of course the translator unfortunately cannot tell me what this says. But I don't think it's 2.7 kilometers to the peak I'm trying to get to. I mean, it is a significant ways up because the Mount Katai welcome sign said it was I'm under 300 meters. And the sign up there said 425 or something like that.

Significantly higher up, but distance wise, that seems very long. So I don't think that's what that 2.7 refers to. Maybe it's just the distance to the next peak of the next mountain over. I don't know because my presumption is if this is all connecting up the way I believe it is. I don't think it'll take me that long to get to the big super mega peak that I was on the other day.

It should just be up here, but anyway, I guess we'll find out. So I'm going up the 2.7 arrow.

And we'll see how it goes. I know for sure this does connect to the path I took the other day. Coming up from the Aboriyama cannon shrine, because this is what I originally did in 2019 and I started on this path, hung a left and went down those steps and ended up there. Connecting up to the road that leads to the observation deck, right by restaurant to Mori.

So these things all have to connect together. They just, I mean, they just, they do. They just do. I've done it before.

But I just want to make sure, because my memories on this trip have been a little inconsistent so far. Things are not quite laid out the way I totally remember, because I only did a lot of these hikes once. But it's nice to have all these distinct signs with distinct distances. Just to really make sure you're going the right way. That's kind of handy. Even if you can't read the words, they all got extremely distinct numbers.

That sounds like a helicopter. Where are you, helicopter, bro?

Don't see you.

All right, so just a teeny little ways up this really quickly up. There's another signpost. 2.6 kilometers now, further on. I've gone 0.1 kilometer. And then there's a 0.4 kilometers pointing to the left. And that was my memory that I went to the left. And that's how I ended up circling around to that shrine. But this is obviously not what happened to me the other day. The other day I came up from the shrine and was higher up the mountain. So 0.4 kilometers is not very far. I'm just going to go down here and see what happens, see if there's some obvious point where these routes connect.

But I somehow didn't see yesterday.

It's very immediately. It's just really steep stairs. Then back up on the other side. I just wonder what is it referring to with 0.4? Like what distinct landmark would there be that I didn't clock as a landmark?

Oh well, here's another, this is new. Here's a bench, brand new. It's a wooden bench. Somebody made, but it's like not at all weathered.

This is brand new bench. And another view, it's not as earth shattering as the one I found the other day, the one I'm trying to get to. Because that one that I found the other day, it just somehow manages to get above the tree line. So you can really see all around where this one ain't bad, but and my field division is pretty small.

Fukuoka Tower is always the easiest landmark and I don't see it. It might be through these trees somewhere, but I certainly can't easily see it.

Mainly the east side of Fukuoka I can see from here. Not a bad view, not bad, but that other one, it's literally 10 out of 10.

This is like a 7.5. You know, 7.5 is a good view, but when you got a 10, very close. You want the 10. 40:00 I'm going to presume that 0.4 was referring to this because it just keeps going down, down, down very steeply. And then it just obviously connects in with that trail I went up the other day.

That's not what I'm here to do today.

Man, it still blows my mind how accessible this is. I mean, I'm like a little over an hour removed from the cranky store. I haven't even finished my 500ml Starbucks coffee yet, and here I am, like looking at this insane view. It's fucking crazy. Like, you know, where I'm from, old New Brunswick, we have some mountain type stuff, but nothing with a view of anything. You know, it's just a view of more trees and mountains. And to get to it is very tough. You know, you got a bushwack your way out of the city. You'd have to like drive out of the city, bushwack through the fucking trees, get eaten by a bear. It's so crazy to me that this is just right here.

There's the classic siren again. Nothing between me and the siren, just open air.

Yeah, western Tokyo is pretty good too. It's no slouch. I don't know. I mean, if I could pick which one western Tokyo or Fukuoka?

I definitely have to deliberate for a while. It's hard to say, but they're both. Man, the access to nature is like just such an amazing part of Japan.

It's only I'm curious about. I know nothing about South Korea. I'm really probably only going to end up going just because it's nearby. And because they're going to kick me out of Japan after 90 days, I would just stay here if I could. But I've seen people do hikes. And Amsterdam had definite upsides, but I mean this is surely not one of them. It's literally the flatest place in the world.

It's said Japan, holy fuck, you really get both sides of the coin. You get holy shit. Curved LCD screens on the fucking pillars of the train station. And it's just like, wow, wild. J-pop music playing. Everything's fucking crazy. Holy fuck.

And then when you burn out on that, which in my experience happened pretty fast, pretty dang fast. But yeah, beyond all that, I mean that it has both things, that it does have all that stuff. If you're only coming to Japan for like a week, of course, go to Akihabra, go see the lights, go to a big fucking game store, go do all the stuff.

But yeah, once you've been here a while, it's like, yeah, you know, I think I would like to do the other thing. I think I'd like to hike up a mountain. And again, I just can't get over how easy this is. I mean, I'm just not the hiker guy who has all the packs and who my whole life is knowing about hiking shit. I'm just the go to 7-11 guy and then come hike. It's like, oh shit, don't have a ton of time left in the day. Only got a few hours of sunlight. Guess I'll just go hike up a mountain. It's fucking awesome. It's so insane.

All right, we'll speak enough. Let's keep going. All right, I'm gonna go back to the crossroads and head higher up the mountain.

All right, at 2.3 kilometers, there's another arrow. Again, I don't actually know what the 2.3 is referring to. I just know I'm still going to somewhere.

And there was also an arrow pointing down the hill. Toward the forestry access road with no numbers, because I presume that's all it is. It's like, hey, scrambled down this and go connect to the road. Aha-ha!

So just beyond that, this can't be the same one, can it? So those signs, those mysterious signs, there's one right here.

But I'd be pointing the wrong way. I thought maybe this was the same one that I saw from the peak.

But this one's pointed the other way. Yeah, this is a different one, but now I can see the front side, finally. And it's just blank.

I guess thinking like is it a solar panel, but it does not look like it. All right, there is a sign here. Although there's a fence in front of it, which I assume will make Google translate harder to use. Any love Google translate? Can you tell me what the fuck is going on here?

No, it's unfortunately just to gibberish.