#46 Visiting Dazaifu, Fukuoka, Japan

Transcript

Ah, just standing outside my new local 7-Eleven at about noon, watching the world go by, delivery guy, delivering stuff, some other guy standing out here on his phone. There's a lot more going on in this neighborhood, so that last Airbnb I was at. It was pretty handy for being so close to the mountain, so about wanting to go hike. It was pretty good for that, where this one. It's across from a karaoke place. Neo karaoke. But this one's, man, I'm spoiled for like, so today I'm going to Dazaifu, and I guess it's actually 1240. I'm dragging my feet a little, but I'm spoiled for choice. It's like, all right, which train do I want to take to get here? I'm minutes away from two different train lines. It's fucking amazing. With this one line that's not the JR line that I still have not learned the name of, it has a Dazaifu station. Although I think I got a transfer. Maybe I'll just walk. I don't know, I'm dragging my feet a little, maybe too much, because I kind of want to get there while it's daytime and look around a bit and get a bit of a lay of the land. But then I want to hang out till it gets dark, so it'll get dark at about 530. And then I can see both. I can see it in the daytime and at the night time. And before when I would get trapped in the dark, then I'm also hours away. I'm a two and a half hour, two hour walk away from my Airbnb, so it's like, oh man, the night really hurt. Where now it's like, fuck it, dude, you can just hop on the train. Be right back here. No problem. And ironically, this might even be better when I decide to hit up the old mountain again, because I can't really walk from here. But since I'm closer to the train, I could take the train to, you know what, cut all that stuff about the mountain, fucking who cares. But I got some goods. I had it in my mind. I wanted a melon bread. There's like this melon bread that has melon paste stuff inside it that is super melony. And as I go, I can go for that. They didn't have it, but they had melon pan sticks. So these are just little bread sticks for like a dollar, a bit over a dollar. There's five of them and they seem to have, and they seem to have chocolate chips in them. So I don't know. Let's see. Let's see what this is all about. Hmm, not bad. Not quite what I was looking for, but not bad. Yeah, the melon bread that legitimately looks like a melon and has like green, it looks like icing, but I don't think it is icing. Anyway, it's this bread that legitimately tastes like melon. That shit's fucking really good. And then I got precious moments coffee of Kobe, because I was like, oh, I haven't had this since Nakaitabashi, but I had one that was like a light brown label. This one's white. I don't know what the difference is, but let's try it.

I don't know. It's just kind of generically sweet coffee, but it's not bad. All right, last thing, these were an impulse purchase, as I was waiting, baked cheesecake biscuits. They look like, they look like animal crackers, but supposedly they're cheesecake. So let's try one of these. Tabeco de Butsu biscuit. Yeah, they're very much like animal crackers. This one says eagle right on it. Eagle squirrel fox. That's other written in English.

Oh man, that's pretty fucking good. So it's like an animal cracker, but it's a cheesecake cookie, rather than an animal cracker. It's an animal cheesecake cookie. Man, no complaints there.

Cheesecake anything in Japan is fucking super good. And I'm always drinking these vitamin C drinks that they have here, because even if it, I don't know, if the super blasted vitamin C, I'm sure it doesn't hurt, but just psychologically, it makes me feel like I'm fending off a cold. But I found vitamin C little lasanges. So it's like, I don't know, maybe this would work, so I'm not peeing all the time. Less liquid in my vitamin C. So let me try this. This is just why I quickly try everything, and then I'm going to go hop on the train. I'll just stick all this stuff in my pockets and have junk to eat all day. Because the vitamin C drinks, they're very good, and actually I like that they're small too. They don't really add to my liquid quotient to that much, but they're super duper sour, super sweet, super sour. So let's see how these work.

These are just a little lasange versions. Oh man, I mean they're tasty. They are fucking super lemony. Already though I can just tell like maybe this isn't the best idea. Maybe I should stick to just 5:00 just neck in one of those vitamin C drinks every day because this is so like sweet and delicious that my tongue is like seeking it out already. And it's like yeah, I'm gonna like burn a hole in my tongue with these things. Not bad though. Anyway, that's my random rambling of the morning. Just just standing outside the 7-11. I love it. It feels so good. But all right, I gotta go hop on a train and figure out how to get to an ancient city. Have that nice balance in the day. Just get junk food at the convenience store and then go do something culturally relevant and hope that it impacts my brain on any level.

Hmm, I just walked by three older ladies sitting on the shore of a little river. But it's not like a nice shore. It's like a concrete shore. And I don't see anything in particular on the other side. There is the elevated train track. I don't know. There's some houses and there's power lines. But all three of them were sketching the scene. So I got to assume it's like a club or something. But I don't know what the... I don't know what I'm not seeing. I'm looking right now. And it's a fantastically normal view. Which just seems a little odd because if I turn my head very slightly, there's amazing mountains. And then if I turn my head the full 180, there's really amazing super close mountains. So that's a little... I don't quite know what's going on there.

Maybe they're just bored of the mountains. I guess if you grew up here, you don't give a crap about the mountains. Maybe the mountains are just in your way. I can't see what's behind the mountains. I can't get where I'm trying to go. There's a mountain in the way.

So this place I'm going dies afu. I didn't do very much research. I just kind of want to wander in and see what happens. But I definitely heard of it before. And the little bit I looked up, it's like a whole town. And it used to be one of the major... if not the major capital of of Kyushu of this whole island. I believe. And from the pictures, it seems like it's still very historically accurate to how things used to be. Which sounds pretty fucking great. But it's a little confusing because that was a really short subway ride. I'm not there right now. But a tiny little subway ride that costs like 220 yen. But instead of doing the transfer and going straight there. Because whenever I'm directly in a place, like I just emerge from a train and I'm in a place, it really throws off my sense of direction, my sense of location and where things are and how they connect. So I was supposed to transfer at Nishitetsu Futsakichi station and go two more stops. So I thought maybe I would just walk from there. But then I realized if I stopped one station sooner. To Furo-mei, T-O-F-U-R-O-M-A-E station. It's about the same distance and there's like the little the river I just mentioned. The Makasa River.

And I was like, oh that'd be nice. I can just walk along the river. But it's this weird concrete not very accessible river. So I'm not walking along the river.

There's some girls playing tennis as I walked by. I used to play a little tennis when I was a kid. And Badminton. That's how I was good at Badminton in particular. I think because it's not a lot of physical strength necessarily required for Badminton. But yeah, I thought I would just walk to Daisaku just to sort of see it, you know, like what's the approach like? Like how do you get from from here to there? How do you get from the city to the time warp into the past? And yeah, I don't know. It is just city everywhere. Everything all the way so far has been city. I'm still very much in the city. I don't know. I'm starting to suspect, perhaps, does Aifu, D-A-Z-A-I-F-U. Maybe these pictures that I saw online again, I didn't research very much. But I wonder if they're 10:00 kind of curated. Like let's just make sure we don't point the camera in the wrong direction. Because I expected this to be like some kind of long train journey or a long bus ride or something. When I first heard of this place, I didn't expect it to just be on the train line. Like it is extremely accessible. But on the other hand, Japan, I mean, it can really change on a dime. Where you're just, I mean, I noticed that in Chiba. Most recently, I was just in the city. And then I was fully just in the country. It's like I was in a different whole fucking place. And then you just turn another corner and you're back in the city.

So who knows? We will see. I think I got about a 20-minute walk. And I think I mentioned this before, but I think it bears repeating. If you visit Fukuoka, if you're not in the very, very center, definitely just expect squat toilets. Man, they love squat toilets around here. You know, like at least on the, like obviously in the center, everything is super duper fancy pants. And like really fancy pants and sort of surprising how fancy all the stuff is in central Fukuoka. There's a lot of parts of Tokyo, not nearly that fancy. And then if you're on the main subway, those are the toilets of the future. But yeah, just as I was leaving this station, I just noticed on the way out like a squat toilet. You know, and I'm really not that far out. And this is the big fancy line that like has its own giant terminal, that tension directly connected to the diamond store or whatever. And even this line, once you just get, you know, six or seven stops out, it is squat toilet heaven. They love them some squat toilets around here. So far, I think I've only, I used a squat toilet once, really early on in Tokyo, just because I didn't have any other option. And I've managed to avoid it ever since. Not bad, not bad. Don't worry though, I'll let you know when I fail. It's going to happen eventually.

Not that anyone wants to know or cares or asked. But yeah, actually already, this is starting to calm down. We're drifting away from the traffic. There's a bunch of fields between me and the mountains. Maybe I'm slowly being enveloped by the magical past of Taizawa.

Oh yeah, in fact, I guess because Desifu is a whole ancient city, I think I have just inadvertently stumbled into the area. I'm not really very close to the Desifu subway stop yet. But I'm already there because I'm at the ruins of Desifu government office.

And there's a Desifu exhibition hall here. So yeah, this thing I thought was just a big park is the ruins of the government office, which when they say ruins, they're not kidding. I don't know, it's like going to say like, I guess we'll go take a stroll around it, but it really is just a park. There's like, I guess, foundations of where the buildings used to be, but that's it. It's pretty much just a park, grass, some monuments, kids playing and stuff. I'm taking a little walk with my eyes, then a right behind here, mountains. I'm willing to bet there's some sweet fucking mountain paths around these parts. God, I fucking love the mountains here. Yeah, I'm just looking at the, you are here, map. I'm here next to a washroom midway through the government office is a washroom. Up at the northern tip is a washroom. And then there's a mountain path there that just kind of goes up off the map. But if I were to take the one just a little to the east, it goes up to a washroom. There's washrooms all over this map. I love it. I already love Desifu. And the exhibition hall has little, little dioramas or whatever, little miniatures of like, here's what all the stuff you still look like, here's the buildings. I just gandered through the window as I walked by. It's like, uh, neat little miniatures. But I want to continue on because I'm already starting to think that I don't, I don't know what all is here. What exactly? I'm 15:00 looking to find. I guess I'll just go to that subway stop. I assume if there's any big touristy stuff, that will be a direct guideline from there. But my backup plan, the mountains are just like right there. They are right there. Maybe, maybe a little hike up the mountain is what I was here to do all along. Maybe that's the wrong that I was sent here to put right. The wrong being, I don't know that I'm not high enough in the air, I guess.

Wow, this place really is just packed full of stuff, because you know the way I do this podcast is I just turn the recorder on and off as I'm drifting around. So it's sort of an indeterminate amount of time between things. But these are all next to each other. Like I only turned off the recorder for like a minute or two. And then I was walking down the street and I just looked to my left and just looking down like a... Lane, tree-lined lane and I could just see the front of this temple and I just felt that drive. Like go there, go there, go look at that, that looks awesome. It immediately gave me the feeling of, again I always equate everything to video games. There is a Sega Genesis game called Revenge of Shinobi that is one of the all-time classics of the Sega Genesis. It's also where I first fell in love with the music of Yuzo Kishiro.

But it's an excellent game and this just feels like that because this is, it's like temple grounds and the buildings are just those ancient Japanese buildings with the cool flared roofs and the individual. Well it's kind of like... I really got to look this up. Like how did they make these buildings? The roofs are like tiles but they also sort of have... It's like a series of curved tubes, kind of, is what it looks like with tiles in between. Anyway, it's again ancient, ancient-ass building. Although I've heard a lot of these buildings burn down. A lot of these are recreations. But I think what's neat about this is this, you know, I've seen a million temples all around. But this one really feels old. It doesn't feel maintained. Like the ones in Tokyo are so meticulous. I feel like this would be like painted red and it would be sort of new looking where this is just the brown of wood and the walls are white. There's two different buildings, one of them smaller than the other. And it just looks old. It looks really old. It's almost like a fancy Japanese barn. But this is kind of cool because you really get a feeling of the age of it a lot more than the really well curated places. And I didn't even see this on Google Maps but luckily there is a sign here. Kenzionji Temple, K-A-N, Z-D-O, and J-I Temple. Kenzionji Temple was the most important ancient temple in Kyushu. The temple was built in memory of the late Empress Samae by her son Emperor Tenchi. After its completion in 746 A.D., it became the most important Buddhist establishment in Kyushu, exerting a great influence on all other temples in the region. That's something I learned also is that because I was confused specifically about the Aburiyama Canon Buddhist Temple. Because I only learned from my new friends, the Tauru, that the Buddhist temples and the Shinto shrines are two different religions, Buddhism and Shintoism. But I was a little confused because that Buddhist temple had Tauru gates like the Shinto shrines do. And deep in my memory, I remembered there being an old video from Tokyo lens, the Canadian guy who does YouTube videos about Japan. About this where they asked somebody at one of the temples why there was a Tauru gate there. And I managed to dig up the video. It's from about two years ago. I'm amazed I found it. What was it called? I don't know. It was his name's Norm. It was Norm and Shirela in Japan in northern Japan in the winter time. And the guy who was running the temple said that there's a long complicated history of these two religions intertwining that I did listen to a talk about it, but you know, it just didn't really sink in. Religion does not stick to my brain and it's like just hundreds and hundreds if not thousands of years back of these things. You know, it started with Shintoism in Japan. Shinto is Japan's native religion and then Buddhism came in and they intertwined for a while. 20:00 And then I think it's the major period it's called, but in like the late 1800s they were like, all right, we got to split these up. And that's when it became more of two distinct things. So the guy was saying that if you see a temple that has Shinto shrine, Tauru gates as well, it's a sign that it's probably old. It's probably over 200 years old back when these things were more intertwined. And it does kind of seem like because I'm so non-religious. I mean, I don't know anything about Buddhism, but I certainly don't believe that the Buddha was anybody. It's just some guy. So Shintoism seems cooler to me because it's just kind of the all-purpose worshiping of everything. I've like, there's a million little gods which, yes, the Tauru told me that too. You know, there's the god of the rocks, there's the god of the trees, there's just, you know, it's the worship of the area of the world, the natural world that you're in, which clearly fits more with me. I love that shit, but I don't need to put a label on it or be a part of an officially recognized group of any kind. But if I had to pick, with a little bit that I know, Shintoism seems pretty cool to me. It seems like the least offensive religion, but I'm sure, I'm sure if you dig in, there's probably all kinds of weird, horrible stuff that happen. There always is, there always is, you group people together and bad stuff happens.

But I'm trying, man, I'm trying to learn something, you know? Alright, now there's also a museum. Again, right next door to here, like, man, I'm still not even, I'm kind of glad I took this side approach. I'm still not even like halfway to the desifu subway stop, and I'm just like running into all kinds of things.

This area seems rich with, with things. Actually, I'm halfway, I'm a little over halfway.

I just did my quick little Google Translate because there's a sign here, 500, 300, 200, 150, and like the dates that it's open. I saw this sign at the other place too, and it is in fact the sign for Yen. So it's like, does this cost money to go in? I think it does. It looks like it to do as well. They've got like slippers outside, you got to take off your shoes and put on the slippers just to go into the museum. But yeah, I mean, I just don't, I'm not a museum guy. I've never been a museum guy. It was really cool that that one in Chiba was free. That was actually a really nice museum. But I kind of, like I was in before, I kind of just want to continue on because yeah, if I get a layer of the land and it's still daytime, I'm going to head up their mountains.

You know, I don't begrudge museums. They got to keep running somehow. Five bucks through museums, probably not that bad. Maybe it's amazing in there.

But yeah, it's one of those things I just made my peace with mainly in New York when I was suddenly surrounded with extremely famous museums. And it's like, yeah, it's not like they're bad. It's not like I didn't like them. But I was a lot more willing to pretend that I liked them when I was in my 20s. Now that I'm in my 40s, I'm like, I just don't care. I don't get anything out of this. I would rather just walk around.

The whole fucking place is kind of like a museum. So let's just do that.

So I'm approaching the station, found a drink machine, found a laundromat, all the modcons. So I'm on a busier street now and three tour buses went by. Two of them were Nagasaki tour and one of them was Kaho something. And then another tour bus came back toward me.

So I got the wild idea. Why don't I just follow the tour buses? And I mean, I can't see them right now. They've escaped me. But I'm heading in that direction. Let's head in the same direction as the tour bus. Keep my eyes peeled for the tour bus. Because whatever they're doing must be whatever there is to do around here. Pretty genius, am I right? I was just thinking too. I mean, even if that was an English museum, you know, same thing would apply. I don't really want to just go in and walk around and pretend that I'm focusing. But also it would be extra weird, I guess, because there was like a nice little old lady in there who I'm sure could take me around and tell me all about stuff. But not me, she couldn't because I'm an ignorant fool. I'm a deaf dumb, functionally blind. 25:00 I can't do anything in this country. See, a double window worked.

On top of the normal museum in this, there would be the awkwardness of milling around without being able to talk.

There's another tour bus, the V-Drow Museum. There must be fucking something going on around here because that's a lot of tour buses. Man, there's a high school here too. I noticed it on the map. Halfway up the mountain. They've got a big net set up, so I guess whatever sports ball they're playing doesn't come careening down onto the buildings below. But man, that's a beautiful fucking place to have a high school. It's a really nice looking school too.

It's not that kind of stereotypical high school like I walked by the other day, with just the rows of windows and the three floors.

This one is all fancy and modern looking. And then there's a gym and there's the big field forest covered mountains behind this school. And then from up there, they get a perfect view of whatever these tourists are doing down here. That's really cool, man. That's a cool place to go to school. Oh, and here's where all the tour buses are parked. I successfully followed them. So now we'll just follow the people. See where they're going.

Hopefully they're not all walking into a big meat grinder because if they do that, I'm not going to follow. I'm not going in.

I'm going in.

Oh, I've become trapped in the sea of people. I can't get out. So right after the tour buses, I'm not sure if that place was a high school. I was thinking of another place that's on the map. This one's not listed on the map. But it's a fucking cool building that somebody, I don't know. Whatever it is, it's cool. It's an amazing view. Let's just imagine it's a high school because that's a neat idea. But anyway, yeah, all of a sudden, it got into tourist town. There's tons of narrow streets, but tons of shops, mostly food, but all kinds of different shops, even a little claw machine shop and a loss and it's popped up. But all kinds of different shops. It kind of has the feeling of imagine a seaside town if you're on the boardwalk except for not by the sea. And it's just everywhere. Then I got to the Zifu station and it looks really cool. It's sort of the stations made to look kind of old-timey. Oh yeah, and all these buildings in general, even though it's like just modern type commercialism experience, but they all are old-style. Although here's a Starbucks that is maybe trying a little, but it doesn't really fit in. But everything is packed. And yeah, then all of a sudden, I got to this freaking intersection where there was a great big Tory gate, but just packed. And then I looked to the left and it was just packed. And I didn't want to go back behind me. So the right wasn't as packed, but I was like, I'm already in the flow. Just go through the Tory gate. So I'm going through a series of Tory gates, but it's just people everywhere. Surprisingly quiet, though. Even with as many people, it's nothing like traffic. Nothing like vehicles.

And yet, just stores and stores and stores. This one is selling Pocky.

This one is also selling chocolates. I passed some Takoyaki earlier. Although I ate all my melon pan and cheesecake crackers, things from earlier, so I'm not hungry. But I was tempted by the Takoyaki. Those are just like octopus balls, deep fried octopus. I've had them before in Toronto. They were good.

Yeah, this is weird. I guess it is also a Sunday. I never pay attention to what day it is. But I'm so used to just coming to places and kind of nobody's around, or not that many people. This is unusual. I did not expect it to be like this. This Taurus gangbang. But as I get to the where the end here, or the end of this shopping street, passing through the last gate, and it does seem like people are clearing out a little now. So I don't know where this is going, but now that we're passing through all the stores towards presumably a temple.

Yeah, it's still busy, but it's a little less insane. There we go. This is starting to seem a little nicer.

All these Taurus are Asian, by the way. Did I see anybody? Non-Asian today? I don't think so.

I saw some wild rainbow-colored hair, and I was like, oh, maybe that person. No, they were also Asian. So yeah, I don't know where these people are from specifically. But yeah, this doesn't seem like so much a outside or tourist area. This is like a within the region. Tourist area. But don't worry, I'm holding it down, Canada.

Canada, Jean. There's only one of us. It's just me, but I'm here. I'm representing.

Oh, man, this is cool. Like now we're going over a bridge towards some temples, and yet everything is super duper revenge of Shinobi. You know, really ancient, old, cool looking. But yeah, it would be so much better if nobody was here. I should come back on like a Tuesday afternoon or something, and see if it's empty.

Well, I mean, this seems pretty cool. It's definitely very beautiful, but that was just too many people. I'm already feeling the little tell-dale, the tickle feeling in the back of my throat that so far has been psychosomatic every time. And of course, is this time too, I mean, even if I got sick from all those people, it's not like I'd be feeling it now. It's been 10 minutes. But yeah, I think maybe on a Sunday, when endless tourbuses are rolling in, maybe that's not the time. I never really enjoyed big crowds, but I mean, in pre-COVID times, I think maybe I would have enjoyed that a little more, just for the spectacle of seeing so many people flowing through the place. But yeah, not anymore. Now I don't like that at all. So instead, I'm just trying to find a way to escape up into the woods. You know, this place is easy to get to. It's close. I can come back anytime. But there's so many people. I found this one path up behind these little shrines.

It's not the same mountain I was looking at before, and not the one with the building which may or may not be a high school. It's kind of the other way. But there's so many people here that even here, the path I was going to go up, somebody came down it, and now a few people are going up it. I don't know what it is or where it goes. But even the random path escaping up into the mountains, it's like got people. So I found a path off of that path that it's generous to even call a path. But let's try it and let's see. Heading on up, getting away. Too many folk.

Ruining in my day.

Hmm, not to be negative, more so. But this is weird. So right next to the super ancient shrine pavilion, is what looks to be the worst amusement park in the world. It's kind of hidden down in a glen. So I can't get down there just because of the steepness of this mountain. I don't really see there's some fences down there, but I think it's literally just the steepness of the mountain keeping people out. But it's very loud and grindy, and it's got like a really slow ferris wheel and really slow t-cups. And it's got these blue things that I thought were water slides at first, and it's like, dude, I know it's a nice day, but it's not that nice with the heck. But now it turns out it's like these little, just these little carts with little blimps on top, and there's like a train, like a longer one. And they're just very slowly going around in a manner that couldn't possibly be entertaining to anyone, and making that horrible grinding noise. Like it's pretty bad from up here, from down there. It must suck. And then further on, I do see what looks to be more of a actual roller coaster. So at least there's one thing moving faster than one mile per hour. God, it's so slow. Here comes another one. It's just the slowest thing, which if it was like the lazy river philosophy, that'd be one thing. 35:00 But it's making all of this racket. Anyway, it's medium busy down there, so that's good. And I also don't see it on the map. So who the heck knows what this is.

I think maybe the downloadable Google map of this region is just not very filled in, because I wasn't sure where my downloadable map of Fukuoka ended. And like I said, this place is not that far, but if I do go exploring further on the train, who knows where I'll end up. So I just grabbed half a Kyushu. I just was like, download the map for this area, please. And I just made the square around half the island. And it was like 600 megs, where the map of Tokyo by itself is like two gigs. Like this whole region of Japan has got less going on by a long shot than Tokyo, which isn't surprising at all. That makes a lot of sense.

But I had it confirmed by the numbers. Although again, too, maybe it isn't just that there's less stuff. It could be that just there's less stuff even on the map, but there's just stuff missing.

So yeah, I'm heading towards a shrine and up into the mountains proper. Maybe I can make a full escape from here. Escape from the ghostly music.

So I had a nice little walk through the woods that was kind of pleasant, but then it didn't last that long because I'm not in the actual mountain proper. So I got spit out into a little neighborhood and it's like, oh, this is kind of nice. And then I saw in the distance, make your own adventure that cool building on the hill that I, for some reason, thought was a high school. It's right here. So that seems like fate. Let's figure out what the heck this is. So we've got a wrought iron sign out front. I'm down at the bottom. I haven't gone up. So yeah, this is black on black, black metal lettering on a black metal sign. So unfortunately, Google Translate has nothing for me on that one. But there's another sign. It's further away, but it's white on blue. Oh my god, it actually fucking works.

Kyushu University of Information Sciences School of Management Faculty of Management Information. Oh, wait, there's an English signer at Kyushu Institute of Information Sciences.

Cool. Very nice. And yet across from the institution of sciences, which looks like a secret villain's layer up on the mountain, I just walked by a place where a guy dumped a bunch of old washing machines. Directly behind it is some kind of, looks like a little mini junkyard, some abandoned construction project. I was going to go up because the gates open and it's a Sunday. It's probably no big deal if I go up there. But I just noticed a bunch of people walking down this street. There's a bunch more. Two people walking up the direction I'm going. And yeah, big gaggle of people coming down and then a couple more behind them. So yeah, why not? Must lead somewhere. Must be something up here. It's just like a little narrow two lane road going up toward the mountains with really steep walls on each side. So all of the houses here are way up above the road. I assume this must have been just like a ravine. Like this must have originally been a natural groove in the earth and they just put a road here.

It would be really interesting to see how the roadways of Japan developed. I mean, it must be just kind of where can we put a road? Where are we able to? The same way that the rivers are all crazy so they didn't use a lot of boats in historical Japan. Must be the same way with all these fucking roadways and passages and stuff.

You don't get to decide where you want to drive to. You just got to wind your way around.

And a little tiny bus went by but it was packed full of people. So yeah, there's got to be something up here. What is it? The mystery. Let's find out.

All right, I see a sign for Kamado Shrine, K-A-M-A-D-O Shrine. 40:00 And it's a highway sign, the big blue signs. I've never seen a highway direction sign that set a shrine on it. It always just says, you know, a region, a neighborhood or whatever.

And yeah, the view of the mountains is very pretty from here. They're very nice.

But I'm not quite there as you can hear around me.

There's still a lot of traffic.

The icy stairs out of a nightmare. There are really long stairs. Is this Kamado Shrine? I don't know. There's still a lot of people walking further down the road.

But this must be something big stairs don't go nowhere.

Small stairs sometimes go nowhere in Japan.

No bus entry.

Please refrain from parking for climbing purposes.

Oh, whatever this is, it's closed on Monday. Luckily today's Sunday.

But that sounds pretty good to me if they have to mention, don't park for climbing purposes. I know problem. I ain't parking. I'm on foot. But that would suggest there are climbing purposes available to this place. It's three o'clock. I got at least two hours of sunlight. And I'm just really not that far from stuff. So let's give this a go.

All right, this worked out pretty well. So where I went up to is a soccer field. There's a bunch of kids playing a game of soccer with their parents hanging around watching. And they of course had drink machines. So I got a deep green tea. There were two green teas. One of them was in a blacker label. So I got it. It's deep green tea. What's the brand of this? It's pretty tasty. I like it. Something affiliated with Coca-Cola.

Imagine if they had this in North America and Coke machines. People would be like, what the fuck? You don't know what you're missing out on North America. It's fucking tasty. And you had the view from this place and she got to go up nightmare stairs. The view of this field, holy fuck, just because there's the big mountains in the background. It's like, again, just it's so weird to just grow up next to mountains. And just like, I bet if these kids ever leave a quokka, move somewhere else, that's when they'll realize like, oh man, everywhere I went as a kid used to be the most beautiful shit in the world.

You just take it for granted that you live in a postcard. People from Vancouver probably feel similarly. And then yeah, you get other places and it's like, oh wait, most of the world is kind of flat. But also, not only do you have to go up nightmare stairs to get to your soccer game, although I guess probably your parents drove you up. But of course, squat toilets as I was walking by the washroom. I appeared in and it's like, oh yeah, there's washrooms all over this place because then as you go up the mountain, there's a couple of different playgrounds for kids. Just squat toilets everywhere. So imagine playing a full game of soccer. And then, you know, football. And then having to use squat toilets, fuck man, you must have legs of fucking steel. That builds character for sure.

But yeah, then as you go up, it's just a nice little mountainy path. But again, not the proper mountains. There's a highway between me and the proper mountains. You can still hear the traffic in the distance. But because I'm only two hours from sundown, more like 90 minutes now, you know, it's better. It's better that I'm not in the real mountains. I did wake up pretty early today, but I stayed at home a bit doing some editing. Oh yeah, because that was my plan. And my plan was to hang around in this neighborhood till it was dark and see if it looks like at night. I don't know, I wonder.

All those shrines and stuff, I wonder if they're going to look cool at night. Do they light up stuff like that? They must. I mean, it's such a tourism place. Maybe I should still make that my plan.

To meander back that way and see if I can pass back through it at night.

But anyway, for these purposes, yeah, I get to take a nice little half hour hike through these mountains. Traffic on one side, soccer on the other. Not too far from anything. 45:00 No chance whatsoever of being abandoned in the mountains at night. So I'd say that worked out pretty well.

Yeah, I'm kind of in that awkward middle zone where it won't be properly dark for a while still. So it'll take like two hours for it to really be dark.

It certainly won't take me two hours to walk back there.

But I don't want to know that there's much else to do in these parts. I think the fact that I did a little hike up behind the soccer field really is probably about as good as it's going to get. So I don't know, I don't know what my plans for the day are.

I could go on a mission to try to find a non-squat toilet, but why even bother? That's not going to fuck it happen.

Hi, I found a sign, so the place I was at was the Berrin Sports Park, B-A-I-R-I-N Sports Park, but then the Komato Shrine, I must forgot about that, the Shrine with the sign. It's only 0.9 kilometers, it's not that far, because I was just thinking if I walk back to the main Dazaifu Shrine area, I've really got to drag my feet to get there, you know, when it's dark. Say this Komato Shrine slash Mount Homan Trailhead, so again, yeah, probably will not partake of the Trailhead, because there's not enough time for that, but there's plenty of time to go to Komato Shrine. Then turn around, come back to Dazaifu, because I was thinking even, I'm sure the main Shrine area will be nice, but then also lit up at night, I was like, oh yeah, there's all that, the commerce street, by the station, where there's just like the millions of little shops. I bet that's going to look awesome at night, so yeah, I've got to see this shit at night. But yeah, I was a little, I was a little like, hmm, but what do I do? Do I just spin in circles for an hour? How do I eat up the time? Komato Shrine is how I eat up the time, yeah, because I was also thinking how on my way up here, just that very, just the spirit of adventure, just following people and going up to a place that never been, I feel that little flutter, those little butterflies in my gut of like, yeah, I'm going to go explore, I'm going to go find a place, I just love that feeling. But then on my way back down, I was like, yeah, you know, I mean that was fine, but I really did just find a soccer field with a little mini hike, you know, especially because that's like a kids playground behind the soccer field, that little hike I did would be the perfect hike to take like your small children on, because it would feel like a real big adventure to them. But you know, for an adult, it takes like 20 minutes, it's not a big deal. But a perfect kid hike, but yeah, basically, I mean, I guess that's the point of adventure, right? You don't know what you're going to find. Maybe it'll be the craziest thing ever. Maybe it's just like, okay, just sort of a sports park where it's probably slightly extra confusing of like, you know, why I'm wandering around there, but I'm just wandering around there because I didn't know what the heck it was.

So yeah, take two, Kamato Shrine. Let's see what you're all about. I'm glad I saw that sign that had the distance because I was thinking if they posted it on a highway sign, suddenly we're talking car distances. It's like, maybe this thing is really far away. But one kilometer, point nine kilometers, that's nothing. That's not even a tunnel.