#51 Traveling from Fukuoka to Saga, Japan

Transcript

Alright, this is, I believe. I'm pretty sure this is the single biggest daily adventure I went on while I was in Japan. This one really got away from me. This was kind of ridiculous. Even just when I think back to it, it's like, oh man, that was all one day. That was the day that would never stop. But it was cool. It was exciting. I think back to this day often. So I'm just popping into the start because it's so long. I split this into two episodes. But the split point isn't completely logical. I was heading from Fukuoka to Saga, which is the next area over, trying to find a waterfall, or chose who falls. And then from there, the journey back was its own crazy fucking adventure. So I guess the logical split point would be this episode, get to the waterfall, next episode, escape from the waterfall. But timing-wise, it just doesn't quite work out that way. So instead, this episode doesn't quite make it to the waterfall. Instead, I realized how I could split it up. This episode is while I'm in civilization. And then next episode is when, I mean, I kind of think of it as, when I think back to it, I think of it as zombie mountains. Because it's just like, I could be the last person on Earth right now. What the hell is going on? This is crazy. But yeah, I just thought I'd mention that up front. This is going to be a two-parter. I think it's a pretty good one. So I hope you enjoy. Let's go.

All right, let's start with the classic Leaving the Apartment ASMR.

I wonder if there's like, if anyone's ever done a study just about how, where you live, how it makes you feel. Because my last Airbnb, I'd have to go through my creepy little, uh, the GenCon, the anti-chamber into my apartment. It's all cramped in and small. And it was on the first floor, but it felt underground because it was so packed.

And there's no, like, windows or anything. Today, I opened up my balcony door and just let the wind come through. Like, ah, some nice fresh air. And, uh, and all of the, the sea of buildings outside, even though I'm on the fourth floor. It's kind of nice because it doesn't feel like I'm high up. So I don't feel a fear of heights, which I don't know. Fourth floor, I might, then at the old place, you know, into duck dance. I didn't bang my head and creep out into the sun. And I was like, under some stairs. Where all the garbage is. And then I had to go around the corner. And when I say garbage, I mean, it's just bottles. But, but still, it's just like every day. It's like, ah, okay, shake it off. Shake it off. Okay. Now you're in Japan. Walk around. We're here. Yeah, it's like from the second I get up. It's like, I like this apartment. It feels cool. And then this, they're just got to the bottom of the stairs and how the door is just open because the weather's so nice and Fukuoka. Ah, and there. Now I'm outside. And I was thinking what this reminds me of in Grand Theft Auto 5 when you leave your apartment, you never have to like unlock your door and open it. You know, your door just swings open as you stride out looking like a cool motherfucker. Because you know, Grand Theft Auto's whole fucking what they trade in is making you feel cool and just strutting out of your apartment at the start of your day, at the start of your adventure is part of what feels cool. And that's how it feels here. I just love it. I just strut outside. Here I am. I'm now outside in Japan. It's very red. The one thing that makes me not feel cool is I'm carrying yesterday's ramen cup. Although ramen cups are great for getting rid of your garbage because in the ramen cup is all the rest of my trash. But luckily there are convenience stores all around. There's a Lawson's near here. So I think I'll go there, toss this cup in their garbage and buy some breakfast. I think it's about 9 a.m. I'm actually up a bit early today. And I'll tell you about today's adventure in a moment. But before I get to this convenience store, let me also say one of the recurring themes in this podcast of dubious, extremely limited value. But it does just, it's a thread that keeps coming up. Is that my favorite kind of coffee is coffee that has cream or milk, but not sugar. And that's virtually impossible to find in Japan. Although I did realize, I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier. Even if you get really sweet coffee, I realized if you drink about two thirds of it, and then I always have a water bottle in my back pocket, if you just fill the rest with water and shake it up, it's extremely good. I guess maybe why it didn't come up is that most coffee is in cans. 5:00 So it's a little awkward in a can. I wouldn't have thought to do this in a can. It wasn't until I had a bottle yesterday. And it's like, yeah, you can just pour a little water in, put the cap back on, shake it up, and it's really good. It really helps. It really cuts that too much sugar feel. But I was at a mini stop yesterday, and I guess I've seen these coffees before, but they're very unusual to find. I wonder if it is only a mini stop, because even mini stops are very unusual to find. It's called Saru Tehiko Coffee, S-A-R-U-T-A-H-I-K-O, comes in a little bottle. Café latte sweet off, and then they had another one. I was like, did the other one say sweet on? I don't know. But sweet off, it's exactly what you want. I put it in the fridge last night, and then I just had it this morning, and it's like, oh, so good. So unexpected to wake up in the morning, take a little swig of coffee, and it does no sugar, no sugar at all. But it's still a latte style, really delicious. Saru Tehiko, I definitely recommend it.

It's unfortunate that it's a little hard to find, but it's real good.

All right, we're going to go hit up Lawson's, and then I'll get you up to speed with today's potential waterfall adventure.

Okay, first, let me just clarify that I fully respect the do-not-talk on the train rule.

However, I'm on a train, apparently a fairly obscure line, going away from Central Fukuoka, and it's like, it's a little before 11 in the morning.

And yeah, I'm literally, I'm the only person on this train car. So if anyone else gets on, I'm going to turn off this recorder, and I'm going to stop talking. Because yeah, I don't want to be that guy. I shan't be that guy. But yeah, it's literally just me. So okay, I think this is all right. I think it's okay if I'm the only one on the train. So basically, I've been making my own adventures in Japan basically. Just kind of pick an area, pick a place, go to wherever, see what happens. So in Tokyo, that generally means the city. You just pick a part of the city, you walk around, you'll find something cool. But if you go to Western Tokyo, way out to like Musashi, it's Akashi, Musashi Station, I found by going to the park near there. It's like, whoops, look at that. I'm, I've left the grid. I'm hiking, just like that, just a little walk from the station. That's pretty cool. And now I'm visiting Fukuoka. And when I was in Fukuoka before, my favorite thing was I found that by Uma Bayashi Station, there was a path up into the mountains. And the same thing. It's like, whoops, I'm off. I'm out of society now. I'm just in the fucking woods walking up the mountain. That's pretty cool. So I did that a lot. And then when I came back to Fukuoka, I went and explored that again. But then when I've been finding since then, Jesus, it's a good thing I'm the only one in this train. You actually have to talk a little bit loud to get across that, you know, past the train noises.

Yeah, I've found in Fukuoka in specific. Anybody on the train platform? There's one guy, you getting on my car, buddy.

Nope.

Yeah, in Fukuoka in specific, it's really intertwined with mountains and woods all over the place. It's extremely easy to just find a path, not only through the woods and through the mountains. But then you can come out the other side in another part of Fukuoka. So I did that just the other day from a desaifu. What is it called? It's the remains of the desaifu government offices. And if you go north from there, you go into a park and then up a mountain trail. And then that was really easy. A really easy walk across a really well developed mountain where there was a kids playground in the middle. 10:00 And I found a bunch of other hikers. It was quite a long journey, but it was easy. And then I came out at the other end at Umi where I could have taken the train, but I actually just walked back around the mountain at that point. So it's like, yeah, this is cool. This is a thing you can do. So yesterday I discovered a similar thing again just by walking around.

Yeah, here we go. Shiro Suzuki Park. I'm not going to bother spelling it. It's a long name for a park. But I was there and I saw a big mountain covered in trees right there. And I'm like, hmm, interesting. So I zipped out the old map. And there's the little green dots of a walking path on Google Maps at Shiro Suzuki Park. And I was looking at it. And I'm like, cool. And I was looking at it. And I'm like, cool. If you follow this straight through, you pass Kusambuyama Observatory, a Chosu Falls, and then you get to Nakabaru or Tosu Station on the J.R. Line.

So it's a similar type of thing. But, whoa, fuck, there's a train going by next to us. It makes a lot of noise. But I didn't realize the relative distances because I'm just zooming in and out on a map. It's a bit abstract. So then I looked at it a little closer and I realized, oh, that's triple the size of the journey I did the other day. And with a...

Man, the voiceover guy, the announcement guy. The voiceover guy just said an excessive amount of things. So hopefully this train keeps going where I wanted to go. But that usually means this is a place you can get off and take a bunch of transfers. So fingers crossed, we'll see.

The train, oh, do I have to get off?

Alright, that was indeed the end of the line for this train. This could change my plans. I met Nishi Tetsu Ogori Station.

I had various plans for what I could do today, what I could attempt. This is only one station away from one of my potential plans. So yeah, I think maybe I'll just bail out here and try to figure out what I'm doing.

Here, actually, let me interrupt myself for a moment. So that was a $4 ride, $420 yen. Not bad to get me out in the good old middle of nowhere. But while I'm here with a garbage can in front of me, I was talking about the Sarata Hiko coffee and how the little bottles are quite rare. I don't see them much. So I checked while I was at Lawson's and they did have Sarata Hiko coffee but in one of these cups with the...

the Capri Sun Straw here, here's some putting the straw in the cup ASMR. God dammit, I just collapse the straw. Alright, here we go, try it again.

Mmm, pokey. So yeah, they have them in these cups that are not as convenient as the bottles for me because you got to drink them and throw them away right away. But with the bottles, it was the brown one that had no sweetness and the white one that did.

So here in the cups, there was the white cup and the brown cup and I'm like, okay, presumably that's the same. But deep in my memory, it's like I think I tried this before and I don't remember it being non-sweet. So let me pull out the phone. Let me just take a moment. It wasn't too busy in that convenience store. Let me amble my way through translating. And for some reason in the cups, the white cup is the non-sweet and the brown cup in this case was Coco. 15:00 And I think that maybe is what I had before. So this time I've got the non-sweet Saratuhiko coffee in the straw cup, which is the white one for no good reason this time. But let's see, let's try this out.

You can hear the top sprinkling. Yeah, that's the stuff. Oh, wait a second. The top. Maybe it's because the top of the lid is brown. The same way the other label was brown. I don't know. I don't know. I think in this case, Google Translate is your friend. There's not a lot of English on this bad boy, but it's so good. It's worth it. It's worth fighting through. Saratuhiko coffee. These are really fucking good. But okay, I'm going to drink this here so I can throw it away while I'm by a garbage and then we'll resume our journey.

Oh man, Nishi Tetsu Ogori Station. I guess it's exactly what you would hope from a station where you're on a train with nobody on it, and then you get to the end of the line where you got to transfer. It's going to be pretty quiet, but it's also where you transfer and stuff, so it's like the perfect mix of there's a... there's a lot of things here, there's various little stores, there's a... zack vegetable. I guess it's like smoothies, perhaps. Various other little stores, it's like a really nice mix of... you know, there's stuff here, but it's not busy. It's definitely not crowded. It's just kind of a nice quiet little town within a town. This is fucking sweet. Unfortunately, I might be heading toward highways and stuff. I'm not sure what's going to happen from here, but immediately getting out of the station. Man, good fucking vibes.

This feels good. And it's... it was actually a little cold this morning. It was like 10 degrees, 11 degrees, pretty windy, but I was like, that's good. Bring it on. I've had enough of the heat. I don't need the heat anymore. I'm Canadian dog. I came here in the winter because I thought it was going to be cold kind of. And I mean, I know I can get that if I want it. If I head up north, one of these days, but I got myself a cafe-o-lay American in a can, Dido brand. Got the hot one just to hold in my hands. Not to drink right now, because I just shock onto coffee. But it is getting a little warmer, but it's just like a nice balance also. It's like it's getting a little warmer. I hope it doesn't turn into a heat wave later in the day as it sometimes does. When you're hiking around, it's way better for it to be cold.

But it's appropriate weather for a little can. A nice warm can in your hand. I've said it before, but this was kind of my dumb little, my little dream. You know, if you only have very small dreams in life, it's great because then you get to achieve them. When I was here in 2019, it was early summer. And none of the machines had hot drinks. You could get hot drinks sometimes in convenience stores. And I got hot teas sometimes, but obviously it would be crazy to get a hot drink when it's blazing hot. Turns out in Fukuoka, it's kind of crazy to get a hot drink anytime, but apparently it doesn't get very cold around these parts. It's early December and it's still super warm. This could be a weird year too, though. I mean, I don't know. I don't know, obviously. Only ever been to Japan twice. But yeah, that's what I would think on my last visit is. Man, it would be so cool just to get one of them. Get one of them warm drinks out of the machine. Oh yeah, I feel the warmth. I'm putting it on my cheek. Oh, oh, it's so warm. It feels so good. Mmm, mmm. I'm rubbing it on my lips. Oh, and my other cheek. Fuck, it's so nice. It's like I'm giving my face a little massage, but this warm coffee can. Oh, bro, it's so good.

Yeah, like I say, dude, have tiny dreams. Have tiny dreams and they will come true.

Okay, I appear to be walking in the right direction, quote unquote, right direction, because one thing I've learned many times in Japan, and today I, it's like I'm just feeling a comment. I'm feeling the lesson coming again, is if you try to take a direct route somewhere, you know, having Google Maps now, it's my old phone. Google Maps was not very reliable. Now that I got it on me, it's certainly better. But it also backfires on me sometimes where it's like, okay, I'm here. The thing on the map is there. What's the closest point to that? And then I'll walk 20:00 toward it. And the number of times that works in Japan is definitely less than 50%. It's unlikely to work. You know, everything is so much more complicated and confusing than that. And in this case, yeah, the fact that there's like a waterfall, obviously I got to find the path. I got to find the forest walking path to get to the waterfall. And I think from the other side, where I first noticed, it seemed to be, I mean, who knows? Again, it's hard to tell till you're there.

But it seemed to be a pretty direct route. But it did go on and on. Pass not one, but two golf courses, which extra kind of made me not want to bother doing it, because it is obnoxious when you're just trying to hike along. And a golf course gets in your way. It's a significant fucking obstacle, because they don't want hikers just cutting through, cutting through the golf course. So the one that I found on Mount Iboriyama had little fences and stuff all around it. And was a real pain in the butt. Or I guess you could argue, it actually helped me escape the woods, because once I was in the golf course, then I just had to get to the entrance to the golf course. I guess if you look at it that way, maybe it helped me escape. I'm not sure. I have mixed feelings about golf courses. Let's just put it that way. So the idea of walking past two golf courses didn't exactly seem like a charming day. And yeah, that it was 25 kilometers. I mean, I've had plenty of days where it's like, oh, it looks like I just walked 12 kilometers. And now I got to walk home. So I mean, that's essentially the same, especially if I did that and then took the train on the way back. But that was like walking through Tokyo. You know, you can change course and bail out at any time. It's a little creepy. The idea of walking 25 kilometers through a mountain trail, which could be up and down and up and down the whole way and might not be as straightforward as it seems. That just seems like way too far. I mean, what is that? Like five hours or something?

With no particular way to bail out halfway through if something's not working out or if the path becomes indistinct or whatever. Because you really never know what's Japan. Like the one I found by Desifu was unbelievably easy. And just like tons of old people hiking around next to me and stuff. And I'm like, wow, this is like amazingly convenient and not a problem. But then there was a path I found in West Tokyo that did have a warning sign to be fair. But it was like I made it through, but it was like really underdeveloped. And it's like yikes. So who knows what this one could have been? There's just way too much if coming off that plan. You know? Is it just not be? I did not feel comfortable with that particular walk. But then I realized if my plan was to get to the other side and take the train, then why not just reverse engineer this plan? Why not take the train to the other side nearer where the waterfalls and some kind of observatory deck are? And then that's a much shorter walk, much closer to civilization and just do it that way. But I do find the trains in Fukuoka quite confusing. There's the main subway line. That's pretty easy to follow and pretty easy to figure out. But it only takes you a limited number of places. In this case I had to take the independent above ground trains, but I'm near both of them. My Airbnb is near the JR line and near the Nishitetsu line. But I find Google Maps has a very weird relationship apparently with these lines. The advice it gives is strange at best. So for the JR line and the JR line is the one that went the closest to this waterfall. And I'm still heading in the right direction, but I'm heading toward a giant clover leaf. And then two smaller clover leaves. Jeez, I don't know what the heck that's going to be all about. But yeah, the JR line too, this might not be the closest one, but Shinto Siu, approximately. I was like, all right, tell me how to get there. And it just gave me the weirdest fucking directions that were like, okay, get on that JR line that's a block from your house, but then take it back up to Hakata. And then get on this other train and it's like, yeah, okay, so maybe that's possible. I don't actually know where the line near my house goes. Maybe it does go off somewhere else, but then go around this other thing. Basically, it gave me this route that at the end of the day was going to cost $27. And as I just said, this ride here was four bucks. You know, it should have 25:00 been in that range under $10 for sure. Seven or eight dollars seems like it'd be pushing it, because I'm only going a little further than I was here. $27, like I don't even know what you're talking about. How is that possible? What is going on? Never mind. Never mind to JR. I don't know what's happening. Fuck you then. So the other one, the Nishi Tetsu line, that one was a lot more clear, but again, the train right by my house goes off to Desaifu. So it's like, oh, yeah, of course, I've done that before. So that does go the wrong way. So I had to go one stop and transfer. So instead, I was like, yeah, it's just one stop. I'll just walk to that next stop. Take care of that part of the journey. You know, so I don't have to try to figure out a transfer. At the station, I can just arrive at that station and start from there. But then when I got to that station, it was, I think there was four different lines, maybe. But I mean, there's one that's just heading into tension. It's like, okay, I know for sure. I don't want that one. So the other side of the station was going the other way. But then I believe there's two different lines heading away from central Fukuoka. And I did right down ahead of time, which one I wanted, but the signs weren't in English. So it's like, oh, I got to figure this out. But just as I was arriving, a train pulled in. And the other person waiting did not get on that train. But as I got to know, whatever, I don't want to just sit here and try to figure this out. And then have to wait for the next train. Let's just get on this train and see what happens. Like, fuck it. You know, worst case scenario, if I see my little blue dot going the wrong way, I'll just get off and start over. All right, not unexpectedly. I'm at a slightly busier road. I'm not at the giant cloverleaf yet, but yeah, there's immediately absolutely no pedestrian access, which is probably good. It's not even letting me get remotely near the giant cloverleaf.

Yeah, I'm definitely in highway town now. This is going to get a little tricky. So, right, I'm going to try to, you know, that's the other thing. I don't have to try to walk to the waterfall from here. Actually, from here, the closest thing might be to actually go over to the JR line and just hop on it from here. I think that's what I'm going to do.

It looks like Tashiro station is not so crazy far from here, but yeah, this is, again, this is just car culture time, not good walking time. So I should shut this recorder down while the loud traffic is around. But yeah, briefly speaking though, the train I got on luckily was the right one. I could just watch my little blue dot keep going in the right direction. And then the only thing that went wrong is as I recorded it in real time, as I wasn't sure since the Nishitetsu line never actually gets too close to where I'm going, it kind of circles widely around it. My plan was to go a little lower down, just from what I could glean from Google Maps. It seemed like going beneath the waterfall and heading up north seemed much more likely to be the way to get there as opposed to what I'm doing now, which is approaching it from the west because of all these tangles of highways and stuff. It's like seems unlikely this is going to work. And now that I'm here, it seems yeah, extremely unlikely, this is going to work. But since the train didn't go as far as I was hoping it would go, I could have stayed at that station and tried to determine which transfer to get on to. But again, it wasn't, none of it was going to take me really anywhere that I especially wanted to go. So that's like, let's just try this. This is just among my bad options. But yeah, think if I walk over to the JR line, now I can take the JR line just a few stops.

Yeah, this is something that's been happening to me, a fair amount in Fukuoka. And it would probably happen to me more in Tokyo if I took the train more. But this idea of kind of maneuvering the train system into being a little easier, like as long as you have time, if you're in a hurry and you got to figure out all the transfers and stuff, that's one thing. But since I'm not in a hurry, I'm just, I'm just mosey and around, you know. This is cool, like the other station I was going to stop at was by a big river. So I was like, yeah, that might be neat. But then I got off here and I'm like, oh, this is neat too. What a beautiful little place. It's all the same to me. So yeah, when you need to make a transfer or something awkward as happening with transit, since there's so many train stations and they're all relatively close, you can just get off and walk. You can just get the heck off and just walk to the next one. 30:00 And yeah, I guess it just depends on what currency you're working in. If you're working with time, if time is limited, this is a bad deal. You're giving up a lot of time because it does take half an hour or whatever to walk between stations. But since I'm working in the currency of exploration, you know, time doesn't really matter to me until it gets dark. I just want to see stuff. And yeah, right now I'm walking by. I mean, it is definitely traffic here, a lot of traffic here. But this neighborhood's kind of cool. I'm walking by Sukia, which is like a just one of the chain restaurants. But then next to it is a big field, like farm stuff going on here and the mountains in the background. This reminds me very much in Vancouver. I had an Airbnb. I don't actually remember what the neighborhood is called from where I was. You could take a bus to White Rock and White Rock is like beautiful. It's the near the border. Like you're almost in the United States and you're at the edge of the water. And there's like just a beautiful water side, little area. But on the way there, it was these kind of long roads with big fields. And it feels a lot like this. I just passed a place called Space One. They said game on the side in big letters and then Space One. And I was like, this can't be a game center, right? Why the heck would that be here? And no, it's not. It's a Pacinco place. That makes a lot more sense for all these truckers going by. But all right, yeah, I'm in truck town and this ain't going to get any quieter. So let's warp ahead to when I get somewhere else.

There's a slightly funny little thing that just happened. The hubris, the hubris of the visiting tourist, where to get to this JR station, it's like, okay, if I keep walking on this street, then on Google Maps, there was a Japanese confectionary shop, it's where I got it turned. So I was like, okay, that's a pretty good landmark. You know, it's good to set up these little things, and I have to just hold my phone out and follow the blue dot and get hit by a car.

And I was just thinking how, I mean, I'm always a little shy about going into places because I can't speak the language. But it always goes well. It always goes fine. Everybody's so nice in Japan, you know? It's like, even if I can't really communicate properly, and I just have to point in pantomime and whatever, it's fine. You know, I mean, all I'm doing is buying stuff. It's not the hardest thing in the world.

And I was just thinking how the people that I met in Chiba, both the really nice people I met at the Izakaya, and the arguably unhinged Buddhist sect members, in both cases they brought up how the Japanese economy is not in a great place right now, and how the yen is at a low of something like 30 years, which again must be magical if you're American, but in Canadian terms it just basically brings the yen more or less on par with the Canadian dollar. Whenever I get money out of the bank machine, it's almost one to one. But both of them mentioned how important tourists are right now and how happy they are to have tourists around, you know? Which is kind of nice because I do just sort of generally feel like I'm getting in the way. So it's kind of nice for them to just say like, no, it's cool, man. We're glad you're here. Spend some money. It's like, okay, that I can do. That I can absolutely do. So I was thinking like, you know, I'm walking past this random confectionery shop, and I was thinking of like the $10 chocolates that I bought in Itzukashi.

They were ludicrously expensive, but it took me like two weeks to eat them. You know, it was not that bad even for $10 when you eat them that slow. And they were just really good. I was like, man, those are great. I'm glad I bought those. So I thought, I'm going past this local confectionery shop in a relatively obscure area. I should go in. I should just go in and buy something. You know, help them out in my little way of going and buying confectionery. And then I got there and they had a lineup like really long, a really long lineup that was like all the way through their parking lot. So I was like, gosh, again, I would love you. I can go spend. I'm going to go spend $10 somewhere. Whoa, I got a big, I got money. But they don't fucking need me. 35:00 This is really shocked because no other store that I've passed out here has been, has really had any sign of people. So necessarily. So that was surprising. It's like, holy shit, that's a lot of people. And I'm kind of glad I didn't stop anyway because I need to piss crazy bad. I should not have just drank that whole coffee at the station like I did. And unfortunately, this was my hope. I was like, oh, when I get to the train station, I'll just take a pee there. But I think that $27 ticket is coming into focus because I'm next to the train line now. And this is no big deal. I can just walk it. I was only going to go like four stops from here. So it's like, yeah, that's fine. Maybe I'll just walk. And in fact, I think I will indeed because I saw a train go by each way and there that bullet train shape. And these are not normal trains. So that makes sense. That's why Google Maps told me, go back to Hakata because that station near your house, that's a normal station. That ain't what you're asking about, boy, oh, you're asking about the bullet train line.

And if you want to go a little distance on that, it's not going to be $5. It's going to be $27. This is a different breed of train.

And yeah, I don't even know. I've never done this before. I don't know if I even could use my IC card. I don't know if you got to buy these tickets separate. I know nothing about this.

Walking by, I mean, it does have, it's an unmanned station. And it has the little pass card thing. It looks like the normal, like I could just use my suite card to tap and get in. But frankly, I don't want to learn about that right now. Especially if it's going to cost me a big whack of money. I'm not that far. I can just keep walking.

But yeah, this local confectionery shop, I am curious what it is that they make because they had a, it looked like a little charcoal stove going out front. So whatever they're making, it looks like it involves grilling up something. Something that is very popular. If I didn't have to pee so bad, it would be kind of neat to go wait in the line. But even then, that's where I, I mean, at least in a storefront capacity, you know, you can just pick up an item or point at something. That's a good example of where not having any Japanese would be tough. Because what do I say when I get to the front of the line? Just like, just whatever is happening here, allow it to happen to me. You know, how do I even express that? What if there's more than one option? What, like, I just don't know anything about what's going on. So I don't even know how to say, I don't know anything that's going on. So just give me whatever you want and I'll pay you for it. You know, I don't even know how to express that. But it was a neat little scene. I just, I love that when it's just not at all expected. Just in my mind, in my fucking arrogant mind. I'm like, oh, this poor little store. This must be a poor little store. Just hoping, just the little match girl works in there. And she's just hoping someone will come in and buy some candy. And then it's just a giant line up. It's like fucking idiot. Don't act like you know what's going on in this country because you don't. You don't know it all.

All right, well now I got a little walk ahead of me. Hopefully a convenience shows up just so I can use the washer. But yeah, that's one thing, too. Even that bullet train. If it is, in fact, a bullet train. Maybe that's the wrong designation. I don't know what the different grades of trains are. Because I didn't know trains like that stopped.

At intervals like this. I thought the whole point was that they just go super fast and only stop at major places. But whatever this train is, it is stopping pretty, pretty often. And that station was so little it didn't have a washer. So it wouldn't have served my purposes for peeing anyway. So maybe it's not a bullet train. But yeah, Google said it was going to cost $27. So I just, I don't know what the heck. I just don't know. I don't understand the train system. I don't know if it could work at all. I just still don't know what's going on.

All right, sudden, severe change of sound. So I was really starting to think like, on the one hand, none of the stations I was trying to get to, like I was saying, I don't really know how to get to this waterfall. It doesn't really matter too much where I started from, because none of them were especially close. And I just have no idea what the, what the right route is. So then exiting at a station I didn't expect to exit to. 40:00 It's like, okay, that's not what I was going to do, but that's fine. Then going over to the JR line and realizing it's this different type of super train that's going to be way more expensive. And it's like, okay, I don't want to do that. So that's turning me away. And I'm starting to think like, maybe this is not meant to be. Maybe this is not going to happen. Which I mean, hey, no big deal, if whatever. It was just a, just a target, just an excuse to go out and explore Japan. Then I walked past this mall. And yeah, I was thinking like, maybe this will just be a mall day. Maybe fuck this plan. Maybe this is enough signs that this ain't going to work. I got to recalibrate, try again later, or whatever. But I just came into the mall and I mean, it's nice. That was the game center I was at. Now I'm just going down the escalator and out the front doors, because yeah, once I got in here, it's just like, yeah, no. Yeah, no, Australia style. No, yeah, yeah, no. Yeah, no, this is not what I want to do today. Great big mall, that's cool, but great big malls are a dime a dozen. I would rather go try to find this dumb waterfall. And fail. That is my preferred plan for today. Oh man, I can't get out these doors.

There we go, the proper exit. It's okay, back on the road, back outside. It unfortunately did turn really hot. It's still windy though, so that's nice. It's hot, but it's windy. That's not too bad.

But yeah, who's trying to figure out what to do with my layers? This is the catch 22 of Fukuoka in December. I need these layers. Later on, it's going to be cold as fuck. But right now, they are far too many.

What I need are capsule clothes. Like in original dragon ball way back in the day. I don't know if they kept up with this. But things would be in capsules, just little like cars and boats and stuff. You just throw the capsule and bow, it gives you what you want. I need a capsule coat. However, I do not have a capsule coat. So I guess I'll just have to sweat my dick off for now.

Man, there are some weird stores in these areas that are... Like now, I'm a little less on the highway with all the big trucks. Now it's more just medium trucks. But it's still a lot of traffic, but there are also a lot of houses. It's like a combination now of residential and vehicular traffic. So you get a lot of big stores, great big stores, and take a whole block. It's some of them have such weird names. I'm passing, I mean, apparently, you know, it's supposed to be good day. I don't know what they sell. Big store, good day, tax-free. But it's spelled G-O-O-D-A-Y. It's goo day. That definitely says goo day. It's like so close. I can't wait you're going for a good day. What a good day. Let's go purchase products. What a good day for buying things. But it's goo day. That is totally goo day. The D is even capitalized, so it's goo day. And yesterday, there was a food store. I'm not sure the Japanese name, but in English it said, food holes, you know, food H-O-L-E-S. And that's got to be an inversion of whole foods, right? Like I got to assume it's like, here's the store you go to to buy your expensive organic stuff. You're healthy food. You're whole foods. But it just said food holes. And it's like, come on, come on, food holes. What is that? I haven't actually run into very much of that. Because I mean, that is, again, the classic, like, early days of the Internet people would send around the funny Japanese English. And there's still some of it to some degree. I mean Chris Bride, I some videos about that and stuff. But I feel like it is far less than it used to be. I don't really see a ton of strange English, although I'm not really in. I mean, a lot of it seems to be just on stationary or bags or clothing. And I guess I'm not in those stores that often.

I'm just outside walking by. But it's strange, too, to see. It's one thing if it's just like a small disposable product, like a pencil case or something. But to see a big store that spent tons of money on a giant sign that's extremely permanent. And maybe even the name of the store. And it's just, I mean, good day is not so bad. I guess food holes is worse. But anyway. But man, the other thing I can't help noticing as I walk are the fucking insane mountains that are getting closer and closer. 45:00 Just that the half the horizon, because I got a little hat on. So my cap, the brim of my cap, blocks out, you know, some of the sky. So basically half of what I can see is sky. And the other half is mountains. And I was thinking like, shit, that's what I was considering walking across. Look at that shit. It's fucking insane. There's a lot of power lines on this one, like way more than usual. So that makes it look a little less rugged. But that's the only sign of civilization are the power lines. Everything else is just trees on this giant mountain. But it's probably not actually that bad. It's surprising how not that tough it is to go up a mountain trail. Because you just don't notice that much when you're on the actual mountain and you're going up the trail. And there's trees all around you. You can't really tell where you are. You don't get that grand overview like I have from a distance. You're just in it. You're just on a trail. And once you get into that rhythm of just walking up and up and up. You just get used to it and it's no big deal. And next thing you know, you're on the top.