#73 The insane crowds of Mt Takao, Tokyo

Transcript

Alright, I wasn't sure if I was going to go to Mt Takao today because I was just in that neighborhood yesterday. But, I looked it up a little bit and it does seem like it's a super duper tourist place. They basically kind of made a whole industry out of that mountain, which is kind of a cool thing to do in a way for your community or whatever. Like, it seems like the entire subway stop leading there.

They're really just so people can go to that mountain kind of. I mean, I guess not. There's subway stops all over the place. They'd probably be one there anyway. But, but it does seem like once you're in the neighborhood, you can't possibly miss the mountain. And then there's stores and stuff all along the mountain. And yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But apparently it gets busy on the weekends because it's so touristy. And today's a Friday, so I thought, alright.

Not quite the weekend, sort of it is. But this might be my last chance for it to not just be super packed until Monday. And today is an extremely clear day, not a cloud in the sky. Beautiful weather. And it seems like one of the cooler things about this mountain, besides just walking up it, is that there's a clear view of Fuji.

I'm like, alright, let's try that out. Let's get it while I can. Because even though I'm a lot closer to Fuji now, I don't really know how this all works. It does seem like it's pretty easy for the weather to not cooperate. And like, what if it turns cloudy? Tomorrow. And it just stays overcast forever. The whole rest of the time I'm in Japan. It could happen. So let's just do it. Let's just do it today. And I think I found, if I go to Kita Hachioji station, it's a little further away than Komiya. But as you can tell, it's a lot quieter. Otherwise, I'd be walking by traffic the whole time. Now there's like an overpass ahead of me, but I'm walking under it. This seems pretty nice. So this could be, I guess, it still seems like this neighborhood is basically to be escaped from. It's the place to come to go to sleep. And that's it. Not a place to hang out because there's nothing here. And it's kind of uncomfortably traffic filled.

But this particular route cuts right through the middle of the most suburban part. It seems pretty quiet. I think this could be the new plan. But yeah, doing a little research about Mount Takau. I don't tend to do that. I mean, I do if it's like, how do you get from the airport to a shuttle or to a bus? I will happily research that. You know, how do I get money in a new country? Things like that. But once I'm here, I generally kind of just like to dick around and see what happens. Like yesterday, I just went to the vicinity of the mountain. Nothing seemed immediately clear. And then I just went to the nearby lake and messed around there. I did a little research about that actually because I was confused about a lake having rivers entering and exiting it. But it turns out that is normal. A lake doesn't need to be fully landlocked. And the biggest example are like the Great Lakes. The Great Lakes all flow into each other and then flow into the ocean. It's like, oh yeah, those are definitely lakes. But they're still connected to the sea. And in the case that that lake I went to yesterday, it's actually man-made. They dammed the river and created that lake. And they used it for stuff in the 1964 Olympics.

It's kind of cool. It's kind of a sort of famous place. I had no idea. I just went because I saw a lake on the map.

But what I learned from out to cow, very important, is that to cow station is not actually the stop. There was the really cool, weird demon head in that station. And it does seem like that stuff carries on into the mountain itself. But the actual station, it's the next one.

Takao Sen-guchi station. And that's a little bit of it to do where I got to figure out how to transfer just to go one more stop. It would only take me half an hour to walk. So I might just walk because it's easy to get to cow station. And rather than stand around and wait for the train and figure out all the transfers and blah, blah, blah. I also think it's kind of cool to walk toward a mountain before you walk up it. You know, you really get a sense of approaching the mountain. And it doesn't seem too bad. It looks like the essence. You know, there's all kinds of lifts and stuff too you can take if you want. 5:00 But it doesn't seem like it's that big of a hike. It's like a little over an hour and a half. And this one guy I was watching on YouTube, that's kind of what I'm basing this on when he was saying that it gets kind of busy. Because he was also there in the fall, the same kind of time of year that I'm going there.

And he said there's different routes all mapped out with numbers. And he recommended route number six. Because route number six goes by a little stream and is very pretty. And is also less used than the other routes. And the other routes all kind of congregate at the end. They all combine where route six doesn't really. So if I want to stay away from people and have a nice walk, route six is the one for me. See, this is a bit unusual that I know this much going in. And I guess we'll see, I mean, like, am I overthinking this? Is it actually going to be busy? Is any of this relevant or applicable to a Friday afternoon and late December? Like this might just be that I'm just taking into account too many details that don't really matter. But it's kind of neat also just to know, I mean, I had to know about the station. The station thing is the important part of this puzzle. To cow station is not the station. You're not close enough. You're not there yet.

Then once you get there, it seems like no biggie and pretty much any route that I take would have been fine. And that's kind of cool too. Like if that does work out, rather than go the first time and just take the normal trail that everyone else is taking, then on the second time, maybe discovering trail number six, I mean, maybe I wouldn't find it at all. Maybe it'd have to go six times. Instead, I just get to do that the first time. Like I wouldn't say that I'm pro or con doing research. I'm kind of research agnostic.

But this is an unusual amount of research that I've done. And it's changed my plans enough that I'm going today instead of, because I wouldn't even have thought of it. I don't really pay attention to what day of the week it is. It actually kind of annoys me when I have to go an extra layer deep on my laptop or on my crappy phone. My good phone tells me what day of the week it is. My crappy phone. I have to dig deeper. Why do you presume I know what day of the week it is? I don't know what day of the week it is, man. Just tell me. So I wouldn't have really realized probably or thought about the fact that it's a Saturday or a Sunday till I got there. And it was a fucking cluster book.

So in this case, the pre-research seems pretty handy, pretty handy little thing. And yeah, even though I tried to get up and get moving early today, it's not extremely early. It's already 11 o'clock and I haven't exited my neighborhood yet. But yeah, just a short ride to Tekau. Tekau. I was calling it Tekau, but I heard someone else call it Tekau. But then a nice little walk to the other station. Then a nice little walk all the way up a freaking mountain. And then hopefully a nice little view of Fuji. And then rewind that whole mission.

And also the 7-Eleven had the delicious... This one is like in the earlier episodes of this podcast. I couldn't stop talking about my electric fucking hair buzzer and all the problems I was having with that and the stupid power cords and stuff. Now at this section, it's just the non-stop talk about the barbecue fucking mackerel at 7-Eleven. But it's so damn good and they had it today. They had two of them. But I just can't, I can't buy two of them. It's like $8 and there's way too much food. But I wanted two, man. It's like I want to buy both of these.

But I just need to appreciate them when they're here. And it's such a difference of just nice... I mean, it just feels so much better to just eat rice and fish in the morning to get going. Because last night as I was coming home, I was pretty wiped out and once the sun went down, it's like, oh man. I'm feeling talkered. And it's that feeling of like I don't even want to take the effort to eat. So even though my experience with convenience to a fried chicken was less than amazing, I tried it again on the way home because you know like fried fucking food, it's just like easy to eat. It's easy to compel yourself to cram it in your face. But then it's just like so like blah, it's like, oh no, why'd I do that? Why'd I eat that? You know, it really feels so much better to just eat barbecue fish on rice. 10:00 Ayam yam yam. Ayam yam yam. Okay. That's today's plan.

Now, I will execute the plan.

And man, especially now I think that it's deep enough into the year that whatever leaves we're going to fall have fallen. That yeah, if you dropped me right here in this moment and said guess what time of year it is.

I would say like fucking early September. I would almost. Now late August would be too much. September for sure though, it's just so warm and so nice and so sunny and so beautiful. Man, this is hands down the least winter like winter I've ever had in my entire life. Because it doesn't really snow in Vancouver, but it's cloudy and rainy, chilly the whole time. This is just absurd, it's just beautiful.

Fuck it, you know what I'm going to say late August. This does not feel like September. You know, it's too nice.

Man, this station, Keita Hachioji. Talk about fucking obscure dog. There's nobody here on either platform. Because again, it's the one, it's the final station before Hachioji. It wouldn't kill me to just walk there from here. Which I guess yeah, like I was saying earlier, like it seems like Takau san Gucci station almost seems like it was just put there. So people could do mountain climbing tourism. But I mean yeah, they would definitely be a station there anyway. There's so many stations in Japan, it's fucking wonderful. And it's probably like weird, if I like finding places where nobody else is, why did I come to Japan? What am I doing here? This is the wrong country for that. But there are times like this where there's just nobody. Oh, there's somebody down the platform but he's just an employee who's just sweeping up. It's just a neat feeling I guess. It feels nice to just have a little moment where nobody is fucking here. It's like, ah, look at that.

I mentioned to when I was talking about the your name steps, how it might be kind of cool to go to that station Gifu I think is where that is. And just get a picture of the little station that they went to when they left Tokyo to go out to the countryside to search for the mystery town. But it would be, I mean, I guess if I was near there I would go. But it does seem like it would be a bit weird to make that a distinct trip because even just here, just the design of the station is that there's an above ground part that you like a walkway that goes across the two platforms. And if you look at the window up there, it's pretty much that view. It's pretty much that same view.

An extremely similar experience so you can kind of, you still get that little your name feeling. It's like, ah, it's kind of like I'm right there. It's just, I guess in the far distance, the environment looks different but the station is pretty much the same. And this is just in Tokyo. Just one of the Tokyo stations. Oh yeah, that's one thing too. I re-watched the video by Katie and Eric where Eric traveled all the way from. He used to live over by the Samitra River and he went all the way on just local trains. Normal transit all the way to Lake Biwa, which is halfway across Japan.

And he actually left a little late on purpose, so he wouldn't get stuck in morning traffic jam stuff, you know, commuter, the commuter crush. So he didn't leave till like 10 o'clock in the morning. And he still got there before 5 o'clock, like in one day you can just travel halfway across Japan. It makes more sense now about Anna from Columbia, how her and her brother did, you know, went till like 40 or 30 minutes. There are 50 different little places all across Japan. In the course of two weeks, it's like, oh yeah, because I mean Japan is actually pretty small.

But yeah, he did that whole thing in just basically an afternoon, cost like $80, but what that made me realize is the idea of the end of the line, you know, like I was looking at my little map. And it's like, okay, from the lake I was eight yesterday, I could go another four or five stops, and that's the quote unquote end of the line.

It's not, it was only the end because that's where my pre-downloaded Google map ended. So just in case I downloaded the Mount Fuji area also, and then suddenly Bing, there's more stations, it's just that the further stations just weren't on my map yet.

So there is no end of the line, maybe up in Okutama, up north there, I don't know what happens up there, maybe that really is the end of a line. But down here, it just keeps going and going and going, and you just go around Fuji, and you just go as far as you want, and just keep going. So I kind of thought maybe I would go out there just to see what the end of the line is, quote unquote, but now I guess that's not necessarily a sensible plan, because there is no end of the line, it's just a random place. Getting this close to Fuji too, I just didn't realize that I would get this close. I did look up yesterday, which forest is the sea of trees, you know, the suicide forest? I just feel like I should know, I just, you know, I don't want to, it would be quite weird. It's unlikely, but what if I just accidentally went to some park, and then later found out, oh that's the suicide forest, I feel like I just would want to know ahead of time. But it's kind of on the other side of Fuji, it's not something you're going to go to back, but just out of curiosity, I mean I did read the reviews, and I mean it seems beautiful. It's like this giant forest, and it's all grown out of ancient lava flows from back in the day from the last time Fuji erupted. And it seems really beautiful, and all the reviews say it's just like gorgeous and amazing.

And if any of them do reference the suicide forest thing, they just say like, I don't worry about that, that's in the past, don't even think about it.

But I did a little research, and I don't think it is in the past, I think it's just that that area has just stopped reporting the fact that a lot of people go to that forest to commit suicide. Because it's been something like 50 to 100 people a year for decades, decades and decades and decades goes way back. I don't feel like that just suddenly stopped, that seems unlikely, so I don't know. There's a plenty of other places to go in Japan.

In the highly unlikely event, I'm sure I would go there and it would just be fine, and nothing horrifying would happen.

But I still, it would still just be like very, just just unpleasant, I don't know, just eerie.

Jeez though, then that takes you down a rabbit hole of Wikipedia stuff, which I'd kind of forgotten about this, but a list of popular suicide sites, and then there's like places in Toronto and stuff that it's like, oh yeah. I guess years ago, actually, I was looking up this same topic, and I did find that, and then I just kind of forgot. And you just get reminded again, and it's like, oh yeah, I've been to that bridge. I know where that is, like, ugh. Uncomfortable.

And in the case of that forest, I mean, again, just making presumptions about things that I haven't at all really researched or know anything about. I just assumed that if you are going to go commit suicide in the forest, you would at least go, like, really far into the forest, right? And like, maybe forestry people will find you. But the big, famous case of Logan Paul doing a YouTube video about that forest, which highly controversial opinion, but I'm a little, I'm a little sympathetic to Logan Paul. It's so easy to just dog pile on people in the social media age, especially the obnoxious YouTuber guy. Like, oh, let's just fucking destroy this guy.

But man, those circumstances were so weird. Like, he was definitely going there, again, just for obnoxious purposes. This whole trip to Japan. All of his Japan vlogs were pretty fucking ridiculous. But the idea was to just sort of go there and tell ghost stories, you know? Like, it wasn't. He didn't expect to find a body, and it was, like, right by the parking lot. It's just crazy, because, like, that park, that forest, you know, they take school kids there and stuff and families and hiking and whatever. It's just a normal place. But, yeah, they were right by the parking lot, and it's just like, what the hell? Dude, that's fucking crazy. And then, I mean, it was kind of his video editor who was sort of at fault. He was putting out daily vlogs, so, yeah, he was signing off on stuff, but he was, you know, he just left it to the editor guy. It was the editor guy's choice to leave shots of the body in that video. Logan took all the heat for that, and he, like, tried to turn it into a suicide PSA. It just, I mean, it was bad. It was terrible, obviously. 20:00 But it wasn't as terrible, as everybody said. You know, all this guy is the devil. He's just an idiot. He's just an idiot who got in a bad position. And he was putting out videos every single day, and he wasn't thinking about what he was putting out that hard.

But anyway, all this rambling is to say, I have zero plans. Zero plans to go there, so I kind of just wanted to look up where it is, so I don't go by accident. If I ever did go, I want to at least know that's where I'm going.

But yeah, other side of Fuji, the northwestern slope at the bottom of Fuji is where it is.

So I don't imagine I'll go there, but it is interesting that I could real easily just go there today, could go there anytime. It's like that all this stuff is so close and so accessible. A lot of this trip has been that, I guess, is just realizing how small Japan is, how you can really get to all these places. This platform is slowly filling up, so that's good. One, two, three, four, five. I'm the sixth person now, so that's good, because I was starting to think like, is this like some weird station where the train never comes? But no, I think I just got here just as a train had arrived.

Well, getting off the train early at Takau Station and walking here was kind of cool, because you get to see the mountain range in the distance as you approach.

I'm not a great fan of the incredibly boring tale of Lord of the Rings, but the elements of Lord of the Rings are cool. Orcs are cool, elves are cool, walking to a big mountain. That's cool. But man, getting here, I'm glad I had the tip off about Route 6 just to reduce the number of people somewhat. I mean, there's still some people. I'm still on like a road I haven't. I assume this is going to get a little more naturey at some point.

There's still a fair number of people on this particular pilgrimage and getting into the mountain, yikes, like this is definitely just not the kind of thing that I do. There's so many people.

I gotta assume other people when they see these big line-ups, I mean lines, big-out lines, you must think people must think like, oh, there's all these people here, I must be doing the right thing. But being a radical, rugged individualist as I am, I do not feel that way. There goes the tram car that's going up to the top.

When I see a big line of people, I just think like this has to be the wrong thing. I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't be following all these people. I very much feel the other way. It's like I'm done the wrong thing. This is creepy. And then there's signs saying like, you know, when the mountain gets too crowded, we might restrict access. If you don't get to enter the mountain, too fucking bad.

So it's like, fuck. It's going to be cool to get to the top and hopefully get a cool view of Fuji. I think this is going to be worse doing once. But already I can tell I can see all these different routes and stuff. I'm never coming back here. I'm never going to do this again.

There's so many people. It's ludicrous. I mean, you can throw a freaking stone and find a mountain to climb in Japan. There's no need for this.

This paved walk next to a... I mean, it's like a 90-minute hike. Who needs a tram to get to the top? How fucking lazy are you? Get out of here.

Man, this is annoyingly crowded, even on the vaunted Route 6, which has gotten a little nicer because it's like an actual mountain path now next to this ravine. I mean, it is nice, but it's a very narrow path.

And at least 100 people have come down the other way. And I've only been on this path a little bit. I just started. Maybe if you came here on like a truly terrible day, like very bad weather. But because I came here in perfect weather, beyond perfect because there's no insects or anything this time of year, yeah, there's just a fuckload of people. Man, they're everywhere. It's very hard to soak in this beautiful fucking scenery.

My brain just can't help but focus on the people instead of the place. Probably says a lot about me and why I live this weird, so low lifestyle. 25:00 Whenever I can.

But a group of school kids walked by me and one of them said, hello, and I didn't even notice it first because I have headphones in. I'm listening to a podcast just to kind of insulate me from all these people. So I almost didn't notice, but I was like, oh, hello. And then he was like, yeah, and they all cheered. It's like they're playing a game. Can we make the foreign guy say hello? So that cheered me up a little. That's nice. I'm happy to be the the high spy, the weird game target or whatever.

Oh, it's just like you, like there's a guy in front of me who's walking sort of kind of at my speed a little too slow though. But then the person behind me is just getting closer and closer. Do I just find an excuse to stop? Take a picture, let this person pass me. Do I try to pass the person in front of me? It's just a pain in my fucking deck, man. I don't like these people. I don't like having all these people.

Oh, here we go. It's a nice little side. Some side steps down to a little shrine. I'll take this opportunity to go off the path for a second. Let people pass me, but there's obviously a million more or that came from. This whole thing is gonna be just packed in with people all the way up and all the way down.

No offerings at all here.

Oh, I say that, but there's like a, uh, a little bag. Someone left.

Which is, I can't tell if this is an offering or it's just garbage. I think it's that one actually is garbage. There's an unopened tea bottle in there, but the rest is like half-opened food and stuff.

One thing this kind of charming is these little, uh, Buddha statues on the way up. I noticed that near the entrance, some of them had little red knit caps. And I was like, that was pretty funny. Someone did that. And then it seems like pretty much all of them have that. I don't know if that's for the winter, like just to keep their little heads warm. Because now that I see them up close, they just kind of look like tea cozy's used as hats. But the Buddhas are wearing little winter hats. That's pretty funny.

All right, now I gotta time this. Seems like there's not that many people right now. I'm gonna go back on the trail and try to get in a spot where I'm not packed in with people.

Hello.

Well, this is definitely better. I got to a point where there's a split where you can go distinctly more up or not up. And the only people that went up are the people, like the people ahead of me have bare bells. Surely you don't need a bare bell up here. And hiking poles and such and such. So yeah, this is a lot better. I mean, there's still a person visible behind me and some people ahead of me. They're still people, but this is not bad.

This feels okay. And there's a jogger. This is the worst fucking jogging right you could ever have though. It's all just rocks and roots. And if you fall down into this gorge, you're going to get seriously hurt. Good luck, lady. But I was thinking one nice thing about this super developed mountain is there was lighting. So I'm like, oh, that's pretty cool. If you did get trapped up here when the sun went down, there's lights. It's like, oh, that's a big bonus. That would be nice. You don't have to have the terror of like, I got to get off this mountain, holy fuck. And then once I split off onto this side route, I then noticed there's no lighting on this one. So yeah, I think I finally got to the semi legit part.

This is like the actual route that high key people take. We should have poles and crap maybe. There's a bunch of falling debris signs to watch out for falling debris. Don't linger here. And no lights. And yeah, way less people. So that's good. I was afraid it was going to be just a traffic jam the whole way. Yeah, apparently there's a train, like an express train from one of the major stations. Should be Ershin Juku. I don't know which one.

That comes straight here. No stops for like four bucks. So it's definitely working. I mean, if you build it, they will come. This place is popular as fuck.

Yeah, this is a lot less, but still a very continuous amount of people just coming along. And it's very narrow. There's like a big wall on one side and the ravine on the other.

You just walk on this one path. Which makes me wish I had drank a little less coffee at the bottom. It's like I get to get all the way to the top for I can pee. Story of my life.

And it's a pretty easy hike. Quite a few kids and stuff I've been going by. Not a big problem. Yeah, I wonder the way I've been noticing that, you know, Rose-colored glasses kick in really easily. You just forget stuff about like being tired or whatever. Just this morning when I was laying in bed, I was thinking about that temple I went to yesterday. Or I was there all by myself and I got to go up to the second floor of one of the buildings and tap on the little drums that were up there and stuff. And already, after just one day, that memory already is like, man, that was fucking cool. That place was fucking cool. And even though it's only been one day in my memory, I don't remember the traffic, you know, as the years go by, I definitely won't remember the traffic, but I'll remember that place.

So I'm curious if in my memory, will I remember this place at all for one thing? Because I just feel like it's not sinking into my brain. My brain is just constantly this little tiny narrow path is really not big enough to be passing people this often.

I always got to be mindful of where to step, try to make as much room as possible, not to jostle somebody to their death. But I feel like if there's any negative, I'm going to remember, it's going to be the people. I don't think this one's going to fade away. I think in my memory, I'll be like, hmm, out to Coway. Oh yeah, all those people. But who knows, as an experiment, we'll see. We'll fucking see.

Well, I actually managed to find a little side thing where the creek kind of split off into two, and I actually managed to go hide myself away in the woods and pee. That was nice. But now the trail has switched to the other side. So now I'm the one, whenever I'm passing people, I'm the one on the side near where you could tumble and break your ankle. And it's so much worse feeling. It was bad before. I'm definitely going to take one of the other routes on the way down, caution slipping down. Nice timing sign. Because yeah, I mean, it's very pretty, but it's fucking pretty everywhere. Just walking up a random fucking road at Ome, behind a junkyard was also very pretty. I'm sure the view at the top will be nice. Maybe that'll turn me around, but at this point, I don't recommend this mountain. I don't like this too many fucking people. And I mean, this fucking path is so narrow. You're not supposed to be passing people all the time on this dangerous ass fucking path that's next to a cliff the whole way. There's more people. Yeah, this sucks, man. Fuck this mountain. I don't like this. I'm going to take the paved fucking mega super easy path on the way down. See what that's like.

Hello. I mean, maybe this is an argument for taking the railcar up or whatever. Yeah, like right now, if I fell down this fucking thing, I'm like 70 feet up. Like this sucks shit, dude. This is not pleasant or comfortable. If no one else was here, I'd be alright, but this is like wild, man. I hardly ever see people anywhere on any hiking trail in Japan. What the fuck is going on here? Why is this stupid fucking mountain so goddamn famous? Fuck this. This sucks, dude. It's officially sucks.

Man, this sucks, dude. I don't know if I'm at the proper peak or what. I'm at some kind of peak. I certainly don't see Fuji. I don't know. Surely there's another spot. I don't know. It's very hazy in the distance though, so maybe I won't see it anyway. But at this point, I don't fucking give a 35:00 shit to cares. I see Fuji, I guess it's a bonus, but what the fuck ever? Maybe I haven't passed 1,000 people yet, but on the way down, I sure as fuck will. Like, there's just in my vision right now. I can see a hundred people, at least. Probably more. I don't like this, man. Normally being in nature, being on a path, going through the fucking forest, yeah, yeah, it's just an automatic like, like it's not like it supercharges your day and like, what an amazing day, but it's just never bad, you know? It brings the baseline of your day up to minimum a fine day, you know, and then it can only go up from there. I feel like shit, I don't like this. It's fucking people are fucking everywhere. Fuck this mountain dude, this sucks balls. I mean, I guess if you're the kind of person who would come visit Tokyo and get on the fucking shuttle and come to this stupid dick bag mountain, feel free, but I feel like if you're this deep into this podcast and you're more on the wave length of the type of crap I like to do, do not fucking bother. Mount Takau can suck my goddamn dick, this sucks, I hate this. And the only way to get out of here is to walk past all these fuck faces again. This is shit. I hate this muchly. Such a beautiful day too. God, if I had done anything else today, thank God I didn't come tomorrow, right? I mean, at least this is a Friday. Jesus, what the fuck would this be like tomorrow? Well, like they were saying on those signs, like if it gets too packed, you don't get to go in. What is that like? That must just be a fucking nightmare.

Anyway, I'll keep wandering around here, I guess, and see if I can see some kind of cool Fuji view, but I saw the path to route number one, the super easy paved path, and I'm just going to take that down and get the hell out of here. Definitely not going back down that fucking dangerous ass nightmare path by the fucking ravine. Man, what a downer. I really did not expect this to go like this. I don't know. But I guess I just haven't done a touristy thing ever, not once in my goddamn life in Japan, so I just didn't expect it to be like this. This is like I'm in a crowded subway, but I'm on a mountain.

Who the fuck enjoys this? Fuck every person who's here, fuck them all personally.

God damn it.

Okay.

Oh wait, here's a fucking, here's a offense and people staring. Maybe this is it, maybe this is the epic view, I can get this out of the goddamn way and get out of here. Which was a zipline up here, or it was like Far Cry, I could get on a glider and just get the fuck out of here.

I mean, I don't know about Fuji, but it is cool seeing all these other mountains. I mean, there are a bunch of mountains. Receiving into the distance, that's kind of cool.

Yeah, I mean, I don't know, it's just a view of a bunch of mountains from that side. I mean, it's okay, but I've seen that, I've seen it before.

That's not the craziest thing ever to see.

You are here, top of Mt. Takao.

Visitor center. Okay, maybe I'm not quite there yet? I don't know. Somehow, even with all this infrastructure, I'm finding it weirdly unclear where I'm supposed to fucking go. I guess I would just follow people, but everyone's just meandering around.

All right, so the place with the railing was, in fact, where you see Fuji from. It is just kind of hazy today. I had to really squint, but I'm like, oh yeah, okay, there you are, Fuji-san, and there you are. Technically, I guess I saw you. The view from Chiba that day was way better, but that was obviously super lucky that that happened. So I'm not docking at any points for the view of Fuji. Who cares? It's a bonus if it happens, whatever. I sort of got to see it a little bit. The vague outline, that's fine.

But yeah, on a pass-fail, I'm afraid I have to give this adventure a fail. I didn't, 40:00 I don't feel great. And yeah, I was just going to take route one and get out of here, but I just can't be around those people anymore. So many people, I fucking hate it. I mean, I guess it's extra bad at the top because that's all the railcar people and everything.

So I'm trying a fifth trail for weight in Aureama, and then it ties into the sixth trail. No, no. I started going down the fifth trail, but I don't even want a risk that I get back to that fucking exit. But I don't even want a risk that I get back to that sixth trail and not doing that. It would be okay if it was just a normal experience hiking in Japan where there's not a bunch of people. It would be nice, but it's like very narrow and unpleasant. And I bet going down is even worse than going up because going down is deceptively harder when there's falling, potential fall damage. So I don't know what the heck trail this is then. I started going down the fifth and I just went the way that it's not the fifth. Anyway, let's talk about something else as I get off this mountain. I had to do this. This is an upper pole of nothing. I did take pictures of this because there's so many. It's so hard to remember. So last night on my way home, I didn't transfer at Hachioji station. I just decided to walk home even though it takes like an hour. I was like, yeah, that's cool. And it's kind of fun because that neighborhood is really developed and it's like big city feel just kind of fun to walk through at night. And speaking of the big city.

I found this complex called ecotown that was every single thing in the hard-off chain all together, because that's been like my thing of just trying to find them. It's like, okay, there's a book off, that's everywhere, and then hard-off is a little more obscure, and then they get more and more obscure. And I thought when I found Modoff in East Tokyo, maybe we were done with the different off-stores. That's like the vintage clothing, I love Mod, store. This one had additional ones I'd never heard of, so let's see, where's that picture? There's so many. All right, so it has book off, hard-off, and hobby off, which are often together. Off house, which I saw some of those here and again, and Modoff. Then not part of the major sign, I had to go inside to see this one, but there's also garage off with a picture of a guy holding a tire. So I guess that's where you get your tire goods, and then the weirdest one, liquor off. So what is that? It's one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and different branches to this fucking franchise. This path doesn't seem as bad, by the way, I don't know which one I'm on. Maybe the sixth path is not the least busy, maybe just because it is the most clearly sort of beautiful one. Since it follows the ravine the whole way, maybe it's actually deceptively busy. Because this one I'm on now is just kind of a normal-ass hiking path that's way wider. It's like fucking four or five times wider, it's much more comfortable. So there is a cliff side on one side, but it's like not that hard to pass people. And there's definitely fewer people.

If I can figure out what it is, I'll let you know, because six was certainly not the fucking mystical path I was hoping it would be. This is already a lot better.

But yeah, in the hard off, I saw a Sega Mark III, which is cool, because that's the Japanese version of the Sega Master System, which was the first video game system that I had, and that a bunch of my friends in the neighborhood had before we got Nintendo later on. So it was really cool to see, and it was like in perfect condition. It had the FM sound attachment, which I actually think stands worse, but people like it. But because it's this thing from 1985, and it was in perfect shape, it was like 550 bucks or something was really expensive, but it was cool to see one. And they had a section with musical instruments that had a bunch of humidifiers going, I guess just to keep the wood limber, I don't know anything about maintaining instruments. But there was a giant cello, and I just kind of plucked one of the strings a little, just to hear the little boom. And then I saw that the price tag was over $3,000, so I was like, oh fuck. Don't touch that. Glad no one saw me touch it. It's like, Jesus, don't touch anything in this store. It's nuts. So yeah, you can get like little, whatever, little weird plastic toys from the fucking. Your favorite fucking power ranger style action show for, you know, a dollar, or you can get $3,000 fucking cellos. It's all in there, because yeah, like every store in this complex, it was like several buildings, and they were all several stories high. It was just tons of shit. I was in there for ages. But I was definitely confused about liquor off, because I'm like, surely that's not used alcohol. What does that even mean? What would that be? 45:00 But my friend Brad helped me do a little research on this franchise. Turns out weirdly, book off is not actually part of the family, even though it's got the same naming convention and the same style of logo, and they're usually all together. But technically it started first, and it's owned by a different person, or started by a different person. Though the founders of both brands were friends back in the 70s or whenever it started. But when you see book offs in there, they're technically franchised out and licensed by hard off, which does explain why there's some crossover. There's stuff in book off. There's like DVDs and video games and stuff that you find in hard off as well. And I was like, I wonder how they decide what goes where? And I guess it's just whichever side bought the stuff because they're technically different companies. That's weird. But liquor off, I think is the newest one. And it's more kind of just like off brand liquor, sort of in the sense of like maybe beer that's about to expire. So it's like, hey, just buy it now and drink it, fuck it. But then they also mentioned like wine from personal collections.