#74 The terrifying terrain of Okutama, Tokyo

Transcript

Another beautiful, temperate day with a clear sky. A little bit windy. That's certainly not a bad thing. Delightful. Man, I love to. I'm so glad I found this little route out of this neighborhood to a quieter station. It's such a nicer walk in the morning. I just get up, I gather whatever garbage I had from yesterday's convenience.

I had a little cup noodle last night since there's a little hot water machine at my Airbnb. So I could just put all my various wrappers and stuff in that one cup. Walk the half a block to the 7-Eleven. Toss it in their garbage by some breakfast. Delightful. No barbecue macro today. But I'll keep my eyes peeled. You never know. So my plan today is to go to Okutama. It's a bit late actually to pass noon, I think. Okay, almost 12.30. But I got a real simple plan. Okutama, I've also always been curious about it. It's up on the Ome line. But you just keep going on the Ome line. And it's like the farthest, quote unquote, you can go on the Tokyo subway. Even though if you go down to Takau or whatever, various other routes, you can go down along the shore from Yokohama as well. There's plenty of ways you can keep going. But Okutama is the best way to go. The end of the incorporated official Tokyo subway, as far as I understand. And I think you can really tell the last couple episodes. They're so perfectly illustrative of what I like to do in Japan. Where two episodes ago, I went to Lake Sagami. And I was happy as a clam. I was talking about like, man, if I was the head of the tourism bureau for this area, I would pitch it as there's nothing going on here. There's just a lake. There's some little mini seafront carnival type deal. And that's it. You come here because there's nothing here. Delightful. And then the next day, I went to Mt. Takau and had kind of a miserable time just because there was freaking people everywhere. So this is going back to the original format, that first version of like, just kind of see something vaguely know maybe a little bit about it. Do no research. Just go. And if there's nothing there, great. That's kind of better. Where Mt. Takau, I did some research, but it did not help. The route that I got recommended was still just a disastrous shit show. And I think that would have happened no matter what. I just don't think there's any way around it on that mountain. Route six was real busy. But route two and three only break off from route one halfway up. And route three was fucking terrifying. I'm like shocked that they let people do that. It's so dangerous. I found a blog somebody wrote in like 2017 about that route. And it's funny watching them tiptoe around it where she was writing about like, she saw more people than I did up there when she did her run, but just how there's not enough space for multiple people. And you get to press yourself up against the side of the mountain to let people pass. And that you just have to be in the moment and not think about where you are because of the calamitous plummet that's right there the whole time. And it's like, just say it. Just say it. Just say it's dangerous and insane.

But she was definitely insinuating that it was dangerous and insane, which it is. So I guess that just leads route four and five, which I didn't really see, but presumably they're busy as fuck too.

So today, Okutama, I kind of get the sense I saw YouTube video about it ages ago because I was looking it up when I was back home during COVID. I was like, oh, yeah, I never did make it there. I wonder what's there. And my memory is that there's some kind of lake and kind of nothing like there's nothing there. I think it's sort of the gateway to big boy hiking, which is not what I do. So I might get there and there might be nothing, but I think my plan is I just want to go to the end of the subway and then just start walking back, walking back toward Ome. And we'll just see how far I get and just see what happens. And then the beauty of that walk is I'll be walking along the subway line roughly so I can just bail out whenever it gets dark. I think Bang Boom only got a few hours ahead of me, but it's a good little test, a good first exploration of like what the heck is out there.

And man, that crowded disaster of Mount Takau. It was Friday when I went up, you know, I was like, saw that they said it was very busy on the weekend. So I was like, well, this still is basically the weekend, but maybe it won't be too bad because it's not after work or whatever. It was still bad, but yet today is probably fucking horrifying. And I never realized because I don't really pay that much attention to like what day it is and all that much. 5:00 It's December 30th today. So tomorrow, not only is it a Sunday, it's New Year's Sunday. And those signs on the mountain about how they, if it gets too crowded, they don't let people on anymore. Apparently, that's a big New Year's thing. People want to go to the top of the mountain to watch the first sunrise of the year, which that is a pretty cool thing to do. One of my favorite episodes of the anime Non-Non Biori is about that, about going to see the sunrise and the one little or kid who's having a hard time staying awake for the trip. That's cool, man. Do that for sure. Do not do it at Mount Takau. That's fucking insane. That's shit. I know it's like, it's pointless to tell any human being, hey, don't do what everyone else is doing. And it's doubly pointless to recommend that to Japanese society, obviously. But don't fucking go where everyone else is going. Oh, geez, I can't even imagine it was so crowded yesterday on a random day. It would be like you're packed in in some horrible dance club or something, except you're on a mountain waiting for the first sunrise of the New Year. I can't think of a less spiritual, possible experience. That's fucking terrible. There's lots of mountains, man. There's lots of them. There's lots of them right near there. I started making my way. All I did was like went a little beyond the peak of Mount Takau. And I found a better view of Mount Fuji. And it was just normally populated. It wasn't all crazy. God, I can't even imagine. That is just this so fucking dumb. It's such a dumb idea to go to the world's most crowded mountain for your spiritual experience. Jesus Christ. So anyway, I really doubled dodge a bullet there. I kind of didn't get the full blast of the weekend. And I almost accidentally stumbled onto that mountain, like right at New Year's. And only a couple of days off. Surely if it was actual New Year's Eve, I would have figured out at some point during the day. So I mean, I guess the chances of me being there at the same time as any of those shenanigans would have been unlikely anyway. But it's still funny that I almost stumbled onto the mountain at the literal, most busy, horrible time of year. So like a couple of days removed.

Man, though, yeah, when I got back to this neighborhood last night, and I walked this same route except at night through the relatively quiet back streets. And it's just so dark and quiet. And it's like there's no one around. It's like everything is just frozen in time. And even the less conventionally attractive parts of Japan, like power towers. I'm walking by one right now. These great big gigantic, super huge power line towers. Even this one in the day looks pretty cool. But at night when it's just like really dark and you can barely see it silhouette against the sky, but you're looking up at this big thing. And even that is like beautiful and awesome.

And just yeah, after the whole day of like, oh God, the crowdedness. This is like kind of bad not having a good day. But then once I got back to what I like, the little weird quiet random neighborhood. My feelings really changed fast where I'm like, man, I'm going to miss this place. Like looking out over like a dark parking lot to a 7-11 lit up in the distance. And it's just beautiful, man. It's so beautiful. Just the silhouettes of bonsai trees and stuff. Man, a quiet Japanese neighborhood at night when it's really dark and it's not well lit. Man, it's fucking cool. It's just so cool. The whole vibe of it is just awesome. And because it's so dark and random back streets and like, there's no reason for anyone to be out there. There was just nobody. I went from just being surrounded by everybody all day to nobody. And I'm like, man, it's so cool. It feels so cool.

Because I'm getting to that point where I've got a little less than a month to go, which is still a long time. And it's like kind of starting to feel absurd how long I've been here. After four years at home with COVID and just like daydreaming of coming back to Japan. It's like, well, I did it. I finally did it. But now I've been here so long, like over two months now that when I think back to some of the earlier stuff I did, I'm like, man, man, that was a long time ago. That was weeks and weeks and weeks ago. Man, I've been here a long time. Like 90 days is quite an absurd amount of time to visit somewhere. Like you really do just kind of live there for a while.

So I'm kind of in that limbo of like, I don't really have that much time to go. It's going to go by fast. 10:00 I've been here like a really long time. This is almost ridiculous how long I've been here.

And you know, those rare times like going up on the mountain. I think there haven't been too many days, too many episodes of this podcast you could pinpoint that it's like, well, he definitely had a bad day that day. Very rare. So yesterday was one of those rare days, even though I was still on a beautiful mountain. You know, there's still a lot of really amazing views and stuff. It's just that I can remember many other times. I've had extremely similar views that haven't been surrounded by people and weren't so dangerous. I'm really shocked how dangerous some of that stuff was on that mountain for being so developed.

But any sense that it's like, ah, maybe I'm ready to go. Maybe I'm getting worn out. Like, no, no, no. Definitely not. Even just getting back to the neighborhood last night as like, you know, every plan can't go perfect. Every single little daily adventure can't be the best. But 99% of them are somehow it's ridiculous how often they are the best.

And yeah, I'm definitely going to miss, definitely going to miss Japan. But presuming that there's no further worldwide pandemics, you know, it's just going to be part of the rotation now part of the loop. I'll be back. I'll be back before I know it. No need to hold on. No need to desperately cling because that just makes you feel bad. And I do think if I did stay in Japan too long, that would happen. It would just wear off and it wouldn't seem exciting anymore and the problems would pile up and blah, blah, blah.

The little 90 day taste. The little, the little insanely long 90 day visit. It's kind of perfect. You really do get to sink in and you really do get to soak in the place. But before anything has a chance to wear off, before the magic can dispel, then you got to leave. It's kind of, it's kind of great. All right, here's one more 7-11 across from the station. I'm just going to hop in to see if they got barbecue macro. I just had an onigiri. I really don't need it. But if it's here, I'm going to eat it, God damn it. And then hop on the train and head out to Okutama.

All right, I'm at the subway station Kita Hachioji. And even though I, you know, I've complained a bit about my Google Translate and its inability to translate. But it really is handy just the amount that it does actually translate. I mean, at this point, it's probably translated 200 useful things for me. You know, it's like really, it is a really good thing to have. Even just for little stuff like I'm at this station, nice and quiet. And again, it's a beautiful day. If this was a miserable day, this would suck a little more because this is one of these outdoor stations. But it's really fucking beautiful today. It's like insane. I think it's even better than yesterday. Till I got in the shade, I was like, do I need to take my jacket off? Fuck.

But I just missed a train, but luckily it was the train going the other way. And I'm like, oh yeah, right, I'm not going that way today.

But now that I'm here, there's one old lady way at the other end of the platform reading a book. And that's it. Nobody on the other side, nobody but me here just like just the two of us, just the two of us.

And I was looking around at timetables that I can't quite decipher, but I did see a sign posted that says from December 30th to January 4th, so starting today, this already very slow, nice lazy station is going to holiday hours. So there's one other person walking down the steps. So I feel like I might be here for a little while. I don't know what holiday hours mean. But I don't think that means I'm going to run more frequently. But it's just nice. Like again, because I have such a small plan for today, such a little thing. Like yesterday, I kind of had to get up and get going because I was going up a whole mountain. It's nice to have one of these plans that's like literally just to go to Okuchama and just walk around and see what happens. Even if it takes forever to get there and I only get like a couple hours to walk around, like hey, that's fine. That's a solid couple hours, that's not bad.

But I thought while I'm here, why not regale everyone with the finale of the number one most exciting throughline of this whole podcast, my adventures with my hair buzzer, with my electric shaver. That's one reason I was so slow to get going today is I was battling with my grooming process. I got my little $10 hair shaver thing and I couldn't believe how well it worked and I said to 15:00 the USB one so I could charge it on my computer and I'm like, man, I can't believe for $10 because the other one I had was like 50 or 60 bucks and you can easily buy these crazy expensive ones. And I was really shocked how well this little $10 one that I bought in Fukuoka. I couldn't believe how well it worked. I'm like, man, it's tiny, it's 10 bucks and it's great, it's just doing a great job. But I don't really understand exactly how hair razor shaving type shit actually works. I mean, it seems like it's, I don't know, it's there it is and it's vibrating and it's got it's a little, I don't know, I don't know why it doesn't work anymore. I guess it just got dull. But I just can't get it to buzz my hair unless I was at like just the right angle and then all of a sudden then it would buzz off some hair and the other times it's just like just nothing is happening. It's like god dang and that's why it took me so long is because then it just left me with these weird little tuffs of spots where it's like my hair is not even remotely fucking even. I've got like a little cheetah patches and I'm like god damn it. Like even though I got a hat on, you know, I always tend to have a little cap just for the combination stop the sun from getting in your eyes, stop the rain from getting on your glasses very handy. Probably no one's going to notice my insanely stupid hair cut but I was like I just would really rather not leave the house like this. What the fuck is going on here and I just couldn't get this thing to work anymore. No, like all right the $10 wonder lasted for like a month, you know, that makes sense. That checks out, you know, it's not the miracle that I thought it would be. But I had my normal little like shaving razor, you know, just the little Gillette, you know, what do you call it? Just the manual one, the little stick that you hold and you shave with. And it was just so easy. It was so easy to shave my head. I was surprised because it's already very short. Because my main memory of that is like when I was here in 2019, I went to a barber on Oyama Road and I just wanted to get my hair buzzed off because that's what I was just did in Canada. It's like yeah, can you just give me whatever. Just buzz my hair. Shortest setting. There you go. But just how everything is so hard to communicate in Japan where I found a picture of James McAvoy with his head shaved and I just so I could show them the picture. Like, can you buzz my hair and I just showed them the picture. And then they asked some things and I'm like, I'm sorry, I don't, I can't, I can't talk. I can't communicate. I didn't have Google translate or anything on my phone at that time. And you know, it's just one of those things that it was just awkward enough. It doesn't take a lot of awkwardness for me to just not want to do it. It's like it wasn't that bad. I basically got through the haircut with that too much trouble. But it was awkward enough that I'm like, I sure would prefer not to do that again. So then if I woke up and my hair was getting a little longer again, not very long, but long enough that it was, man, it was terrible because all I had at my disposal was one of these little razor blade things, little shaving razors. And I was just, I remember sitting in the little little square tub for like two hours just awkwardly trying to shave my hair because once I started, again, I couldn't go outside. It's like, now I look all fucked up. You know, I got to finish what I started. And it took maybe 90 minutes, but a long time. Very painful. Basically, I'm like halfway yanking the hair out of my head till I got short enough to shave down and I'm just like, God, horrible.

However, at this point, I guess my little crappy USB thing, it's just kept things well enough that my hair's short enough that it was really easy. It's like, soaps, soaps, oh, that was, that was easy. Okay. So I guess I'll just do that from now on. I just got to keep up with it as long as I constantly keep up with my hair maintenance. It's really no problem to shave your head with just a normal shaving razor. Certainly not the most stylish approach. I'm just, just shaved head guy, but whatever. Again, I just want a utilitarian solution to dealing with hair while I travel. That's all. So this is what it's going to be. But I was actually surprised how easily that went. So fuck it. Fuck all these razors. There's the end of that story, the end of that timeline.

If I hadn't have fucked up at the outset and I still had my semi-decent one, my like fifty-sixty dollar one, maybe that would have been okay. But who knows how long that would last either with my complete inability to do any maintenance or to know how to keep these things from getting dollar. I know nothing. So fuck it.

You were a good experiment, a noble experiment, ten dollar hair shaver. But now I'm just going to pick my head. Which I remember I did that once in New York. And the girl I was dating at the time she lived in Bushwick, Brooklyn. And she was like, what the hell have you done? You can't be a white guy walking around this neighborhood with your hair shaved with your head shaved. And I was like, oh yeah, I didn't even think about that. It's just sort of not really an issue in Canada. In Canada, you're just a guy with 20:00 no fashion sense. But in Bushwick, Brooklyn, the home of Biggie Smalls, it's like, oh yeah, I guess I do look like a horrible skinhead. But I mean, my hair grew back pretty fast. But this is definitely a different vibe in America that I had not considered. But yeah, I mean, it's not a good look. The shaved head look doesn't suit me especially well. But it's just so convenient that that is now the plan. I do think a little head stubble from the hair shaver. It was a better style. But whatever, I'm wearing a goddamn hat anyway. And no one's looking at me. Nobody cares. Nobody gives one shit. Hmm, just feeling it now here. Listen to this.

That's the hand on the head. And it's so nice because you can just feel like I can feel if there's one little tiny bit where it's not as smooth as the rest of my head. But I'll get that one tomorrow, you know? Is it just keep up with it? It's a lot easier to tell where you've made a mistake. Either it's smoother, it's not. Zero or one. God damn. Could I possibly make things more boring while I wait for the train? Oh, here's something I probably can. So when I was in Fukuoka as an experiment, I bought some of these little vitamin C lozenges. And I was like, oh, those are sweet. That's a little too much. But I've kind of come to enjoy them when I was getting a sore throat the other day that just completely passed me by once again through the grace of the sweet lord above. I bought some vitamin C drops and I do kind of like it. I just like kind of tossing one in in my mouth once in a while. And it's really good if I have like one of the, because I always have the halls that's like the dark halls, the black halls, the brutal ones. And I did find some more today at 7-11. They're a little bit rare. But I found if I put one of those in my mouth along with the really sweet vitamin C drop, the two mix together really well. You get like the super menthol, powerful halls, evilness, and this like nice sweet lemony vitamin C thing. And just anything that'll just feed vitamin C into my body. I'm into it. Even if it's psychosomatic, I mean, I'm sure it helps on some level. But it just feels good to be pumping yourself full of vitamins. So I bought a big bag with like 30 of these things and each one is like a little individually wrapped one and I just dumped them in my little day bag. So I got my little day bag with all my utilitarian stuff, you know, my backup battery charger, this very recorder, spare headphones, plastic fork, dental floss, one of my phones, you know, just the stuff that I might need for the day. Wet wipes tucked away in there somewhere. And then they're all just floating now in a sea of vitamin C drops. I'm like an old lady with fucking where there's originals in her purse. My bag is just filled with. If I just reach in and randomly scrounge around, I'll just find a vitamin C lozenge. And it's like, yeah, actually, I think I like this. I think I like having these in here. I also just realized I don't have my, I took my umbrella out of here. I was just tucking it in the inside pocket of my jacket, but I do not have it. And it's been the clearest weather of all time lately, but I need to rectify that. I don't want to realize that I don't have my umbrella on me. The day that the rain goes fucking nuts on me. That's been very rare on this trip, but but when it comes, it comes out of nowhere. Now there's one person in the platform across for me and two more on my side. Slowly people are accruing. Slowly things are happening.

All right, I'm on the train to Okutama. I'm not on this train alone, but there's a few enough people that since I'm way at the end, I think I can talk to myself for a sec. I just want to relay these findings real quick. It's quite a long ride out here, but there's a distinct difference as we pulled out of Kutama Tayo Station toward Ikusabata, IKUSABATA. That's definitely the distinct shift from you know, Ome is still pretty ruralish, but a new step in like you're in the forest, you're in the mountains. You're between mountains covered in forest, you know, like it really feels like 25:00 that's the new zone, the official outside of the city zone.

And we just left Mittake Station, MITAK and there were all in Okutama. This is an online train for Okutama. The next station is Kalai, J.C. 70. The doors on the one side will open. Please watch your step when you leave the train. Please push the button beside the door to get out the train.

And there were an unusual number of people at Mittake Station. Most of these stations are very tiny with kind of nobody at them. Mittake had quite a few, I don't know, probably about a dozen, almost a dozen. Very distinct hike or looking people waiting for the train to go back into Tokyo. So I presume at Mittake there's some kind of hiking going on.

And it's hard to say what it'll be like to walk in this neighborhood. It's hard to tell. There's a river here. It's the Toma River. Hopefully I can just walk along the river. I'm really not sure. I got about two hours of daytime, a little over two. Maybe it'll be well lit enough that I can just keep walking in the night. I don't know. At first I was like, can I make it all the way back to Iku Sabata? And I'm like, I probably not. Maybe can I make it back to Mittake? I don't know. It's quite a waste.

But yeah, I think I'll just start walking back. Just see what happens. See how far it can get before it gets dark and see if I have to bail out when it gets dark. Or if it'll be lit enough to keep going. Because it's really quite a mix. I mean, it's obviously, you know, the train that goes through here, it's obviously developed in. People live here and stuff. But it's also pretty rugged looking out there.

Alright, from Okutama Station, definitely whatever I saw on YouTube with this lake that I'm envisioning. It must have been somewhere else, because it's definitely not here. This place is not wide open like that. This is very narrow, very narrow little town between two mountains, which speaking of, so I went a little beyond the station across the Tamariver, but the first little green dots I could see on Google Maps, so I met a little crossroads here where there is a way to go to Mount Atago and Mount Nakogiri, and most of the other people I've seen around today have got all their hiking stuff, and they're breaking hiking backpack and they're hiking poles, so they're probably doing stuff like that. But then there is Okutama Furea Shinorin Yoku Course Hikawa Reveen. Let's just say Hikawa Reveen. The little green dots on Google only, this little thing down by the river, by the ravine, only go back to the station, but hopefully it'll just keep going. Let's see, that's my plan, this ravine walk. Because yeah, this is definitely my first impression is very nice little town, but not clear where to go, very packed in, very confusing. Definitely all the hiker type folk, they're definitely hopping on buses and whatnot, and heading off to other places. This is nice, yeah, this is nice little path down, I can see, it says ravine, but I thought that was the Tamariver. Don't start downgrading bodies of water on me now, Japan, after all of my many mentions that these rivers seem small to me.

Yeah, this is in fact the Tamar, and the Napara River is going to connect up to it, right at Okutama. So yeah, hopefully this will just keep going. Let's just see how far we can go on this bad boy. Because looking at the window as I was going along, it actually gets by the end of this route, there's only one train line, there's not even two, so the train has to stop to let the other train go by if there's another one coming.

I've definitely never seen that in Japan before, the single line snake in its way through the mountains, and I think this is in fact the end, it's not like down at Takao where you can just keep going. And it was about 650 to get here, not too bad, obviously be a lot more expensive from Central Tokyo, who would add up a lot. I wonder if that's the most expensive single ride you can do to come all the way out here.

And I did see a kid, because there's not really like turn styles or anything, most of Japan you could probably sneak past if you needed to. There's not a lot of hard gates at subway stations, but this one it's just like a little pillar that you just hold your card up to and just walk past it. I did see a kid while the attendant was dealing with someone else and not paying attention, a kid who just strolled by, and that brought back some memories of when I first moved to Vancouver. Vancouver used to have this system where they just periodically, it was basically the honor system, and they just periodically had people come on the trains and check for your tickets. And for a little while, definitely like skipping out on transit fees is a young man's game. Like I certainly didn't hold it against this kid at all, he's like a teenager, he doesn't need to spend fucking $7 on his train ride. And what I would do in Vancouver is I would just be eagle-eyed to see the station people, and if I did see them, I would just get off the train at that station. And then sometimes they wouldn't get on that train, you know, usually they would get on and then start checking tickets. Sometimes they didn't, but then I had already gotten off, so I just kind of had to leave the station at that point. I'm like, okay, well, it's definitely just something only someone with all the time in the world can be bothered with all that nonsense. And ultimately, it just got too stressful that I was always just looking and watching because I did get caught a couple times, and I never paid the tickets because I don't have a driver's license, so who cares? You know, the only time it ever comes up, your transit bills is if you got to go get your license renewed or something. And that was never going to happen for me, but I just realized like, you know, it's just not worth it. I just have a nice ride where I'm just reading a fucking book or something, and I could relax rather than having to be eagle-eyed playing this little game where I try to avoid the transit cops at every station. So that's the day I matured. I mean, I was in my mid-twenties at that point, but that's when I finally grew up. I was like, I'm just going to pay for my transit, like a citizen, and now they have a whole system with gates and stuff, so no more of that shenanigans. Unless you literally jump the turn style. Any of this is pretty nice. This is just slowly heading down, down to the bank of the river. I hope this keeps going for a while, because it's quite a ways down into this gorge, walking across, I'd walk across two bridges to get here. And it was only minorly freaky, but it's like, I'm pretty high up, but they're very small bridges.

But yeah, I don't want to have to go back up any time soon. Let's hope. Let's hope this path just keeps on going.

But yeah, as you go, and as it becomes this single train line on the way out here, and you get all the places that, you know, the two or three stops before the end. Those are always the ones that kind of, you know, don't, quote unquote, don't deserve to have a subway station. Like there would never be a subway station there, just because they're on the route to the subway station to the end of the line. So those are the places that are really small and rural, but then once you get to Okutama at the end, man, it's like a great big, super awesome washroom with the heated seat and the bidet and everything. You can head out hiking. You can fucking sit on a nice warm toilet seat and wash your butt. It's like, oh, that's nice. Okay, what's this? I'm looking down at the bank. So it looks like there's a bridge that goes across to the other side. And I see colors down there, but is that someone on the bank? Is that a person? I don't know what that is. Maybe, and then, hmm, I just see stairs going back up. Maybe I do immediately need to go back up. I mean, this is still nice, even if this is all that it is.

But there's some other stairs a little further on. Definitely not a clear path along the edge of the water, but again, there's just no space here. Everything is very, it's like the Congo. It's like just this deep ravine with this river in it. I guess that's what they're referring to. It's not that the river is a ravine. It's the banks, the super high banks of the river make this the ravine part of the river. Must be what that means.

And yeah, all these just cool-looking, gnarled trees stretching out overhead. This is pretty damn pretty.

But if I do this thing of walking back, back the stations, I was definitely underestimating distance for one thing. This is really far away. And just looking at it out the window, I'm like, I just don't think this is going to necessarily be that easy. Like, it would be great if there was just this amazing ravine path that just went the whole way. But I had a feeling looking out the window that it would be kind of a lot of just walking along the street and stuff, because I think you're supposed to either be in your neighborhood where you live, or have a car. I don't think you're supposed to hike back along that way.

Okay, here's a little map.

Neat. Okay, so actually, if I don't cross, looks like if I do cross, I do have to go up some stairs to get out of here.

But there is actually more path on this far side of the river, so I will stay here for now.

And it doesn't look like it goes extremely far. I mean, it does continue, but I think it goes up into the mountains is what this is referring to. Man, though, I just can't get over it. I mean, I know I've brought it up literally a hundred times, if not more. But just on this little local area map of this little trail that I'm like, okay, here's the river trail. There's the one that goes up the mountain. There's a little lodge at 500 meters up.

Oh, there's the train station. So this is not even like a large area. This is just the vicinity. And they've got one, two, three, four, five different washrooms listed on here. That's fucking incredible. So there's a washroom part way up to the lodge. And 500 meters is not that high up. Maybe I should just go do that. I got time.

But then the washroom at the station, some other washroom that apparently I walked past, and that splotch of color I see down there, maybe that's actually just a washroom. According to this map, it might be.

Yeah, I should think I'm going to try this. I'm going to try this 500 meters up. I mean, that's a little less than Takawa yesterday. Let's just get started. Let's just give it a try and see. Because yeah, down here, I can bail out at any time on the subway line. Doesn't matter how far along that line I get or if I get anywhere at all, it's fine if I just don't even do that. I could just get back on the train at Okutama and go back. So yeah, I'm going to try going up to this little lodge. See how that goes.

However, I guess instead of going exactly back the way that I came, what if I go forward? Does it connect up?

Oh, and I see this little circle in the middle. This must be the mountain. This is really cool, by the way, this sign. It's like a wooden sign, and all the routes of this pass are carved into it, like with a chisel, and then painted. It's kind of fucking beautiful. Let's see if Google Translate enjoys, though, this level of fanciness. For I square, it's called, so that's not the mountain. What the heck is that? Well, I don't know. Let's go see. Let's go try to get there.

Yeah, getting here a little earlier in the day, of course, would not have hurt, but if I just do this one little adventure, just this one little mountain lodge, I think I got time for that.

And every day doesn't need to be mega epic. It's kind of better when it's not. It's kind of better to have a smaller, more contained mission that then leaves one in the vicinity of a fucking subway station. It's actually kind of optimal. Oh, yeah, those colors I was seeing, it is. I don't know if there's a natural person, or if it's like an abandoned encampment, but it is a little tent. And some sleeping bags and shit down there.

And many of the distance down into this ravine is pretty far. It's definitely, you know, it's making the little fear of heights tickle, go off in the back of my mind, because I mean, I'm like, Jesus, if I was in a building, it's hard to estimate, but easily 10 stories up. However, this path has extremely huge, big, super heavy fencing on the side with big metal couplings that are bolted in and stuff like this is so secure feeling compared to that crazy shit yesterday. I'm out to cow, but yeah, looking down into it, you can see like blue, green algae cover in the water. 40:00 It's that kind of thing where it's like you're in a movie. It's like, how does it look like that? That's insane. It's so cool.

Alright, I found a little sign. It is funny how the signs are so cartoony, usually in Japan. On this sign, it was a mom and her kid in a little cartoon anime form, frallicking their way up the mountain. And I'm like, okay, I mean, it's nice to let you know that it's a, don't worry, it's an approachable hike. This is not going to kill you. But it's not that easy. Come on. I mean, it is though. It is just steps. It's all like very well made steps heading up. And the 500 meters, I don't think it's going to be that big a deal, because it's very steep. Because I was thinking like it actually did take, you know, a good hour and a half to get up Mount Takau. And it was closer to 600 meters. And I don't have that much time. I got a couple hours today.

But I think this is going to take way less time than that because it's just going up, like way up. I don't think this is going to take long at all.

And on the map, they showed a couple little alternate routes. You can go here. You can go there. But stick to the middle route. You can just go straight up to a shrine on the top or a lodge or something.

So that's the plan.

Yeah, here's a little crossroads toward Unizawa. I'm not sure what that is. Back to Okotama Station. Mount Otago, Mount Nakagiri, and Mount Otake. Is the direction I'm going. I'm not sure which of those three mountains I'm going to, but whatever the first one is. I'll just go there and call it an adventure.

And it's nice that I ran into like two people so far. Just enough to let you know stuff's going on here. It's a thing, you know. Of course it is. It's really close to the subway station. But it's always nice to see a little bit of people just to be like, yeah, here's people doing stuff. Extra assurance, but not millions of people. Just a couple of people.

I was a little proud of myself though yesterday walking down Mount Takawa because once I got past the terrifying route three, and I was just on the major route one. I stayed on route one. And it's the one that's all paved and all the stuff is there and the cable cars and whatnot. And I got a crunky brand ice cream bar. And I found a Tully's Royal Latte, which I'd never seen before. And I was like, all right, let's try this bad boy. What if it's like the most magical thing that you can only get on a mountain? And it turns out it was actually a macho latte, which was doubly delightful. I didn't expect that. It was really good because I had the other Tully's one that was the really bitter harsh hardcore matcha.

If you could buy one of each and mix them, it'd be absolutely perfect. But after all, that shit that I went through, I was happy to have a nice sweet macho latte. I was like, thank you Tully's. I continue to love you.

This must be that meeting square thing they were talking about. Because it's got like picnic tables and a little part with a roof and such and such. Should you need it. But I've had problems with these hikes where I weirdly hurt my bad knee on the way down rather than the way up. Because the way up you're kind of forced to modulate yourself due to the very difficulty of hiking up a mountain. It goes slow by default. But on the way down I tend to hurry too much and just put a lot more pressure on my knees than I realize I am. But I think also it's because of the terrain. It's hard to just go at a slow even pace. Like right now these steps I'm going up, they're partially some steps that people have made and partially just the roots of trees. It's all uneven and crazy. It's a little tough to just take a very, to get into like a standardized march on the way down. It's hard to do because you just got to be really mindful of the terrain. It's changing all the time. And I just inadvertently just go too fast. Where with Mt. Takau it was mainly that it was paved but also that I was just fed up that day. It's just like oh god this day this mountain this has been such an ordeal not nearly as fun as I had hoped and expected it to be. I was hoping for something more like what I'm doing right now instead I just got. It's like I was at a fucking concert but I was on a mountain. So many fucking people.