#75 Exploring the Mitake Valley Riverside Trail, Tokyo

Transcript

Just chilling. Oh, a jingle-play. There it is, the second I started talking.

I don't know what that announcement said, but maybe it said, hey, everybody hanging out at Keita Hachioji Station, we're on holiday hours, so forget about trains coming there. I'm going to take forever. No, apparently what it said is the train to go in the direction of Hachioji is arriving, because there it is, but I'm going the other way, so I still got to wait.

It is New Year's Eve, but I have no New Year's plans, because I didn't even realize it was that day. I forgot until I was leaving the house. I'm like, oh yeah, right, that's today. But yeah, I never really do stuff for holiday-type crap, because I often don't even know what day it is. There'd be a lot of days, especially during COVID, where I would leave my house, and I would go walk down through the park near my house, so I wouldn't really see anybody. And then I'd get to the bottom of the hill and realize there were no cars in the supermarket parking lot, and be like, well, what the hell holiday is this now? It was always some weird long weekend or something that I had no idea was happening. When you're a fucking trust-fun dickhead who's working on their novel doesn't matter what day it is, so no New Year's Eve plans, but I do have plans. However, luckily, I actually got here right about when the train is arriving, because here it is, so we will save those for a moment.

It's another absurdly beautiful day. The wind has picked up a little, which is kind of good, because it was uncomfortably warm before too warm to take off my jacket, and it's like, fuck. But I did a little holiday call home yesterday, now that I'm not packed in with a bunch of people in bunk beds and stuff, I can actually talk without just keeping everybody awake all night. And it's unseasonably warm in Canada as well, so I do think I just got really lucky this year. I think your average winter visit to the Tokyo area is probably not, it's probably still pretty good, but it's probably not this good, where it's like ludicrously, you know, late summer, very early fall type weather. This is unusual, it seems.

And I did some research about the Okutama area. I'll ramble about that in a bit, but it's actually, there's a little more traffic right now than I thought there would be. So I'll just wait till I get past this stretch, but what my plan is for today is I went to Ome station, a few episodes back, and I kind of brute forced my way onto this mountain trail. I didn't have the proper entrance, I had to kind of climb up on a ridge and follow some survey markers till I hit an official path. But then once I get up there, there were all kinds of cool paths between Ome and Akiruno, I think the neighborhood in the middle was Hinoe Day. So I'm going to try to get back up into that trail system, but on a real trail. I'm kind of trying to do it in reverse, and then hopefully I'll come out near Ome, and then I'll just know for future should I want to go back there, how you're supposed to get in there, how you're supposed to start. Because actually now that I know how to do it, my brute force method wasn't that bad of like going up behind this garage and going down a mountain path that just kind of peeders out, but now that I know, you can just climb up the ridge and in like 10 minutes or something, you're connected to the path, it's actually not that bad. But I'm just curious how it's supposed to work, so I went two stations beyond Ome. I got off at Hina Tawada station, H-I-N-A-T-A-W-A-D-A, and I'm just heading down some highways, so I'm going down highway 45, and then 238. Past go-jo construction materials. And then a little ways down here, there's one of those nice dotted lines on Google Maps. So there's a lot more paths and trails than there are on Google Maps. So if a dotted line path does show up on Google Maps, it's probably a relatively major trail, so I'm just going to try to get to that and see what that is and see where that goes. And it's in the same vicinity, so if all goes well, it'll link up to the path system. I was on last week, and if all doesn't go well, I'll just have a random adventure.

Man, this route 238 is actually really pretty. It's just this really narrow little two-lane road through the mountains. Got a little sidewalk on one side, and it is just, I guess, one thing I like about neighborhoods like this, it reminds me a lot of my uncle's house. He lives in Pennyack, New Brunswick. And he's just kind of a mechanic, and he just has, I don't know, I mean, kind of a ram-shackle house. He still has it, he's had it since I was a kid, and they just got high-speed internet. Like last year, I was up there visiting. And yeah, I mean, in this day and age, you think everybody has high-speed internet, but it was a big deal to get it that far out of the city. So this has that same vibe of just, like, mechanical type stuff. And the houses are really, I mean, they're maintained, but they're, well, like I'm looking to one right now, that is a really nice little house, really cool-looking little house. But all the paint on the sides and on the roof is really worn off. Like everything's functional. No one cares what anything looks like, you know? And there are just the occasional yards just filled with random junk. That is a little unlike Japan. But it's just kind of a nice vibe. It's just kind of cool. And the fact that it's not way out of town, it's not like, oh my god, how do you even get there in the winter? And you don't get to have high-speed internet or whatever. It's all still pretty close. I mean, I'm walking distance from, from a subway station right now. I guess I should say train station not subway, since it's not underground, but whatever. Just kind of using it colloquially.

Yeah, there's big mountains all around me and the big trees and stuff. It's just real pretty. Real pretty. There's like, as the sun rays come down through these trees, there's like a mist in the air and it just looks really cool.

Man, I thought I got going semi-early today, but it's a quarter to two in the afternoon. I guess just the travel, even though I'm in West Tokyo, but walking to the station and then taking a train and transferring and taking another train. And then I had to transfer again to get two stations past Ome. It was a pretty short ride. It only cost like $4, but it all adds up. It eats up the day pretty fast.

Yeah, there's a lot of little trails I've passed, but I don't know where they go. I mean, probably most of them won't go anywhere. They probably just kind of go peter out into the woods. So I'm going to wait till I get to the real one, the major one. Yeah, I'm just passing Go Joe construction now, so not that much further. And then if something went terribly wrong for whatever reason, if this path isn't there or whatever. I mean, at this point, I guess I'd probably just turn around and go back, but you could. You could just keep going straight through to Akiruno.

This is a relatively comfortable road with its nice little sidewalk. Yeah, here's another path into the woods, but it's going the other way.

All right, well, unfortunately, this plan did not work out, but I'm just heading back the way I came now, but it's only 10 after two. I did not eat up a lot of time on this, and it's still a nice walk. I really like this weird little random street. I'm just looking up now like between kind of going down a hill. At this point, it kind of goes up and down. No, here's a jogger. This is interesting. I wonder what his plan is. Because the sidewalk disappears on this street, where the hell is he going? Maybe he's just going to come back, I guess we'll see.

A little jogging ASMR. Yeah, I'm just looking up at the trees as I walk. It's really beautiful here. But yeah, the blue dot disappeared on my little map, which is rare. That doesn't happen too often. I was doing some shenanigans where I was using two phones, and only one of them has the Google lens that you need to do the camera translate. So I brought up the map on one phone. I was using the other phone to translate it, and it actually worked. But I think that I messed up my little dot disappeared at some point. My location service has got goofed up. But I don't remember the name of it. It's something where other past, but it doesn't matter. Because it's just not there. Like, once my little blue dot came back, I realized I was past the point where the trail was supposed to be. And the fact that I had just walked clear by without seeing anything was a bad sign.

And I went back and forth like five or six times, really making sure. But it's like I was really having to stretch to find anything. I was like, well, you know, if I climb up this embankment, and there's an opening in that wall concrete barricade up there, 10:00 and then you could walk up the side of this, like, no, this doesn't, none of this makes sense. And the sidewalk disappeared on this street, which made it go from this nice, cool, pleasant, pretty walk that it is right now, straight to you're just walking on the freaking highway. And there's cars everywhere, and it's awful. That's where I'm curious to see if jogger man comes back this way. Because if he's pushing all the way through, this street gets a lot less pleasant at the point where it changes from 238 and becomes 251. That happens pretty much right where this path is supposed to be. And yeah, that's one thing I'll give Japan a big credit for, is that it's usually very evident when something's not right, when something's not working out. You know, supposedly there was a trail there that went either the way I wanted to go, or if it went the other way, it would have taken a person to one of the peaks of the mountains around here. But I don't know what's going on, it wasn't there, but that's fine. No problem, because I got a backup plan. And even though I don't have a ton of time in the day, I should have plenty of time for this one, because this one's pretty easy. So, let me tell you what I learned about Okutama. So, I went to Okutama and I went up the terrifying stairs to Otago Shrine, which is interesting because I learned yesterday when I was googling around. If you search YouTube for Otago Shrine Stairs, there's another shrine called that that has some fairly famous stairs, because they're like the stairs of success. You go up these stairs and it gives you success in your day. So, if you happen to be googling around, that ain't the one. Those stairs are just normal stairs. Dig up Okutama, dig a little deeper to find this thing. And I didn't find a ton of people talking about it, but everyone who did, they all said the same thing, which was that the camera is not getting what's going on here, which is at the flatness of video or of pictures. You just don't get the sense of the steepness of those terrifying stairs. But then people did say that that is the worst part. That is the weirdest, most bizarre part of that particular trek. If you keep going, there's nothing else like that. So, at first I was like, oh darn, maybe I should have kept going instead of going back down the stairs. But it is better that I went down because it's like this triple peak. That's why the sign mentioned three different mountains. It's this triple peak hike that supposedly is really nice and is really well laid out and is not especially hard. It's just very long. I saw different things that either said it was a four to five hour hike or a seven to eight hour hike, which is a significant difference. Maybe those two routes are different peaks, I don't know. But either way is really just too long, especially a seven hour hike. That's nuts. I would do that if I had a friend with me here who was into hiking and we got up crazy early and we were going to do that, that'd be one thing. But I would not do that by myself. That's way too long. I don't need that. If I take a little one or two hour hike, completely remaining in the vicinity of drink machines and convenience stores, I feel fine about that. I feel very accomplished about my day. Obviously, if you're on a seven hour hike, that's where your hiking poles and your big fucking backpack and all that stuff. Any hike where you actually require that stuff, that's not... That ain't me, dog. That's not what I'm here to do. So yeah, in the event that I'm ever in Japan with one of my friends who's into that kind of hiking stuff, I got that tucked away in the back of my mind. That'd be a neat thing to do. But that's quite a serious adventure. That's a little much. But I think what's interesting, what I might look into a bit, is it doesn't need to be a triple crown like that. It doesn't need to be all three peaks. It's very interesting that you can do that. But you really don't need to, because even just this station I got off at today had maps all over the place and signs and things directing a person to one of those peaks. If even, actually, it might not be specifically one of those peaks, it could be a different one, because there's just a ton of them. There's just mountains all over the place here. So you can just pick one of the peaks, figure out where the closest station is to that peak, and just go do that. Just go up the one mountain, come back. We take you the afternoon, not nearly as big of an ordeal. Not this non-stop, crazy hike. But that also explains why I saw so many people at Mittake station, because that's where the end of the triple mountain hike ends. That's like the, you know, or you can start from there. You can go either way. So presumably, since I was a little late getting going yesterday, that's what was happening. Those were the people who sat off in the morning, and they were done their hike for the day, 15:00 and they were getting on the train there to go the heck home.

But yeah, I think that's an interesting idea, because you don't need to just push through. You could just do one and come back. I don't know if I will do that, but that's way more approachable. That's definitely in the back of my mind, but it is still one of those things, too. It's just, it is a little hard to say. I mean, I definitely want to do something I can easily bail out of, because even though everyone says, like, oh, those stairs, that's the worst part. Everything is much easier after that. It was also very evident just watching people do their hike videos, because that's specific. You can actually find quite a bit of stuff if you search for that specific mountain. Mount Odake, O-D-A-K-E. That's the first of the triple mountain. So if you search for that, there's a lot of people posting their videos of doing that through hike. And yet, people don't like those steps, but they were more talking about basically just the, the steepness. One or two people on the Google Maps review mentioned, like, hey, is it just me, or if I fell down this, would that be a serious problem? You know, most other people just thought they were notable because it was such a steep way to start a hike. So for me, it was clearly different. Going up wasn't really a problem. I could go have five sets of those before I started having real trouble. It was the steepness. It was the jelly legs. It was the vertigo. It was just the height that I felt going up there was wild, man. Very, very unpleasant. Phantom doggies. I don't even see you doggies. Or are you doggies?

So anyway, that's where I wonder, you know, even though people are saying like, oh, the rest of the hike's not that bad, but if they are not freaked out by heights, the way that I am, maybe they just wouldn't recognize that it is terrifying. I think my best bet is just not to go that far west, because it does seem very clear that the farther west you go, the more severe the terrain gets, and I just don't want to fuck with that. There's plenty of other peaks and plenty of other heights. Which brings us to today's backup plan. Because as I was looking at people's videos about Okutama, that idea of walking along the river and walking between the stations was not impossible, but less than pleasant way out at Okutama. But I saw this one video in particular that was like an hour long walk from Sawai Station, SAWAI, to Matake, I'm actually surprised with that really taken hour, that's only one station. But basically, that's right at the start, how I mentioned last episode that right when you get to Iku Sabata Station, that's where the terrain changes, that's where you're into the mountains. So that's only one more station beyond that. And yeah, they just had this beautiful nice stroll along the edge of the water. Everything is very flat at that point's bill, very casual, it's just clearly a path meant to be walked down. And because that video was in the summer, people were like swimming in the river, and it was like the freaking jungle book, it was idyllic, it was beautiful. So I got enough time if I just be line it back to the train, which is what I'm doing right now. I think I want to try to walk two stations, just one station is a very short walk, and again, I mean this is all easy to bail out of, before the terrain gets crazy jagged and insanely mountainous. I tucked that away, it's like, oh that's a really fun little easy thing I can do. That'll be great for like a day when I'm really slow getting going and I don't have a ton of time left in the day, I'll just go do that little walk, it looks great. I didn't expect to do it today, but now it's like the perfect backup plan, because having failed my first plan, you know it's like 230 now. 230, time is not exactly on my side, so I'm going to do that. The question is, do I start at Iku Sabata, or do I go to Metake and go in reverse? Doesn't really matter.

I just got a flippemental coin and decide on one or the other, but I will do that on my journey. There we go, I'm back, back to civilization now, hop over to the station, recalibrate the plan.

Alright, I'm back at Hina Tawada station, and there's a timetable here, timetable of Ome Line, Saturday, Sundays, and holidays, and I do not know what this means.

Is it, okay, well we got the first number, I guess, is 24 hours? Okay, the first number must be the hour, which we're at 252. 20:00 So if I go to 14 o'clock, well I guess we'll go to 15, because it's going to be 3, because it's like, I must be that the numbers after that are when it arrives the minute. So if I'm reading this right, there'll be one at 310, and one at 341. So that's not bad, I got 18 minutes to wait.

I don't know, is that what that means, because the weekday schedule is not much different. I mean maybe this is just a really unpopular line, whatever, I don't know.

And then yeah, between midnight and 4am, no trains, that must be, that has to be what that means.

Alright, so I decided I'm going to go to Isuka Bata station, and then walk west past Soai to Matake. So I don't know for sure how the walk from Ikusa Bata to Soai will go, but probably fine. And then, you know, I've already seen, but probably fine. And I've already seen YouTube evidence that the second leg, Soai to Matake is all good, is quite a gorgeous little riverside walk, next to the Okutama Bible Shale apparently.

And yeah, it'll definitely be getting dark at that point, perfect time to just bail out. It sure is nice to walk next to train lines, and because what can go wrong, how bad could it possibly go? Man, it's already the single track I noticed here too, you really don't have to go far before the single track happens.

I mean, maybe that one train that I just saw go by the other way, right before I got here, maybe it just does have to go all the way to Ome and back, probably it does.

Yeah, I decided to walk west because of the sun. It's like, oh yeah, of course, just so the sun will be behind me, that makes sense. If I can go either way, of course, pick the way where the sun's not in your face. However, it's not especially important right now because it clouded over really fast. It was like a really warm, downright hot, super clear day. And now it's really cloudy all of a sudden.

Which reminded me that I have not returned my umbrella to my arsenal, unless I lay it out in front of me. If I don't put it in the inner pocket of my jacket, like when I get home, I just will not remember it in the morning. It's impossible. I will literally never remember. But then the problem is I got to also remember when I get home. I just don't know how I'm ever going to possibly remember to do that. My brain is the opposite of a steel trap. It is a sieve.

Hmm, geez though, I just noticed there's a waiting room here. I'm the only one at this little wee station right now.

It's a little waiting room here that has a shit load of umbrellas. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. And they're clearly just abandoned. I mean, they're just sitting here in the station. Given the ominousness of these clouds, they don't look especially dark. They're fairly... Well, I don't know. They're not like gray clouds, but they're not exactly fully white either. I think I'm going to take one of these umbrellas. I mean, if not for this situation, what else are they for?

And then when I get to the end of my walk, I could just leave it at that station. I don't even necessarily have to take stewardship of one of these umbrellas. I'm just moving them from one station to the next.

Though if I were to take one, I could leave it in the closet of the Airbnb. And then there would be an umbrella for the next person. I think I might do that.

I'm going to steal an umbrella.

Because there's no way all these umbrellas are ever going to get loved.

There are too many of them sitting here. I'll give you love umbrella. I'll give you a new life.

Yeah, these umbrellas. I do like these Japanese umbrellas because they tend to be quite large.

But they're just long as well. They don't fold down. They're very hard to just have one tucked away. You kind of just need to grab one when you need one. I guess that's what's happening today. I need one and I have one. So I was looking at one of the local area maps. And this seems like a very interesting potential candidate for a mini hike for not one of these super crazy hikes that is beyond my comfort level. 25:00 So yeah, there's a path from this station to Mount Memorayama, MIMURO YA MA. 650 meters.

Passed a little shrine and then you can just come straight down and return to the Temer River. Or you can continue on to the next peak and then if you go to the third peak over, that's Metake. It's like an alternate version of the triple crown. But yeah, like I just don't need to do that. I don't need to do the triple thing. I could just go up the one mountain that is not that far. And if anything goes wrong on the way, just don't go. Just come back. I think I might try that. That seems pretty cool. Because that's the other thing with these like the seven hour triple fucking super gang bang fucking trip. It's like, you know, probably it would be fine. But just what if it wasn't? What if something did go wrong? Then I just got a weight. Like what if I sprained my ankle and I can't move or something. I got a weight for someone else to show up. And then what? Still not going to be a clean solution to that problem. I just don't love the idea of going on a hike where I'm far away from society. Because why? Why bother? There's no need. I can go up one mountain and have a heck of a day. I don't need to go up three. One of my fucking Johnny fucking mountain seed. If you were under that impression, I'll tell you right now that I'm not. I'm not that person. So I'm going to look into that a little. I think that could be cool.

And if I did, in fact, read the timetable correctly, I got 11 minutes to go. No problem.

Well, this turned out pretty well. I think I picked the right spot.

So as soon as you get off the train at Ikusabata, there's immediately a sign for Mount Takamizu and the Ome Hill hiking course, which again, hey, who knows that could be cool in its own right. Like there's so many mountains here. It's fucking cool. It's like pretty much every station has kind of got its own mountain. It seems, I mean, I haven't been to every single one, but it seems likely because there is just endless mountains around here. So that's kind of cool. It's like each station has just got like, all right, here's our trek up to our closest mountain. You could definitely spend some time fucking doing this. And I really do like the, I like my chances for my plan of not stringing together multiple mountains. Again, it's very neat that that's optional, that you can do that. That's cool if you're Jimmy Joe hiker guy, but if you just want to go to the nearest mountain top to the station and come back, it seems like there are many, many options for that. But then the other way, Mittake Valley walking trail, or later the other sign called it Mittake Valley Riverside Trail. And I'm like, perfect, that is what I want. Yes, please, just a nice Riverside walk. But you definitely cannot walk down the Temer River just wherever you want, because it still took about 500 meters to get to the trail, but it's very well marked in their signs everywhere, and then a big arrow, go down these steps. And that's where I am right now. Walking along the edge of the river, fucking beautiful, is all goddamn hell. It's a little bit of a shame that it clouded over, so it's not that just pure popping incredible summertime sun look. This is the overcast sort of just somewhat dim grayish day look. But the water still got that like greenish blue unreal quality. This would have looked really cool if I got here earlier in the day. I should definitely try to come do this on a really sunny day if I get a chance. But I noticed that behind me, there's basically no shoreline at all. So you really do need to be on this specific walking trail part of the river. And yet conveniently, it just happens to start extremely close to where I got off the train. And then maybe it goes on further than Mittake Station. But my plan is to stop there for today. But Okutama is really coming together, going all the way to the end and stumbling upon the entrance to the King of All Hikes, was a bit of a peculiar start. Didn't go so amazingly well. But now that I'm teasing out the less severe elements of this part of Tokyo, they're pretty delightful.

Man, the density of experience visiting Japan really is fucking crazy. You know, we're back in my hometown. I mean, I just had limited options. So many, many days, then weeks, then months would go by with like, you know, I mean, I still had some nice little hikes around wherever I had available to me. But nothing that particularly sticks in the mind, you know, they're all kind of like one big experience. Mainly, there's a park called Odell Parks that was near where I lived. And it's like a fun little place to hike through. But I hiked through it a thousand times. So I don't really remember specific days very well. Whereas here in Japan, it's like, it seems so crazy to think that two days ago, two fucking days ago, I was fearing for my life around the borders of Mount Takau. Yesterday, fucking yesterday, I felt like I was in the sky, like I was flying in a bad way out by Okotama station. And now today, I'm walking along this fucking trail next to this river. It's like a big boulder that I'm passing that has gotten lodged behind a tree. There's a bunch of really big rocks here. There's not a soul around.

I suspect this trail, if I remember my YouTube preview correctly, it'll get more developed as I go. But man, down at this end, this is clearly the part that doesn't get a ton of use. Not a soul here. It's just this really rough trail along the Agile River.

Just the fact that these wildly disparate experiences, maybe not wildly different. I guess they're all just walking through nature. But within the container of walking through nature, they're pretty fucking different feeling. And that they're just happening day after day after day. And that this kind of thing stretches back now for so many days for like two whole months. It's just like, what the fuck? I have no idea what I'm going to do tomorrow. But if I wanted to go do some weird fucking VR arcade thing, like I could, I could do that as well. I don't tend to lean that much toward that type of thing in Japan, but that's all here as well. It's fucking amazing. What a good country to visit, man. It's just fucking... It's really fucking good.

Now I'm going under these gnarled trees that are jutting out from the side of the shore, and I can see above me. I don't think the road is actually that far away, but it's the opposite of being up on a mountain where you can hear everything, because nothing is blocking the sound. Down here, the borders of the shore are blocking the sound, because it's not deep. It's like the gorge of the ravine was deep at Okutama, but it's getting there, you know? I am down in a valley, and then with the river water on the other side, it's like all of fucking society has just disappeared. See you later. Now I'm just in like a goddamn, it's gonna say a Norman Rockwell painting, but it's a little too fucking rough and tumble for that. This feels more like, I mean, I don't know, I don't know who, this is like a, I guess if like the character from Hatchit had spent some time painting, instead of worrying about his mother's divorce, like a bitch, this is what he would have painted.

Have you ever noticed that in the sequels to Hatchit, they never bring that up again. It was really weird in that book where he's just like, just having these weird psychopath serial killers thoughts about how much he hates his mom's divorce. It's very strange.

Anyway, this is goddamn nice, and this is the backup plan. What the hell, man? What the hell, Japan? You're fucking really, really, you're really fucking good.

Alright, I think I'm about halfway. It's definitely becoming a lot more developed. We're kind of pushed up now, just walking behind people's houses and stuff. It's a lot less just purely in the rough nature by the shore, but I do think that makes it kind of worth it to start that one station earlier than so I, because it is cool to walk down that bit where it is just super rugged. 35:00 Now it's much more, just like a concrete path behind people's houses, still very nice though. I felt a raindrop hit my hand. And behind me, the clouds are still quite clear. You can very clearly feel the sun still pulsing through them. But ahead of me, the clouds are getting extremely dark and ominous. I just felt a couple more little drops on my knuckles. Now I'm crossing a little bridge, and I can see the raindrop markings on the bridge. I guess you can't really see them on the path.

But that's another thing of like if, if I was way out in the middle of nowhere, I'd be like, oh, oh, no, rain potential disaster. But since I'm walking just between stations, you know, like there's a very limited amount of time it would take me to get out of here. You know, pretty much any direction I go. There's a station not too far from me.

And in fact, here's a little marker. It says 70 kilometers to something. Hmm. Let's see if we can translate that. But yeah, I was thinking, I mean, not only am I by the subways, I got this umbrella. I'm like, man, bring it on. I could go for some rain. If the sky opened the fuck up right now, it'd be like exciting. Now it'd be cool. I would have no problem with that at all. And to these circumstances, all right. The top of this post is not translatable because it's very rusted.

70 kilometers from the sea. Hmm.

Oh, may city. Target high, 206 meters. I don't know quite what any of this means. Hello. Hello.

That's some people on bicycles just went by a dad and his son. So that's how well paved this is. You can, you can bike on this part of it the earlier part. Oh, no way.

70 kilometers from the sea. What an odd thing to, uh, remark upon.

Yeah, this rain, uh, it's picking up a little bit now. I'm going to open my stolen umbrella.

Oops. Some, uh, rain sounds.

It's weird how like when rain before it gets really heavy, it's a little hard to tell how hard it's coming down. It's a little bit invisible, but that's, that's a pretty good pitter pattern.

That is actually pretty handy. I've never really gone in those, um, little waiting rooms much in stations, but I don't believe they generally have umbrellas. I think that's, that's mostly a function of it being such a rural station. But that sure was handy.

Because if there was only one umbrella, I definitely would not have taken it. And if there was like even two or three, I probably would hesitate. I don't know that I would. But when there's nine umbrellas, man, this is fucking nice. Just a nice little walk through the pitter pattern, the pitter pattern of the rain. I really got to remember to put my fucking collapsible umbrella because all I got to do is put it in the inside pocket of my coat, and I'll forget it's even there. And it's got a broken spoke. It's not very good, but in an emergency situation, it's very easy to have on me and it would sure help. Although, if I ever do get caught in a full-on downpour, I do have one of those little like disposable 7-11 rain coat things that packs down really small. Tucked away in my little daybag. Daybag. Ah, so if I really got in trouble, I at least got that. But that's a whole to do. And once I take it out of its little package and open it up, I don't know that it's ever going back in there. So umbrellas, man, umbrellas are just handy. Not optional. I gotta keep reminding myself. Umbrella is not optional. It needs to be part of my arsenal. God, I wish I could just somehow guarantee that I would remember. If I even just had like an actual phone, I would just text myself right now. I would text myself the word umbrella. But unfortunately, I cannot do that. 40:00 I have nothing. No phone connectivity at all.

Oh, the dad and his son are hiding under a bridge to get away from the rain. What a nice little bonding moment. Another heading back the other way. I'm glad I got to observe their adventure, even though I guess they had to cut it short. It's cool though. I like little little moments like that are nice. Oh, geez, look at that. There's a freaking washroom. Well, don't mind if I do.

And not just like a washroom. Not like some rural-ass washroom. This is like the full deal. It's got lights that are on. It's got western style toilets. It's got an accessibility toilet in the middle.

Oh, they're coming back my way. There they go. Biking away. Biking through the rain.

Good luck, y'all. Okay, back to my peeing mission. I'm gonna go pee.

Well, the rain ended already. I think I'm coming toward the end. I'm almost at Matake station. So this definitely gets a thumbs up. What a nice, easy little this is definitely. It's like I'm pinpointing, I guess, what I like. This is certainly what I like. Because even like my hikes through the woods in Fukuoka in particular is I still like the hike part, I guess, better than the dizzying heights of the mountain. You know, because a lot of times hiking through a mountain just feels like hiking through the woods. It's hard to even be aware that you're on a mountain a lot of times because there's just trees everywhere. Apparently it is that way also on that the triple peak route from those terrifying stairs at Okutama. One of the little hiking reviews I read said there was only like two spots where there was like a very clear opening in the trees and you could really get like a good picture or whatever. Other than that, it's just glimpses through the trees of the city below. So I mean, I suspect I probably wouldn't have too bad of a time with that hike, but it's just too long. There's no need. This is much more my speed. This whole thing was like an hour. Literally right next to a road, but with the illusion that you're not next to a road. Fucking perfect. The best of all worlds.

So yeah, I would recommend this little jaunt for sure. I can't even imagine with some of this ship would look like in the snow. I know it's quite rare for snow to happen in Tokyo and it's environs, but man, that'd be cool. Yeah, I wonder. There's so few New Year's eaves that I remember. I remember New Year's Eve 1999, even though I was just at my parents' house, but it was just such a big New Year's. I remember who I was hanging out with and my friends were all there. We were just fucking around playing Quake and Starcraft and shit, but I remember that one. I remember New Year's 2008 because I lived in New York and the girl I dated there took me to some cool last New Year's Eve rave. Certainly the kind of thing I would never have done normally, but I definitely remember that one.

That was an okay night. I wonder if I'll remember this one because I will definitely remember this day. I will definitely remember this route. Will I remember that it was New Year's? Like, probably not. I feel like that detail's gonna slip. Whenever I get around to editing this episode of the podcast in the future, I'll be like, oh yeah, that was New Year's because I mean, you know, New Year's doesn't mean anything. It's no relevance. But there's a chance. There's a pretty strong chance that if I'm gonna remember another New Year's. Geez, I mean, like, is that it? Do I only remember those two? Wow. Oh, no, I remember one in Toronto. It was fucking weird as fuck. We used to do this podcast called The Vinyl Countdown where just me and my friends would just hang out till jokes. And I remember that New Year's. We tried a thing where half of us got stoned and the other half got drunk. I was on the drunk side and man, it did not work because the drunk in this makes the person want to talk and the stone did this makes the person not want to talk. It was a bad mix. But we just thought like, hey, it's fucking New Year's. Let's do something stupid. 45:00 So I do remember that one. But that was a really bad podcast. You never want to listen to that fucking thing. So yeah, I mean, in that very, it's not much of a list. But this ranks up there, for sure. This was a great, this was a great New Year's Eve day thing to do. I'll remember the day for sure. Probably won't remember the day. What I will definitely not be doing is just trying to sneak my way onto Mt. Takal. Oh, man, I got to get on the mountain before they cut it off. The no one else can get on there just so I can see the sunrise. God damn it. I feel advanced sympathy for the people that are going to do that even though they have not set off on a journey yet. Oh, here's a guy in a kayak coming down the river. I was thinking because those posts keep popping up where we were 70 kilometers from the sea. And the last one I saw was 70.6 kilometers from the sea. And here's one right here. Conveniently, 71 kilometers from the sea. Maybe that's why. I mean, you can't read those things from up here. But maybe it is, if you're tubing, what if you're just in a fucking inner tube and you're going down the river because of course it eventually empties into Tokyo Bay. 70 kilometers this guy in his kayak has got to go until he gets to the ocean. Though presumably he would not wish to get there, right? That's not what he would want to do. And he's in fact going the other way. What is happening? Okay, I guess you're just turning around. I was like, there's no way you could be kayaking up the river. You fucking mad lad. That's insane. Yeah, there's a sign ahead of me that says JR station up these stairs. And there is a really tall high bridge right in front of me that I'm glad I do not have to cross. There were opportunities to cross the river before now. So you could do that if you're into heights. You could definitely cross over and come across this. I believe the YouTube video I watched, the walking video did do that. And it was the only part, you know, I just scrubbed through. I just fast forwarded my way through. But I was like, dude, I don't want like that. But whatever, it's one little bridge, I'll survive. But you don't have to do it at all. Because yeah, this is like serious shadow of the colossus vibes. It's like a big white archway, but it's got vines growing all over it. There's some people walking, walking across it above me. What is this kayak guy doing? He's still just kind of going around in the same area. He really does appear to be going up the river. He's returning around again. I mean, that is like, that is some serious shit, dude. If you want to fucking exercise, I guess trying to kayak up a river. I mean, I respect it, but it's weird to do. Why don't you just go down the river, man? That's a lot better. Yeah, he just keeps turning around.