#85 Helped by locals at the Mount Nagabuchi Trail, Tokyo

Transcript

Alright, it's my last full day in Hachioji. Tomorrow, the plan is to just a combination laundry travel day. Do some laundry, travel down to Yokohama, and it turns out there's a there's a train line that goes directly from here to there. So that's cool. I thought I would have to go across and down, but if I can avoid going to Shibuya or Shinjuku stations, I certainly will. I really don't have trouble with any of the other train stations. Even the fairly large ones, it all seems to go pretty well. It's just those mega sized ones. You know, up to like Yikabukuro size, I think I can do okay. And then you go step up from there and everything's a shit show. So yeah, it's not close. It's like a two hour ride, costs like $11, but that's cool. The nice thing to with that is if I really desperately want to come back, specifically probably to Ome. You know, it's like this is that's where I'm heading today. I'm going to Ome. It's kind of my last Harat in Ome. And it's kind of cool that I could come back. You know, if I really want to push it, do one last little Harat out here. If it's two hours to Hachioji station, then to Ome. So basically, it would be like a five hour round trip that would cost like over $20 to get there and back. It's not likely. You know, it would have to be one of these get up at the Krakodon type things, which I'm just not good at. It's probably about noon right now. Yeah, it's quarter afternoon. And that is just the one unfortunate thing about being in Japan when it gets dark early is I just can't wake up early. I'm just not that kind of guy. It's very hard to do.

So to add all that extra travel into the day, I really would have to get up early. Who knows though? I mean, if I'm out there for, again, two weeks is kind of a long time. Either I'll fall in love with Yokohama, or I'll be like, I got to get the heck out of here. So this might not necessarily be good by the Ome, but let's assume that it is for this trip. I could come back though. It's cool to know that there is a route back that does not involve going through crazy nightmare stations and stuff. And Hachioji itself, I mean, it's just my home base to get to Ome and get to Akiruno. But this neighborhood kind of has grown on me a bit. I'm glad it didn't stay the way it seemed at first, where it just seemed so pedestrian unfriendly. And I couldn't really find anywhere good to walk and everything just kind of was like, let me just get out of here. Now, it's like, it's like when I was at that Airbnb by the Skytree, and I kept recording myself leaving the little restaurant on the Grand Floor. It just felt like a nice ritual. I'm kind of doing that here, except it's a whole walk. It's this whole walk from, like, I'm basically right in the middle of Kita Hachioji and Komiya. And Komiya is not a fun walk, but Kita Hachioji is. It's a beautiful walk. I love this walk. I love this little stretch. It's very quiet. It's really beautiful. It's got really interesting twisty roads and ups and downs and the terrain. And it's just an interesting walk. And I think that seems to be kind of how it is here in Hachioji is. There are cool places, but you can't just wing it. If you just walk at random, it is kind of a difficult, sort of unpleasant to be a pedestrian neighborhood. But if you find the really cool, nice, interesting routes, they're really cool, nice and interesting.

But yeah, for Ome, my first trip to Ome was when I was out by the Skytree, and I did that weird day where I woke up at like 5.30 in the morning and went out there. And again, that's the kind of thing I would have to do again from Yokohama to go back. So I mean, it's possible, but I mean, that was a weird day. It was a fun day, but it's not the kind of day that I was like, oh, I got to keep doing that. Because I really did feel pretty whacked out waking up that early. It was weird. But anyway, what I did that first day is I went on, as far as I know, I think it's just called the Ome Hills Hiking Course on both sides, though it is two distinctly different things. There's the one to the north, which is, as I've chronicle, 10 thumbs up, super excellent. I'd really, really fucking love it. But I went to the one on the south, and I couldn't quite figure out how to, how to enter. I kind of brute force my way in, but then once I was in, it was kind of cool. It was like nice mountain trails, and I came out at the Hano Day side, and I walked down to Akiruno. Turns out that, uh, that A on Mall, that I always think of as being the Akigawa Mall, it's actually technically in Hano Day. It's like just barely over the line. So all this time, I've been going to Hano Day. 5:00 I mean, it doesn't matter. There's so many neighborhoods in Japan. Every where you go is a different, just something in a different place. You know, the Tokyo Megalopolis is like a dozen major cities, and inside that, there's like a hundred little ones, it's like ridiculous. But anyway, I thought I would go back to that. It was my first Ome thing. Let's make it the last Ome thing, potentially. And I still couldn't really figure out how to properly enter this thing. The north one is way better signposted, and way better developed, and is just way better. The south one is less of a mountain ridge, beautiful views thing. It's more of an actual hike through the woods type of thing. So basically, I'm going to stop one station before Ome, and there's a highway that cuts between the two neighborhoods, between Ome and Hano Day, which is also a technique I've tried before. I tried one that was further west from there, and it didn't work. This one's more on the east side, and I don't know, it just seems more developed. There's a bunch of stuff listed on it. There is a sewage treatment plant though, so I don't know. This could all be a disaster. But I just think, just by looking at the terrain, the entrance to that trail system has got to be there. It has to be, I don't know where else it could be. Alright, Zelda coffee time.

And yeah, if it doesn't work, if I can't find the entrance, then I'll just go to the north course again and do a shortened version of that with whatever time I got left with the sun up. Pretty good backup plan since it's the most beautiful, amazing thing you could ever do ever.

Man, it's kind of eerie too, when I was clicking around on the map, just trying to figure out what the heck, where am I supposed to go. Because I mean, it's going to be one of these things that's really obvious once I find it. It's just not evident from the map. But I was clicking around where I first tried to get onto that trail course. And I saw something that said, temporary, really closed. So I was like, oh, was that a message telling me not to go there? But no, it was a, it's like a bee farm that's there that I did pass by, that was all shut down. And it's a little eerie on the Google Maps. It actually had a review, oddly translated from Japanese, a little tough to determine. But basically, one of the things it said in the review is that this thing is closed because the guy who runs the bee farm was attacked by a bear in 2019. And that's just a bit eerie. I mean, granted, it's years ago, it's a guy who spends all day every day right next to the forest and he's literally running a bee farm. I mean, I don't know. I can't really think of a situation where you're in more danger of a bear attacking you. No offense to that guy. Of course, I don't mean to make light. It's just that, you know, when I was on that path system before, there's quite a few people I bumped into. All pretty well developed, lots of signs and stuff. Once you get on the trail, it just does not have the vibe of a bear attack place. I don't think I should necessarily take that as like I really need to worry. I mean, obviously you should always be worried to some degree that there's going to be bears. But it is, you know, it's just eerie. It's an eerie little reminder, I guess, is that, you know, I guess you can't help but have it in your mind. It's like, oh man, that's just creepy. That's a creepy message.

And if the guy, if his bear attack happened in 2019 and it's still closed, he just never came back to that endeavor, it's like one of those one sentence horror stories, you know, it's just like eerie.

But speaking of hiking for the day and being attacked by bears, I've been finding that the traditional Japanese sweets bag, it's 7-Eleven, it's like my perfect companion. It's like $4, it's a bag full of these little delicious Japanese sweets and they're just really good to fuel you on while you're hiking around. But the 7-Eleven by my place has none left. I think as I bought most of them, there was one left last time I bought one and they haven't restocked. So I'm going to stop at another 7-Eleven on the way and see if they have one.

And then if not, there is a 7-Eleven by Ome, but I'm stopping the station before. Surely they'll be one, there's always a 7-Eleven. And if through all these 7-Elevens I can't find one, then I'll just have to find something else to fuel my adventures. That would be a sign, a sign of what and from who I don't know.

Man, there are a truly bizarre amount of random teenagers everywhere. Okay, every fucking station, at every place that I go, from Hachioji to Hajima, now to whatever the station right before Ome is called. They're just everywhere, it's fucking weird. It's just a Tuesday afternoon.

Maybe it's some kind of half day, I don't know, but it's like in a video game, like if they patch the game and they accidentally messed up the spawning of school kids, it's like just put teenagers everywhere, just everywhere. It's like, oh shit, we need to hot-fix this. We fucked up the balance. It's just strange that there's so many and they are just all over the place. And I don't know why.

But anyway, I found a bag of my precious Japanese-style assorted sweets at this 7-Eleven. I noticed a lot of people on this Ome line get off at Kabe station, but I don't know that there's anything really there. I think it's just, it's the last, you know, it's like a big mall there. It's the last big shopping type area before. I mean, now, even though I'm only one station farther, you know, there's like a greenhouse over there and, you know, very quickly, nothing going on.

This whole area too, I mean, even though I realized when I was hiking the other day, I think the day that I seemingly messed up my leg, when I hiked up to like 650 meters on a mountain and I realized above 500, it's a little too much, I tend to feel weird. But I dug up the picture I took from the shrine up there. And it really is wild. Whenever I show it to somebody, they're like, holy shit, look at that, because it does have that feeling of like you're not on the ground anymore. It feels like airplane level height. It's like crazy, the view from up there. And it's also just nuts that that's so close to a train station that's just on a major line. It's fucking nuts.

And it is one of those things that, you know, as much as it's like, God darn, my last day in West Tokyo. But on the other hand, I mean, I am taking it for granted a little bit, you know, you just kind of do when you're at a place for a while. But even if I lived around here, and I just hiked up mountains all the time, and I completely took it for granted. Like, this would still be the best place to take for granted, you know, even if you were just like, yeah, well, whatever mountains everywhere. Oh, look at me, I'm hiking through the sky. It's fucking amazing. Whatever, you know, like I still think deep down in your subconscious, this would be a fucking great place to be able to take for granted if this could just be your normal every day. Even just like I'm just looking across, just across the parking lot in a little highway. It's just a random ridge. That even that is just like, look how awesome that is. All these trees on it and shit. Even just climbing up there would be cool as hell.

However, looking at the bright side, which is one thing I like about being in Japan, I find it really easy to look at the bright side here. Like when I was here in 2019, and I lost my passport, and my bank card got shut down, and I was legitimately very stressed all the time. And it was still great. You know, I still had a wonderful time. I managed to sort all that stuff out, and it wasn't that bad. I'm just thinking like when I was in New York for a year and a half, or even just visiting the Netherlands for a very short span of weeks, if anything went wrong in either of those places, it was just like a calamity. It's like one little problem that becomes a big problem because I couldn't mentally get over the hump. You know, like I'm always kind of feeling like I'm not supposed to be there necessarily. So then all it takes is something to push at me, and then I'm like, yeah, you know what?

Fuck all this. No offense, Netherlands. I'm just not from there. It felt weird. And all the offense to New York, you guys can fuck off. So obnoxious. Such headstrong people about such a shitty city. You bring it on yourself, New Yorkers. You're fucking insane with how much you love New York. Place blows. Ha ha ha.

But in Japan, even if stuff is kind of a little shaky, it's so easy to shake that off and to just leave you like, whatever. So in this case, the upside to taking off from West Tokyo tomorrow is that, yeah, I still don't know what's going on with my leg. Feels a little weird when I'm walking. At this very moment, it feels fine. But when I stopped and I was waiting for a train, that's when a distinct ache set in. And of course, because I said that, because I just said I didn't feel anything, I just built a twinge. My leg was like, ah, no, no, no, don't get comfy. Like, I really have no idea what's going on. But it's clearly not major. And I just need to cut this out. That's all. I just need to cut out all this hiking. Like, this comes at the perfect time 15:00 for me to get the hell out of here. It's good to like, remove the, uh, the temptation. Once I'm out in a flat ass Yokohama, there'll be no more hiking up mountains. I'll have no choice but to just rest my leg. I'm pushing it today for the final time.

But this is actually a very good time to be change in venues to be getting out of here. Because I need some rest. My leggy leg needs some rest. And even that, I mean, that the upside is a downside, the upside is I have an injury. But even that, you know, it feels like an upside. It feels okay. Because Japan's just like that, man. It's just a fun, cool place to be. Even just whatever this is. I don't know where I am. Just some random neighborhood. Just kind of walk in a little west just trying to get to that more major street that goes through the, uh, the mountains and see if that takes me where I want to go. And it's just so packed with information. Now, just all these little miniature walls between properties or maybe it's like a hedge line random back alleys. There's a guy holding a garden right now. And then a big drop off to the next little neighborhood down so you get this beautiful view out over across it. And then the big mountains in the distance. Man, it's just like just randomly walking around nowhere. It's so fucking cool. You know, I think it would take a lot more than a little pain in my leg to get me down around here. And in fact, I mean, may we never find out. May we never find out where the line is. But, uh, but like the thing with the passport and the bank card, like I was very stressed for many, many days. And I could not shake it. And it was legitimately awful. And I still had a really good time. Like, what the fuck? You know, I just don't know where else that would happen. I mean, I'm picking on New York and the Netherlands, but probably back home too. Um, I mean Vancouver, I'd have a pretty good chance. I like Vancouver an awful lot. That might keep me from sinking into the depths of despair. Maybe even Montreal, I don't know. By Jesus fucking Christ. Yeah, like now there's a little, uh, I'm not in this little like side of the mountain road, but like a very small mountain, just like a few stories up. So beneath me are some houses and a cemetery. And then an apartment building behind that. And then the mountains behind that. It's fucking awesome. It looks so awesome. And it's like which way am I supposed to go? Oh, there's the mountains. As a tip off, there's the super enormous mountains. That's where you're heading right. Heading to the enormous mountains that can't, you can't miss that are just like everywhere. Yeah, that's it. That's where I'm going. Though it is still, it's still pretty twisty. It's not like there's a direct route. But oh, actually though, is this street that I'm on? Huh. Yeah, okay, this actually is, this is the road that goes down into the mountain, but is there a route I could take that would be better on foot? Goddamn, it's so complicated. It's so, because there's another road going under me. I'm on sort of a little ramp way to go down. If you had to get somewhere in a hurry in Japan, it'd be fucked. But when you're just meandering around, holy shit, it's just so Goddamn interesting. It's ludicrous.

All right, this is a good sign, because looking down this road, it's like, hmm, sewage treatment plant, you know, who knows, maybe in Japan. That's a delightful thing to walk by. In Canada, you tend to know when you're walking past the sewage treatment plant. So I was like, that's not the greatest start. Hopefully I don't need to go that way. And then beyond that is the Ome Cemetery Park. And it's like, okay, there's a good chance there'll be an entrance at some point to the hiking course from there. But before all that is the Nagabuchi Tenso Shrine. I'm at the Torigate and there's a sign here that says Nagabuchi Yama hiking course, N-A-G-A-B-U-C-H-I Yama hiking course, 120 meters. So, so good, that must be what I'm looking for. I'm not going to remember that name, unfortunately. Nagabuchi Yama hiking course. It's just easier to say the south Ome hiking course. But this is good because my original backup plan of going to the north course, I mean, it's really not that close from here, you know, it's a ways. That probably wasn't going to work. So my other backup to the backup was, well, 20:00 if I walk down this road and nothing becomes apparent, I could just keep on walking. Just walk straight through to Akiruno and that could be what I do today. But pretty much right away, a clear sign of where to go. Delightful. I can see though why I went the wrong way the first time near the poor fellow with his B plantation because if you're just looking at a map, it looks like the obvious entrance, the Mt. Nagabuchi Trail, which just doesn't fucking exist. It's just not there. So instead of the nice inviting sounding trail, the real trick is to go to the non-inviting sounding sewage treatment plant. It turns out that will lead you to the end goal.

All right, so I went up to the shrine and from there you could go left or right, right to the shrine, left to some kind of path. So I'm not quite sure what was on the left path because I was like, well, let me head up even though it's a gargantuan number of stairs, let's head up there and check out that shrine. It has a nice little shrine and then from there, the path continued up the hill and I've just been walking through the woods and it's just these nice trails that this time of year have fallen leaves all over them and not like a million different options but occasionally a little, you know, you can go here, you can go there. So I'd say the main difference between these two, I mean, I guess I knew this from when I did manage to brute force my way onto this trail the first time. The north course is pretty much just east to west, a long amount of ridge and a bunch of amazing views where this one is a lot more open, a lot wider in area, different places you can go and really no particular views, just woods but that's super delightful in its own way also and I've passed one person so far, some lady hiking, it's just nice just to be sure, I mean obviously I didn't go the wrong way quote unquote but it's like I wonder what was the other way, is there a proper way you're supposed to go but the good thing about when you're first at a place and you barely know anything about it is you can just kind of go wherever, it's like who cares, it's all good but seeing someone else as I go, okay well this isn't just some super bizarre used by no one path, it's used by at least one person, oh and just said there we're not views but I just came to walk up here, there's a little a, a little shelter and here's a view, oh this is the cemetery of course, so that cemetery that was on the map, I'm looking out over it but I didn't recognize what it was at first because the way it's built into the sides of this fairly steep bowl, it looks like a little coliseum, that's kind of cool but I guess I'll just walk along the edge of it because it just kind of steeped to go down there and it does just appear to be a land of the dead, field of the dead, that's a cool view though, it looks really neat but yeah between the north course and the south course if somebody was to get me a surprise birthday gift of like hey guess what I bought you a house in Japan which would be a slightly weird thing to do if you didn't also somehow pay off all of the officials to somehow get me residency in Japan as well but if you did want to buy me a secret house before I would have said Akigawa, hook me up with Akigawa but I think just a little bit further north there, Ome, I think Ome is the place, the environs of Ome station because they got a station so you can escape and go to all the the big time Tokyo stuff if you want to but to the north there's awesome hiking, to the south there's awesome hiking and this is all like the nice easy level hiking that definitely suits me best and then it gets way more intense from here, should a person level up to such a thing, man Ome is cool, it's so neat because I just was like oh yeah Ome I always saw that on the map and you know it always be on trains that were going to Ome and when I was here in 2019 I just never made it up here but it sure did pay off man holy crap as far as random neighborhoods I've explored I mean I think Ome has got to be the winner 25:00 which I mean you could argue what a strange winner there's nothing there particularly around the actual station itself you'd be like well well this sure is a quaint little neighborhood with nothing in it but I think that's cool in and of itself and yeah all this hiking just so close by it is banana man the mysteries of the human body or the human body brain connection I passed one other guy on this course so this one is definitely less people than the one to the north which makes sense because it is less visually striking but there's not nobody here it is nice just to pass somebody once in a while and there is a I mean it's also a squat toilet like on the north course but there is one by the cemetery though this one's actually nicer and in these out in the woods type environments a squat toilet ain't so bad it is kind of nice not to have to touch it not to have to sit your butt on some weird gross toilet but I was just thinking how just with me yammer about my leg again for a sec because I was just you know walking along I'm going at quite a slow deliberate pace and it's not very steep here just some gradual ups and downs what the hell is that I guess it stops I never mind but everything was just feeling fine

just walking along all good and I was thinking how you really do never know sometimes how I mean this feels like much more of an actual muscle strain problem but who can say it's always so hard to tell where this this cyst problem that I have that hasn't really come up a ton on this podcast because it was mostly only really relevant on the flight over here when I had to sit for a very long time but that was this weird situation where I knew I had a pain but I had no idea what it was so I was going out of my way not to go hike around and then the irony when I finally learned what was happening when I finally get to see a doctor and stuff was that walking around would have been fine walking around actually alleviated the problem because this cyst I have only fills with fluid and gets painful when I'm in a sitting position you know so staying at home and sitting was just making things hurt more or for longer or whatever it's like one of these problems that it never really goes away but but at this point I just you know try not to sit too much and I've kind of it's reduced to the point that now if I do need to sit for a while it's pretty much okay it's not a big deal but but back then I was like constantly re-inflaming the problem every day because I thought just staying at home and sitting like a good little lad was helping where the irony was if I had gone hiking up and down the hill near my place in Canada that would have been better that would have been fine so I was wondering like could this be a similar case like who knows maybe hiking around like this isn't a bad thing I mean I don't think so this feels like a more straightforward muscle strain case I think in this case staying at home and not hiking actually is what I'm supposed to do but I was just thinking how you never know it is weird how the mysteries of the human body you just can't tell sometimes But then where the brain side comes in, this fucking weird limbic system shit we got going on is I had that thought. So I was like, yeah, let me unzip my little day bag and let me take out my recorder. I'll just record that little random thought. And this has happened all throughout today, where every time I, the thought crosses my mind, my leg doesn't hurt at all. It always starts hurting. That's where it was just brief, just a little bit, but my leg just gave me a little stingy feeling of like, hey, don't start thinking that you're not hurt. You know, like the way I'm imagining it is my, it's like my subconscious is not focusing on it or it's like, it's because it's such a minor pain. It only really hurt the one day that I went to Moomin Valley. So it's minor enough that my, my brain body dynamic is like, yeah, we're not going to keep harassing you about this. 30:00 It's fine. We're not going to keep sending pain signals all day. This is not a big deal. However, if you start getting too big for your bridges and you start thinking that there's nothing wrong, then we're going to send you a pain signal to be like, no, no, no, no. Everything is okay. But don't just act like nothing is wrong, asshole. You do need to rest this. You stupid idiot. Pain, pain, pain. Every time it happens, it's fucking weird. It's just weird to observe the, I mean, it's a miracle that any of this exists, obviously, on a grand scale. But even just when you imagine your own body and just that, just that it developed with all of these complicated systems that actually fucking work, it's fucking crazy.

So, yeah, I mean, I'm quite sure. I'm quite confident that, yeah, go into Yokohama and just chill in the fuck out, is indeed the prescription for me. Because this weird example of having a cyst where hiking actually didn't hurt it, did not add to the problem. That was obviously a weird situation because the whole thing was so mysterious. It was just this pain that I could not determine at all what was going on. Where this one is just not like that. It's very evident, you know, hiking around makes my leg hurt, the end. But I guess it's like, I guess I'm always going to keep that extreme long shot in my mind now. What if, what if this is some kind of weird situation where for some reason hiking around is actually the right thing to do? It's not likely, but it's happened to me before. You never can be totally sure because everything's so complicated and weird in the human body.

Generally, though, it seems like even though I probably shouldn't be out here, I probably shouldn't be doing a big hike since it is my last day in West Tokyo. It's going to be a significant journey to get back here.

Basically, I think I'm getting away with it. I think it's okay. Even though this is probably the wrong thing to do, I'm relatively sure that I'm avoiding celestial punishment.

And I just caught a view to the north through the trees of the city. And yeah, I guess I'm like meandering kind of diagonally down, deeper and deeper into this big green splotch on the Google map. See, I'm pretty far at this point, pretty far away from Ome.

There was this one landmark on this course. I guess there's a couple little ones spotted around, but one in particular that it's like this big rock that I don't know what it's all about or what it's significance is.

I don't know, maybe I'll just naturally pass by it because I don't really know. It does seem like I'm heading generally though in the direction of where I ended up before. The Tama Lumber Center Union, I definitely passed by that before.

So yeah, I presume that I'm heading in the direction of the same path that I was on the first time. I guess the telltale sign will be if a giant fence appears, that's the big fence that keeps people away from the Lumber Center.

I'm not quite sure where to go from there, but I guess I'll just go somewhere different than I went the first time and just see what happens. Because last time I took a weird path that was clearly not like the right quote unquote path and came out on the other side of the mountain.

It's some little shrine in Hanoi and then I had to walk a pretty long time to get to the train line in Akiruno. But that wasn't bad. If that happens again, that's fine. But I'll see if I can do something else this time.

Man, there was a bit of a weird moment when I got to the big fence around the Tama Lumber Super Yard or whatever the heck it is. Where that fence was on my left the first time I was up here and this time it was on my right. And I was just like I mean I know my sense of direction is it's a little shaky, but it's not backwards. I was like I was in the mirror course of Mario Kart or something. Like I'm just racking my brain with like how could it be on the other side? The entire world would have to be reversed for this to happen. I don't know what's going on. And it seemed like that path was leading me toward a sports field in Hanoi. 35:00 So I was like I don't know let me just go back a bit and see and I went back and found a different path. And then the fence was on my left like it's supposed to be. So I realized oh that was around the corner at the edge of the fence. So instead of walking east-west along the fence I was walking north-south along the other side of the fence. So it's like oh that's why. What the fuck?

So yeah then I headed west along the fence which was the same way I went last time.

And it's kind of interesting that that fence is apparently not just to keep people out. Actually I don't know that it could keep people out at all because there's doors that I didn't try to open one but they don't seem to be locked. I think you could just open them. I guess it is just for animals really. So it's probably pretty good at stopping large animals. But I started noticing little areas down at the bottom where they had added extra grading to try to block openings. So smaller animals couldn't get through. But that must be a hell of a task. Because once I noticed that and I started looking there are so many little openings at the bottom of the fence for animals to go through. I don't think that that's a realistic goal to stop those bad boys. And then they're just like a bunch of different forks where there's like three different ways to go. I saw at least three of those. Maybe four? Three I don't know. A bunch though. And none of them were really pointing to anything that stood out just names of passes that I don't really know what they are. So the first time I stayed along the side of that fence because I just wanted to see what would happen to see where I would end up. And that's what ended up leading me also into Hanoi to the little shrine. So this time when there was an opportunity to split off to the north, to the right, back toward Omei I went that way. But then there were a bunch of forks in the road like three of them that each could go three different ways. Like it's like the maze level in a video game where you're like, oh fuck, I got damn it. Was I supposed to get some kind of pirate map before this or something because what the heck? I'm supposed to just figure this out. But yeah, they were all pointing toward the head signs that I could translate but it was just pointing toward different names of different passes and just like nothing particular that really stood out. So I just kind of kept going down whichever one would sort of take me in a north-westernly direction because you know the days getting on a little. It's not quite four o'clock yet but I got like an hour to figure out how to get out of here. So I'm just kind of trying to edge up generally toward Omei and then if I go the other way to Hanoi, whatever. And now I'm up on a ridge that is a lot more akin to the north side. I'm fairly high up on a ridge and it's a little hard to see through the trees and see the city in the distance but I'm pretty high up. Oh, here's a big hill in front of me going even higher up.

And I've seen no other humans since but everything remains ludicrously beautiful.

Yeah, in the city, I mean it's not that far. I guess the situation is that I can't just be line it over there. I do need to find the proper way out of here because it has developed into ridges and valleys, ridges and valleys.

Well, that was certainly weird.

I apologize in advance to my knee and my hip because I just treated them pretty bad coming down that hill. I'm going to need my chill out time in Yokama. It looks like so I ended up on that Mount Nagabuchi trail that I mentioned the first time I came up here. The trail that does not actually appear to exist. Maybe there is a proper path around here somewhere but I sure don't know where it is. I have still failed to find it because there's a little road just to the west of there and I'm on that road right now. Some kind of construction is going on here not at this moment but there's all these construction vehicles they're making something. I don't know what. But yeah, as I walked along I was up on that really high ridge and it was pointing me towards civilization.

Kind of in the direction of Miyano Hira station and then I bumped into this little road instead. So I guess I wasn't quite going that way but basically going back toward Ome. So I'm like, all right, this seems okay.

Oh, I hear someone. Someone's here.

A big dump truck.

By big I mean actually small because a lot of this construction stuff is small in Japan.

Hey, is this... I'm just trying to get out. Is this the exit? I came through the woods. Yeah, but I'm trying to go Ome. Yeah, I just need to get out of here. Maybe I can translate. English to Japanese.

Ome? Sorry, okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay. You got it, right? You got it, right? What do you think of it? Ome station?

Yeah.

All right, through the magic of Japanese hospitality I met Ome station. I just wrap up this story before I get on this train. So yeah, I was walking along the ridge and it was taking me in the general direction of escape of back to the city. And you know, the sun is on its way down. I mean, it's still light out now. It wasn't in like desperate straits but it's like, you know, I should really be moving in that direction. I don't want to push it. But as I learned other places on mountain trails around here, it's not always obvious where to go but it's always obvious where not to go. And I was in one of those situations of just like, there's no more signs. There's no more ribbons on trees. There's no more anything here. This is where not to go.

But I was still on the ridge of the mountain and I was still heading toward the city. And ahead of me, I could see the ridge continue along. And then I had to really just kind of peer, you know, like fry from Futurama, just like peer. And I'm like, okay, no, there is a path there. But that's how, how much I was not supposed to be here. Is I had to do that to see the path I had to squint a bit. And it's like, okay, there's the path. And then I think it's pretty evident why there's not a regular path there because it's just a bit too steep. I had to put on my little glovey gloves and do the crab block where sort of like how, you know, daytime and nighttime are so radically different around here. And you could kind of say that too for life on two feet or life on four feet. Where you really need things to be flat when you're bipedal. Because this wasn't really that steep, just way too steep to go down on two feet. And not enough trees sticking out to just like grab onto trees on the way down. So I had to do the crab block of just feet first, hands on the ground behind me in a little crab pose. And then it's like not actually that bad, pretty easy to get down the side. But not on two feet, you know. And there was like, basically I just continued along. I kept continuing along. I did see little ropes tied to trees right after that. So it's like, ah, good. A sign of human civilization. A sign that this is something. It's not just some kind of weird animal trail or something. It is a real path, just a really not the right one. And I had to do the little crab block like three different places. It was, you know, just kind of a little too steep to be comfortable on the way down.

But I was getting closer and closer to the ground. And then eventually I got to the ground. And that's where I was in that construction site. And then as you heard, the construction guys, it seemed deserted. But they were all there. They all came out of the woodwork. And I can only presume they said something along the lines of what the heck? Who are you? What are you doing here? So I had to pull out my little Google translate. And I just typed in, I got lost in the woods. I need to get to Ome station. And again, I don't know exactly what they said. But it seemed something along the lines of what? Ome. What? All right, I guess. It certainly was not a normal situation. So I just kind of pointed toward the street. I'm like, I can just, you know, this way, right? Yeah, I can. It's okay. I'm just trying to exit. I'll just get out of here. You know, I'm not trying to get in anyone's way. But this guy whose name was Hideki. He's like, I'll give you a drive. So he basically just drove me to Ome station. And he had a little bit of English. But like the name with Keith. You can't just say Keith. It has to be another sound on the end. I was like, oh, right. Sorry, not Keith. Like Kisu. You had to add a thing.