date: 2021-04-29T07:44:54+09:00

title: "OMG I did not know the ways this trip would be difficult"

I had a good cry this morning with Shraddhan on our daily call.

• callous on my right foot despite wearing sandals
• long-ass walk yesterday 6 hours through the hills after 2 hours on the highway
• crying last night because I could not figure out how to put together my futon
• sandals ripping almost apart yesterday
• not able to find the photo I took yesterday
• not getting the photo I wanted (and basically too late to go back)
• camera could not use 32GB card
• and it’s raining today

Plan for yesterday was

date: ‘2021-04-29T10:23:27+09:00’

title: 'Sake Base Naeba excellent signage'
location: 'geo:36.7895,138.79211;u=55.68299865722656'

Sake Base Naeba has a very clear easy to read sign.

But the shop is closed

date: ‘2021-04-29T10:26:19+09:00’

title: 'new princess souvenirs sign'
location: 'geo:36.78993,138.79174;u=21.121999740600586'

New princess souvenirs

Sign seems a bit less than new

date: ‘2021-04-29T10:29:49+09:00’

title: 'Another abandoned building'
location: 'geo:36.79017,138.79039;u=31.964000701904297'

It looks to be about 12 stories tall and has a curved glass front facade and spiral staircase in the entryway that’s completely cleared of any stuff.

date: ‘2021-04-29T10:31:08+09:00’

title: 'Prosperitas temporarily closed'

Google says it is temporarily closed. I hope so because it looks like a nice place

Just to the right, we can see clouds hanging over the mountains

date: '2021-04-29T11:15:47+09:00'
content/quests/walk-to-niigata/2021/04/29climbed-a-mystery-ladder-to-find-an-amazing-array-of-tires.md

I found a ladder and just had to know where it led

So far so good

Oh wow this makes the entire trip worth it. Seriously omg wowowowww this is great!!

Perfectly walkable being rubber so they are non-slip and a bit cushiony

Don’t mind me. I’m just walking on an array of tires..

wow wow wow so cool!

I think this is the happiest I have been for a while!

Gotta head back eventually

And I headed back down the ladder

content/quests/walk-to-niigata/2021/04/29first-time-for-me-to-see-a-snow-blower.md
date: '2021-04-29T12:12:26+09:00'

Wow a snow blower!

I have never seen one of these up close before.

Nor had François seen one

ohhhh so that’s how they work!

date: ‘2021-04-29T13:00:38+09:00’

title: 'Interesting broken cement tube location'
location: 'geo:36.82993,138.78082;u=2500'

Why are these cement tubes

• clean,
• broken, and
• lined up ready to go?

The ends of these concrete tubes are broken

otherwise they look clean and fine

date: ‘2021-04-29T13:53:18+09:00’

title: 'Final random pics from today'

Cute sign, but

are the cars supposed to be doing wheelies?

Is this broken concrete due to ice-induced cracking?

Wow long walk

What did they write on this sign?

Cherry blossoms are nearly in full bloom here

Here was the plan for today but we skipped Dragondola because the weather was cloudy and seemed like we would not be able to see anything anyway.

(written 2021_may_17 skipped dragondola snow_shed_tires_first_walk_first_two_tunnels)

While planning the trip, I discovered a tunnel through which I could not walk because there’s no sidewalks. And after a lot of thinking and a lot of planning and looking around and trying to figure out a way, I kept using the Street View to look at the tunnel and try to find, like, come when I walked through eyes, I know it’s kind of long and this is Mikuni Tunnel that’s the Japanese three country tunnel. And when dragging this is using Google Maps when dragging the peg man to activate streetview I noticed that there were some other places I could drop the peg man to, to see things. And those places were in fact, a series of trails that don’t show up on the map unless I’m dragging the peg man to try to find a place to land.

So, while not sure how this works behind the scenes, but while the trails are not used for navigation purposes, like what’s the best way to walk from here to here? They don’t show up in that kind of data, but they are available for the Peg Man to show you what is actually there. So maybe I Anyway, there’s many different ways that might be happening but a simplest might be that they’re just tagged like don’t use this why would they be tagged to not use it? I wonder? Hmm, maybe because they were rough overgrown trails that were quite challenging to walk on.

And ah, next time I’ll walk through the tunnel It was really I mean, I don’t know I mean, if I was just walking and like had proper hiking boots, which I did but I didn’t use them they were in my bag so I carried my boots along with my computer in my journal and this is when it was great to have Jason’s help because he really supported like picking up the bag even it kind of.. as mad as I was that he was there it was great to have him there because he would like pick up the pick up the bag when it was going over rough spots and so it’s kind of magical to have that caught that conflict of interest is I don’t want him to be there and thank you for helping carry my bag kind of thing.

So I mean I love him and now all of that ROI and gratitude and all this acknowledge I had this this conflict inside me is like leave me alone. Thanks for carrying my bag. Both of them were there so it was like

I forget him like I think six hours that we were walking over the mountains from from this corner to that corner and I haven’t exactly mapped out like the entrance and exit of the walk and was funny. We were walking walking walking just to get to the trail. And like okay, it’s probably right around this corner here. And then check the map is like oh fuck saikhan still two kilometers to go. And they probably right around this trails. Oh, it’s still one kilometer to go. So it was like it was tough walking just even on the highway there because it was uphill and blah blah blah, but We got to the, like the corner where actually that’s where the the trail was about to be there. And this is where I had wanted to book my accommodation. But they weren’t open. And by not open, I think it was abandoned. These locations were simply left unused, and you know, unused they. We didn’t take time. Even if I was alone, I don’t think I would have taken the time to go into them. Because it was like, I was so tired for one thing and didn’t have a lot of time. Actually, I was optimistic that the trails would be no problem. But they were really hard, hard as hell to climb over all the mountains and stuff. Not mountains. I mean, we’re talking to a few 100 meters. No, yeah, I don’t know, a couple 100 meters of elevation difference, but it was tough, tough for me. And I assume nothing like the Appalachian Trail and all of these like, weeks and weeks in the in the jungle. So it’s probably 0% like that, but it was 100% like, what what we experienced and it was, it was tough going, you know, walking over these, like ankle breaking rocks that were you know, not well settled and not rounded. They were they were rough and not rough. They were sharp and broken and just kind of I don’t even have a real word for it. But there should be a word for this kind of gravel, not pea gravel. It was like

shattered bowling ball gravel kind of thing. Just rather large pieces that were just kind of scattered anyway, whatever. I mean, it was tough to walk on. Especially stupidly with I was in sandals at least I had sandals on I didn’t try to go barefoot over this stuff but there were like small trees in the way and and Jason wanted to move the tree off the trail and I because the tree had like fallen and was then growing again like it all it had. So it was at least a year or two of growth that from what I remember I don’t know if I took a picture of this thing but a tree had fallen then the branches were like going straight up from its otherwise fallen position. And I was like Wow, that’s cool like nature finds away kind of feeling and Jason wanted to clear it off the path and he turned it kind of upside down like no no I put it back and so that was a conflict of desires there you know I desired to leave the place natural and he was trying to support future walkers as he was supporting me and he carried my knot and he didn’t carry my bag but he picked up half of my bag as we were both holding it from each side. So anyway, God just walking some kilometers through this up and down, up and down. really rough trail and covered and branches and not branches but sticks and twigs and, and, and rocks and just do was rough going. And again, nothing like crossing the Sahara, or like bushwhacking through, completely virgin forest but tough for me a city boy to walk through

I we saw snow at some points. Not snow falling, but snow that had had melted in like those patches of snow, snow that had not melt. And we saw patches of snow that had not melted and could see the tunnel through which we were not walking from afar. And I have a picture of that which took ages to get online for some reason, because it was too big and blah, blah, blah. But I finally did get it online. And the tunnel was like a tiny dot between the trees. And so anyway, we walked. We walked and walked and walked. And then I was like, Oh, that’s what when is that rain? Huh? Yeah, there was. There were high tension power lines going over the mountain. And while planning the trip, I noticed them was Google this all by the magic of Google Maps. But I noticed the high contention power lines were like making a straight path right across the mountains, that was presumably cleared. Because the people who put them there don’t want trees growing and like shorting out the power lines. So I thought, as a last resort, if the trails don’t work out, I can walk that route of the high tension power lines. Were going because it would be a clear route. Now, in reality, looking at it from the point of view of the trail, I don’t think I could have done that. But I remember now, I think maybe a false memory. But I believe I remember now seeing those high tension power lines from the trail. And thinking it was interesting. And now I kind of remembered that that’s where I had been looking to try to find a way across them the around the tunnel basically. So you wouldn’t have to go through it. Anyway, we were like going around like saw the the tunnel from afar and then gotten like, very slowly got closer and closer. And then we were looking at it from the edge at while we’re at the edge of the tunnel. As like where is this trail going as he was going away from the tunnel like curving off to the right, or as a tunnel was on the left and I couldn’t see where the trail was headed. I was like, Oh crap, he was going to get going so far. And I had just had this sinking feeling is like it. I think according to what I remembered, the trail goes over there, which means we have to go to the right and then back around to the left. And then up that whole damn, you know, little hill there, which is only half kilometer away. But we’re there to be a bridge from here to there. It’d be half kilometer away. And so anyway, we had a walkway down there and way up here and blah, blah, blah. And then I was I was right, I had to walk up this up onto the mountain to keep saying mountain, I guess their mountain so they’re visiting tall hills from some people’s points of view, I guess. And then there’s two posts, I put on Instagram where my website is like, I must be Instagram like, let’s see how long it takes to get to there which on the map looks pretty close. But I knew in reality, it was gonna be a long way because of the trails going switching back and forth. And then suddenly we were there. And it was suddenly because

I thought we were heading how even say this I thought the was called the shrine past which we plan to walk was going to be on our left. But it was on our right and in my mind, like if it’s on the left, we’re apparently got a lot damn longer way to go because there’s no place on the left where it can show up. Eat Oh, it’s on the right. Because we were just like walking, walking, walking, walking in like a to the we’re on the left of a giant hill on a well it’s obviously not there. But I knew it was on the left we would have to go around that hill. And then something else is Oh, it’s on the right of the hill. Cool. So we were there suddenly. And I was very glad because I was like, Good grief. Because on the on the map is like 50 meters or something. You lie and 50 meters my Oh, yeah, it is okay, cool. And kind of thing. Um, but once we got there, I opened the the shed the doors of the shed surrounding the shrine, it’s kind of like, I guess it’s not a stretch around it wasn’t a shed surrounding it so much as the shrine was enclosed. And the doors were unlocked just sliding wooden doors so the shrine itself was locked behind a wooden grate and I collected some soil put it into my candle holder, put the candle foot candle in my candle holder and lit the candle to your calling the spirits and pray for your gratitude and and and for a good safe and thanks for thanks for the people making the trail and making the shrine and the maps and the and all the stuff that went together to make it possible. And did a 15 minute like pause there to bless the the walk and Jason and all the people who were supporting and everything and had to in my mind, I I had to make sure I didn’t burn down the whole thing. It’s all made of wood. You know, and I’m like lighting a fire inside this this shrine son I forgot the name of it. But three something three something area. Oh, maybe it’s related to the three Cooney area the three country because it’s close to there, but certainly a different sound anyway. Whatever. So lit a fire lit no lit my candle in there and I just had to make myself stay awake and watch it for 15 minutes while I was standing there. And sometimes my eyes were closed and I was like alright, don’t fall asleep. Don’t fall over. Don’t burn the place down. kind of thing. You know basic stuff. So, anyway, it was fine. There’s still intact Ay, ay, ay, the candle burned itself out. I took the soil back and and spread it onto the ground and everything was fine. loaded up the bags and and Jason Wade had waited patiently the that time and we headed from there it was an all downhill. But as you may know, downhill gets quite tricky as well, especially on ankle breaking rocks and things broken. trying to think of this like broken softball size rocks that we’re walking on.

I wonder if they’re names of wonderful can find names of different sizes of rocks. Anyway, we got down the hill, we It was funny. Like according to the map this this map was mapped out as a usable path on Google Maps. So getting up to that shrine was not labeled on Google Maps, but going down from the shrine was labeled, is labeled, I assume. And so like, all the back and forth switchbacks are are marked out on Google Maps. And so I counted like six teen large, like, you turns out like switchbacks going back and forth, back and forth. Alright, Jason, we got 16 curves, you know, let’s try to count them out. And so we did, basically, well, like counting the same in reality, what we what I had counted on the map, I think we ended up counting in reality 20. Whereas on the map, it didn’t look like they should count, I guess that’s one way to describe it. But got to the bottom. And oh, actually, almost got to the bottom. And

I recognize that there’s a place that I can just about and get on to the tunnel. So I went down there and couldn’t get onto the tunnel, because it was too big of a drop down from the frame of the tunnel, if that’s the right word, like the vertical backdrop onto which the tunnel in to I don’t even want to call that but it’s something and I couldn’t jump down onto the tube of the tunnel from there, because it’s too far to I guess I probably could have jumped down, but I was too tired to do so and my knees were like, No, fuck, you not going to do that. And I wouldn’t be able to easily climb up and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I didn’t do that. But I did have Jason take a picture of me. So that was great. To have a photographer photography help. At that point. He declined to go down there to get the same photo up. But generally, he wasn’t able to explore exploration just what’s the word here? willingness to explore, he wasn’t as willing to explore. There should be a word for that. Anyway,

right. As we got to the bottom of the hill, the owner of the next location called me on my phone, which was wait at that point. Which was working. I then had a working phone again, I’m trying to I’m trying to remember the order. That’s one curious thing. I’ve completely forgotten the order. Not completely, but I’ve to a large degree, I’ve forgotten the order in which I was at this or that location and the order in which things happen because I just didn’t have a well, I don’t remember that in general. Anyway. I don’t remember time. I remember location very well. But anyway, so that’s the thing that happened. And I think my phone was fixed by that point.

Yeah, okay. Definitely. It was fixed. I know I can remember. Because that was walking from the monkey capital sports in which is where I got my phone back, which has its own little story and walked to walk past the three country tunnel and to family of a guesthouse called family house. I was the only one there and they were quite friendly and nice and the guy had superglue to fix my sandal which had when did it break?

Did Jason give I’m now I’m getting more confused because maybe Jason gave me it lonely loaned me his sandals. But I know I use my sandals on that part of the walk. And I know the guy at that house use superglue on my sandals, so they must have been broken. So I don’t know what happened. Maybe I may be able to figure out the details later. But right now as I’m here, it’s 10:20am on May 17, so eight days after the walk finished and so like, you know, as much as two weeks from this point that I’m talking about.

Yeah, that was the original sandal break.

Strange.

90% sure I was wearing. Oh, wait. Okay, it’s coming. My I know exactly where my sandal broke. It was at a was at the weird to haul. Like, what I decided must have been an electrical power plant. And I’ll need to find that on Google Maps to place it for sure. But I right now, I believe it was after the food, the sports house. And before we started to walk over the mountains, therefore, I was wearing Jason’s sandals while walking on the mountains. But I thought I had been wearing my sandals. That’s that’s curious to me. There is some video of me walking, so we can check the video and as I’m thinking about it, because Missy made a comment about it that I’m wearing wearing shoes. She didn’t say sandals. So maybe it was Jason because they were crocs they look kind of like shoes, I guess. Okay, so I must have been wearing Jason’s sandals to walk on, on the broken baseball sized or softball sized rocks. And then we got to the bottom of the hill. And that’s when the guy from the next location the family house called me is like, Hey, man, we got you for a reservation today. Are you coming? And Yep. And I told them where I was. And he’s like, Oh, he’s gonna be here in one second. I was like, ah, but we are walking. He’s like, Oh, okay. So anyway, they they were cool. And they delayed the dinner was supposed to be at 6pm they moved at 6:15pm when I’m it’s not a big deal. But I mean, they have their own life and they’ve opened up their life to let some random random guy come in. But he also the next morning, he put glue on my sandal. And it lasted for a day for like a full day and a half and I I was like I should let him know and your gratitude, but I haven’t yet done that. The issue is I keep thinking about doing it. But in Japanese, I’m like, I don’t know how to write that in Japanese. It would take me ages to write that in Japanese. But anyway, the glue lasted for over a day. And anyway, that was the first day that we walked around a tunnel. Then the next day we walked. Oh, okay, so the next day, paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, new page, new page, new page, new page. The next day was like new. This is a new chapter by the chapter per day I think I should do.

Next morning, I woke up pretty early and had breakfast, they were like, yeah, whatever time you want, I said six. And they’re like, Sure. So I got up at six and had breakfast. And it was again, ample and in great and fine. Jason had stayed at a different location up ahead, by like a kilometer or so. which turned out to be a great location for him because the owner was Chinese. So they were able to speak Chinese together. And that so that was a blessing on the walk and in general. Um, so the

last membrane so walking from the family, the family house, we walked into the ski resort area, punctuated by Prince hotels, longest gondola in the world, or at least the longest in Japan, probably on the world, five kilometers long and, and I was like, dude, I’m totally gonna ride on that. That sounds amazing. must do. And oh my gosh, Baba blah. And looking at the map, it was just amazing. It’s like a straight shot, like straight up the mountain and, and it goes up to this, whatever. Other ski resort and holidays like, wow. So we approached that area. And there were lots of abandoned buildings like some that said there temporarily closed and some that were like, closed, closed. A sign, like a really fancy sign. That was like a neon sign. I couldn’t find the building for that sign. The sign was itself all like, like, it looked like it had been hit by a truck on the bottom corner somewhere. And so from afar, it’s like, oh, that’s a sign coming up to it is like, Oh, it’s all fucked up. Because it was just like, smashed and broken and near the glass had been cleaned up on the street, but the glass was broken, still hanging from the sign there. And I couldn’t find a building that matched that sign, which is strange. But anyway, it was, it was close. That’s the short version of that. So we get to the hotel, the prince hotel for this long gondola. And looking up at the clouds, or sorry, the mountains. It’s kind of covered in clouds. I’m like, I don’t want to go on some gondola that goes up into the clouds. You can’t see nothing. So I called them Jason was actually ahead of me. And I was like, Hey, man, let’s ride this gondola. And he’s like, Okay. And then he came back and I called them and got he had gotten ahead of me because I was taking pictures of all the like, the abandoned buildings and stuff. And like, Oh, where’s Jason’s? I called him back. And so that was me fucking with his schedule. He’s like, Fuck the gondola. He’s walking forward. And But anyway, we work together and and he he came back to, you know, to be nice or what have you, which anyway, does a whole separate story of you know, taking care of oneself versus the other and blah blah, blah. But I called the hotel as I let me talk to the gondola people and in so I had already called the hotel the previous night. So I knew the gondola was open a new one time it opened. And they confirmed it was open and that it, it wasn’t like one gondola car that went up and down the thing every 15 minutes, but it was like, a series of cars like a ski lift more like and so we wouldn’t have to wait for a certain timing or what have you. But looking at the the clouds, I was like, dude, we’re not gonna be able to see anything. So I had I had my doubts. I was like, but then she’s like, on the phone. She’s like, Yeah, well, if you do the gondola, you get 500 yen off our amazing buffet, you know, and I was like, so what’s the price? The total price is like, only $30 or something. And I’m like, I wasn’t that hungry at the moment into that much of I was like, nah. And Jason was like, nah. And so we’re like, Alright, screw it. So we skipped the gondola is like, I’m sad

about that. But it was just it didn’t fit in well, with our current situation plus the weather. Basically, the weather was bad. Didn’t want to wait didn’t want to eat a bunch of food to make the price the ticket worthwhile say it was just weird. And I might be off on the price. Like don’t don’t write that price down and try to complain to them. But anyway, it was too much and we’re like, nope, so let’s let’s get out of here and kept on walking. Then could after a while walking along the highway Walk walk, walk, walk walk. We like walked for a kilometer or two just about and then I saw some how we say it. Sound gondola cars, like skirting along the ground. Like they were like 20 meters off the ground. And they’re in this valley. And I was like, hold up a second. That’s the long ass gondola that I want to ride. Oh my god, I’m so glad I didn’t do that because it’s not going straight up and down the mountain. It’s like winding its way through this little valley. And we won’t do that. I want to go up a sheer cliff that now I couldn’t possibly do by myself. But it looked like it reminded me of a of a quaint country railroad line, like kind of winding its way through the through the between the mountains. Oh my god, I’m so glad we didn’t do that. And it was it was cool to see. Like that had the like the the entry tunnel is like at one point. I was they the the the gondola like the rope way. We say this, the towers just vanished. And it’s like, oh, they’re going into that tunnel. So they go into a tunnel under the mountain. That’s crazy. Oh, that’s the station. That’s the beginning. So that’s where they go into the little house and back out again. So we had walked and walked and walked and walked for like a kilometer and a half before even getting to that point. So had we gone to ride the gondola we would have had to do that walk, do the crappy gondola, then walk all the way back and then walk to where we were. So it would have taken up an enormous amount of time. And apparently be a crappy little gondola. Anyway, it’s probably a nice for a date. And I would quote unquote I would like to go back sometime with With my wife, but for this trip, I’m so glad that we did not do it. Because it was anyway, for all the reasons and just stated dislike, yeah, nah. So yay, I’m glad we skipped the gondola. Because Because check this out. Alright, so while walking along the highway and seeing the gondola that we had missed, it was so glad we had missed it.

There was what I’m calling a snow shed. And I don’t know if that’s the name in general, but that is the name given to one of these that’s like, on the highway, going alongside the mountain, then they put a roof over the highway to basically keep snow that comes down the mountain from going on to the highway. And at one point that was called a snow shed in Japanese. And so I’m just applying that name to all of these, like on the, if the mountain is on the right. And the roof is above that is like open air on the left as I was looking out over the valley looking down the mountain. And nothing much down there per se like in terms like there’s not a city down there or our river bank basically. Or a river. And so we’re walking along this snow shed. And it had a sidewalk beside it, which was great. And like walk walk, walk, walk walk had a bunch of Monkey monkey shit on the ground. So it’s like, at one point I saw like some dog poo on the ground. Like who doesn’t clean up their dog poop? Oh, later they Oh, it’s monkey shit. Monkey poo. So walking past is just feces on the on the sidewalk beside the snow shed. And stretch, stretch stretch. So walk, walk, walk, walk, walk. And on the corner of my eye somehow I was like, oh, there’s a ladder. So there’s a ladder outside the side. So this there’s the mountain in the highway and a snow shed. And then sorry, mountain highway with a snow shed. And then this notion continues with the sidewalk. And then outside the sidewalk. There’s a ladder. And I was like, dude, ain’t no one out here that can see me. The cars are driving by super fast, they can barely see what’s going on. I almost didn’t see the ladder myself. I want to climb this ladder. So I was like what Jason Hang on, hang on. There’s a ladder here. And he’s like, you’re going to climb it. And I’m like, Yes, I’m going to climb it. And so he took a picture of me on the ladder and as I was on my way up and

so I got up onto the ladder. And I thought I’d just be all around. I thought I would just get up onto the roof of this notion. And I did why didn’t guess is that there would be a three dimensional array of tires tied together like these are truck tires, all the same size. Basically I don’t know how I didn’t measure them, but to they’re all laying on their side. Like 20 tires. I have pictures 20 tires wide. Hundreds of tires long along the snow shed two tires thick. So it’s a 3d array of tires all tied together. And I was like Dude, there’s Oh, my god and so happy to find this. And so, I have video of me, like walking on the tires and noticing that some of the tires are branded Yokohama, which is where I started my walk. And Yokohama was like, cool, you know. And there are other tire brands on the thing. And they some of those tires, all the tires, presumably, were flat, and some of them had sidewalls blown out. So all the like the inner cables were, like, ready to stab my feet, so I had to be careful under which tires I stepped. But they were, they were all like firmly, like locked into place by these wires. So I had to be careful not to step on the wires. Because the wires were not carefully cut, they were cut cleanly, but not like in a like, feel free to stand on me kind of way. And so I was walking along the tires, like every head for stepping point four quarters of the tire to step on at any given point because they were divided by these wires. And so, a 10th of the time the sidewalls were blown out. So I had to always watch out for the wires, a 10th of the time Watch out and not step on blown outside walls. So I mean, it’s easy enough to like walk happily and semi not jog but walk quickly across the tires like rock hopping but in on tires, like tire tire tire tire and doing video at the same time. And so it’s really fun. And had I been less tired puts on sunglasses. So I so I could have done much quicker if I wasn’t doing video and if I was less puts on sunglasses tired. But it was really fun and great in this I was overjoyed to see that on top of the roof. I was like wow, very few people know about this. And I get to be walking on a barefoot It was like a dream come true practically for the walk was so cool. So fun. And just thinking about the poor guys driving underneath that they have no clue what’s even there. And much less get to run on a barefoot. And even Jason was like, Yeah, he didn’t care. He saw the pictures. He’s like, yeah, it’s okay. Didn’t want to climb the ladder to go do it. But All right, cool. Fair enough. Yeah, I would have gone back up there with him would take pictures up on the thing and like, Hey, what’s going on? But didn’t do it. I guess I begged him to come up and he would have But anyway, that was really fun in grade on the the roof of the snow shed that’s just north of the the prince hotel with the long gondola. And

so it’s kind of a long walk for people who are used to driving but it’s certainly not even a day trip to walk there from the hotel to get to it. So yeah, I can I can recommend it. I just go do it. It was fun. What else? So climbed down from the tires and kept we kept on walking. I can’t remember offhand. I guess the next hotel was lodge monta Jose. I’m curious what the voice transcription is going to do with that name. But so paragraph paragraph paragraph, new page, new page new page. We walked from the ski resort area to basically the other end of the five kilometer gondola and it was the other end in terms of latitude by It was up a mountain to our left. And we stayed at this lodge rush basically right on highway 17, where the next feature of highway 17 was another tunnel through which we could not walk because it was so narrow. And in this case, I had not found a way around it. Except, well, presumably, we can take the gondola up the mountain, and presumably we can go outside long the ski area to your Walker does a lake over there, we could walk around the lake and and presumably there’s no ski snow at this point. But there’s a lot of presumptions that I just I couldn’t easily get the answer for, especially in Japanese to try to figure out how to who to call and how to ask etc, etc. So, basically just got to the hotel and said, Hey, we’re walking here to hear how do we get past this tunnel? And so, like, the first guy I asked, said, well, there’s no way around the tunnel. Just be careful and walk through the tunnel, as I okay. Fair enough, you know. So, that was the, the, what we decided to do. Then the next morning, while we were at breakfast, the apparently the, the word had gotten out that we were planning to walk through the tunnel. And the the grapevine came back as I yeah, let let us drive you through the tunnel. And I was kind of like, really? The guy other guy said it’d be okay. And so, I was for a moment, I was like, oh, man, you know, they’re gonna make us go drive to the tunnel. And I’m gonna have to another segment that I didn’t actually walk through. And I was bummed, and I was like, hang on. I’m 51 years old. I’m a man. I can fucking tell them. No, we’re going to walk through the tunnel. And so that’s what we did. I, I looked outside, I’m looking at the highway. And like, that highway is not very busy at all, like, a car every 30 seconds or not even that a car per minute. I’m like, Fuck that. I’m not gonna drive us through that shit. We’ll fucking walk through the tunnel. And so Jason was like, yeah, whatever you whatever you want to do. I’ll do that. Okay, cool. So let’s walk. And so we told the the large guys that and they didn’t like Neil for bid us or anything like, okay, be careful. And I and I was like, Yeah, well, of course, if not, well, we’ll come back if we can’t make it through we’ll come back. So we got to the tunnel. And it’s like it’ll be alright. There is a 30 centimeters on each side. We can you know, we can walk through this thing. And so we did we walk we walked through and walked and walked and walked and walked it’s like 2.4 kilometers. And about

two thirds of the way through though, like well, a third of the way through we’re looking forward and I can see sees me I can see windows. No, I could see lights in the tunnel. And I was like, Huh, there’s lights in the tunnel. Alright, there’s no lights here. But there’s lights up there. So I wonder what’s going on up there. And you keep walking, keep walking, keep walking. And we get to lights like Oh, these are windows, looking out of the tunnels and Wow, that’s cool. And the windows are all dirty. Then like trying to appear through I can kind of see through but they’re they’re dirty. To the point that they’re definitely like blurry everywhere and opaque in some, you know some places that try and take pictures of it and and have video white wall while walking through the tunnel. Lots of You know, video and pictures and waiting for cars to pass and what it’s like. And fortunately, I had earplugs, which I wore through the tunnel. Jason did not. And I felt kind of bad. I didn’t have an extra set of earplugs. And he was like, Yeah, don’t worry. So. Um, so um, we got to the, to the windows, and we’re taking pictures and took a picture of Jason in the area. And he took a picture of me and all this stuff, really? All right, cool. That’s the windows. And so we continued walking. And suddenly look right, or look right, when we say this. On the right, we suddenly saw up ahead. There’s a door. And by door, I mean two doors. And by two doors are like four meters tall, and two meters wide each. So it’s a four by four meter square exit out into the valley, where we had been trying to take pictures through these muddy mucky Windows is like, ah, wow, and walked out these doors into this magical wonderland of a valley that we could stay for a week, a week, a month, we could stay for a month and no one would know. Because it’s, it’s, I mean, it’s right past the tunnel. But it’s like people can’t see unless they happen to decide to stop and walk out that door. Which in driving a car, there’s really no safe way to do that. And so people would have to walk through or Oh, sorry, they could drive out the door. But anyway, people not going to do that very often. It would have to be like a security truck with lights like blink, blink blink, you know, we’re doing like safety stuff on the highway. Anyway. Cool. We went outside and into this valley where there was snow not like snow crunch, crunch, crunch, but like snow up on the sides and and you could I could see how the plants were kind of way they had been weighed down by the snow but they were still growing like yeah, we’re gonna grow in the snow and how they had just had what they persevered via, during the snowy winter, and they kept on going and growing. And so we’re like, looking around, I saw like a tree that had been like completely knocked down but then was growing back up again, similar to the tree that was on the trail that had been knocked down and growing up again. And I kept like, looking around at the tunnel area looking for a ladder looking for a way to climb up on to the tunnel. And the the tree, the tree covered face of the mountain was

excuse me just about dense enough with trees that I could, they could like use the trees as handles or steps or stairs and go up the thing. But again, it’s like just beyond my risk tolerance level. So I didn’t want to didn’t do it. And slightly too tired. Slightly, not trusting that we could get help soon enough if I did fuck you fuck up my ankle or whatever. So I didn’t climb the trees, you know, didn’t use the trees as a ladder or whatever. But looked around, looked around, looked around. And there’s hard to describe via it verbally but there was basically it was two tunnels that were learning how to say this. You got your basic mountains. You got your basic highway going through the mountains via tunnels or alley that causes a break in the tunnel. So basically, from the cars point of view, they’re out of one tunnel into one tunnel immediately, like 50 meters later. If, if that wasn’t that far, and then the, there’s actually, in that valley, there is a road that approached the highway from the side from the valley. And then, so the road would come down in through the valley between the two mountains into to approach the highway, so they could connect to the highway and go through the tunnel. Or, presumably before that, it went on down the valley. First further to get around the mountain. Anyway, that road still connected to the, the, to the tunnel. And they put a windowed tunnel over the highway, and left the entrance for the road to go into this tunnel area. And

had four by four meter exit to go out. And so the exit had its own little tunnel for a few meters to cover the doors and cover the transition from the valley into the tunnel. And it was at it was on one side, it’s all like open and I can see the windows and stuff. And the other side of that mini tunnel is right next to the mountain. And, and I was able to like slip through between the mountain and that little mini tunnel and walk along the big tunnel for a bit. And that’s where I found the ladder. So if you can parse all of that maybe I’ll draw a diagram or something. But the ladder was there. And the ladder went up the face of the mountain not the like the baby like up what five meters high. And so I I had to it was a it was dangerous because it was like all covered in leaves that were ready to be slippery. And they were like covered in some snow when there’s all were wet. So it was dangerous, to be clear, and I don’t recommend it for anyone to try what I did. But I carefully walked my way past the the, through the thin part and past the cables that were sticking out of the mountain to hold the mountain into that shape through like a concrete mesh that is which is common in Japan to have on sides of mountains. I didn’t grow up in a mountainous area in the United States, I guess it’s common there as well in mountain areas. But anyway, the cables were poking out like ready to slice the slice of belly open if they were not with us, we’re not wearing clothes or rip up the clothes or whatever. But anyway there’s a ladder and I checked a ladder it was firm, secure, strong, like they built into the concrete. And so I climbed the ladder like step by step hand by hand and I always had at least two points of contact on the on the ladder. So very safe for what I was doing. And got to the top there’s a giant fence on the top of like a snow catching fence and I didn’t go beyond that fence but I went along the fence and try to get on to the tunnel but I couldn’t similar to the tunnel that we did not go through but I could see above the windowed tunnel and The name of the tunnels that were names of the tunnels that were there before. I couldn’t read the names because they were obscured by branches and stuff. But I can see the names were there, which is, again prove to me that the window tunnel didn’t exist when these first tunnels were first put into place. And for other reasons, I think the the squirrely road in the valley was the first thing to be there, because that would be 10,000 times easier to go around than to build tunnels through. So anyway, I took some pictures, some selfies up from that ladder and took pictures of the ladder from the top and the bottom. And then I went down the ladder. And then when I got down the ladder, that’s when Jason came around. He’s like, Oh, there you are. I’m like, yep, see? Ya miss me on the ladder. I wanted to get photos of me there. You know how selfish of me and egotistical But anyway, it was fine. I was like, yeah, if I could, I’m not gonna climb the ladder again. But we

were he just to be my robot. No AI, and I definitely would have had him take pictures of and I would have gone back up the ladder. But I presumed he had been waiting the whole time and blah, blah, blah. So went down. And we then got our new gear back. Well, mine was on my trolley the whole time. What’s it called the cart. And but he got his backpack back on and we headed back into the four by four meter doors and into the tunnel and continued our way down the tunnel until the exit. So that was our first tunnel, which rewarded us very handsomely with this beautiful valley. And it was really yeah, it was really it was really cool. So next time, if I do walk through this area again, I will definitely walk through the three country tunnel as opposed to going around it, even though we went to that shrine and all of that. Not that was way annoying, too difficult. So I’ll go through the tunnel next time. So yeah, I’m going to pause this recording. I’m glad it is still recording and continue a new