Roadtripping in Fukushima Japan!

Roadtripping in Fukushima Japan!

How do you feel about my hunting skills? Is it a turn on? In this episode, we see a dragon fly, make a doll, and sit on a toilet. It’s hard to have a think. Come on. Good morning from day two here in Fukushima. We have come to a nondescript town to stay at a weird hotel. We’re having breakfast out at a dam that we couldn’t go further out to the dam. So, we just set up shop so that we could show you Teai, who is our car, who saved the day yesterday, um the first day in Fukushima. So, this is our little ride. The three of us are having breakfast together. The reason that we ended up in this town was only because it’s a three-day weekend right now and there are no hotels available in places that we intended to actually go to. So, we found a hotel that we could afford and we just booked it and it wasn’t that bad cuz it was only about a 40-minute drive from where we had the yoyoza last night in Fukushima City. So, timewise it wasn’t very bad at all. Yeah, it only took about 39 minutes to get from where we had dinner to the place. And this is just some little onen town that seems like they do have a a bit of tourism going on. There were quite a few people that were out this morning that were like doing tourist stuff. You know, you can just tell the tourists. Yeah, it’s all domestic tourism, but like you know, there’s people on motorbike trips and cycling trips and probably onsen trips and stuff that is just going on in this town because they got onen stuff going on. It’s very common up in the mountains and stuff. Yeah. Oh, hold on a sec. Have a listen. It’s summer. It’s semi summer, so the cicas are out in full blast right now. So, our stay at the hotel was pretty interesting. It is an onsen hotel that is run by, I assume, a Vietnamese family. So, it’s a weird blend of like Vietnamese meets like a hardcore Vietnamese meets hardcore Japanese. Like hardcore cuz it’s like an onsen thing. So it’s like you know traditional feeling like Japanese hotel stuff and it’s like a big kind of sprawling place. So they took us to the room. The room did not have a shower in it. So we ended up having to go to the onen in the evening and that has plus and pluses and minuses. I was not willing to get into the onsen that was there. I didn’t even look at it. I usually don’t get in the onen anyways. So I just use the shower and I get out. I do. I like to get into the onsen. I’ll dip in even in the summer. I’d totally dip in, but I just didn’t feel like it was clean enough for me to do that. Yeah, the room in itself was very weird. It did have a toilet in the room, but you can kind of tell that maybe like 5 years ago there wasn’t a toilet in that room. It’s like this box they built in the room. They built a box into the room is too damn small because when you’re sitting on the toilet, then your nose is touching the wall and my legs don’t my legs don’t even come close to fitting on this toilet. So, it’s essentially a nonfunctional toilet for me. I have a question. Did you do the additional hole? Yeah, the additional hole. Yeah. So that you can suck and not have it get all weird. You got to put two holes in top of your Capri Sun, baby. In the Capri Sun, too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You punch a bonus hole. But you turn the Capri Sun. Say a bonus hole or a butthole. Bonus hole, but you can call it a butthole. So, this little this little box that they’ve built has been designed and built by somebody who is not an engineer because like it’s like being in an American public bathroom. If somebody walks by the door, they can see you doing your business. Yes, it’s very evident. And it kind of feels like most of the supplies came from Vietnam. Like the door doesn’t look Japanese at all. It was It’s such a It’s such a weird blend in this place. But the bed, I have to say, I was really pleased with the bed. The pillow was good. The bed stiffness was good. The cleanliness was like out of this world. Like that was one of the cleanest beds I felt I’d ever saw. I felt like the weird renovations that they’ done had been done somewhat recently. So, I feel like they bought new sheets and stuff. And you know how when you go into a Japanese hotel and the cables are always caked in like like 30 years of dust? All the cables were super clean cuz they had all been just installed and the toilet was a pretty new toilet and the shower the the the sink was pretty new. So, like it’s like they had just done some renovations and maybe they’re in the middle of it. Call them renovations. Yeah. I don’t know either. Oddities, but the bed was so freaking big. You could probably sleep like It was three beds across. It was insane. Like, I could have slept on a diagonal and you could have slept on a diagonal and we still couldn’t have reached out our arms and touched one another. All right. Now, how much do you think we paid for that one night? I think I know. I think it was 1100 11,000. Yeah, it was 11,000 yen. So, it was like $80ish dollars or something like that. Yeah, that was a lot of money. It was a lot of money for what we got out of it, but it’s only because of the the the the the situation last minute booking on a 3-day weekend. Yeah, we were lucky to find anything to be completely honest. But since it’s a Vietnamese place, they had a restaurant and they were banging out some BMI, but I would say that the BMI quality is kind of like the situation of the hotel. Not much going on in I haven’t been into it. Maybe it’s amazing. I want a bite, too. I’ll give them this. The bread is good. Mhm. That bread looks great. The egg has a lot of flavor. The egg is all right. There’s just not much going on in there’s not enough fixings. You know what I’m saying? I mean, it’s probably good. Yeah. But yeah, it’s not bad. Where bread come from? It’s pretty good. Vietnam, same place I got the bathroom door. Aside from that, um there’s no KDA in town, so I just got the KDA coffee from the family mart. There is a coma within 30 minutes drive. Of course there is. But there’s not one. This was like 2 minutes away from where we were staying. So you got to have your Koma now. Got to have your KDA coffee and banana in a bag, baby. What are we doing today? Do you have any idea? I’ve got waterfalls, squiggly roads, bridges, um lakes, lots of water today. It’s going to be a watery day. Cool. You want more bamb meat? I ate a lot of it already and I was like, “That’s your breakfast.” Cuz I already had a quason that you stole from buffet yesterday. Yeah. Was it yesterday? It wasn’t a stealing. I mean, we were staying there. Yeah. I mean, they had the take away. You went away with like a bunch of quaff stuff in your pockets. They had a takeaway tray. I put it in the takeaway tray. Kind of interesting. I had a takeaway tray for an all you can eat buffet. Some people are on the go in the morning. You know, about 80% of the time I don’t know what the speed limit is. The car knows. No, the car doesn’t know. The car knows like 50% of the time and then the other 30% I don’t trust it because it told me it was like 80 in you know 40. I was like whoa car. Okay. But currently don’t know what the speed limit is. So you didn’t notice this last night as we were coming up the mountain which we’ve driven up quite a lot of mountain to get here from Fukushima City because you were looking at planning things and finding hotels and stuff like that. I had to book a hotel for today. We went through a ton of signs, like past a ton of like digital signs that they can update in the real time that said beware of bears on the mountain. Like there’s a bear problem. So I don’t know if like there was an event recently or if those signs always say that. You can never know with like a digital sign, but like it was like do not go to the mountain unless you have a bear bell. So as usual, I think the bears have infiltrated the signage. The bears have hacked the signs. Oh no. And when did they learn how to write? Oh, well, they already knew. They were already making before, but now they’ve really broken in. They can just use AI program the science. It’s it’s another AI problem. So, anyways, be careful of bears. BI bear intelligence. Bear intelligence who come way up into the mountains try to find a waterfall. This is what we found instead. I think we’re still going to find the waterfall, but uh Big Bear is at it. Looks pretty vicious. Hope we don’t run into that guy. If we end up getting eaten by a bear, we deserve it for all the stupid jokes we’ve been making to be completely honest. Good point. Yeah. And it’s probably like six bear jokes away from being eaten. But I do want to point out we are now off the pavement. That to me signals excitement and fun. Japan is a very, very safe place. But one thing that will happen at and does happen at some of the tourist locations that are off the beaten path is that if you leave your car unlocked, people go in and take things. It’s an easy way just to grab something, go and have no consequence. There’s no cameras out here watching anyone. And you can definitely never mind. So that says there’s cameras. This says people are stealing things. I think that this caused that. Yeah. Yeah. And possibly we think it’s all the bears. They’re just coming and stealing things out of the cars looking for picnic baskets or somehow the bear is putting a sign up. I don’t know. There’s something in here somewhere with the bears. But dude, I think they’re insinuating that people are breaking in with a hammer. Not just unlocked, but you might come out here to bust it up window. I don’t need that in my life right now. So hopefully the bears don’t have a hammer today. Our waterfall day is going to start with a stroll along this stream to a waterfall that I’ve heard is dynamic. And I’m going to try the name again. Here we go. Tatsu Sawa Fudol Falls. And I think it will surprise you if it’s in full blast. It’s going to be pretty good. And I don’t Has it been raining? I was going to say, when was the last time it rained? It’s been about a week since we had your rain. Okay. So, I’m hoping that it’s still looking pretty good, but yeah, I think you’ll be surprised if it’s anything short of bears riding like water rides down like out of the waterfall. Flume. Yeah, like the bear log flume. You know, with the racist bears at Disneyland, but this time it’s just the bears are riding the log flume. Are they going to be racist? I think it’s kind of part of their gig. So, that’s what that’s where the expectation level is, just so you know. Am I going to be disappointed? Yes. So, you just spotted the falls from afar. What did you say? I said, “Wow.” Wow. Wow. And I got news for you. Bonus falls over there. Oh, is there another one over there? Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. What’s up with the sword? Like, it’s got medieval vibes down here by the falls. I I really don’t understand. There’s nothing explaining why there are so many swords here and there are bigger ones around it. Just why? The sword area is like where people would go to pray there. It’s like a little shrine type situation. So, it does say that it’s a power spot. So, maybe it’s like a power spot for like conflict like I have no idea some sort of battle that you need to win or overcome. Even the design of the swords felt unique like something I’ve never seen in Japan before. The way that the style of them was, it wasn’t like it wasn’t like your normal like, you know, like something you would see like a samurai have. This felt more like something like Odorus Orangas from Gore would be swinging around. It was very bizarre. And uh I also want to point out that you know how much I enjoy a flat walk along some water that takes you to something cool. This is perfect. This is having a good time. Yeah. You get to go through the forest. It’s nice and cool. The shade. You’re not grinding up a mountain. This is my kind of nature, man. You love a scenic stroll. I do. I really do. It’s like the best. We’ve come to a little town in the mountains called Atsuchi. And they have got a bunch of these Japanese dolls that have no arms. These are called keshi. And nobody really knows exactly the origin of these, but they are from the Tohoku region, which we are in now in Fukushima. So you’ll see them in this area and up near Sai and in the different parts of Tohoku. I’m not going to list every town. And they have a little place where you can do an experience here in this little village where you get to make your own keshi. And I don’t know why, but I’m like really into this. The water painting like reasonably watercolors and like I don’t know, maybe it’s just kind of like that. So cost a,000 yen or so to go ahead and get your own wooden keshi that is completely naked and they have got the instruments for you to do the rest of the painting. and they’ve given you some watercolor type of ink in a little thing in separate brushes for each different color and stuff. Um, but in this case, you’re not supposed to merge the colors cuz they will all just turn black. So, you’ve got a red, a green, purple, and a black. And then you have this machine that you can use to turn to make the rings go around like easily. So, you just hold the brush in one place and turn it and mix that. The part I’m most worried about is the face. I think that is maybe going to be kind of complicated, but we have chosen a style to emulate that is from this town. There are a whole bunch of different styles of painting that you can do from different parts of Tohoku and they’ve got a ton of these things around looking at us. Actually, now I’m kind of freaked out that we being watched by like a thousand of these things. You can choose some that have got flowers on them and stuff, but that looked a little bit advanced. So, I just went with where we’re at, which is kind of cool because that’ll be something that I get to remember, oh, that’s the place we were. And also, I’m not going to do this good, but this is at least in my realm of capabilities, I believe. So, the first step to this is to start taking off your clothes, because I don’t want to get black ink on my white shirt. So luckily I’m wearing an undershirt and if I get black ink on this doesn’t really matter. The very first step is to paint what she kept calling the snake eye. So the top of the doll has got this specific shape. So I’m going to give that a go. I have to admit I’m a little worried because I don’t really have a way to try like to test this. But um I’m going to go light on the ink because I feel like if you go too heavy it might run all over the place. And then I’m just going to put this down and turn. I can always add more. Oh, that’s pretty rewarding. Wow, this feels amazing. It’s so exact because it’s locked in place. Oh, this is amazing. I need one of these things. Okay, dude. Check it out. I got a ring. Are you seeing the ring? Does it look good? Looks good. Yeah. Hell yeah. Okay, let’s keep rolling. We’re an expert now. The best part is the ASMR. Go. Slower, please. Oh, yeah. I don’t think this is a good sound. Like, I kind of like it. It’s like a music box. That’s terrible. The face is going to be the hard part because first off, like I’m not a painter. Second off, the painting I have done is flat. This thing is round and I don’t have a magic machine to make it easy. So, I’ve got to somehow make this somewhat like symmetrical. It’s kind of amazing. It’s not perfectly symmetrical, the person who did this, but it’s damn close. And like getting all of these different shapes to not look like she’s like is going to be a challenge. So, we asked for a pencil. Got to use some training wheels. I like this pencil, too. It’s like a little kids pencil. So, I’m going to try and do a light tracing and then go over it with the ink. I’ve tried to do this freehand drawing it even flat on the newspaper. It’s flat. It’s difficult there. So, I think it’s going to be even harder on this. And the space that I have on my doll is a lot smaller than the space that they had on this one. I mean, she’s got a bit of a five head, so like I don’t need to have that much like going on there, but it still like just squishes everything down. It makes it a little more difficult cuz you don’t have a bunch of room to work with. So, uh, this is going to end up looking bad. I promise you this. I’ve done my best with the pencil. So, yolo man. Going to go in here with the ink and see what we can do. I have to admit, I’m a little nervous about this. It’s the most stressful part of the day. Good lord. I’m shaking. There’s one. [Music] It’s not terrible. At least they’re not like all totally completely crooked. All right, onward. [Music] He looks a little goofy. Those eyes are just like a little like looks like he got a little bit heavy on the mascara on one side or something. Maybe I could balance it out. But then I worry it’s going to continually like I got to do this one a little bit and this one a little bit and then all of a sudden this is going to be like a disaster. I’ll go with it. So, this side looks pretty good with those like strokes that I put. Bam. That’s the one I did first. And now I’m like kind of screwed. You know what I mean? So, I either have to ruin this side or maybe make this one longer and have it be all weird looking. I don’t know what I’m going to do. What I need to do is get another one of these things and start over from scratch with everything I’ve learned. going to be a master in I don’t know 4 or 500 dress. This This is going to be my favorite part. You got to set that mer in there. Yeah. Get that mer. Oh yeah. Mer. I like that we often come and do experience things like making udon or whatever and Katie is the one doing it and I’m the one filming. But we came in here and I saw these dolls. I was like, “Oh yeah, I’m painting a doll.” For some reason this really is like got me excited. So, we got the head finished and now we’re going to work on the body. Trying to figure out how to find the middle of this thing. So, I’m just going to kind of eyeball it. I’m going to throw a red line in the middle. That’s going to give us a place to work from and I’m going to kind of work out the from there. Um, got to remember which way to turn this thing. Okay. All right. So, I’m going to figure the middle is right about there. And this part is so rewarding and wonderful. Yeah, that’s amazing. I need one of these things at home. I love it. We’re on the home stretch. I’m basically an expert. Now, what you got to worry about is your ink levels, your pressure, and most importantly, your rotation speed. If you do it too slow, everything is wrong. But you want to do it slow cuz you’re new at it. But you really got to get her cranking around. And if you get it going at a good clip and then you just slam your brush down, it comes out really even. Now, you’re going to get a little bit of bleed because you put too much ink on your brush, but that’s how it is. I finished her. Check that out. Look at all them rings. I feel like I went with the basic route. Other people do crazy things like swirly lines and all sorts of craziness. But for the first go, actually pretty happy with her. Up close, maybe a little screwy looking, but like if you look at it from here, it looks pretty good. Looks almost expert level, doesn’t it? This is going to be dope to go ahead and put on the mantle at home. I’m going to have a mantle. I’m going to put them just put her in the office. And uh yeah, it’s cool. It’s like a memory of coming out of the Fukushima. And I thought this was pretty cheap. It’s like $8 to do this whole thing. Like you know what I mean? It’s almost free. So I would recommend if you are happen to be in wherever this town is such a yeah then uh I come in here and do this. The staff is super friendly and it was a pretty like peaceful experience once you got through the stress of the phase. Ask the question you just asked me. Do you think that this is where they came up with Mi’s? That sounded very natural. I totally do think like every time I keep looking at one of the faces, I’m like, “Wow, it really looks like a Mi.” And a lot of like Japanese cultural icons have been used in Nintendo stuff. Like just think about tons of things from Zelda that we see as we travel around and we’re like, “Oh, that really reminds me of Zelda.” And then we find out later that it’s part of Zelda. though it wouldn’t surprise me if keshi are the inspiration for me. We’ll research this. My favorite Nintendo cultural item from Japanese lore is Berto. Hey Katie, check her out. Yeah, she looks authoritarian. You’re going to have to get used to Oh, what? She looks authorit. Yeah, she looks like she’s all business. I like that she is uh getting selected as the subject matter instead of you by the camera. Oh yeah, no doubt she’s in charge. Oh, I better stay in line. I’m behaving myself. I promise. Fukushima has a lot of foods that are particular to the ken or the city. Uh we had gyoza last night. Tonight or today? Wow, it isn’t even night time yet, but I totally feel like it is. We are having soba, which is one of the area’s meabutsus or like uh claims to fame. And Eric is also having sauce katsu, which just looks amazing. Oh, you got an egg in there, too. Wow. We’ll get into that in a minute cuz his is not as important as mine. It probably is tasty, but I think mine’s quite impressive. I saw this on Google Maps and I was like, we’re going there. That’s what I’m having for lunch. I’ve got like a huge load of soba here. And you’ve got your regular soba fixins, which is like a soy sauce kind of soup that you’re going to dip it into. And you’ve got wasabi and onions here. I’ve got a tofu, some fish that have been tempura, an onsen tamagle, which is like it’s a softboiled egg that has also been put in a special sauce. I’m not sure what that sauce is. I’m going to find out as I go. Then this guy right here is edetamame and corn squished into a loaf. I don’t know what to expect from that. Flavor-wise, I have an idea, but texture-wise, I’m I’m out of the woods here. And then there’s just a tomato chilling here. Tomato is my favorite food, so I’m shocked that she put that in front of me. I know that the soba is the thing, but like I kind of came for this. I know that sounds weird and whatever, but It’s got like a gelatin that’s holding it all together, but the gelatin is completely flavorless. So, you’re just getting like shredded edamame in your mouth. And then [Music] it’s it’s exactly it’s just like blended corn, like not corn soup, but like just chunks. It’s quite good. It’s quite fresh, but it’s not like something outrageous. It’s not like fireworks. It’s like fresh. The fish is kind of weird. Like I can see the eyeball. I’m going for it. [Music] I think the head of the fish is pretty bitter. Maybe you’re not supposed to eat the head. [Music] The body is better. But my favorite here, I’m not sure how it’s been cooked for this tomato. What’s the temperature of the tomato? Cold, salty, lovely. Tomatoes never disappoint unless they’re like totally bad. And nobody in Japan would ever give you a bad tomato. You know, you might bring it home and then it goes bad in your presence. You’re the person who’s making it bad. Wow. Tomato is good. Um, I should try the soba, but there’s so many other things that are so good. So is like a bucket noodle. And I’m just going to hit the noodle. Texture is like wonderful. It’s not smooth. It’s got like it’s not lumps to it, but it has like um texture to it. It’s not smooth at all. And then on top of it, it’s cooked to perfection. Like it’s it’s the al dente of soba. I have chosen correctly. I don’t know about you. Like Katie said, hold on a second. Like Katie said, Sas Katsu is one of the specialtities in Fukushima. We don’t know if it’s like necessarily this exact location specialtity, but it’s kind of hard to screw this up. It’s pretty good. It’s a piece of pork battered, fried, and then with sauce on it. And that’s usually it’s usually pretty amazing. And then in this case, it’s on top of rice outer bit crunchy. The sauce is really really sweet. Like it’s specifically sweet. Um yeah, I mean it’s I’ve had a million of these in different places. This is like definitely in the top, you know? It’s not like the bad one, but again, like it’s kind of hard to make this terrible. It’s like if it’s soggy, it’s bad. This is not soggy. It’s wet, but then it’s crunchy and like has the right amount of dry from the meat as opposed to being too wet or super dry or whatever. So, like they’ve nailed the texture. That’s almost the most important part. Um, the sauce is really sweet. Like it has a lot of sugar in it. Probably not healthy, but it’s tasty. In the past, I’ve gone fishing. Really enjoyed it. Today, we’re going to go fishing for something weird. Shrimp. I’ve got a tiny tiny tiny little piece of bait on this super small fishing rod and a little pool full of shrimp. What’s strange about this is we’re in like a little cafe, like a coffee place with a swimming pool full of shrimp. And we’re still in Doll Town, like Yeah. Yeah, we’re still where I painted the doll. And uh yeah, I think this is just like an area where parents can distract kids with some monotonous chore while they drink sake. And uh for what is the chore? Is the painting the dolls a chore or the fishing for shrimp? The fishing for shrimp. Is it shrimping for shrimp? Oh, we’re shrimping right now. We shrimp. So, the way this works is you pay 600 yen, you can catch one shrimp, and you have to do it within 30 minutes. So, the clock is ticking. Our clock is ticking. Yeah. I didn’t know that. You got a dude. I got a dude. You fell for it, dude. Okay. They’ve got grills outside and you just grill up whatever you caught and then you eat it whole, she said. So that’s what I’m doing. Are you guys seeing this bit here? That’s a little worrisome. I wish I’d caught a smaller one at this point. But here we go. It’s pretty delicious. Wow. I’m not a fan of the shell. The shell is not that great, but it’s not really a problem either. Flavor of the ebie is good. Super fresh. That guy was alive 10 minutes ago. Wow. I just look at you while I talk about this. Wow. That was a very weird experience I didn’t think I was going to have. I really thought we were putting it back in the tub for like other kids to catch. I didn’t know we were coming outside and grilling. She had to take it and like put it on the spear for me and everything. I was just like, I’m not ready for this. That’s not a situation for me. Like I know we eat animals that have been killed by other people and processed and I know that it makes me a hypocrite to not do it myself because honestly if you do eat that type of thing you should be willing to do it yourself. Like that is like the respect for the creature. Right. And I I totally get that argument. I respectfully tricked him and ate him. I It It bothered me watching her put that spear through him. That bothered me. It did. I’m a bit of a I’m bit I’m a bit of a guess I’m a bit of a shrimp. Bit of a Is that a good word? Wow. Were Have you been waiting the whole time to break that out? Impressive. Uh, also of note, we ate the shrimp. Katie ate the shrimp here and then the elections are happening right there. The election hall is right next to the shrimp place. Little towns are fun. We honestly didn’t expect to spend as much time in this little town. I have to tell you, it is not even a road. Like, the town is just a smidgen of a road, but it does have a post office. And from that post office, we’re going to send out the postcard club postcards for this month. So, if you’re getting one, it is from SUI. There they go. Just a reminder to people in the postcard club, when you get the postcards, make sure you scan the QR code that we put on them so that you can see the extra little video that is associated with the postcards. Just just in case people don’t notice that it’s there sometimes. I wonder if it just like, oh, it says postage stuff. I and I all Yeah, it’s postage stuff or we get so used to like hating QR codes being on like menus at tables and stuff. These are good. We get we get bad QR code itis all the time. These are good QR codes, bro. They have gone to the trouble to write aggressive bears in English. Can they climb stairs? Let’s go. Just some cool stuff. And I want to point out we walked we went to the doll exhibit. We walked 10 minutes. We had a lovely lunch. We walked 5 minutes. We caught some shrimp and we ate it. We walked 2 minutes. We sent off some postcards at the uh post office. Now we’ve walked three minutes to a jungle gym over here with a waterfall. What is this place? Our waterfall day continues. I also want to point out that the ebie fishing was a water thing as well. I didn’t mention it at the time, but it’s a waterfall day and we’ve only come 5 minutes since we saw the last cool thing. And we’re going to go jump on that bridge. Let’s go. This season in Japan, in this part of Japan, in Tohoku, the Ajisai are still in bloom. That means that there’s lots of little critters enjoying the Ajisai getting into the flowers. In Tokyo, these are like way out of bloom by a month or two. The other thing that we’re seeing a ton of, dragon flies, thousands of dragon flies, the seas of dragon flies. Those are really cool looking creatures and they’re really brave. You can get really close to them with a camera and they’re just like, “Whatever, I don’t care.” So, like getting one just like getting to getting one to fly away at all is pretty tricky. Like if you want to get a cool shot, right? Katie has found another critter. Look at this guy. He looks like Venom. Does Venom have red eyes? I mean, like I can see his face. He’s a Spider-Man thing, right? Yeah, he’s a spider. Ah, it’s too sturdy. Got a little bit of a wave. Oh, sideways isn’t anything. It’s always the up and down. Nothing. Maybe you have to do it from the edge for this one. I give this like a one star bounce. Call me crazy, but I don’t really want my bridges bouncing. I want my bridges as sturdy as is possible. So, if you’re giving it a one-star bounce, I’m giving it a fivestar bridge. Stability is my main concern. I don’t want to do the Indiana Jones thing where you like the fall off the bridge and the guy tries to steal your heart. Like, I’m not into that. There’s a bunch of these little statues. Statues? Markers? I’m not really actually clear what they are in this town, but they are reminiscent of the Kaueshi, but with a little hat. I don’t I thought it was a light or something. It would look cool if they lit up at night, but I think it’s just for decoration. I don’t think there’s any function to this, which is also for decoration, so I guess it works out. Eric said that he’s tired of being hot. So, I’m putting us in a car. We’re going to go up some squiggly roads and just enjoy a little bit of the air conditioning. And the tech guide taking us up the mountain came to drive, so I’m going to drive. And we’ve come to the country viewing area like high spot and you can really see like tons of mountains and down into the valley and especially if you stand up on the wires that make it so that you don’t fall down the hill. I didn’t fall down the hill shockingly, but it was kind of scary there for a bit. I’m a hot I didn’t think that ride could be any better than what I thought it was going to be, which was just a windy road zigzagging and having a good time. But we got behind this car that was honking at everything. It would be on a straightaway, it’s honking. It sees a bike, it’s honking. It’s like going around a turn, it’s honking. There was so much honking. I I wish we’d counted it. I mean, it was in the 50s and we were behind it for like 10 minutes. It was amazing. We were just laughing at the end and we followed the car into this parking lot and it’s just an old man and his dog and you know that dog’s got to be out of its mind like sitting there in the honking mobile or whatever. It was just outrageous on the number of honks. And now we’re going to do some zigzagging up a caldera. On the other side here there’s a crater. Behind Eric is a wonderful view of a mountain or I guess that’s a volcano that is just spitting out some sulfur. That might not be a volcano. Some things have just sulfur spitting out of them. Doesn’t make them a volcano. But yeah, beautiful scenery here in Fukushima. Lovely sky. No honking. It’s great. Are you a scientist? In my spare time right now. I’m on duty. It’s confirmed. Azumaan Kazan. It is a volcano. Can’t be more than 5 10 minutes. Oh, definitely not more than 5 10 minutes. And we haven’t been going for more than 5 10 minutes. Wow. What a throwback. We have hiked up to the top of Azuma Kofuji, which is like the little Fuji Mountain, and there’s a crater in the middle of it. Uh, it’s pretty cool looking. It’s sort of what it looks like when you go up to the top of Fuji where there’s a wall that is kind of goes around the crater and then there’s a big hole in the ground. I mean, you know, it’s volcano stuffs and you can see that there are people walking on the far other side of the crater. And apparently I tried to get someone to wave at me and nobody waved. It takes like either 45 minutes to an hour to go all the way around. So my question is, are we doing it or not? No, I think there’s other things we could go and be doing. Dude, we’re getting dragon flight again. Oh, there’s so Yeah, dragonfly was like right here. There’s so many dragon flies. I have Yeah, that’s going to be something I definitely remember about Fukushima. It’s like dragonfly land. Yeah, just everywhere. They’re They’re everywhere. And they’re delightful. They’re not offensive. They don’t make weird noises. They don’t try to get up into your business except for like in a real friendly way. Yeah, they’re polite little fellas and and they love to hang out in groups together and be beautiful. Oh, see right there. He landed on the shrimp and then on your shoulder. Okay. So, if we’re not going to circumn the small Fuji is this a small Fuji, baby. What are we doing? Well, I was going to go to the lake. I mentioned some lakes this morning. We have gone to none of the lakes that I mentioned. Do we have time? I have no idea cuz the sun is going to set soonish. Yeah, we’re going to go back. Dark Lake doesn’t do us any good. We could do lakes tomorrow. Could do lakes tomorrow. I don’t know. I don’t This is This is how the plan has gone. I just I get in the car and I go, “Gosh, we could probably make it there. We made it here.” Are you going to honk all the way back? Yes, that’s obviously how you do. That’s how the locals be, Ben. Uh to be completely clear, that is not normal. That is not how the normals normally locals normally do. The normals That’s not how the normals usually local. rolling down the mountain. And I can’t believe this is kind of normal to me now, but it’s still magical because you go down the mountain like at night time or whatever. I’m sure it happens in the morning too when you’re on their way up cuz like they’re sleeping during the day, but there’s monkeys and there’s like a lot of monkeys. Like a lot a lot of monkeys. I think we at least saw 20 in the last Yeah. Like a a few different um groupings of them. They’re just kind of like chilling in the road and then when a car comes they kind of chill out of the road and one of them didn’t. One of them was like, “I’m just going to wait until ah like dude, we were like two feet away from him and he decided to run.” It’s like, “You got to run quicker than that.” As we pulled up, Katie started filming so we could get some monkey footage. Did you feel weird when I rolled the window down? Like, did you feel exposed at all? Like the monkeyy’s going to come in and eat your face. I didn’t even think about it. Oh, okay. I didn’t know if that was going to freak you out or not, but it’s pretty cool, man. We’ve seen monkeys quite a bit in Japan. Not like a ton, but you see them. Boy, I don’t know, more than any other animal, maybe. You know what I’m saying? Depends on if you’re in deer country. You’re in deer country. You’re certainly going to see more deers. Uh, but there’s something cool about looking into their face and seeing humanity. It’s weird, man. It’s not like at a zoo, you know? Like these are like a monkeyy’s own monkey and he’s like looking back at you and he’s thinking thoughts like intense, man. Anyway, I like monkeys. Should stop and see some more. That’s up to them. Kind of is. Mhm. You’re not on a road trip in Japan if you’re not lost in a rice patty. We’re not really lost, but we’re driving past this beautiful scene. We found this little shrine. And the little shrine has got some really cool little lights. So, we’re going to check it out. I’m having one of those this is really Asia moments. Sometimes you stop and you just see the surroundings and think this isn’t what you grew up in. This is stuff that used to surprise you 10, 20 years ago and now kind of feel it again. And it’s nice to revisit that feeling. What specifically is triggering it? All that green. Oh, specifically the rice patties. This is not in the backyard in Virginia. I had told you that there might be an illumination and it turned out we couldn’t go to the illumination cuz it doesn’t start until later. But we found an illumination. [Music] Katie, what’s the joke? It’s a seal. What’s the joke? What about the otter one? What about the otter one? [Laughter] Finally. Finally. Are you going to Are you going to retire that one? It’s time for retirement. Never. Never. We’ve arrived at tonight’s hotel and I’m going to go ahead and try and emulate the experience we had while we were backing into our parking space as our headlights flashed across the front of the hotel. We saw nothing and then suddenly we saw Tanugis. We started this video talking about the hotel that we slept in last night. was a Vietnamese Japanese blend that we both kind of just weren’t too happy to be in. Good bet, though. Now, we’re staying in kind of an onsen city. I booked this just not even knowing where it was. Randomly in my display, a hotel room that looked spacious and nice for just over 6,000 yen came up and I was like, I’m scooping that. Like I’m lucky to have found anything that’s like around 8,000 yen is what I thought I was going to get. So a 6,000 came up. Okay. We’ve just walked in the door. Immediately hit with the smell of tatami. Like it smells like a tatami shop, which that’s like a good That’s a good thing. Yeah. It’s like mats that are made of grass that you sleep on. So it makes me think we’re going to be on futons in the other room. But we’ve come in. Now recognize how many slippers are over here in the corner. He told me it’s a big room so you can relax. Got a door over here. I’m just going to pop into this. Just a toilet. Said it was an in suite, so I was expecting a shower. Now I’m feeling like there isn’t going to be one. Um, so we might be going to the onsen here. But it at least looks comfortable. Like I might actually get into the bath. All right, let’s reveal. Holy You could definitely fit that many slippers in here. Oh my god. I I can do a cartwheel. Totally can do a cartwheel. We have literally had apartments smaller than this. Yes. Like Oh, yes. When we lived in Mousace, Ottawa, the apartment was smaller than this. this this room, the Hatagaya apartment where we stayed for months. The house was smaller. Wow. So, we are up in here. There’s an extra table. This is my table. You might want to set up a shop somewhere else. Okay. Got a nice little place to relax, have some drinks. They got some more of that styrofoam. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Or like the the mochi. And that’s probably got some beans inside. It says there’s mochi inside the mochi. That makes me laugh. Zab’s home for days. A pretty sweet TV. It’s not a TV. You going to turn it on? No, but I’m going to judge it. Um, so I I assume these are just going into closets. Yeah. Yeah. just more bedding and stuff. Okay, so it’s not an in suite. I I will definitely look at my ad to see what was up with that. Maybe we’ll get some footage of the onen, but it’s tricky sometimes like some there people in there. There’s definitely ladies in this building. Um already saw some like enjoying themselves in the lounge in their yukata. So you might not get to see the onen. So, since I said we weren’t going to talk about food, you just went bug wild. I was planning on doing this anyways. What’s happening? You open the salad badly, like a big plate, and then you put your ebatin on top and Delicious. I need pepper. You need Jesus. I had got to stop listening to the who in the car. It’s too catchy. Who? Who? Who? Who’s next? Confirmed. Sumayyama. That thing right there. Kazan. Volcano. I win. What was this again? Can we do it over? Our waterfall day is going to start with a stroll along this stream up to Tatsu Sawa Fudon Falls. Fudon Janai Fudo. Damn it. I’m going to do it again. Damn, that was very close. We’re at the crunchy viewing high spot. We’re the way now. What? It crunchy. Yeah, I think it was crunchy. If you’re in the postcard club, you will be getting a postcard from Oh, I caught it. Sorry. Are your eyes still sensitive to the sun? Not as sensitive. Like, I really do wonder if my stigmatism was shooting the sun into weird parts of my eye. Special thanks to everyone at Patreon for their support. If you’d like to help us keep making videos, check out our Patreon linked below. Hopefully the bears don’t have a hammer today.

Waterfalls, kokeshi, shrimp, volcanoes, oh my!
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