Mountaineers

After our exciting jaunt in Hachinohe, it was back to Matt's house in Nambu town. Yeah, that's right, Matt has a house. He also has air conditioning. Just look at that bourgeois bastard, looking all smug and everything. This, folks, is what the most spoiled JET in the prefecture looks like.

Nambu is apparently famous for for lying at the foot of Nakuiyama, one of the holiest mountains in the general vicinity. There's a temple called Hokoji somewhere on the mountain which features the tallest three-story pagoda in all of Japan and was apparently a major temple some time ago. This may have been connected to the fact that Nambu was once the seat of the local Daimyo, which explains why the entire southeast region of Aomori is referred to as Nambu as well. Anyway, on Sunday morning, after impressing me with his french toast making skills, Matt asked if I would like to go for a hike up the mountain. I assumed that this was just going to be some easy tourist shit, so I agreed.

First, we had to walk about a mile or two uphill to the base of the mountain. Here, we found a pretty small but cool shrine area.


Not far from here, we discovered a playground that had a huge slide, possibly longer than the one in Momoishi's Icho Sports Park. Notice Matt's wingspan, which provides a sense of scale. The slide actually curves and goes further down the hill, so you're only seeing about 2/3 of it in this picture.

They also had this awesome rope race thingy. Matt took some footage of us playing around on these things which will hopefully be posted on his video blog shortly.

So anyway, we soon get on the trail and begin our hike to the top. Now I had no idea but apparently Matt is like a professional hiker or something. He was telling me stories of seeing bears in the mountains and stuff. Yeah, I hear you man, one time I got stuck in traffic because of a Bears game. In all seriousness though, the hike started out easy enough and it seemed like it would only be an endurance test. The mountain is apparently over 615 meters high but I'm an American, so unless it's a mile, foot or hogshead, it's completely meaningless to me.

Well, that casual stroll though the woods didn't last long. Do you see the photo below of a seemingly vertical slope covered with slippery mud and harboring a flimsy yellow rope as the only means of survival? Yeah, well, picture my un-athletic self in mud-covered hipster best, panting like a dog and trying to clamor up this crazy mountain. Or, even better, just wait until Matt posts the actual footage on his blog and enjoy an even heartier guffaw at my expense.

Somehow we made it to the summit, from where we could see for tens of miles in every direction, it was really quite a sight.

There were also some stone structures up there including this dragon, on which people left offerings of change. Had I died along the way, I would like to think that Matt might have fashioned some sort of primitive yet dignified grave for me up here.


On the way back down the mountain, we decided to do a bit of exploring and happened upon what has to be the best vantage point on the entire mountain. Matt is scared of heights, so he is making a funny face.


So the funny part is that we never did get to see that pagoda. Granted, it's a huge mountain and there's a lot of ground to cover but you'd think we would at least have caught a glimpse of it. Whatever, I climbed you fair and square, mountain. I win.