the back there. We're going outside to do some exploring! We got super lucky with

the weather today. So I live up in Morioka city in Iwate Prefecture it's

quite up north it's almost near the top of the main island of Honshu and the

environment around here is very different than Tokyo. Many of you guys

might not be familiar with Iwate but we are blessed with lots of trees

and mountains and rivers lots of gorgeous nature and for the first time

today Quinlan's going to take us out hiking so

I'm gonna explore some of the area near my house and I can't wait to see it

because I've been watching Quinlan's channel - he focuses on lots of outdoor

adventures and they all look super exciting and I hope we don't run into

any bears today. I recently watched his video on how to protect yourself from

bears in Japan - hopefully we don't run into any but he has assured me that when

you're on a hiking trail that's commonly used by lots of people, the bears don't

usually show up so I think we'll be okay right?

We'll be okay. You know how to protect us if bears show up? I can run faster than

you! yeah I've got bear spray I'll actually bring bear pepper spray! Oh I

didn't know that was a thing! Yeah I've got it

oh wow! Right here, it's actually German. German quality pepper spray!

Bear spray - so we're fine. All right we're prepared!

I don't know where we're going it's a surprise, I told him to surprise

us. So I hope you guys enjoy the video!

So just making a little pit stop because there are some abandoned buildings here

that I've always wanted to see, I'm sure you guys would be interested in them as well!

Love how the trees grow out of the buildings. There's tatami rooms and so

it's like going back to nature - it's like there's been a zombie

apocalypse and the earth is being taken back. Yeah so this is Matsuo Mines - you'll

see some really cool drone footage of it on YouTube

I've been looking a lot because I've really wanted to come here and there's

quite a few other apartments in the background there. So the deal with

Matsuo Mines is from around the 1920s there was a sulfur mine that

opened up just a little ways over there and it operated for over 50 years. At the

time these were really high-end apartments for the employees, they're

like the envy of the area they had a movie theater there, a bath house a

rather nice restaurant and even flushing toilets, which at that time was like wow!

you know for Iwate Prefecture people didn't have flush toilets. Actually my first

homestay didn't, they had just a hole in the ground.

what happened to them, well basically in 1969 the mine closed because it became

cheaper to get sulfur as a byproduct to processing oil and so there's no need to

specifically mine in it and so they closed it down and everybody moved out

because they lost their jobs and it just sort of went back to nature. Thing is

you cannot go in here, but if you do you go in here - there's no

fine. They will tell you get out it's, you know, bad don't do it. But you're not

gonna get arrested. But don't do it cuz never break any Japanese

regulations ever yeah. However I just saw a little old lady

going inside the building there so...

Man that was awesome I would love to go inside and explore. Quinlan was

saying that people have left like newspapers and lifestyle items like

kitchen utensils and there's a astroboy chair in there somewhere which I only

know because I heard from someone else uh-huh I've never been in there

definitely not. We parked at kind of like a little terminal area where these

toilets and some omiyage shops and stuff and we're way up high already we're

basically at the top of the mountain we kind of cheated a bit but we're headed

over to that peak there is that right that is right we're gonna climb up to

the top of that peak and get an amazing view of the area. Quinlan was just

saying in the winter he wants to come backcountry skiing and after they

closed down the mountain for the hiking season apparently some older Japanese

men do some outdoor backcountry skiing in the mountains here and it sounds

really exciting! There's a cabin where they just leave

supplies so you can just anybody can just go up and use the cabin and stay

overnight. We're here and the normal walk that people do around Hachimantai you

can see these little trails around these they call it marsh but it's a lake the

Gama lake and Hachiman Lake it's not a marsh and so they do a little loop around

these that's beautiful and I totally recommend it - but today it's gonna be

just a parade of people so I thought going up this little mountain will give

us great views. So it's one km to the summit really short let's

see how long it takes. Bamboo! This is all bamboo here! So it's a decent hiking

trail but probably needs some some hiking boots but it's nothing too

difficult

look at the view

the only thing if we actually do see a bear the most important thing is don't

run just stop stand still look at it then

we'll be fine in Canada they always tell us if we see a bear to make ourselves

look big and scary to scare it off yeah but in Quinlan's video where he talks

about bears he said that the bear is here you should just kind of stay still

and stare at them you shouldn't try and make yourself look scary cuz they don't

care. Nice little trail, I like this!

steep towards the end of the hike

all right we're heading back down the mountain now and off to our next

location right we're almost back down to the car Quinlin went ahead because he's

super speedy he's gonna go get the car and pick us up

I bet he's there waiting. A lot of people ask me why I live all the way up in Iwate

Prefecture, especially when most of my work is down in Tokyo I do have to

commute down to Tokyo several times a month but it's because I have places

like this where I can just come out and explore it's completely new to me I feel

like there's always something new to discover here in Iwate it's such a big

prefecture that there's so much around my house that I get to o experience got

a little muddy on that trail so prepare for some mud don't wear your best

clothes or sneakers look at this wooden torii gate it's interesting I think I've

ever seen a torii gate like this so I found the cutest little of August the

community today look at that hit I have never seen one like this

little Halloween Rilakkuma and yeah it sure just tastes like regular wagashi!

let's try it

interesting it's kind of a mix of washi and play-doh just different unusual it's

kind of flavored tastes a bit like caramel okay it's caramel flavor pretty

tasty it's an interesting texture very similar to chew on play-doh but in a

good way that makes sense if you guys are around in Japan for the

Halloween season check out lawson they were selling these so our next stop for

the day is Goshogake Onsen - you can see it in the back there. Quinlan was

just explaining to me that they have mud baths and also these little boxes that

you kind of put your body in and your face sticks out and they fill up with

steam and you get kind of like a steam treatment it sounds really cool I'll

have to come back here and try it for myself but the view of the steam coming

under that one's hands really need we're going to go up to this oh you knew ma

which is this really well you'll see it's pretty intense and I don't know if

this trail is open last year this was closed because the volcanic come because

the volcanoes are literally breaking through the walkway and so those areas

where the walk was like consumed by a little volcano and so you know a geyser

or something and so we'll see if we can do this trail or not but if nothing else

this is really fantastic gwenlyn said this is one of the spots

where lots of bears show up he's actually been here on a day where they

had the whole trail blocked off because someone had spotted one there to thank

the criticize so you whack this you whack this to scare the bears away so a

kit real hard

it's not that loud actually came on the perfect day look at the colors Juanita

Wow look at that oh that's impressive

oh look at it this is crazy I've never been anywhere like this

wonder how hot that is 98 degrees Celsius started bubbling over so they

had to close off the pathway there look at that yeah this place is heaven for

photographers you must feel they get some really cool photos here this is

amazing I'm so blown away that this place isn't more well-known however I'm

glad because this is peak season this is the best weekend to come up here and see

this place and there are so few people and that's where we just what what is

yeah a little peak up there haha that's funny

yeah a little peak right there that's the mountain we just climbed

alright guys I think we're gonna say goodbye here I really hope you enjoyed

exploring Iwate and we headed into Akita prefecture now right yes we are

we're in the neighboring Prefecture at the moment I hope you enjoyed exploring

the two with us I had so much fun thank you so much to Quinlan for introducing

these amazing spots to us I will link it down below please do go check out his

channel and I'll see you guys again very soon