JOURNEY ACROSS JAPAN: Day 4 - We Discovered Japan’s Most TERRIFYING Insect & FAILING at Riding a Horse | Diary

The key word today is horror.
- And horses.

Things got off to a pleasant enough start, as we awoke in Kurokawa springs, where Natsuki enjoyed a morning soak in the outdoor bath, having spent the previous day rapping on an active volcano.

However, my enthusiasm for the day was quickly lost, when the challenge for the day was to use a method of transport we’d never used before. Images of skateboards and roller-skates sprung to mind.

As Joey searched for suitable transport to help us complete the challenge, I hijacked the itinerary with two destinations.

In Kumamoto, there’s a shrine which is home to the smallest Tori gate in all of Japan. But because Torii gates are supposed to be passed through for good luck, we knew it would need to be big enough to fit humans through. So how small could it really be?

- The answer was ludicrously small.

At one point I almost got completely stuck. But after a few minutes of struggling (and removing my jumper), I was just about able to fit through.

In the end Natsuki and I had a race, with the loser being the first to go into a creepy cave I’d discovered, deep in the mountains of Kyushu.

- Thankfully, Natsuki lost.

The cave in question turned out to be a tunnel, dug hundreds of years ago by a religious cult who used it as some sort of passage way. It was nestled on the edge of a bamboo forest high in the mountains, next to a town that felt eerily similar to something out of Resident Evil.

The idea was for us all to go into the tunnel, but I decided to let Natsuki go in first to scout out the way.

A few moments in, there was a loud scream and he came running out of the tunnel, claiming to have witnessed a mysterious poisonous insect

We later discovered it was an insect known as “Geji-Geji”, which fortunately wasn’t poisonous, but is still the most disgusting insect I think I’ve ever seen and looks like the inspiration for some of the creatures out of the movie Alien.

Having spent the day stuck in a gate and a cave, Joey had a breakthrough when he discovered in the neighbouring prefecture of Oita that you can ride horses.

Now I’ve never ridden a horse, nor have I ever wanted to. The idea of riding another living creature around is something that has always seemed very odd to me. Begrudgingly, I went along with it.

While Joey got the prize winning horse and Natsuki’s horse was practically asleep, for some stupid reason, I was given the brand new, yet-to-be trained horse, who seemed to be utterly horrified at the idea of having an 85kg British guy ride on his back.

At first all was well, but scarcely 15 minutes in and my horse was visibly unhappy, moving around erratically and neighing in terror. In the end I had to dismount the horse and while Natsuki and Joey went trotting off into the mountains like a scene out of Red Dead Redemption, I ended up sticking to piloting the drone instead.

Looking back it’s unfortunate that I didn’t get one of the actually good horses, as I left the experience not particularly wanting to do it again, albeit with a newfound respect for horses.

Finally we arrived at our end destination for the day; Japan’s largest theme park “Huis Ten Bosch”, essentially a full scale replica of Amsterdam! Natsuki was delighted as he felt like he’d left the country for the first time in a few years!

It would turn out to be an utterly surreal place, as you’ll see in the next diary entry.

But with everything we did today, it was probably the craziest day of the trip so far. At last tomorrow, we’ll visit our second “Lost” island.

- An almost abandoned island off the coast of Nagasaki.