It seems Toyama was chosen as one of the "52 Places to Go in 2025." (I'm introducing the one place I think everyone should visit, even if you're a total homebody like me.)

On January 7, 2025, the American newspaper The New York Times announced its "52 Places to Go in 2025." It was reported that Toyama was selected among them.
The reason given was that "as the gateway to the Noto Peninsula, which suffered devastating damage from earthquakes and heavy rain in 2024, it is being recognized for attracting tourists as part of its ongoing recovery efforts."

I lived in Ishikawa Prefecture when I was a student, but I was born and raised in Toyama, and I still live here now.
It's true that everything you eat here is delicious, which is a charm, but there really isn't anything else to speak of.

At work, rather than voices of joy, it was all talk like:
"Why were we chosen?"
"Didn't they pay someone off?"
"Don't say such foolish things."
"But you wouldn't get chosen unless you did something like that."

But since it's a rare opportunity, I want people who are thinking of visiting to be satisfied.
They picked out things like the "Owara Kaze no Bon" festival and the "Toyama Glass Art Museum," but the place I really want to recommend is

the "Kurobe Gorge."

Even as a total homebody, I want to go back, and it's a place I think everyone should visit at least once in their life.
I went a few years ago, and at that time, they were running a
"Kurobe Gorge Panorama Observation Tour via Trolley and Kansai Electric Power Vertical Shaft Elevator!!"It was a special one-day tour that allowed you to walk through areas beyond the "Keyakidaira Station" terminus of the Kurobe Gorge Railway, which are usually off-limits, and see the Northern Alps mountains up close.

I was oohing and aahing because I could see places I usually can't, and a Kansai Electric Power employee asked me,
"Did you come from the city?"
When I replied, "No! I'm from Kurobe City!" they said,
"You're a local, then..." but there are places you don't go precisely because you're a local, right?

They aren't doing this tour right now, but I wonder if they will again. (Due to the impact of the 2024 Noto Peninsula Earthquake, the general opening and commercialization of the Kurobe Unazuki Canyon Route, which was planned to coincide with the full opening of the Kurobe Gorge Railway, will not begin until 2026 or later.)
If they did it now, it seems like there would be a lot of foreigners...

The 2002 Kohaku Uta Gassen. It's been a long time since Miyuki Nakajima sang "Chijo no Hoshi" at the Kurobe Dam, but I remember it vividly.
Miyuki-san, you took off your shawl-like thing halfway through, but wasn't it freezing to death?
(It seems Miyuki Nakajima wanted to sing at a place that would express her gratitude to the program "Project X," and after considering three candidates—Mount Fuji, the Seikan Tunnel, and the Kurobe Dam—she chose the Kurobe Dam.)

The tour is exciting and fun, but it also has a somewhat solemn atmosphere.
This indescribable atmosphere.
Is it because so many lives were lost during the tunnel construction?
At "Keyakidaira Station," the terminus of the Kurobe Gorge Railway main line, a book titled "Kounetsuzuidou" (Heat Tunnel) by Akira Yoshimura was introduced.

⚠️ If you don't like spoilers for novels or are sensitive to graphic content, you might want to stop reading here.

The famous "Kurobe no Taiyo" (Sun of Kurobe) is also about the same Kurobe Dam tunnel construction, but that is the story of the No. 4 power plant construction.
This novel is about the No. 3 power plant construction. The main episodes involve the difficult pre-war construction of the No. 1 power plant (dam) through the No. 3 power plant, leading up to the Kurobe No. 4 Dam.
The time is 1936, and Japan, pushing toward war, was implementing measures to expand its manufacturing industry and power supply sources. That was when the construction of the Sennindani Dam and the Kurobe River No. 3 Power Plant was planned.


Rock drilling work using dynamite in a high-heat tunnel.
A three-story dormitory disappears overnight due to a "foam avalanche." People suffering from mental abnormalities due to the shock of the foam avalanche.
To penetrate a high-heat zone exceeding 160 degrees, they proceed while living side-by-side with death from the spontaneous combustion of dynamite. They keep digging. Experts predicted "around 95 degrees Celsius," but when they actually entered the tunnel, it was 107 degrees.
On another day, the thermometer actually broke at 150 degrees. It had exceeded 160 degrees that day.
Can you imagine 160 degrees Celsius?
I can't even imagine it.
Nature vs. Humans.
Engineers vs. Laborers.

The threat of nature beyond human wisdom. Especially in places where people don't live, the threat of nature is not something humans can predict.

And... in every era, there is a temperature difference, or something unbridgeable, between the people on the front lines and the people managing them.
The novel is depicted from the perspective of the engineers, so the feelings of the laborers, who were forced into harsh labor in an environment constantly bordering on death, are not well understood.
The engineers think of the laborers as "simple, naive people who hate to think and will work if you pay them enough special wages to save up."


Laborers who died in explosions.
The bodies were scattered in pieces, but Nezu, the construction office manager of the "Sagawa-gumi," tried to pick up the fragments and sew them together as much as possible. Then he covered them with a white cloth. It was a consideration to avoid showing the gruesome sight to the grieving families who rushed to the scene.
I don't know Nezu's true feelings.
Victims increase one after another. I can't help but think he did it not to mourn their deaths, but to keep the laborers from harboring any more dissatisfaction. (Even if that were the case, the act of spending a long time trying to sew together scattered remains is in itself an amazing thing.)
Even if they get a high daily wage, the laborers have already realized that the price might be their own lives.

I am a simple-minded person, so I thought that no matter how harsh it was, the ending would be one where both the engineers and the laborers would say to each other, "We did it," or "We finished it" once the tunnel was completed. Even if it was only for that one moment of breakthrough.
After all, they carried out a project that staked the prestige of the nation.
However, the ending that awaited them had no emotion, no sense of accomplishment, and no pride.
What awaited them was only "the laborers' hatred, on the verge of exploding."
At the end, someone like an elder (?) says to the engineers:
"You lot. Get down the mountain quickly. If you stay here any longer, I don't know what will happen."
The engineers go down the mountain. While receiving the hateful glares of the laborers, which had swelled to their limit, on their backs.

Even if the engineers gave instructions, they didn't have the authority to stop the tunnel construction. Since it was a government order, the target of hatred should have been them, but the hatred was directed at the engineers.
Even if it's not as bad as this, isn't the structure similar even today in exploitative companies?


I often introduce books, but I won't actively recommend this one.
Because it was the scariest book I've ever read.
After reading it, I was even afraid to look at the cover, so I wrapped it in a towel.


But I think it's worth reading at least once in your life.
If it were depicted from the perspective of the laborers, it might be even more gruesome than "The Cannery Boat."

Speaking of Akira Yoshimura, "Kuma Arashi" (Bear Storm), modeled after the Sankebetsu brown bear incident, is also famous, but I don't have the courage to read it.