Clue to Mario World found in Wakayama

Maybe you don't believe in Santa Claus anymore. Maybe you don't even believe in Superman. But I hope you're not so jaded that you don't believe Mario World is simply a fabrication of Nintendo. There HAS to be a place where Italian plumbers in red and green overalls eat giant magic mushrooms that make them spit fire and grow fox tails and fly and get hit by bullets 20x bigger than them. Doesn't there? One woman believed there had to be. So she put on her hiking shoes, kissed her children goodbye, and trekked through the mountains of Wakayama in search of the holy land. After many days of sleeping on rocks and following obscure noises she deciphered as Princess Peach's SOS calls, she came across this giant mushroom. Heart thumping, feet trembling, she took one bite...and the doors to Mario World were opened. (Ok, the Mario part of that story isn't true. But a woman really did find this giant mushroom while hiking in Wakayama yesterday. It's edible, but it won't make you bigger.)