#11 Walking down the Meguro river, Tokyo

Transcript

I just walked by a cafe with a lineup of students waiting outside, but I wonder how lineup theory works around here, because they're never really were lines in Canada that I can think of so much, but in New York they're sure were, this long lineup of stuff. I just remember one time me and my friend Matt were at some park near St. Mark's Place, and we were just sitting there chilling as the middle of the summer, and there was a lineup, it was insane, it was just so long, it was crazy, it was like half the length of the park, and I can't remember what they were even selling, so kind of ice cream or something, but the lineup was so long that it wound over to near the bench where we were sitting, and we were amongst each other, just going like, what the hell is going on, this how can this possibly be worse, you're standing here for your whole beautiful summer afternoon, well I mean it gets to be fair, we were just sitting on a bench, I guess they were just doing that except in a standing position, they were just enjoying the sunny beautiful day in the park by standing in a line, but it really was like a very long slow moving line, so we asked some lady who was in the line, which is right there, even though the actual place was not near us, just like, where are you? What is this, you know, what is the deal, and she basically told us she didn't even know, she just saw the line and she's like, well it's got to be good, I'm going to stand in the line, and I think I just like lost a little faith in humanity that day, I'm just like, you know in my darkest fears I would think that would be the answer, and that was, that was the answer, but I presume it's not that way, in Japan, I got to assume here there's line up just because there's a lot of people, you know, I bet the line is an actual necessity around here, but New York, man, they'll literally stand in a line because there's a line, if you're opening a new pizza place or a cheesecake shop or whatever in New York, this is my business recommendation to you, for at least the first week, hire people to line up outside, just make sure you always have a line, and then you will always have a line forever more, that is my privilege.

So yeah, it's kind of windy and stuff, the weather is a little different, it was just the most gorgeous weather ever the last couple of days, and then it rained a bunch last night, which probably put a damper on the Shibuya Halloween festivities, which I never did make it to, although just had a curiosity, because we're in the amazing modern world, I just went on to YouTube and looked up Shibuya. Yeah, Halloween, 2023, and like a live feed of a guy walking around, even though it was only 40 minutes away from me, at that point I was tucked in for the night, but it just seemed like a bunch of people milling around, no biggie, generally, based upon that line rant I just gave, you know, that's the kind of thing I tend to try to avoid, even today I just started walking in the general direction of Shibuya, just because it's the only thing I know where it is around here, but I turned, I saw another street, that was quieter, slower, and I'm just like, let's go down there, let's go see what that is, so I'm just walking randomly again, pretty much the opposite direction that I went the other day, or the first day, I guess this is the last remaining cardinal direction, but my plan is to maybe try to walk a little slower, try to stop more often, I went too far, yesterday was my eight kilometer walk, turns out, while I'm carrying my book bag around, it was my laptop in it, you know, I might not keep doing that, once I have a proper apartment Airbnb, but while I'm in this communal one, I've been taking the laptop with the hope that I'll get a chance to sit down and use it, you know, at it's my episodes of this podcast, for example, but even if not, there is like a lock or there, but, yeah, it's a pain, doing all that, so I just got the laptop with me, but while I'm carrying this laptop in particular, that was too far of a lock, and by the time I got back I was feeling it, you know, it was, I was hurting, and at like 5am I heard that it was raining really hard, so I thought maybe I'd get my first rainy day in Tokyo, which I'm not looking forward to, but hey I'll take it, it's coming obviously, but luckily it was not raining today, but it was just a lot more overcast, a lot cooler, I'm wearing a hoodie and I'm right on the border, if I don't know if I needed it or not, probably as I keep walking, I don't know if I need it, 5:00 build up a sweat, I'll just take it off, yeah it's interesting how much the weather can change with rain, rain is the harbinger of change, because it really feels like a different season now, and there's a little strawberry drink, maybe I'll just get it, in this drink machine, it's like a little tiny can, and you know like all the coffee is quite clear, there's a tea I wasn't totally sure about at first, but it's something about soy, just this strawberry one, and don't really know what it is, and man, the Google Translate thing on the phone has been so worthless overall, it's so so bad, especially for these drink machines, I mean I guess it's because I'm not, maybe if I pointed it, you know, at an official label on something that's just trying to list ingredients, I guess it's that these, you know, drink machine stuff, it's much more about just a visual panache, not hard information, but whatever is being said on these cans, is not incomprehensible to Google Translate, maybe I'll just get this and try it and see what it is, but also, this is the thing I'd forgotten about, this was one of my favorite judgemental anecdotes when I first came to Japan, is that you can get a big bottle of water, like a 500ml, 440 yen, but then there's a little one, 220ml, for 130 yen, it's only a little bit cheaper, and it's way smaller, and sometimes you see the two different sizes, and they're identical in price, I haven't seen that this time, but I definitely did see that last time, and I remember that just, one of those things that it just blows the mind of a North American, because we would never, never do that, we would never get the smaller one, if they're both the same price, and in this case, it's close enough, you know, to save 10 yen, but it's half the size, we would just never, and I remember the explanation I found for it was just, sometimes you don't want to large, sometimes that's just not what you want, and yeah, again, like, even I try not to do it, I try not to fall into all the, the trappings of my culture, drink machine ASMR, I guess it's just a large quunk sound, and some coins, I guess it's not the best ASMR, oh this one would have taken us a week to kind of just know, just know, well, whatever, but yeah, definitely, I mainly do fall into just where I'm from, because I do that all the time, like, in my hometown, there weren't a lot of options for food, so I ended up going to fast food a lot more often than I would like, and even though it's, like, fast food physically hurts me, you know, it's like, you got to digest it before it digests you, it's an unpleasant, greasy experience, I should get the smaller one, and they even default to the smaller one now, if you recall North Americans, there was the Super Size Me movement, in the early 2000s where McDonald's would ask you if you wanted to supersize your meal, and then Morgan Spurlock did that documentary called Super Size Me where he ate nothing, but McDonald's, and made them look real bad, so they stopped doing that, they started offering dubious salads, and now, if you go to Wendy's or Burger King or whatever, you have to deliberately ask them for the large, or they'll just give you a small drink and a small prize, but I always ask for the large, because it's only like an extra three bucks, I'm already wasting $14 on this shit that I shouldn't even be eating, and don't really want, the least I can do is, you know, maximize my value proposition, and I, always regretted it, and I always kept doing it, and I probably always will, that's just, that's just the dumb culture I come from, so yeah, just seeing stuff like that with the drinks, our different sizes for the same, or almost the same price, I just, it's so awesome, even though I can't bring myself to do it, I will never in my life get the small drink, never, if I don't know there's a large one, if it's not in one of the nearby machines, that's fine, but if I know there's a large one, I'm getting the large one, but to know that there are people, and not just like rare people, but a whole society, that thinks that it's just a cool, normal thing to do, and that that makes sense, it's just good to know, it's just good to know that that's a thing, I'm gonna try to find somewhere off of the main path to try this little drink, but I don't want to stand in anybody's way, yes, similarly to that, of just the, the nice cultural differences, you know, Japan's quite famous for a really low crime rate, and you know, if they ever do little like hidden camera tests of like dropping your wallet or whatever, 10:00 people always return it, when I lost my passport, that's where I have to assume maybe like, I have no idea where I lost it, it just fell out of my pocket, but I feel like it must have fallen into a gutter or something, because the embassy people, you know, they checked with the police, and they were like a little bit, that's a pretty legitimately surprise that no one had returned it, because it's just assumed and taken for granted that if someone found this thing, they would take it to the co-bond, a little local police box and they'd hand it in, but my passport was nowhere to be found, it was gone, but yeah, that level of honesty makes me very happy, it's very nice, because you know, I just try to do that at least, that's the one thing I try to do, I can't buy a small sized thing of junk food, but I really try hard not to litter, I'll carry my litter around forever, in Canada, till I find a place, but I know people, I have close acquaintances, who I've seen do it, they just throw their garbage wherever, whenever I walk through like a Walmart parking lot, there's random garbage that is blown over into the corners, it's like, yeah well, I know, I know where that comes from, damn no good Canadians, I've seen them, I've seen them do it, I won't do it, I just won't, and just being sort of honest and truthful in general, I guess I've told some white lies in my time, I'll omit things, but I just basically, it's just easier to just tell the truth, and I guess, you know, different people are wired different ways, but I always think it's surprising that like, like people don't feel the weight of it, you know, like if you are the kind of guy who litters, or you're the kind of guy who just lies about stuff, your subconscious knows that you are that person, that you act that way, and you do those things, and it just subtly brings you down, you know, you're just gonna behave differently, your life's gonna go different ways, you're gonna assume different things of yourself, you're gonna choose different paths, or have different assumptions about where you can end up in the world, it was getting kinda grandiose, but I think it's true, I think if you're just, you're gonna put up mental barriers for yourself, because your subconscious knows that you're being a dickhead, and it is not worth it, whatever pain you're trying to avoid by lying about stuff, or whatever advantage you think you're getting from like stealing something, or whatever, it is not worth it, you pay so much more of a toll than whatever it is you think you're getting. So that's a psychology minute with Keith, man, oh yeah, it's cleared up all right, whoo, the sun is out, I gotta take this hoodie off. I was thinking like is that it, was that gonna be my whole summer experience, I get seemed so much like fall this morning, like autumn, and I was like oh maybe that was my two days of summer, which would have been a better movie by the way, so I don't think we're compatible, this isn't working out, let's break up.

But yeah, as far as the stealing thing goes, the big store I went to to get the adapter for my computer, Sabu I think it was called, there was like seven stories tall. One thing that really surprised me about that, but I guess it does tie into the just general honesty of Japan, is there were so many ways in and out of that store. There's the front level, there's a basement level that had its own stairway, you could come in and out of each individual floor, you could just go in between, and there were cash registers, you could pay wherever. But like I got my thing from a little electronic section, I was like I wonder if I have to pay for it here, because in Walmart say, in North America, you get something from the electronic section, you got to pay for it there, you can just wander around with it. And then when I paid for my stuff and I had my receipt and I was carrying my stuff in my hands with my receipt, because again, I guess Walmart is my major comparison point, but there's like somebody, you know, a sort of greeter. They used to just have just dedicated greeters, just older people that would just stand there and greet you to the store. Now they have semi-greeders that are also there, so that if it looks like you're trying to pull a fast one, they can ask to see your receipt.

And they don't usually, but they could. And there's, you know, like gates, you know, electronic gates that have to open for you to pass through.

Oh jeez, it got so hot all of a sudden, okay. Gotta take this hoodie off and we'll die.

Oh man, at the end of this street, there's a fence. And I think some stairs? Yeah, I think I can get down from here, but it drops off really quick so you can just see a bunch of buildings in the distance as like a backdrop. But there's a big space in between. It looks really awesome. But that's only going to have been surprised about it. I've been taking quite a few pictures. Now that I got a proper phone, like a Google Pixel phone, it's night and day with the pictures. I used to take some pictures, but I just had a really old smartphone and they just sucked. My pictures look gorgeous now. It's amazing. But there's stuff where I'll see it. Pretty much that's my whole arbiter for taking a picture is just, if I think to myself, whoa, you know, then I'll take a picture. But sometimes some stuff just doesn't translate. I have a feeling this might be one. It looks awesome in person. But once I get over there, I'm going to try to take a picture, but it might not fit. But yeah, a novel pod on Instagram. I've been posting a picture.

There every day. I'm going to check out my shirts. I've got two. I squeezed as many shirts as I could into my book bag. But I'm unfortunately at this little creepy Airbnb for two days longer than I thought I was. It's Sunday today. I thought I was only there till Tuesday, but I'm actually there till Thursday. So I think I'm going to make it. And then the next place has a washing machine, but yeah, it's been so hot that I... But I guess I could just go buy some. Some shirts if I have to, right? That was one thing I was thinking. I'll get back to the seabass thing in a sec. It's one thing I was thinking is I could really make my traveling lighter if I just didn't bring any clothes. If I just bought clothes as I needed them. And then before I leave, just don't bring them. Just buy new clothes in each location. And you could probably do that pretty cheaply if I just bought real, real crappy stuff, but that does seem a little excessive.

But yeah, with this seaboo place, as I left, like nobody checked that I bought this stuff, nobody cared at all. And then I realized I needed to use the washroom. So I went back in. That's when I went down to the basement. I was like, okay, well, there's a little basement door with a little arrow thing saying there's a washroom down there. So I just went down and went into the washroom and went back out. So it's like you could just easily, dancers was like a grocery store. You just like sneak out. It's not even a remotely central exit. It's like you just sneak, sneak through these little stairs and then you're out on the street.

And it legitimately felt weird to me. I'm just like, this is a level of trust that is like bananas. I guess just knowing that, you know, even in those cases, even though I was being all righteous before, of like, I don't ever lie to you or steal. But I have in the past, I've done stuff like, I like the self-scanners or something where you, I'll buy two things, but I only scan one, you know, I don't know. I only do it in cases where it's if it's like something that I just feel like is an insanely overpriced or something, I don't know. Again, already, you know what? There we go. See, I'm North American already. I've collapsed already. I'm just as bad as everyone else. I can't even lie to myself about it. I've definitely done stuff like that.

I've skirted the gray areas. In fact, I'll tell you how I convince myself. It's because shoppers Drug Mart has this card. You get the card and you get points for the card. And I let them talk me into getting a card once and I accrue the points for a while. But I just couldn't be bothered. I don't know. I lost the card or something. I didn't get a new one. I'm like, who cares? It takes forever to build up the card. But then I was thinking, you know, if I had been paying attention to that card all this time, I would have more than enough points on my card for whatever stupid things, shoe insoles or some crap that I was just like, you know, that I just did the little slight of hand at the scanner. So I was like, yeah, I see that balance is out. You know, if we did the whole point system, I could have got this for free anyway. Let's just pretend that I did. You know? See, I'm no better. I'm no better than anyone else. So it legitimately felt weird to me at this place that I'm like, I'm just in and out and in and out and walking around with the stuff and like, it just would have been so easy to steal anything out of there. It would have been so easy. They have little signs that say there's cameras, but I guess it's not, and again, it's not me. I'm not going to do it mostly. Very rare surgical circumstances that I could, whatever, I guess, stop trying to defend myself. It's pathetic. I guess what I'm thinking though is Canadians in general. It's similar to like when I find a little shrine in the woods here and it's perfect and meticulous and well kept. That was one of my first thoughts in those situations is if this was Canada, this thing would be wrecked and there'd be beer cans and garbage all over it. There just would be. Same thing with that store. If this was Canada, they just couldn't do that. They could try and they would have to immediately implement all the stuff like Walmart had because all these fucking jerk-offs would just be stealing stuff.

So again, that's just very nice. Obviously there's a lot of things about Japanese society that are not as good. I don't think I would get along so well with the rigid rules z-ness of it, but the good side of the rigid rules z-ness is when people follow rules you can have nice things sometimes. Okay, the moment of truth. Strawberry can. What do we got here? I should wait till I'm near a can disposal place before I drink this but fuck it. Can ASMR. Putting can down. Opening can. Narrated.

Okay, it's like light pink kind of milky looking but watery, watery milk.

Oh fuck, that's pretty good.

Well, it's strawberry, all right. 1% of something. Let me try this transit again. Now that I've got the actual can, now that it's not- okay, here's an English strawberry drink with milk. All right, so it must be 1% milk.

Solved. So I guess it's just strawberry milk. Yeah, that checks out. I guess just because it's in a tiny can. It's unexpected.

That's real good.

Yeah, maybe this is why the Google Translate isn't really working. Like in this case, there's words written on a strawberry and I think that's throwing it off. You know, if the words were just against a white background, it would probably work.

But yeah, cans, drink cans and drink bottles. They're just a little too busy.

Speaking of shrines, here's a little shrine. Very small one. Let's get a bunch of horseshoes in front of it. I've never seen that before. It had some little plates. I thought maybe they were like saucers of water for local cats or something. But no, they don't have anything in them, but yeah, the horseshoes, I don't know what that's all about. And there's no way the Google Translate is going to read words carved into weathered rock. I ain't going to happen.

Just got to make my peace with being ignorant. I made my bed. So what I decided is that I'm going to be the guy who doesn't understand anything. So I just got to be that guy.

Besides, even if I could figure out what this stuff is, I mean, I don't know. Sometimes the mysteries better than the answer. Like, the answer, what is it going to be? Either this shrine is erected, contribute to the horse god, or the shrine is erected in observance that there is no horse god. It's probably going to be one of those, right?

Ah, nice. So stairs led to another one of these little walking things next to, you know, that cuts through with all these nice flowers and stuff. Probably I'm just like bumping into the same pathway at different points. But I'm not sure. I think I've bumped into at least two different ones so far. So that's a pretty cool thing about this neighborhood, Sangin Jaya. There was one thing a little bit like this near Ikebukaro, but wasn't nearly as nice. Yeah, this is definitely not something that I've bumped into with this kind of frequency anywhere else. Maybe they are all over the place, but that's one thing this nice is even though this Airbnb was a bit of a disaster. I'll be happy to get out of there. I'm glad I got to check out this neighborhood because it's really good. It's really cool. I like this neighborhood a lot.

Man, yeah, just like that. We're fully back to summertime. It is gorgeous again.

But yeah, what I was going to say before I got on to all this talking about the dark depths of the human soul and stuff. I literally was just going to start the day off with like, here's what I had for breakfast. I just got distracted. So near my Airbnb, it is kind of the best directions possible. There's this building that has a gigantic gorilla that's like two stories tall, like hanging off the building with a little clutch to victim in his hand. You know, the classic King Kong hold in the girl.

That was the big landmark. Find this thing, turn left, there's the Airbnb.

What's on the bottom floor of that building is a family mart. If anyone has been listening along so far, one of my, you know, this is all just tiny self-made quests, little things I make up for myself. So one of them was defines the dark roast coffee from 7-Eleven that does not seem to be a production anymore. But then I realized family mart had a similar thing. And I'm like, oh, wait a second. 25:00 That can be any by my Airbnb is a family mart. Let's go to family mart because I'm more or less agnostic about which is my favorite.

And again, 7-Eleven just edged it out because of familiarity. Even though they're nothing the same because man, that was depressing when I visited Japan last time. And I got back to Vancouver. My first day back, I just had to go get a toothbrush and some toothpaste at three in the morning. And there was a 7-Eleven open. And I was like, oh, this 7-Eleven is horrible. It's just like a gross gas station. It sucks. There's nothing cool about this place at all. 7-Eleven in name only. But anyway, as I'll excited to start the day off with the dark roast coffee. So I got one of those. I got like a matcha tea that is still in my bag. I got a couple of Onigiri. I just can't go wrong with tuna mayo. I know it's the most basic one, but it's also kind of the best one. It's just so good. And then one that was like beef and egg yolk or something. And this is where I kind of got to get back into the routine. Where I stepped out and immediately was like, okay, now wait, where do I go? What do I do? Where do I go to eat this? What am I? How do I proceed? Then I realized like, oh, wait, I don't go anywhere. I stand right here. I just stand out front of the convenience store. I eat all this stuff right now. Then I throw it away in the garbage can that's in the store. And then I proceed with my day. And I did. And it's like, yeah, the system works as long as you're careful. If you get stranded out in the world with a bunch of garbage, you're fucked. It is so hard to get rid of it. You're just stuck with it forever. But as long as you just buy stuff, throw it away all together, then you're good. Okay, I definitely have been on this path before. The big overpass. I recognized this. I also found a washerm earlier that I had been to.

I approached it from from the from moving south before or last time I was coming up from the north. So I mean, I felt like I was just in radically different places going different ways. It didn't occur to me that these two routes I took connect up until I saw the telltale washer. And I was like, oh, cool, this washerm. I'm starting to piece it together. That's why I think why I'm only here for a few more days. But I like this. I'm going to add this neighborhood to my itinerary next time I come. I will not be getting Airbnb's this central. There's just no need. But I'll definitely make my way out here deliberately. Add it to my roster of cool places that I like. But I think that's why Nackety Tabashi still feels like if I had to pick my home neighborhood. Because that was the first one I was at. I was there for 40 days. And all I did was walk around. I feel like I know that place super well. I'm just talking about it. I'm a little nostalgic. Should I go out there? I mean, I definitely will at some point. But maybe not today. Maybe not right away.

I used to do a thing where I would always, you know, since finding the first Airbnb is always so stressful when traveling. So when I had more time, I would always do a thing where I would go scope out the next Airbnb before I had to go there. So my next Airbnb, it's somewhat near Nackety Tabashi. Not really, but as close as I could get reasonably. But I think I'm not going to need to do that this time because having the phone with this little internal GPS, it's such a game changer. I mean, it was fun getting lost in some ways. You know, like the first time I went to Fukuoka, I got lost trying to get to my Airbnb. And it was kind of an exciting time because I didn't get crazy lost. I only got a little lost. And also because I mean, I was just doing the weirdest thing, the most low key, like the closest modern version to just having a paper map back in the day. Like I would do the Google Maps thing. I had a time at home and I would just write it all down. Not like on a parchment. I would write it in my phone, but I would write, get off at this station, walk down this street, turn this way, pass this street, this street, and this street, and turn left at this street. Although I guess I couldn't do that in Japan necessarily because I couldn't always read the signs, and it's just not a grid. But that worked okay outside of Japan. But anyway, now that I get the phone, I'm envisioning it, and it seems so easy. How could I fail? You know. I have a mess of different Airbnb is like eight more to go or something. And I don't think any of them will be particularly weird or hard to get to. So we'll see how that goes, famous last words. But you had to wrap up this riveting tale. Ultimately, the dark roast coffee from Family Mart, it is good. 30:00 But now that I've had it a second time, it isn't quite the same as the old 711 one. And it's good, but it's not amazing.

So it's not enough to tip the scales. That feeling I had this morning of like, oh, Family Mart, I should go. I think now I'll just keep it, keep it random. Because I kind of like staying agnostic and just kind of going to whatever's nearby, mix it up a little, not to get trapped in a routine of just going to the same one all the time. It's like I haven't even been to a lot since yet at all. And then there's other ones. And today's, I think it's called, that one's spreading around a bit. There's another one I can envision the logo. It's like yellow and red. And I don't remember what it's called. So then there's all those off-brand comedies.

So that's the coffee update. Holy fuck, this podcast is about nothing. What the shit.

All right, now I'm definitely intersected with a walk I did previously.

Now I'm in a new area. So I'm just going to Sally Forth and see what happens.

For any cartographers at home, I met the Meguro Skygarden, which looks like a stadium, but there's trees on the top, so I don't quite know what that is exactly. And I'm walking west along the Meguro River, MEGURO. I feel like it's good to spell stuff sometimes because my pronunciation is a little sloppy. Yeah, which I've definitely come to re-evaluate my notion of a river. Like I was saying before, since I grew up on the St. John River, which is enormous. So to me, I'm like, that's a river. Where this? I mean, it's not small, but yeah, I would call it a ravine or something. Anyway, I've now learned it's a river. These are just rivers. Just assume it's a river. Meguro River, head and west.

So walk and west down the Meguro River. It's super beautiful. I bet this is one of those things like I've never been to Japan in cherry blossoms season, but a lot of these trees are starting to lose their foliage. I've been taking pictures all along because I just keep seeing gorgeous stuff over and over. I just can't stop. But I did notice in some of the pictures there's some spindly branches, but you know, I don't know maybe to be worse if I get to see cherry blossoms because then I'll always remember what it looked like with the cherry blossoms and it won't seem when I'm here without them. I'll be like, oh, it's too bad it's when cherry blossoms, but since I've never seen the cherry blossoms, this seems rad. This seems radical. I noticed though, this is a thing that seems to happen a lot because it also happens on whatever the river is that goes from Naka Itabashi to Oji station, which I'll figure out when I go up there. These rivers are about the same. This one's a bit bigger, but there's these areas where, you know, you're walking along either side and it's quite high up, but then there'll be these parts where there's stairways that go down to a lower level that's still well above the water level. The water's actually really low this time of year. Like this part I met right here, it doesn't even cover the entire riverbed because it's all like a concrete riverbed and there's dry spots down there, so it's very shallow this time of year. But these things are always blocked off. These these lower, I mean, it's like it's probably a bit bigger than a basketball court and you just go down stairs and it's this big open area and I wonder what they use it for because yeah, they're always blocked off and it'd be easy to jump the fence, you know, it's not well blocked off. It's just the social contract, so hey, of course we'd never, and there's nothing down there. It's just a big flat area, but that I've seen it multiple places. It must be a thing or something. Maybe they do some kind of like I don't know like a festival down there or something. For some reason too, these areas, they they make me think of the Nintendo game River City Ransom, which is one of the all-time greats, one of my all-time favorite games. And it's another one of those games that's very lightly very lightly localized. It still feels extremely Japanese. And I don't think there are any parts that exactly look like this, but for some reason it just makes me think of it, just these stairs. And then I guess, I guess just because going down these stairs, this would be the perfect area to fight, to battle. But the other thing, I used to think this all the time up by Nakay Tabashi as well. As you walk 35:00 down this thing, it's very shallow now, but there are markers, height markers, occasionally along the walls. And I know I'm going to eat these words if it ever happens, but back in New Brunswick, I love storms. That's my favorite thing about it. About East Coast Canada is how crazy the weather is. It can't get too crazy for me. Trees getting blown over, thunder and lightning, horrifying freezing temperatures. That's what I like. And it has one of the wildest temperature swings in the world, too. So I mean, that's just what I grew up with. I think it's exciting. It's fun. It's one thing I didn't like about moving to the West Coast is you just have like, pittly rain that never stops. Instead of just torrential downpour that you could drown while you're walking down the street. I just love it. I love bad weather. It's just super exciting to me. So whenever I hear stories about earthquakes and obviously I'm talking about lower level stuff, not actual Fukushima disasters and typhoons that kill people, obviously that's all terrible. That's not at all what I'm talking about. I just mean the weather that's not going to kill you, but it's just crazy. Back in Canada, I love that stuff. Anything short of a polar vortex and I'm in. So yeah, now that I've said those words and these riverbeds make me think of that because there must be times when there's big floods in that those are really high up and those are full of water. And the water must just brush down them and I just, I want to see that. That seems so awesome. But yeah, now that I've said those words, now that I've put that out into the world, now it can be like, hey, whatever happened to that guy with that podcast, like I didn't hear, he died. I went to Japan and the weather killed him. That could be, it's probably going to be my future.

I saw a little washroom sign, the little man and woman symbols and an arrow and I did not see the washroom, which I don't need the washroom. It's just always trying to add to the index and where these things are. And I mean, I'm sure it's really apparent already at this point in this podcast that I'm obsessed with washrooms. Walking around eating snacks at eventing machines and convenience stores, going to washrooms, essentially that's all I want to do in my life. But what I like about it, where Japan is the best for this. North America is in the middle and the Netherlands, so the places I've been is the worst. Is I like just the acknowledgement?

Again, let's get all deep philosophy time part two. Just the acknowledgement that you're a human organism, that you are going to need the washroom and there's nothing wrong with that. You know, that the washroom is an important part of life where North America, we're very neutral about it. There's washrooms around, but you certainly don't see like signs about it all the time like you do here in Japan. And the Netherlands, there's something weird going on there. They're like in denial that you would ever need a washroom. It's like don't talk about it, don't act like it exists. Just pretend that no one is ever going to the washroom. Let's hide these things away and make them as inaccessible as possible. It was hands down my least favorite thing about the Netherlands. By orders of magnitude, there's nothing else I even actively disliked about the Netherlands except that. But that like offends me on a philosophical level and a physical level. And it really is just like, you pay a price. It's like I was saying before about how, feel the kind of, it feels like a dishonest person. You're going to pay a psychic price. As a culture, you're going to pay a price for not having washrooms of not making public spaces available to people. And again, like I said, North America, it's so-so. You can kind of go around and go to public spaces and it's sort of okay. In the Netherlands, you really can't. Like, I remember I got off the bus in Amstelvien once just because I saw a park. And I'm like, oh, that's what a pretty park. Let's go walk around. But I was limited in how long I could stay there because there was not a single washroom. There was one that was locked and that was it. Which that's fucking, that's the Netherlands all over. Where in Japan? Yeah, I've just like going up to a park now. There's going to be a washroom here. Guaranteed. There just always is. So you get to spend time outdoors. You get to spend time in your city. You get to be it. You're 40:00 able to just leave a creepy Airbnb and walk around all fucking day and try to never go home. Very easily in Japan. Where purely from washrooms alone, it's very hard to do that. And again, it's just one of those things. People don't bring up. People don't necessarily talk about, but I will. God damn it. I'm going to plant my flag here. If I'm only remembered for one thing, let it be this. Here lies Keith McNally, who thought there should be a lot more washrooms all over the place. So we could just acknowledge that we are biological creatures with biological needs. And don't make everybody shamefully run back to their house just to take a shit. Don't do it. Don't do it.

All right, I'm standing outside of a Lawson's. That's the third of the big three for the convenience store chains that I have not been to yet. A little bit loud out here, but I figure if if loud traffic, you don't find that endearing of being there in the moment, surely you've bailed out of this podcast by now, because it's 50% traffic. That's right by the way, that park absolutely had a washroom. And it didn't even have a squad toilet, which again, I would have taken it would have been fine, but even added bonus at a Western toilet. And then I just found a little bench along the edge of the McGurray River. I just sat there for like an hour and 20 minutes editing a podcast. I figure once I get to my next Airbnb's, I'll just stay at home and do that instead of dragging my laptop around. But since that place is I'm just cramped in my crappy little bed and I have not seen bed bugs lately, but that doesn't mean anything. It's just not a comfortable place to hang out. So this worked pretty well, because yeah, that park's the other day. I tried to sit in, but it had mosquitoes. This place, a couple little mosquitoes, nothing too bad. It started raining a little bit, but that stopped. So I got away with it. I just sat next to the beautiful river with my laptop out and added a podcast. Oh shit, that's a Lawson's across the street too. I deliberately backtracked and came across the street because I thought the side I was on was a family mart, but it's Lawson's on both sides. Anyway, the important thing here is this Lawson's man, it knocked it out of the fucking park. Lawson's, it seems like it is what my memories of 7-11 used to be, because I loved it 7-11 getting a, it was just this little thing that was too onigiri, one tuna and one salmon, and then it just had a little piece of fried chicken or two, maybe it was two pieces, along with it. And it was just my favorite little thing to get. And I haven't seen them yet, but here at Lawson's it's pretty much the same thing except even more stuff. It's a grilled salmon flakes and tuna mayo onigiri and one of those little hot dogs where you know they cut the hot dogs so it looks like a cool, you know, sometimes they cut them to look like octopuses. This one's just, it looks kind of like a squid arm. And there's some plum and there's fried chicken and there's like a whole bunch of stuff and then they had like some kind of weird maple bread. I'll definitely get that at some point. I'm obsessed with trying maple stuff anywhere that I find it because I'm an idiot Canadian. However, most important, they have their brand of the coffees and the little plastic cups. Uchi cafe and I found cafe ole bitter and it even has the green label like the one that I loved from 7-11. So I'm gonna eat this stuff but let's finish off the podcast with a live taste test. Because the family mart one, it didn't quite get there. It was just called dark roast. It didn't actually have the word bitter on it. Stabby, stabby. So yeah, same color. Got the word bitter. I'm feeling pretty confident. Let's give this a try. I mean it's different. It's not the same as the 7-11 one but that could definitely grow on me. I guess we'll see though. I said that about the family mart one too. But I got to say just blossoms, man. It seems pretty good. There's definitely a bunch of stuff in there that I did not see at other places. I think that's where it's exploring. I mean to this point, I'm still early on in my 45:00 trip. I'm just eating. I don't know how to cure it. That's really all I want. But I also got custard cream acclare. I don't think they have these at 7-11. I mean maybe they do because they have them at family mart. Maybe they have them everywhere. I don't know. But it's just like yeah custard cream acclare. It's in their little frozen parts. So it's like a little bit cold. It's very delicious. All right, so there's there's today's adventures on the Maguru River. Went pretty well. Sun's going down. Definitely once once those little cold snaps hit. It got pretty cold here. I'm wearing my hoodie again. Maybe again it'll warm up once the sun goes all the way down. But I keep seeing the hot coffees and the machines and the soups. My friend Brad gave me a mission. He's like hey at the Dino machines they have this like crab soup now. You got to try that because I've only had I think I've had the corn soup. I had a weird cold potato soup. But again because I was here in the summer the soups just weren't really a thing. So soup time is coming soon. You can feel it in the air.