#14 Dubious travel tips for Japan

Transcript

Alright, my last day in Sangin Jaya, Tokyo, which I think has been pretty successful because I remember the name. At first, I just found that name so strange. I could never remember what it was. Although, I mean, I guess it's like that with anything that's not the language you speak. I used to think Fukuoka was Fukuoku, is that what I used to say? I don't know. Anyway, it's been excellent to walk around. To this neighborhood and find all this weird stuff I've never seen before and add all this stuff to my mental docket. I definitely am glad to get out of that Airbnb though. Where it's the place to recap it's in a really good location, but it's really packed in. The most packed in. No, actually it's not true. There's a place in Toronto I stayed that was more packed in. But this one was even more uncomfortable because it's super packed in. You just, you know, it's like eight people in a teeny tiny little room. Well, I guess that's the difference. Even though...

The Toronto place had more people overall. It had more rooms. So it was actually only five people in a room. This one was eight. So I guess this was technically the most packed. And just had all these little things like motion sensor lights. So no matter what, if you get up in the middle of the night, the light turns on. But worse than that, the automatic locking door that was so loud just got me this horrible grinding noise on the way out and on the way back in. And my whole life involves just going to drink machines and drinking coffee. And I got to pee a lot even normally. So yeah, just I've never been more uncomfortable to wake up in the middle of the night. It's just just the worst.

But then the big kicker was there were bedbugs. And what's kind of interesting I guess about that is the first day I saw two adult bedbugs and two little baby ones. And then the next day I saw one adult one climbing up a different person's curtain or whatever. And I haven't seen any since then. The last like four or five days, whatever it's been. I haven't seen any. Which with bedbugs, of course, that doesn't mean there's no bedbugs. But when I had to deal with bedbugs back in Canada, that was never the case. A day never went by that I didn't see one.

So obviously, I know this does not mean the bedbugs are gone, but it does help me calm down where I just felt less and less bad about that each day. Or it's like, yeah, just another day where I haven't seen one. It makes me feel a lot more confident that it should be easy to, you know, I'm going to super check all my stuff when I check out tomorrow morning. And when I get to my next Airbnb, the first thing I'm going to do is wash and dry everything. Drying is the key to killing bedbugs. It's the heat that kills them. But I'm very confident it'll be fine. I doubt I'm going to bring any with me at all. But even if so, well, because it's just a very super light infestation. And I think I know why that is because also just with the additional weird crap that happened at this Airbnb, they were doing construction right outside the apartment. Every morning at 9, construction guys would come block off the whole street and then they'd start jackhammering the manhole covers and stuff. So I would always get out of there. Today, there was nobody, no jackhammering people. So I was like, yeah, you know, I'm going to sleep in for the first time while I'm here.

I hope I'm approaching traffic a big overpass. I'll take a little break, but also I see a loss of... I know there's a million losses in this city, but for some reason it's the one chain I have a really hard time finding. So I'm going to go have my late breakfast early lunch at losses.

Okay, now I want to talk about losses. But let me finish one story before I get to the next one. So the construction guys weren't doing construction this morning. So I was like, yeah, I'll sleep in for the first time ever at this Airbnb. And it turns out I wouldn't have really been able to do that anyway. Maybe feel a little better about getting up so early each day because around 10 o'clock, what is this?

Okay, maybe it's more of a grocery store. It's going to say it's a convenience store chain that doesn't have an English title. I don't know what it's called. Oh, it's A on. It's like the malls. I guess they have little grocery stores. But yeah, around 10, the guy who runs the Airbnb comes in. Him and his significant other, and they do a super duper cleaning.

And I think if I had to guess, I think they're aware. I think they've had reports of the bed bugs. So they're doing super duper vacuum jobs on all the spaces that they can that don't have people actively sleeping in them because they really spent a long time cleaning everything. 5:00 That coming up in whatever. And on a long term, I don't know. I don't know that I don't know the bed bugs are stoppable unless you really do the whole. Get them at the source and then a few weeks later, get them at the source again, cover the whole house, the whole to do. I don't know.

But unquestionably, what they're doing is helping a lot because I got to assume this is why I haven't seen any more because they are really trying hard. And I think that's when I met the guy, I met the guy who runs the place, charming nice young man. And I guess that'd be my thing. I was pretty critical of this Airbnb stay. But this guy really is trying his hardest. It's undoubtedly overly complex.

I was like, chronicled before. But one thing that kind of endeared me a little is when I noticed the fire exit. There's like, here's how everyone escapes during a fire. This house is so small, tiny little two story house. There's only one way out. It's very obvious. There's no need for that. It's pointless. But I was like, oh, that's kind of nice. He doesn't want everyone to die in a fire. That's nice. The bad parts like jackhammers and bedbugs were circumstantial. They were nothing. The fault of the Airbnb guy. You know, I think my subconscious knew, hey, you got to take responsibility for your own situation, my friend. I can't blame anyone else for the fact that you booked this tiny little weird Airbnb. I mean, it was all there. She just paid better attention to the listing. So that would be my ultimate thing is this place definitely was not for me. But I've just learned that, yeah, I've just moved beyond this idea of the communal place just because it's cheaper.

Because it's not that much cheaper. It kind of was before post COVID, I don't know that it makes that much difference. And yeah, I just got to know this about myself. I would just prefer a little more privacy to myself. And if I got to pay for it, I got to pay for it. I do have a couple other places lined up that are a little bit communal, but not like this.

I'm just glad I kind of figured this out even as I was in the process of booking Airbnb. It's again, I only did this because it was the first one I booked. And then for the next one, I'm going to tomorrow. I was like, I'll splurge a little bit because it's in a neighborhood I want to go back to. It's a whole apartment, but it's, you know, it's a little bit more, but I'll splurge. And then I found another place that was in another neighborhood I like. There was a little expensive, but it's a solo room, and I'm going to splurge. And then in Fukuoka, just it really didn't make sense to go communal there. So I'm glad everything just kind of naturally righted itself. It's not like I booked 90 days worth of Airbnb's like this and then realized like, oh no, this ain't working for me no more.

Next time, you know, it's really only just a, whatever this was, less than a week of a bit of an uncomfortable situation.

And yeah, this episode I'm going to talk about how I kind of adapting about adapting to stuff in travel. So I'll talk a little bit more about that after. First though, Lawson's awesome. So I guess that's the other thing is, like I said before, another aspect is because of the way I travel, being central like that is not a bonus, you know. So that's where on top of being cramped in, it's not a bonus to me to be so close to Shibuya. Ultimately, it was only useful for coming in from the airport. Because I was like, what am I going to do my last day in this neighborhood?

And I was thinking how when I was talking about coming in from the airport, I was walking around this neighborhood north of San Gengaya that had like an opera house and was super fancy. And I kept saying like, wow, this place is so pretty, it's so beautiful. Because I really never went to a rich neighborhood last time I visited it. You know, I just didn't really have any particular reason to go there. But then being in one, it's like, wow, this is really nice. So I was thinking like, maybe I should go up there. But I kind of suspect that it was only really so cool because it was nighttime. In the day, it's going to be a lot less striking and today it got perfect. Every day is so perfect, it's 19 degrees today, a little bit of clouds. I didn't bring my second layer today, I did bring an umbrella, but I don't think I'm going to need either of them. It's just perfect. 10:00 It's a lot coming here at the end of October. Like I thought I was missing out on the perfect summer. And I was sort of trading in of like, well, I'll come here when the weather's not as good. And maybe it's not the best time to visit. And due to my hermity ways, maybe that'll be good. Maybe that'll keep crowds away and help Airbnb's be more available and stuff.

But man, I just by accident, I fucking nailed it. I missed the super dog days of summer. And yeah, I cannot recommend this enough. If you're trying to decide when to visit Japan, late October is so fucking good. It gets dark early, but I don't even think that's a bad thing. Because I was thinking back to when I was here before in this summer. And I do love walking around Japan at night. It's definitely worth doing. It's beautiful. But when I was here in like August and June, you know, I had to stay up all night to do that. I'd be walking around at two in the morning and stuff. Now you still get the beautiful daytime. But you also get that taste of night from like five to ten at night and then you just go to bed. You get both sides. It's fucking awesome. It's perfect. It's literally perfect. I just got lucky and the weather's not always like this. But as far as I know, this is the money melon. You don't get the cherry blossoms of the springtime, I guess. But I can't miss what I've never experienced. So that's all good to me. But yeah, with the fancy neighborhood, I was thinking like, even if I do go up there, I mean, it's loud, it's traffic-y, it's busy, it's not really where I want to go. So I just went the opposite way, just the exact opposite way. I was thinking of that Maguro River that I walked east on. I was like, maybe I'll just find that river and walk west. But I couldn't figure out where it goes west. Maybe it goes underground because I don't see it on the map. So I just walked in that vicinity and it's like, whatever. This is fine. And this is definitely what I like. Because last time I visited, I was in a suburb of Ikebukuro for the first like 40 days. So it's quite central, quite city-like. Still good, still fun. But then I went to Fukuoka, which is still a big city. But I was way on the outskirts, way by the mountain. And I didn't go into the city that often. And then I went to Akiruno by Akigawa Station that is still Tokyo. But so far west that, you know, it's got the stuff like people leave vegetables out with an envelope. And if you want to buy the vegetables, you just leave the money in the envelope, honor system style, countryside stuff, you know. And it's like, that's awesome. So a little over half of my trip was in the more outskirts parts. And I just liked them way better. Not like for real countryside, which due to my complete illiteracy, would probably not go so well.

But the outskirts of the city stuff is like perfect for me. And yeah, just walking south away from Shibuya, it turns into that. Like I just went by a bunch of guys who were just taking little new naps in their trucks. A lot of trucks in this neighborhood. That loss since I was at had some lady was outside just a... Maybe she was a mechanic actually. Apparently blue coveralls or a blue jumpsuit.

But she was just hanging out to smoke in. And it's just like, everything's just so much more comfortable and so much more relaxed. And that Lawson's even had the garbage cans on the outside, which is what I feel like all the convenience had, or most of them in 2019. Now like none of them do. But this one does, it feels like the old ones. And I didn't actually log on, I didn't need it. But it had free Wi-Fi. Lawson's free Wi-Fi, which again in 2019 they all had. Now none of them do. Just the whole thing is like, time warp. Like, ah, there we go. So comfy. It's just what I like.

All the crowds of people and dodging the bicycles and even just line-ups in a convenience store. I love just going into a convenience store and there's just like one other person there. And it's just like a lot easier for me to fumble my way through the interaction. When it's more calm. So yeah, the Airbnb I'm going to tomorrow, I'll get into it more when I get there. But it's like, ah, I think it's like 40 some dollars a day. But I could only get it for about a week because it just wasn't available because it's not for one person. It's a whole apartment. 15:00 You can have up to four people in there. So if you split it, four ways, it would be so cheap. So I think that's why it's booked all the time. So it's one of the more expensive places that I've stayed, but because it's in sort of near my old Naki Tabashi neighborhood, but even further away. But close enough, like an hour away, an hour's walk. Because it was only free for that one little week. I'm like, yes, please, I'll take it. And I think that's because Naki Tabashi is already. Four stops away from Ikebukuro. So that's, you know, approximately nowhere. Well, I guess it's down the stages. Ikebukuro is not famous like Shibuya and Shinjuku. I didn't know it until I visited here. But it's, you know, one of the bigger neighborhoods. But then if you get four subway stops from there, like an hour's walk from there. Yeah, that's pretty suburban. Now I'm going another hour's walk from there. So I think that's why it's so relatively cheap to get a whole entire apartment unit. Because, you know, it's quote unquote nowhere. But that's where I want to go. That's where I would travel to. But I just get to start there is a bonus to me. And this place again, I'll get into it more when I get there. But talk about above and beyond. They have a whole YouTube channel of how to use all the appliances, how to use the shower, how to use what all the dials and stuff mean. Like that's fucking, that's what a good idea. That's so cool.

So yeah, this Lawson's fine. What a dream. If I was in this neighborhood more, I would come here every day. I would make it my, my morning place. Because also, this is only the second Lawson's I've been to. But this one was so good. So I don't know if this one in particular was good or if they're just really great. But I got like a super fancy. They have these super fancy onigiri that come in like a really fancy packaging. But the thing with that is it is some kind of, I guess I'll try them at some point. But fancy can be kind of a problem because it's a lot of like salmon roe and stuff. Things that I'm not actually sure I like. So I just got like the braised beef and ginger. But then I just got the super plain normal white packaging with no special imagery just text just tuna and mayo. Because tuna and mayo, it's the most basic one. It's the, it's the simplest standard onigiri. But it's just still kind of the best. It's so good. You know, you can't not have that.

And then the way sometimes 7-Eleven has these little packs with like two onigiri and just like a little cold piece of battered fried chicken. And just how nice the fried chicken is to kind of end things off with like when you've got just the corners of the onigiri that don't really have filling in them that are just rice. It's a perfect way to eat that rice. Here they had little bags of fried chicken ball things, you know, like five of them that were also warm. They were heated and it was like a couple of dollars to 25 or something. So I grabbed one of those and I got the bitter coffee with the green label that I like. And these onigiri were so delicious and so packed full of stuff that I didn't even like that technique of eating the excess rice with the chicken was hard to do because there wasn't that much excess rice. There was so much stuff. Like the tuna mayo one was like, I don't know a dollar 80 or something and it's so good. God, it's good. Like I was making my own tuna onigiri at home and doing an okay job of it technically. It's not that complicated, but it's certainly not the same. Not even close. And again, like I probably have low brow tastes. I bet that if you get used to the fancy versions of all these foods, they really are way better. But I have no idea. I mean, I'm the same way in North America. I try not to develop like very fancy tastes. So I just think whatever I get is good. You know, you just got to get hungry enough and it's delicious. You know, I get all particular about specific coffees and dumb stuff, but that's more like a just like a little game to play, a little fun quest to go on. Unless it's espresso mixed with tea, pretty much whatever is good. Oh man, in this quietude, I mean, there's inevitably going to be a bit more traffic because I kind of got turned around. I don't know how to escape that neighborhood. There's a lot of weird dead ends. I got to go back to a slightly more major road, but the quiet is so good.

But then on top of that stuff, I also bought the small bottle of water. I was saying how in vending machines, you can get a big bottle or a small bottle sometimes for very much the same price. You know, like maybe 10 yen difference for a way bigger bottle, which is so strange to a North American mind, because you would always get the big one. 20:00 But the idea here is if you don't want the big one, you get the small one. Sometimes you just don't want the big one. And what I've been doing is just because after eating tuna, owner gear and stuff, you don't make sure mouth a little sticky. So I've just had a bottle of water in my back pocket that I'm not really using to drink properly like water. It's just a kind of swirl in my mouth once in a while just so this podcast doesn't sound completely gross with all my mouth sounds, you know. Sticky mouth is not pleasant. But I realized I don't really want the big bottle of water in my back pocket, poking out of my back pocket. It doesn't even quite properly fit. The small bottle is perfect for what I need. I just need a little bottle of water in my pocket at the ready. So I can swish it in my mouth a little, have a little swallow of water, and combat the sticky mouth. So I bought the little bottle of water. It's like, I'm learning. I mean, I said I think just a couple episodes ago, like I would never buy the small bottle. What would I? Like I respect that that's a thing. But to me, it's like, no, I'd ever, why would I ever get the small thing? I want to get the big thing. But I mean, I guess that's already technically not true because I like those little cans of coffee a lot more than like, you know, you can get big cans of monster and stuff here. I don't do that. Or even not even monster, but the big, the Japanese brands sometimes you can't get a great big bottle of boss brand of the latte or whatever. And I don't get those. So I guess maybe, maybe I was already thinking that way a little, but this was the first day where I for sure on purpose was like, oh yeah, the little bottle, that makes sense. That's what I want. It doesn't matter that the big bottle in fact, after I left the lessons, I saw a little vending machine across the street where the large bottle of water was like significantly cheaper. It was like 30 yen less for the great big bottle. But it's like, nah, got what I wanted. I want the little bottle. It's perfect for what I need.

So yeah, I'm still generally convenient store agnostic. I've been going to a lot of 7-Elevens because that was always my habit before and I just have been running into them a lot. And they're still very good. There's really no issue there. But my couple of Lawson's trips have been distinctly nice. I think again, maybe even just for the sake of having a little quest. Maybe I should start holding off instead of just going to the first place I see. You know, walk around and let myself be hungry for a while. Going a quest for Lawson's because that Lawson seems pretty cool. And of course, if I see any of the stores that are not of the major three, I'll go for sure. On the way into Tokyo, I definitely saw some, I saw a new days and I saw the one whose name I don't remember with the yellow blue orange logo. I don't know. I'll figure that one. I see one.

Still just walking on backstreet. If anything, it's getting even more sparse and more backstreet-y and it's just the best. But my continued fascination with coffee experimenting. Suseta 7-11 and 7-11 is the one major chain that doesn't have the bitter coffee flavor anymore. In their homegrown brews, but there's that Mount Rainier company that's at all of the convenience stores. And they had a bitter one that was really good. They didn't have that here, but they did have a Mount Rainier espresso deep.

And I'm not sure quite what the difference is between dark or bitter on the label as opposed to espresso. It's something. The espresso is not quite as good as dark or bitter, but it's still pretty good. Definitely past the test. And like, yeah, that's pointless. That's nothing, right? But that's interesting to me right now.

It's all right. I inadvertently came up with an adventure today. I was just at the 7-11 after I drank down my Mount Rainier espresso blend. Took a look at what's around here and I saw the Tamarivers. I'll tell you my experiences with the Tamariver. After this, oh man, construction. How do I get around this? But first, let me tell you my silly travel tips. These are the ones I was going to talk about last episode and I didn't get around to it. So I'm going to do that right now.

First up, using extra layers, your extra coats or jackets or what have you as blankets. 25:00 Yeah, no kidding, right? But it came up in this case because the only thing, there was no light blanket here. It was only a giant comforter or nothing. Which I guess not that I think of it. That's what they did the first time I visited Japan too. I think that maybe is kind of the normal way. But because it's been really warm, I just didn't need this great big giant comforter. And when I saw that there were bedbugs the first day I also wanted less places for them to potentially be. So I just couldn't get this thing out of here. Get this thing away from me. I put it up in the storage unit. But then if it is like a little chilly in the night, this is the technique that I developed for using jackets and coats as blankets. First off, I always try to make sure everything that I bring has a hood. It's probably not really worth dragging around a jacket or a hoodie when you're traveling if it doesn't have a hood. Because a hood is such an easy little addition and it's so super useful. Any day that it's really windy and you don't have a hood, it's like, why am I using precious cargo space for this piece of crap clothing that doesn't have a hood? Why am I bothering? And none of these things were packed. I was just wearing them. Just wearing layer after layer because I just wanted to make sure that I had enough layers to make it through the Tokyo winter. And I'm going to be here until the end of January, so we'll see. But yeah, this has been so insanely warm and then I'm going to go down south to Fukuoka. It's going to be even warmer. But then when I return to Tokyo in January, we'll see. Then maybe this stuff will pay off. But why I bring up the hood is this is my technique for using jackets as a blanket. Because obviously jackets are not long enough to be a blanket. They're too short. But you can do a double method where I take one coat or jacket or whatever upside down. So the hood is at the bottom and you can put your feet in the hood. And it's such a nice little thing because instead of your feet poking out of the bottom of a blanket, this will keep that from happening. And it just really works well. Just having this little hood area with your feet in it, I really love it. It isn't amazed how well it works. It's just like, ah, a nice little, it's almost like something maybe blankets should have. And just like a little foot pod, a little place to put your feet instead of them just poking out and getting cold. And then assuming you have at least two layers of coats or jackets, you use the second one for the top half of your body. You can have the hood at the top or the bottom, whatever you prefer. And I think it's something, I don't know, like give it a shot. Even if you're not traveling, even if you're not just cobbling things together from what you have. Because you'd think maybe having your blanket split in half like that. Like in two parts would be bad because maybe they would fall off or drift apart or something. But I find that whatever my body is subconsciously doing while I'm asleep, it really works with that. Like instead of a big heavy blanket, where if it gets too hot, then what, you're like kicking off this whole blanket or you're getting all tangled up in this big blanket. When there's the space in the middle, you know, they're both overlapping in the middle. But I find my body just naturally seems to know how to maneuver those things. To keep me at the right temperature, like if I need to split the middle a little bit or just remove the top part, it just seems to happen. I just seem to arrange things in my sleep so that I'm nicely aerated and everything just stays the right temperature. And it's like, I'm amazed how well it works. The one little bonus thing that I learned in the Calgary Airport is on a bed, I have no problem with the two halves. But if you're on something very narrow, like a bench, there is potential for one of your jacket blankets to slide off.

But if you have any extra stuff, in my case, it's thermal shirts. I just balled up the thermal shirts, put them in the pocket of the jacket as like weights on the inside away from where I'm afraid that my jacket might slide off and it helps keep it on you. Because it's really good. It's like I kind of like it better than a normal blanket. So yeah, it's just using your jackets. Presumably, if you're traveling with the variability of weather, you probably have a couple layers at least. I have like four layers. Use one for your feet, upside down, so the hood is at the bottom, so you have a little nice little foot pouch, a nice little area to put your feet and they stay nice and warm, nice and toasty in the night. And then take the other one, put it at the top or hood at the bottom. Whatever you think you need that night, you know, if it's going to be really chilly, maybe you need to hood at the top to put around your head. If not, put it at the bottom. 30:00 And yeah, just the variability, the dual blanket, the two small blankets instead of one big one, it's real good. It's real handy. It's not just like, oh no, I've got to put up with this because I'm traveling. I actually kind of like it more.

And then the second thing also involves these extra layers, where you got jackets and hoodies, but also I always have to have a second pair of jeans just because I tried to travel with one pair of jeans and it's not really realistic. It's not possible. Just to do laundry and stuff, you need a second pair. But most of the time, the extra pair of jeans is doing nothing. And in order for it to not take up space in luggage on travel days, when I'm traveling between Airbnb's or hopping on a plane or something, I just wear both pairs of pants, which seems very weird, but you kind of forget you're doing it and no one has ever noticed, no one ever can really tell you're wearing two pairs of pants. And I suppose if they did, then you could explain your idiosyncratic travel fucking shit that you're doing. But yeah, I pretty much post up at an Airbnb, hang up this extra pair of pants and just don't touch them to laundry day where I swap them out. And I got hoodies and jackets and such. So this is how to use your clothes as a towel. So generally, Airbnb's have towels. I think that's pretty standard, hotels and stuff, of course do. But you never know, sometimes you get in a situation like the one I'm at right now where they want $2 for a towel. It's like, you know what? I think I'll be all right. I'll figure something out. So what I figured out actually figured this out back in Canada, but it works really well.

Oh, here's a shrine. Pretty ass shrine. All right, I'm going to stop and go into the shrine. I never know what to say about the shrines. They're just, they're all gorgeous. I don't understand any of the underlying meaning, but they're very nice. This is actually a little weird. Yeah, usually they're more tucked away. I'm on a pretty major street, like a four lane mini highway. It's just this fairly big shrine here.

It just occurred to me. I could check on a map. Toto Roki, Fudosan Temple, T-O-D-O-R-O-K-I, F-U-D-O-S-O-N Temple, is where I am. I'm on my way to the park right next to the Tamariver, which I'm extremely close to. New Japan Pro Wrestling, no gay gym. Cool.

You know, maybe I shouldn't be too hard on myself for not being excessively spiritual in any of these shrines, because I'm not sure that anybody else is either. There's a little cafe in there with a little plastic ice cream set up. It's like, hey, we sell ice cream here. I'll make it the episode image if you're listening to this as a podcast. You can check out the shrine and see if you can find, where's Waldo? The hidden ice cream. You'll see it though. It's very easy. Very easy to spot.

And we're definitely at Acorns falling from the trees time of year. Several Acorns fell while I was in there. Really loud, just like bam.

But yeah, my big towel method is basically just to, you know, take a shower, clean yourself off, do all your scrubbing. Make sure you're all spotlessly clean first. But then I've got this spare pair of jeans that I generally don't use, and I got this one hoodie in particular that's just got like fuzzy stuff on the inside. It's like a big, awesome robe. So cozy, so nice.

There's a bottle of corona. You don't see those all the time around these parts. An empty bottle, I mean. So yeah, after I take a shower, instead of towering off, per se, I just put on the spare pair of jeans and put on the big, fluffy hoodie. And just wear them for a few minutes, wear them back to my room, and just let those dry me off, and take them off, turn them inside out, hang them up, let them dry off. And you know, maybe they're getting very slightly dirty, but since I just took a shower, they're pretty clean. Plus, I mean, it's traveling. You're always a big grimy and some way or another. But yeah, the towelless towel. Again, nothing revolutionary, pretty obvious, but so handy. Just using what you got instead of, because I mean, I guess I could also use those clothes just as a sort of traditional dry yourself off towel system. 35:00 I could just towel myself off with the hoodie and awkwardly towel myself off with my spare pair of jeans. But it's weird, and it just doesn't really work. But yeah, I find if you just put them on, just put them on, and they wick away the water in like two minutes. And you just turn them inside out and hang them up. Bigity, bam. That's the travel trick. That's the secret technique. I don't know, is that useful? Maybe not. Maybe it's so obvious that it's like, yeah, no kidding, idiot. Or maybe it's so dumb that it's like, I'm not doing that idiot. But hey, if one person in the whole world thinks either of those are interesting or useful, my job here is done.

Well, today's adventure instantly failed. So, yeah, I was looking at the map, and I saw the Tama River, and I was like, oh, yeah, cool. My association with the Tama is way up by Hyjima Station. You got across the Tama to get into Akiruno, and it was pretty remarkable how the area around Hyjima is actually one of the few parts of the world. In Tokyo, I wouldn't necessarily recommend. There's some okay parts there, but it gets really industrial pretty fast. It turns into car country, and there's a big airfield that you can't get anywhere near. So, it's an awkward place to walk around. But if you cross the river, which that's the one I was saying is, it was a little small for my association with a river, just because I grew up on an enormous river.

That in my dumb brain, I'm like, that's not a river, is it? But yeah, it's totally a river. But you cross over it, and all of a sudden you're in Nananbiori. You're in rural town. You're in some approximation. The Tokyo approximation of, oh, I used to know that word for the countryside. Anyway, the countryside. And it's awesome. I love it over there. It's like night and day, as soon as you cross over, it's like, ah, there we go. This place is cool. But of course, the tema cuts across the entire city. So I was like, oh, shit, I'm near a completely different part of the tema. I should go down and check it out. And down here, it's enormous. Down here, you can very much tell. Oh, yeah, that's a river. It's really big. But it does seem pretty obvious that you can't just walk along the edge of the river. Because as soon as I crossed over the street to where the river is, there was an area for people to gather and have a little park party. But other than that, it was blocked off. And there were guys like, nope, don't go here, don't go there. I pretty much couldn't go anywhere. So maybe, maybe I just hit the river at the exact wrong spot. But I think it's just like that all along. Because there was also, there's a YouTuber named Roger Swan, who sadly passed away. But he did videos about Japan. And he had a video about homeless people in Tokyo. And I think I recognize that. Like that looks like what he was talking about. I think people that kind of live in ramshackle little dwellings that they've set up. I think maybe they do that along the tema. It looked like that. Which would also make sense if it's an area that's not very publicly accessible. It's not a bad place to go set up.

But yeah, even up where I crossed, I mean, I just crossed over. I don't know that there was really an easy way to walk along the edge of the river. I think that's maybe just not a thing.

Well, it's a really big helicopter going by with the propeller in the front and the back.

But I crossed back over and now I met the Zen-Yogi temple, ZEN-DASH-Y-O-J-I temple. And this is a beautiful temple. This one's really good. This one stands out. This is gorgeous.

Maybe this is what people do with their one-yen coins. There's like an elephant statue here with offerings of fruit. There's bananas, apples, grapes, which are all decomposing and being eaten by flies. Then there's just empty juice carton and an empty water bottle. But also it's covered in one-yen coins. Are there anything higher than a one? Nope, not even a five. So yeah, I'm not the only one trying to get rid of these things.

On the way by I stopped by that new Japan gym that I saw. And it is just a gym. But I thought I might take a selfie outside of it just so I could send it to my friend Jason, who is also into Japanese pro wrestling. 40:00 But there was a car park to right in front of the new Japan logo. So without the logo in the shot it would just be a building. You wouldn't meet anything. So I didn't get my new Japan selfie. I'm going to go check out this temple now. But last thing, I bought yet another small drink. Maybe I really am getting into the vibe. I thought I'd get a tea because clearly I'm kind of swimming uphill with the coffees. It's such a hard time finding the right balance of coffee that I like. Maybe I should just be buying the teas that are generally just kind of bitter to begin with. But not acidic like a black coffee. But the tea was 600 milliliters. A bizarrely huge bottle. That's like death. You know for me. I know this is the land of washrooms and it's not that hard to find public washrooms. But if I drink half a liter of tea, I am just asking for trouble. That's too much. So instead I got a smaller bottle. The big one was a wheat tea. So I didn't get to try that. But next time, instead I got a green tea that's only 280 milliliters. So not even half of the other one for the same price. They were both 140 yen. But again, perfect. The small one is in fact what I want. The big one. The big one made me scared. It's like, dude, I've already been drinking liquids all day. Add that on top. Too much.

So yeah, maybe I'm just becoming a small drink guy. Maybe I underestimated myself. I'm walking the walk and I'm talking the talk. But yeah, the Tamariver itself, you know, just figured I'd walk along the river. That didn't work out. That does not seem to be a thing. You can really do. You can maybe walk along the highway a bit, but I don't want to do that.

But the beauty of Japan, it really legitimately doesn't matter where you go. You're going to stumble upon cool, weird stuff and awesome temples and new Japan dough joes and just all kinds of just awesome. Just so good. So I'm going to go check out the Zenyogi temple.

So I'm on the walk home, and it's not even 6 o'clock, but again, pitch black feels like I'm in a whole different world, but also that coolness of nobody's remotely ready to go home or go to bed. We're all just living in the dark. And I'm in Koma Zawa Olympic Park, K-O-M-A-Z-A-W-A. And here's something I had totally forgotten about. I never used it. I was saying that the convenience store is all used to have Wi-Fi, and now it's extremely rare, but it doesn't really matter, so I really need the Wi-Fi. But I just came in here to get a drink as I passed through, got a grape juice, and I saw on the side of the machine. Wi-Fi for free. And I was like, oh yeah, I saw some of those around like Ikebukuro, Wi-Fi from the drink machine. It's definitely not super common. Maybe I've walked by some without realizing, so this is the first time I remember seeing this sign sponsored by Asahi. Good on you, Asahi. But yeah, I managed to connect, and it's really fast. Like even if you can connect at a convenience store, it's just going to be, you know, maybe check your email or whatever. This one I'm downloading podcasts for the walk home. Got three podcasts downloading. One of them's done, one of them's almost done, man, yeah, that's pretty, what a cool thing. Wi-Fi by the drink machine. But also, man, hopefully this is a total nothing, just not a problem. But I found a Lawson, so I was like, oh right, cool Lawson. And I was getting some stuff. They didn't have the chicken balls, like they had today earlier, but I was thinking maybe that was because it was new, you know, like if you make the chicken balls early in the day, they only last so long. But then as I was paying, I saw in the little, the little heat unit by the front counter, they had the little bag with like the five little chicken balls. And I was like, hmm, do I want to try that? Because I tried before, you know, to like point it stuff. And it's awkward, you know, like I tried to get like a steamed bun or something and point at it. And it's just like so difficult to explain what I'm point net. But in this case, the sign had English, Karage. And I was like, oh, Karage, I know that term. I guess I know those mostly as being on skewers, but I guess yeah, that is what this is. It's just they're not on the skewer anymore. They're just in a little bag. 45:00 So I said, hey, Karage, small Karage bag please. And there's no problem. But because I'm so tuned in now to say no, because I just presume someone's asking me if I want a bag. So I just go, no, no, I'm good. It's all right. But I've never gotten anything out of one of these little heat stations before. And the lady was asking if I wanted it heated up. I realized after I said no, she gestured toward the microwave, but I was like just thinking in the moment or not thinking because I know that's fine. But yeah, they were extremely lukewarm. And I mean, that's that's bacteria 101. You want things to be below a certain temperature or above a certain temperature. My brief time in the restaurant industry, the middle ground is the danger zone. You do not want that. And I'm like, oh, I wonder how long those have been sitting there. I probably shouldn't eat in the middle. As I was eating them, you can just kind of taste that taste of, it was the grease or the oil on them in specific that I'm like, hmm, I've only had bad food poisoning one time in Toronto, but it was horrible. And it was evident when I think back because I got a ham and cheese wrap. At three in the morning that tasted like tuna, and I convinced myself I must have got a tuna one by accident, but it was because it was fucking off and I made myself crazy sick. This was not remotely like that. I think I'll be fine, but I do have a feeling there's a good chance in my travels to my new Airbnb tomorrow. I don't know. I feel like there might be some diarrhea in my future. I hope not. I hope this goes nowhere, but I got a bad feeling about it. It's like I kind of fucked up there. Oh, there we go. Third podcast downloaded. Good to go. Good to go. Wi-Fi from the drink machine. Fucking awesome. I forgot all about that. So anyway, it's probably going to be fine, but I figured I wasn't going to fire up the podcast again to talk about my worry that I'm going to have diarrhea tomorrow. I was going to just talk about the Wi-Fi from the drink machine. But then I figured while we're here, let's not leave that little detail out. Maybe it'll lead to a hilarious story. Tomorrow. I sure fucking hope not. Man, yeah, there really is like the sun going down. I've said this before already on this podcast, but that's the time of the day. I feel weird. Either I feel sluggish or like I'm tired. Today, I just felt like it's amazing how much it's psychologically and physically affects me. I was like, you know, I actually feel kind of lonely. I kindly just got here. I'm going to be here for a long time. I'm all by myself. I don't know anybody. You know, but it's just the craziest thing that once the sun goes down and it's fully established that now we're in dark world, I just don't feel like that anymore. Now I feel fine.