#15 Hiking from Shibuya to Itabashi

Transcript

Hmm, test, test, test. How bad is this? This is pretty bad. I was thinking I would not record a podcast while I'm walking today because I've got my book bag in wheel mode because I'm going between Airbnb's. So I don't like the wheel sound. That's generally annoying. However, I'm on a, how many lanes have we got here? One, two, three, oh, only six. A six lane highway that I'm walking down. So that drowns out the wheel noise a little bit. Not really though, I can still hear it. I don't know, my thinking was I would take breaks and stop once in a while and maybe go somewhere quieter and record updates. But now that I'm on this street, I can't figure out the name of the street, unfortunately. It's not in English, but I think I can still situate you to let you know where I am. This is it. This is the street. This is the one I'm just going to walk down for the whole day. So I think this is just going to be a noisy episode. I mean, a lot of the episodes are noisy. That's not new. It's the only problem with outdoor podcasting. This kind of field recording type podcasting is it's a shame about the noise. But what if, actually, I got another idea. Instead of me sort of holding this recorder like I usually do and just talking loud, maybe I'll experiment today with holding the recorder really close to my mouth and talking more quietly. My natural inclination is to yell against the noise, but I'm going to try that. Let's try it out and see how it goes. All right, I got this thing. Well, that's that's really close. How does that sound? Does that feel like it might blow out the mic? Let me turn down. Let me turn down the sensitivity on this bad boy. All right, test, test, test. Let me see. I usually have this set to like an eight. Now I got it set to a five. Let me listen back to this and see how it sounds.

All right, this seems okay. Let's give it a shot. I mean, yeah, I think maybe this will revolutionize my recording in loud environments a little bit, which I thought of this earlier. When I was in Quebec, yeah, this doesn't seem so bad. I mean, I got this mic right in my mouth, though. So we'll see, but I mean, this seems pretty good. I think this is going to work. Nice. So yeah, today is the day that I'm going from my Airbnb sort of near Shinjuku to my Airbnb in Itabashi. And it's always kind of exciting these days when you're switching between Airbnb's. You just leave your life behind. You pack up all your stuff and you just fucking take off and you never have to go back and you just go on to the next place. I guess that's a good indicator of if you enjoy this weird Airbnb travel life is if you like that feeling. The way I kind of like getting lost and just wandering around, one of my friends told me like he's like, I hate that. That's one of my least favorite feelings. So I imagine this might be a thing too. Maybe you don't like the idea of just, you know, like I leave that place behind and I can't even go to the new place until after three o'clock. I'm just an indigent person in the middle, but I think it's just it feels good. I just like leaving behind whatever is going on. You're not beholden to a property. You don't have to deal with whatever's going on there. Whether it was good or whether it was bad, either way, you just move on to the next thing. And in this case, it was kind of bad. I didn't love it. But I figured surely today is the day that I'll have to get on the subway. I haven't taken a subway ride since the first night when I came in from the airport. So I think in maybe I had that thought of Sunshine City in Ikebukaro, the Tully's coffee in there. I could just sit down and it's my laptop and do some stuff for the afternoon. But again, that's just assuming that a store from four years ago is still even open and still even there. And then I started looking at it on the map. I was like, how far is this shit? Because the whole reason I got this place was because the first Airbnb I ever got in Japan was in Naka, Itabashi. That's four stops from Ikebukaro. So that still always kind of feels in a weird way like my home neighborhood just because it was the first place that I lived for like 40 days. And I thought my Airbnb was an hour walk past that, but it's only half an hour. It's not that far. And the whole thing, if I was to walk it, is 16 kilometers. And I've been experimenting with 5:00 distances trying to internalize what they mean lately. And that's thinking like that's not so crazy. That's pretty normal. I've had a bunch of days where I've walked that far. If you count how far I walked and then had to walk back a couple of days, I went further than that. So it's like four hours, a little under four. But yeah, I mean, that's what I've been doing every day. Anyways, just walking around. And this is the added bonus of I don't have to go back. I just walk from one place to the other place. And that's the day. And that's kind of like my dream. I remember I was talking to my friend Brad about how, if I just, if money was no object, my favorite thing would be to get two Airbnb's in Tokyo, one on either end. You know, one east of the Samita River somewhere for the Arakawa River and one way out west. And I could just travel back and forth between them and just ramble my way across Tokyo back and forth each day. So I'd only be at each one each second day. That would be so cool because having to go back is the awkward part of a journey.

So I was thinking today I could do that. I mean, I got to do something all afternoon, even if I went and did the, uh, sitting at the Tully's thing realistically. I'm going to sit there for like an hour. It's probably as long as I can sit in the coffee shop before my poor body starts to hurt.

So I figured, fuck it, let's do it. I mean, I can bail out if I have to. It's only I love about hiking. I'll speak kind of hiking. So I was saying how I was watching hiking stuff on YouTube. And I liked this term somebody mentioned of type one fun and type two fun. And type one fun is just fun. Whatever that is, whatever people consider fun. I don't know, maybe you're being showered and gold de bloons and you have a nice umbrella so they don't hurt you. Whatever. It's just fun in the moment. And type two fun is the stuff that's not actually that fun. Necessarily, you know, a tough hike and rough conditions. But you know, it'll be fun later. Later on, you'll be glad you did it. Later on, you'll feel good that you did it. That's type two fun. So I was like, well, you know, yeah, this is a pretty nuts walk all the way across Tokyo. But I've done walks like this before I walked from UK Booker O to the Skytree and back. And that was fucking insane. But that's one of my more enduring memories. And yeah, in this case, again, I don't even have to go back. I just have to go. The main downside is since it's Airbnb transfer day, I've got all of my stuff. Including just because my bag is so packed full of things, I'm also wearing two pairs of jeans. I'm wearing both my jeans because that's the only good way for me to transport both my pairs of jeans. And I didn't check the temperature before I left, but this has got to be the hottest day yet. It's got to be over 20 degrees. It is so hot. I had to wear one of my hoodies like a shawl just to protect my neck so I don't get sunburned on my poor little skin.

Geez, this isn't even so bad, really. I guess the noise comes and goes, but even if I wasn't recording it sort of reduced sensitivity, I still feel like this noise is not that bad. But yeah, that's where this is like hiking, but it's like level, I mean, whatever the easiest most beginner hike is, hiking through a city is way easier than that. Like what if you're just not ready to hike at all, as I'm not. There's no shame in that. You got to start somewhere, you know, to build up your abilities, to build up your strength. If you push yourself too hard, right away, you'll just fail, you'll just collapse, you'll hurt yourself. So this is still kind of like hiking. It's like I'm hiking all afternoon, except it's flat ground. I don't have to carry this bag, I just have to put it on its wheels, which is gonna get me eventually. By the end of the day, my shoulders are gonna hurt, but not like carrying it. Rolling it at full weight is still not remotely as bad as carrying it with just a book bag and some stuff in it. That was just lifting the thing physically is the worst. I can't believe I wore this thing for that whole podcast that I was walking from the airport in Montreal. I was like 90 minutes I had this thing on. That's fucking crazy. 10:00 But right now I'm feeling good. I think taking two days off from hiking around with a book bag, maybe my muscles finally are bouncing back a little. I feel pretty decent.

But yeah, not only can I roll the bag the whole time, I can bail out anytime. There's still subways everywhere. If something goes horribly wrong, I don't have to stick with this. So yeah, all this stuff you could never do, even on the easiest hike. You can't roll a bag in the woods. You can't bail out. But here you can. So I don't know, I guess if if hiking was one to ten, one being easy, ten being hard, this isn't even level zero, this is level minus one, this is so easy. But that's fine, I'll take it. And I found pretty quickly. I don't know, by the time I was the fifth of the way, maybe. It wasn't even seeming like type two fun, even though the sun was beating down on me and it's trying not to get burned and whatever. You just kind of get into the flow of it. It's like, yeah, this is all right. And then where it really turned around, that's where I don't know what the highway is called that I'm on. But I got to this place called Opera City. It's kind of like a mall, but it has theaters and oh, there's a shrine. Of course, why wouldn't there be? Why wouldn't there be a shrine by the six lane highway? This country is so weird and awesome. This shrine has like dog statues.

The shrine next to the 7-Eleven, next to the mega highway. Why not? The Opera City was weird. It had a theater and it had rehearsal rooms and all this stuff. And some shops, I was thinking I should just hang out there for a bit. Maybe get something to eat, but the mall part of the mall was pretty scanned because that's the other thing I noticed is I was feeling real hungry earlier. Now it's somewhere between noon and one. I was feeling real hungry and my mind was coated with images of ramen or really extravagant nonsense like the custard cream puffs or the chocolate it clears from the convenience stores. All this shit. But you just keep walking for half an hour and now I don't feel hungry anymore. And I think that's good. I think it's good that I try to make this journey on an empty stomach. So let's rewind and I'll tell you why, but if you heard last episode, which for me was yesterday, pretty much the harbinger of doom I put right at the end of the episode. Where last night I went to a Lawson's and there were these like little chicken ball things, little chicken carage, deep fried chicken balls. I got some at noon and I was like wow those are great.

And then at about 6 p.m. I was at a different Lawson's and I saw them again but they were in a different part of the store. They were up at the front in like a heat lamp area. But I've never gotten anything out of there before and it turns out it's not really a heat lamp. It's a very mild warming lamp and because I'm in a literate fool when the lady asked if I wanted to have them heated up in the microwave. I thought she was asking if I wanted a plastic bag and I was like no I'm good. So she gave me these very lukewarm chicken balls that had been sitting there all afternoon and that is the danger zone. For bacteria you want things to be hot or you want them to be cold. This is a neat thing I learned my brief time in the restaurant industry where I was mainly a dishwasher. They started moving me up to prep cook and that was supposed to be a step up and I realized how much I hated it and I was like I got to get out of here. I thought maybe if I just toughed it out through the dishwasher and I'd get to something I liked better but I liked it maybe less. Because at least dish washing was miserable as that was at least I could just my own business. But one of the things they did at this restaurant because they have to make great big huge amounts of stuff is when you make a great big vat of soup and you want to chill it you know put it in the fridge. I just thought this was an interesting thing. If you just put it in the fridge it's going to stay hot in the middle for hours and hours and hours the outside of it will get cold but you just won't get to the inside. So what they had were you know like ice packs that you put in the freezer and then you take them out and put them on your sore muscles or whatever they had like an ore like a big giant stir stick that was an ice pack and they would use that to stir the soup so that it would cool down throughout the soup in the middle. 15:00 And I was like wow that's so neat you know it's all a pretty obvious operation when you know about it but I would never have guessed it just wouldn't never cross your mind if you're not part of that part of that little world. Oh yeah the other thing that makes this like hiking before you get back to the Karage story is I had the sun beaten down on me when I was in the quieter parts of town with the smaller buildings. Once I got to this major street the one that opera city is on the buildings have shaped so I don't have to worry as much about getting sunburns so it's like going into the trees but it's buildings and also the sidewalks are really wide and the number of bicycles is reduced by like 90 percent. So oh and I saw a highway sign that said Itabashi that's what I knew I was you know about a fifth of the way when I saw this but that's when I knew like awesome like when the highway signs start pointing you to where you're going you're good you can just follow those. I might not even need the map and in fact I believe this is going to take me too oh yeah my road and Naka Itabashi I'm my way my old neighborhood.

Yeah this is a pretty delightful I'm pretty delightful little walk. Yeah this couldn't have come at a better time I was very ready to get out of that Airbnb and pretty ready to get out of that neighborhood too because even this yeah like I like this better even though this is technically a bigger crazier neighborhood with all the businessy stuff going on in huge buildings it feels calmer because there's giant wide sidewalks next to the super street.

Everything's not as packed in.

But anyway, I ate these lukewarm chicken balls and it wasn't until I was like 75% of the way through them that I started getting this feeling, you know, just the, uh, when you can taste the grease they were cooked in. Because, you know, if it's like all hot, you wouldn't really notice. When it's a little cold and you can taste the flavor of the grease and it's like this is not good. This is not good. I shouldn't have done this.

They were almost done, so I just ate them like whatever. Here's open. So then this morning I woke up nice and early. I got up an hour earlier than I was gonna, like two hours before I had to get out of this Airbnb. And that was nice. Everyone else was still asleep. I'm glad I got up extra early because it's just, I just love when I've got time and you can just take your time. So I just took my time getting all my stuff ready. Nobody else was around in the Airbnb. And then, this is pretty dumb, but they have a little lost and found saying of just stuff other people left. And there was this bag of this stuff called blendy that had been there for a couple of days. So it's like, okay, whoever left those is not coming back for them. They're like little, uh, like little creamer containers, but they have coffee in them. And I was looking at the package trying to figure out. I assumed maybe the coffee stuff was sweet because, uh, 7-11 in North America used to have that. I don't know if they still do. But they had these little like flavored espresso creamers. So on top of your flavored cream that you would put in your coffee, you can get extra caffeine as well. I don't know if they still do that. It's pretty insane. I thought these were like that. And because of the beauty of Japan, there are two drink machines right outside the building that I was in. So it's so cool. You can just just go right outside your door and just get whatever you want from the machine. So I was just going to get one little can of coffee just to fuel me as I packed all my stuff up.

But since there were these blendy things that I assumed were sweet, I got a black coffee. And then I went into the little kitchen, which I hadn't really used at all at this Airbnb. But now it's like, I'm here all alone. I get to use this stuff even before I go. But it turns out the blendies are just black espresso, whatever. Black coffee inside black coffee. So instead I went back out. Got one of the mega sweet coffees and just mixed all of this stuff together. Sweet coffee, black coffee and like five of these little blendy coffee shots. And it was good. It was a good mix. Heasted very nice. But I know it was just it was so much coffee. You know, one little can would have been good. That would have been fine. This was so much more than that. And I was remember thinking to myself, like, you don't have to do this. You can just you can dump it out. You don't have to drink this. But I did. I'm always just like, oh, just do this dumb thing and just hope that it all works out. And I mean, to be honest, that part so far has been fine. I had a bit of my head felt a little weird little fuzzy about an hour after drinking all that stuff. At this point though, I think I got away with that one. 20:00 But I am one of these people that coffee and caffeine definitely triggers everything to move in my body. But I didn't feel bad. Like I didn't feel any rumbles in my gut. I felt completely fine. You know, sometimes like I was afraid that these carage chicken balls would give me like, like when you've got a diarrhea situation and just any little time you move, you feel the shift in your gut, you feel the gurgle.

I didn't feel any that. I felt fine. But just as I had all my stuff ready, and I was about to go. I got hit with like, boom, what my two-year-old niece would call poop soup. It was pretty bad.

And for a moment, I was like, oh, come on, I was just about to leave. But then the backup thought hit me of like, hey, don't complain. Be glad to hit you right now. What if this happened 20 minutes from now? Be glad that this happened right before he left. But it was like, geez, yeah, not good. But that was hours ago. And everything's been okay since.

So I think, you know, beyond the best possible scenario of just completely getting away with, I mean, it was like that episode of Futurama where Fry eats the sandwich from the intergalactic gas station and gets really sick. That's basically what I did. Beyond somehow that just not affecting me at all. I think I got away with it as well as possible. I mean, I guess we'll see where things go. But I mean, I had this one just bad like, what would have been a bad situation if I didn't have a toilet right there. But I did. And I think maybe that was it. Famous last words. I really can't complain. Not too bad.

But now I've just got to modulate myself. You know, I've definitely got at least, I'm going to say probably three more hours to go because I'm also walking really slow. So I don't mess up my shoulders too bad. And I'm rolling this bag behind me. And also what's the hurry? Because there's no benefit to getting there too early. I can't even get into the place. So I'm trying to walk slow.

Not a lot of public restrooms necessarily on this route. But there are convenience stores. And, you know, they're generally pretty good. So I just got to balance out.

You know, I don't want to let myself get all dehydrated. But I don't want to overdo it either. So I made myself a little game. Oh, no, I guess this isn't going to happen. I haven't had melon soda yet. So my little game was going to be don't get anything to drink till you find a machine with melon soda. And eventually I was getting way too thirsty. So I did get one of the little vitamin C drinks. Because I figured, hey, that can't hurt, right? And they're really good because they're really small. They're just packed full of vitamin C. And it's like this powerful blast of lemon. Just like, boom. So I do get one of those. And I was just passing the machine that's got two, two calpists melon sodas that are both sold out. So not yet. Keep on, keep on rolling.

So yeah, that's today's adventure. Weaving through the back streets, getting sunburned to death. But now that I'm on this major street, this is actually like great. I love this street. This is the ultimate street to have your book bag in wheel mode. I mean, it's so big. I can just weave around between people. I'm not getting in anyone's way. And yeah, it's my plan just to walk. Just to walk all the live long day. And I probably won't get anything proper to eat till I get to the other end. But I guess we'll see. Because yeah, like I said, not just level easy hiking level double easy.

I'm walking past a subway station right now. I guess I'll say what the subway station is. That's a good way to tell where the heck I am. Yeah, I could hop on one of these subways at any time. There's convenience stores the whole time anytime. It's not even type two fun. This is type one fun. This fucking great. Just beautiful sunny day. Walking clear across fucking Tokyo. Well, not really. Tokyo is so big. This is still this four hour walk is still like nothing.

Higashi Nakano station, the Toei subway line, E31. So yeah, there was potential danger on the horizon. And you never know there could still be. But I'm feeling pretty confident. I think this is going to go just fine.

Oh, and actually I just checked on a map. I think I'm I'm like halfway almost halfway. Not bad, man. Not fucking bad. I might actually get there before three o'clock. I might get there too early. Probably not. But that's good. I don't want to get there early. This is all working out.

Well, here's a little whiplash effect. I still got the sensitivity turned down. Gotta put my face right in this thing. Here's a little whiplash effect that just happened is I didn't make it the whole way without eating, although I now realize I easily could have. I stopped at a family mart. And I do think this is a legitimate problem. I need to work on how I was talking about, you know, the large bottles in the small bottles, at least I'm starting to get the small bottles.

Every meal doesn't need to be a gigantic thing. I guess I kind of developed this habit because, I don't know, I heard something about in tribal days or whatever. The idea of the one meal day that you spend the early part of the day, you know, you want to stay hungry because it keeps you alert. Say you're in a tribe, tribal life. If you want to stay alert, you want to be mentally focused on either gathering or hunting. And you just eat tiny little bits maybe, but then you have one big meal for the day. And I started experimenting with that and I didn't hate it. You know, I could basically eat one big meal a day. I can get away with that. But the one big meal can be kind of debilitating, you know, especially just with my body the way it works, my tiny little stomach. So I could have just got, you know, a bowl of ramen. That was the plan. But I had to do the whole thing. I had to get a chicken breast and I had to get the boiled eggs. And I got like a little yogurt drink. So I spent $11, you know, and I could have spent three bucks and just got still a fancy pants ramen.

And I ate all that stuff. And I guess just because I was still mildly worried about the state of my belly today. And I felt like I was not close. I felt like I still had a lot of this journey to go. The direct sunlight. You know, how I was saying the big buildings were like being in the trees. But there's not big buildings the whole way. This is an extremely long walk. So they would come and go. And yeah, the heat was definitely beating me down some and I ate all this stuff. And I was like, why do I do that? This day of all days, you know, especially in the land of, you know, you pass a convenience store every 10 minutes in a bad situation. So every two minutes normally, there's just no need for me to have just done that. Why did I put all that stuff in my belly? So I was like, God, geez. Why am I setting myself up all the time for this? It reminds me of in Mr. Show with Bob and David. They had a joke like an ant acid commercial. And the way they described it is, you know, that the way North Americans eat, it's like we're a baby with money. You know, no self control just cramming our faces with ultra rich food with no sense of what's going to happen by doing this. And that's me to a tee. That's what I'm doing. And it's like, what is wrong with you? But anyway, it wasn't that bad. Once I shook that off and it settled in my belly a bit, I'm like, okay, it's not that bad. But I still shouldn't have done that. Like why? Why do that? Oh, what's cool is right after that, I'm walking along this street, which I saw the name earlier, but I forgot to, to mark it down.

But the street has a ramp that goes up and that becomes like an above ground highway. There's the normal highway. And then above it, I think there might be two lanes. It's huge. It's this like crazy big like in the sky thing. And I realized like, oh, that's this Naka Itabashi place where I stayed when I first got here. And I was there for the first 40 days in 2019 when I first visited. So I just walked that neighborhood over and over and over for over a month. It was kind of one of my favorite things is that it's generally a pretty quiet neighborhood. And I would walk down this river, which at the time I didn't know the name of, but I looked it up. It is the Shakuji River, S-H-A-K-U-J-I-I.

And it was this awesome little just yet again, one of those similar to the one I was at before the Maguro River, except even smaller, but a very similar thing. There's like walkway paths on either side of it, and then occasionally you could cross over. But there'd always be a point. 30:00 It was like this part where there were old men who would fish in this one part. And there's a little squat toilet that I think I never used. I just, you know, peed. I don't think I ever had to squat in there. But it went from just the most, you know, again, I was very new to Japan at all. I'm like, man, all these old guys that are just fishing in the super, that might have been the first squat toilet I ever saw. And it's like, wow, this is so cool. This is the, like, just very traditional feeling part of Tokyo, you know? Very Japanese feeling. And then right next to it is this giant overpass. But then I would just cross under the overpass and just keep going. I didn't often walk along it, like I am right now. But I realized, oh, that's it. Here we go. This street is Yamate Dori Avenue. Y-A-M-A-T-E-D-O-R-I Avenue. And you just have the scale of things is just so different. We're in a car. This is probably not even that big of a journey. This whole walk that I did. So, of course, this, you know, crazy super street goes all the way from here to Shinjuku. I wouldn't it.

But I had no concept of that on foot of, like, where do these things actually go? You know? They're just little moments that I passed by on foot.

So I saw this thing, and I'm like, jeez, just like that, like just unexpectedly. I'm there. I'm back in the old neighborhood essentially, because all the stuff I've done so far has been very reminiscent of the first time I visited Japan. A lot of similarities, a lot of, you know, here is A River. Here's a bunch of convenience stores. Here's a bunch of public parks, like it's all very similar, but it's not quite the place. It's not quite the place that really you know, I've been kind of daydreaming of coming back to. Just all sneakily, this is the place. Oh shit, that's it. So I'm walking along under this overpass, and I know that river is coming up soon, and I can walk along it to Naka Itabashi, but then it turns and goes the wrong way away from where my Airbnb is. But that's good, because I know exactly where it turns, you know, so I'm going to do the little walk, the same old walk that I did so many times before. I keep talking about that, oh yeah, I'm a road place. I mean, it's no big deal that I miss that. I will go to it eventually, but it's just a shopping street. Again, I've been on other shopping streets while I've been here. They're just not that one. You know, and the only reason these are really relevant or notable to me is just because they're the first places that I went. But yeah, even though I'm not at the Airbnb yet, I've got, I mean, probably, probably less than an hour, but let's say an hour. But I'm a lot closer than I realized because the next stretch of this journey is the whole reason I got this Airbnb in the first place. So I'd be near these places, and I could come back to these places for a little bit. But anyway, I thought that was cool. I thought I'd bring that up. That I'm still not technically recognizing stuff, but it's going to come any moment now. So so close. And I've got some harder info about a notice on my little Airbnb listings while I was checking out of the old one and making sure I had the info for the new one. I do have some actual hard info about their both six days days. So it's interesting to compare and contrast how much each one costs because this one I'm going to is so much better since it's essentially a whole apartment to myself. But it's out here in a obscure area. Whereas the one I left was a tiny little cubby hole, but was in a much more famous area.

It's just handy since they're both the same number of days we can compare and contrast the prices. But let's do that later when I'm not by the big mass of highway.

All right. I'm right outside the old Airbnb. I used to stay at just moving along now while I talk to myself. What a mysterious place because it still looks, it looks immaculate. It looks super brand new. It looks way better than everything else around it. I'll kind of get in a bit to this neighborhood. A bit such a fancy pants looking building.

Oh yeah, the wheels. Maybe I should put this thing on my back. I'm almost there anyway.

They had the second floor where I stayed. The window was open so I could see that there was just just stuff stacked up in there. It's weird. It's like they just shut the thing down, I guess, with COVID and they just never opened it back up again.

Man, though, in my very first episode where I was talking about when I first came to Japan and I was sick. I'm walking across that little bridge. There's the 7-11. The first 7-11 I went into where I got the cough drops.

So yeah, turning the corner was that exact thing I was saying, the little fishing area that nobody was fishing right now. And the little squat toilet and this whole neighborhood is so much more, like you can tell, I couldn't tell I guess at the time it didn't occur to me, but comparing them back to back, this area is so much less affluent, I guess I would say. The buildings are so much more weathered. And you can just tell there's way less money flowing through here. And this makes sense why I was saying I felt so much more comfortable when I moved away from Shibuya, and even away from Sanginjaya. And as I got further away, the more comfortable I felt. Because this does feel pretty different.

So this last week has been kind of weird now in hindsight, where everything is similar. I'm like, hey, yeah, I'm back in Japan. But it wasn't quite right because it was just different. Like I looked up Sanginjaya briefly just to see about the origin of the name and stuff because it's just I'd never heard of it. And it seemed like such an odd name. And I found out it means three T houses and they were saying how, you know, very desirable neighborhood amongst Japanese people and people who move to Japan alike. And, you know, within easily access to blah, blah, blah, all the stuff you might want. And now I'm seeing that, yeah, that's not quite right. That's not how Japan was in my mind, really. Everything was a little bit wrong, you know, so close, but it wasn't quite right. Where this area where everything is just calmer and quieter, there's a lot more old people. Old people and kids, you know, it's definitely not where where the movers and the shakers move, you know, where the young up and coming professionals live, you know. And yeah, if I could have, I mean, I would have just done a repeat of last time. All right, it just was here for like 40 days, maybe 40 days is a little much. But it's weird, like I just couldn't find places that were affordable around here. There were some other places near where I stayed before, but they are really expensive, like $50 a night, like obviously for a very short visit.

And the reviews are impactable. I'm sure they're very nice places. But yeah, the whole reason I was here initially was because it was cheap. And then it got its hooks into me and I'm like, yeah, that's my favorite. But it would seem really weird to spend a bunch of money to come back here. And even this place that I found, it's not the worst deal, it's still a little bit expensive. And it's about half an hour away from the neighborhood proper. But even that is only available for six days, just a tiny little bit. And it was booked up after that. So I'll take it, you know, as I get a little taste.

But yeah, I realized, again, just one of these things that didn't occur to me at all till, till just now, till just the moment it hit me.

As you know, I got into Japan and I had that crazy trip from the airport where everything was all nuts. And then for the last nearly a week, I've just been exploring around the Sengenjaya area. And it's been cool. But I didn't realize till I got back into this neighborhood that it's like I hadn't quite gotten back to Japan yet, you know? I was in a very close approximation of it. But I guess the thing is because I visited here right before COVID, and then I've just been in my hometown for the last four years.

And Japan is just such a unique place and was such a unique experience to come visit here, that it stuck in my mind so clearly, that I've been basically daydreaming about it for four years, you know? Like if I have a hard time falling asleep, one of the things I'll do is just walk through an old neighborhood if somewhere I used to live, and just kind of walk through it as well as I can, try to remember as well as I can. And this stretch from Nakahitabashi to Oji station, 40:00 I did that all the time. So it kind of took on the feeling of like a dream to me, and not just that stretch, but out of Fukuoka, and then out by Akikawa station, all these other places that I'll be going eventually, it's all like, you know, it was obviously real stuff, it all really happened, but it felt like a dream, I guess, because I would just, I mean, I say daydream, but not so much daydream, it really was more at night, just trying to fall asleep. I mean, just over and over, I've been thinking about these places. So it was a really crazy feeling to turn that corner and start walking down that river, and again, it's similar to the Magoru River, but that was, you know, all that stuff was like little remixes of, or facsimiles of my memories. This is the real place.

And I mean, I don't know, it's like I had a little moment where it's like, man, I think I'm getting a little choked up here. What a crazy feeling. I'm inside that dream, that weird dream that I kept having over the past four years, because it wasn't a dream at all, it's a real place.

And maybe there's a bit of irony that it's not special, you know, it's not a fancy Japanese neighborhood. But for me, it was like crazy, because those times that I'd be laying in bed, you know, walking down the river in my memory, and like, okay, then this part would happen, and then this part, and then the big overpass, and then this, and then this. It's still just like, you know, the major beats, the vague memories, where turning that corner and being back on that route, suddenly it's perfect. Every detail is perfect because it's right there. This is the real place. Every detail is exactly right. See, I feel like this is like, I don't have a term for it, but it's like inverse tourism or something. It was really cool to see Japan, and like, oh, look at all these places I'm seeing, I've never been before. Cool. And it's neat to stumble upon a landmark or see some of the sights or whatever, but the stuff I really wanted to see was just this random ass neighborhood. This is it. But who knows, maybe it'll, it's like waves on the beach, right? Like, maybe now all that stuff that I saw for the past week. Maybe that'll be the stuff next time. Where I'll be like, oh, there's that shrine again. There's that weird bridge or whatever. There it is. I'm seeing it again. Maybe this neighborhood will wire off by that, but for now, holy man. I mean, it's probably, I guess we'll see. Like, they probably saved me from myself that I couldn't just book 40 days in this neighborhood again. Probably, being here for six days is probably plenty. Get to Soki back in, get to just bathe in the nostalgia of my 2019 visit, and then move on and then go somewhere else. But for now, holy fuck, it feels real good, man.

I've really am back in Japan now.

All right, this has been a long walk, and I ain't there yet. I've got another 20 minutes, so I'm going to take this pack off my back, get back to Roland.

Here we go. Since I'll be walking this route from my Airbnb back to the old Airbnb to relive some of my old adventures. Here's a 7-Eleven on the route. Maybe this is also why, beyond just my North American memories of 7-Eleven. Maybe that's another reason my 7-Eleven is the convenient store chain. I kind of tend to ward here because there just happens to be a bunch out here.

This is not a Lawson's neighborhood.

Thank you for joining me on this silly long walk. I made it. I still have not gotten back on this subway. You believe that shit? Ridiculous. I'm going to have to for the next Airbnb when I go to Akigawa Station because it is 54 kilometers away. Again, I can't tell how long that would take to walk because I don't have an internet connection right now. At that point, there'll be no choice, but I got a feeling while I'm here in this neighborhood. I think I'm staying on foot.