#203 Being back in Japan is really cool

Transcript

So even though Noir Hiko's place is really close to Chiba Station, it is a little tricky to get there. I guess I was only here for like four or five days before. I sort of kind of remember stuff. There's like this spiral. I guess it's just like a parking lot, parking garage thing. It really makes me think of like Vice City the old Grand Theft Auto game. Drive up this spiral thing.

Yeah, like this underpass. All right. Yeah, and there's like a long mall in here. If you go inside, you can just walk and walk and walk. And I remember I went to a coffee shop around here somewhere. And I was like, oh, this is great. There's a bunch of places to sit. And then the trains, I realized, oh, the trains do go by though and rattle your bones. Oh, yeah, okay. There's the McDonald's. I remember Noir Hiko took me to a fancy sushi place last time, and it was right around the corner from the McDonald's. So even this, like I know I'm by the station, but I don't quite know how to enter it. Anyway, whatever, I'll figure it out.

Yeah, this is nice because when I was in Japan last year for the beginning of this podcast, I fell into a routine where I pretty much woke up at about 9 a.m. pretty much every day, which for me, that's early. You know, and it was a good thing because I have a little bit of a hard time falling asleep. So, you know, kind of burning the candle at both ends a bit. But it was important to get up early because it gets dark so soon. And I was really chalking it up to fall and winter time. But then I realized, like, oh, yeah, I'm just in a different spot in the world. I'm just closer to the equator. It gets dark pretty early all year compared to Canada, where it's a wild shift. None of this, like, staying up till nine at night, and it's still light out that just doesn't happen around here. But especially not this time of year, we're in stark by like five, five, thirty or whatever. So that's been happening again so far. I mean, I'm only just back, but I've just been waking up, just wake up around nine o'clock, and it's like, eh, good enough. Let's try to keep this going.

Yeah, here's the place. It's called Sugidama S-U-G-I-D-A-M-A. Right around the corner from the Old McDonald's by a cheapest station. Across from a big echo, karaoke and entertainment. But yeah, things really went to hell literally the day. The day I left Japan and got to Seoul and right away, I was just like, you know what? I don't know whatever, fuck the world. I stayed up till like six a.m. that day, and then ever since for the next nine months, I just woke up whenever. Wake up at 10 in the morning, that's cool. Wake up at three p.m. That's cool. So we'll see if I can maintain a reasonable schedule in Japan, but it happened pretty automatically last time. And I think it might again this time because there is just that energy, that little excitement in my body that just all I did is like, I just, I was gonna say when I left the house, but even when I was still in the house, just walking around Norahiko's house. I was like, oh yeah, maybe I should just do a little house tour describe this house, but, you know, it's so quiet in there and him and his wife live upstairs. I think there's actually somebody in the other room, the room I had last time for the weekend. So I just didn't want to make noise, but it's just cool. So my room, it's a four tatami room, which is very small, but totally fine for me. That's all the space I need. And then the communal area of his house is really cool because it's got like, like a table, but with a recessed floor, so you sit around the table, the really low table, but it does have like a, a part that your feet can go in. So it's more like a traditional chair, because that's maybe the only downside to my little four tatami room, because I just have like a really low table that I just got to, you know, sit on a mat, sit on the floor. And that just don't work for me, brother. That would have worked fine when I was younger, but now that I have a bad knee and a cyst that builds up when my leg is bent, it's hard to sit on the floor for extended periods. But there's the little communal area that I could go hang out in, and he's just got little stuff all up from him. He was a big traveler in his younger days, a lot of Spanish stuff, decorated around his house, and of course a little, a little Buddhism place as well, just a nice little house. It is quite small though, and it really has no kitchen. The traditional like, you know, you can't cook a turkey dinner in a Japanese home, that type of thing. Here we go, Chiba Station, nice. Because yeah, it is basically just like, I think there is a tiny little burner, I've never used a little microwave, a little tiny sink, like it's the tiniest little kitchen area. 5:00 Like it would seem small for like a campsite in North America, and this is just for the house. And I'm quite sure there's not more upstairs, I think I've never seen upstairs. But it's a pretty small house, so I'm sure there's just bedrooms up there.

Again, fine for me, but it is kind of surprising sometimes to see like somebody's for real house, and it's like, yeah, they're not kidding in Japan. They are not into big kitchens, but it's a super nice little house, and just really super well maintained, and everything is so pretty. So even just going through his house just feels good, and then I left the house and outside. It's just, it's a little hard to put my finger on, but I remember I was saying toward the end in Taiwan. And it's true that South Korea and Taiwan sort of diffused my love of Japan a bit of like, oh, yeah, okay. All the focus doesn't need to be on Japan, there's other places you could go, there's other stuff you could do, there's other experiences you could have that are very nice. Ah, here we are, everyone's standing on the left on the escalators. Cheba style. I come out and ever notice that last time. But yeah, I was even saying like all these YouTube vloggers and stuff that have been doing Japan videos for 10 years. It's like, hmm, it's funny they haven't branched out some, but now that I'm back in Japan, I do, it does feel different in Japan. Like Japan is just always going to be my favorite. And I think it's, I mean, it's hard again, like I said, to put my finger on it, it could just be like I'm piecing together or learning little things about South Korean culture or Taiwanese culture. I'm learning what I can. But with Japan, even though what I know about Japan is surface level and is just anime and is just video game based, it's all just pop culture stuff. But that stuff's been seeping into me, not seeping into me, that's just been blasted straight into my eyes since I was a tiny little kid since before I knew that stuff was even from Japan.

And that just can't help but inform how you feel about a place. It just can't help to get in you.

Okay, here I am at the central gate.

Now I got to figure out where am I going here. I want the Sobu line. Well, let's take a moment. I'll go through the gate. Now I'm done yammering. Let's just walk around to this con course. I'm going to get the upstairs con course now. Just look out over Chiba. Another fairly gray overcast day.

But not raining. Still though, where are my coat? Where are my jacket? It feels crazy to just wear a jacket and it's like, wow, this is fine. This is not like, I really just went, I mean, obviously I'm farther north now as well than I was in Taiwan. But man, things went from just, I literally melting every single day till I go. This is just nice fall weather. It just snapped so fast.

I'm looking out over the Chiba train tracks. I'm on a rail line. Nice view of overlapping buildings and trains. And even that, yeah, it just feels cool. Just this view feels cool. And just walking down the little street in Noriko's neighborhood felt cool. And I decided I should go break one of my 10,000 yen bills, one of my $100 bills. Because if I do go to a, he's a kaya later on with Noriko and his friends, like I did last time, they wouldn't let me pay last time because I was the guest. But now I'm hoping our, maybe our friendship is progressed enough to let me pay this time. So I need a change. I need bills. And there's some of the coffee machines that don't take sweeter cards. A lot of them don't. So just to have a little bit of change, you know, whatever. So I just went to a family mart and I just bought a little bit. I always buy a bit excessive amounts of stuff. I'm going to break the hundred. So I just bought a bunch of crap.

I had a some kind of pork and mayo onigiri and a little pickled plum. I'm really getting into the sour plum onigiri. I do love those. I got one of the vitamin C drinks because I think this little tickle in my throat is already passing. But you know, hey, let's blast it with some vitamins. Can't hurt. I had a little strawberry and cream mochi thing. Got an unsweetened coffee. Just sat there. I'm not remembering. I'm looked out the window and... And yeah, I mean, I take back, I guess, what I said about, like, oh, I'm surprised how people just focus so much on Japan. I take it back and I don't. I mean, I do think those other countries are super great and I love them and they're awesome. But I can't deny that there is something different about Japan. Oh, I guess that's what I was saying. 10:00 So I learned what I could about South Korean and Taiwanese culture. And I'm sure I just picked up stuff ambiantly, but I guess the difference in Japan is that when I see stuff, it's like the tendrils come out of my mind. There's so much more to focus on. Because even though I'm only placing it into a framework that's based on pop culture, it's not based on real Japanese culture or real experience of really growing up in Japan. Even just that I have that ability. Like, I do have decades worth of video games and anime knowledge that I can... You know, when I see stuff, I can go like, okay, where does this fit? Even if what I have is a distorted pop culture, weird, shallow, inaccurate view of Japan, I still have that. You know, I still have something that I can place all of these experiences within. Like the little framework in my mind palace is very small in South Korea and is even smaller in Taiwan, really. Because again, at least I read some Korean comic books. I don't know fucking anything about Taiwan except what I learned by walking around there. Whereas in Japan, I just... I have, you know, like, I could tie it into this thing from the 80s, this thing from the 2010s, and this thing from this video game, and this thing from this anime, and this thing from this movie I saw. And yeah, just like, again, I can't say how accurate it is. I mean, my understanding of Japan is no doubt very skewed and weird in just some North American nerd's version of what Japan is. But that structure in my brain is enormous compared to any other countries besides America and Canada. Not even close. Japan is the only other country that I know this much stuff about. And it just makes everything so interesting, just walking around. It really is, like, I got to take it back. It is more interesting to walk around Japan than it is to walk around other countries that I just have less exposure to. I wonder what would have happened. I mean, I don't know how this would have ever happened that I would have gone to those countries first. Because I mean, I could have seen a version of my life where I never even went to Japan. Thank God my friend Brad was here for me to come visit to get me started on these Japan visits. But what if I'd gone to those other countries first and been like, hey, cool! Asia! I'm learning about Asia! Then to come to Japan and then have all of that anime video game knowledge start washing over me. I wonder what that would have felt like. But I can't, I don't know how that would have happened unless like my family moved to Taiwan or something.

But okay, today, not a big adventure, but every adventure is bigger than it seems like it's going to be in Chiba. Chiba is so goddamn huge, but I'm just trying to get to one of the lakes up north. But I'll yammer about that when I get closer. Theoretically, get on the Sobu Line. It's actually not even the right line. There's another line that'll take me closer. But the Sobu Line will take me, you know, in the vicinity. And I can just walk from there. Maybe I'll make it, maybe I won't, who the fuck cares, just an excuse to go somewhere. Have a little adventure. Sobu Line 2.

Saccharestation.

Seems easy enough. Let's go do that.

That was nice. So this train rolled in. I didn't have to wait very long. Super duper packed.

Like, just packed to the gunels with people and I was like, oh, it's like 11 o'clock in the morning on a Saturday. This is unexpected. But it turns out this Chiba stop is the end of the line for this train. So every person, literally every person, got off the train.

It just went from packed in empty. And now on this train car. One, two, three, four. There's only six of us on this train car now. It's like awesome.

I've stopped to where I'm going. Yeah, this goes to Nareda. So yeah, I'm actually going four fifths or three quarters of the way to Nareda. So yeah, because yeah, this might take a little bit of time.

And then it just goes on and on and on and on. And I guess this is where I was looking into going to the east coast of Chiba. But it's like a two hour train ride each way. At least this is probably, I don't know if this specific line goes over there, but maybe I did get a little cartoon map that doesn't have specifics about train lines. 15:00 It just has a map of Chiba and just what the train lines are. And that's actually pretty handy too, because there's really not too many train lines over here. So just to get a general vague sense of like, okay, these are the ones that go east west. The ones that go north south are quite rare. But just to know what they are and where they generally go. Very handy, very useful.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I'm going to make it all the way to the east coast.

Maybe not, but certainly not today.

All right, that was actually a real easy ride. Again, like I was saying, I think if I wanted to continue on, it adds up fast. The cheap is a pretty big landmass, but just to this Sakura Station five stops, like 20 minutes. And what do we have here? But one of these little coffee machines that spits out a coffee in a tiny cup. I haven't had one of these in a while. The closest thing were those little 50 cent coffees in Korea, which were fucking awesome. Taiwan didn't have anything like this at all, and I love these dumb things.

So yeah, let's get a hot one. There's a strawberry one, but I think that's not caffeinated. Look, I did that before.

W. Roast. The Blend. I could pull out the translator about whatever, who fucking cares. Takes a swig of card too. Let's just hit a button. Nah, actually fuck. There's so many buttons. I got to translate this shit. I don't know what's going on. There's like four buttons for each selection. This is too much. Okay, black with sugar with cream contains sugar and cream. Big one and a small one. Yeah, fuck, I'll get a big one. So let's just do with cream. The Blend. Oh, I see the Blend is Colombian, Guatemala, and Tanzanian, and Brazilian coffee together. Whereas W. Roast is just, you know, I guess just one kind, whatever.

So we'll go with the Blend with cream. Soyca. Ding, ding, ding.

Oh, here's all the buttons for the different amounts of cream and stuff. Okay, well, I guess I got three out of five cream and three out of five beans, because I didn't notice those additional buttons over on the side. This is Apex Cafe. This is the most complicated one of these machines I've ever seen. Not that I'm complaining. That's fucking great. I could come here a bunch of times and just keep fucking with it. 20 seconds to go. So yeah, what I'm doing here while I wait for my coffee. Oh, here's also the drip I could have gotten. And there's so much other stuff. Coco, Nescafe, a bunch of strawberry stuff. What are these ones? There's ones that are like cool little drawings. They actually look really neat. Health and beauty. Cafe Olae supplement with elactic acid bacteria. Interesting. So I guess it's a coffee. I did buy one of those like, yeah, cool things yesterday again, because I just want to fight off the cold. One of those cool yogurt drinks. So apparently this is like a yogurt coffee drink in hindsight. I guess I would have got that. I would have tried that. Now that I know that's a thing. Oh well, another thing for next time. So I just have a little seat in this station. There's a new days. What else does a person need? There's a Pachinko parlor near here. Let this coffee cool down a little. So yeah, my plan that I might not make it to, because I think I'm actually quite far away from there still, is, you know, during COVID times when I was trapped at home. And I would watch a lot of walking around Japan videos. And of course, I love Akigawa Station in Akiruno. I love that whole neighborhood. It's one of my faves little places. And I only found one person who had a walk video near there. But it's this guy, Rambalak. He walked all the way around that neighborhood for like a whole hour. He walked right past my old Airbnb, right past the 7-11. I always stayed at. He's the one that pointed out a shrine in that neighborhood that even though I was there for weeks, I didn't even realize was there. And now that I've been traveling again, I've unsubscribed for most of those 20:00 channels, because they're just filling up my feed with walking videos. But I'm still subscribed to Rambalak because he's just really good. Here's a train going by. He just does different walking videos all around, you know, generally in the Tokyo wish area, but he travels around sometimes. And he's just, you know, it is just what it says on the tin. It's just a guy filming himself walking around Japan, maybe getting a drink out of a machine, and that's it. But I really like his stuff. So he posted a video not long ago about Chiba. And I was like, oh, good timing, my friend. I'm about to head back to Chiba. And he went to this lake up north. And I haven't re-watched the video, so I'm not sure what route he took. You know, if I try to go back, if I don't make it today or whatever, I can go do some research. And it didn't seem particularly inspiring. You know, he walked along the classic, like walking along a rural road as it got dark. I left him a comment on his videos. Like, I've been there, brother. It's tough enough to be on these roads where you don't have a proper sidewalk, but then it gets dark. And it's like, oh, taking your life into your hands here. But yeah, he got off at some station. It was not this station. It was a closer one. And just walked around through pretty ruralish Chiba for a bit. And there is, I guess there was a lake. I don't even know. I was watching the video, you know, it's an hour-long video. So I was just watching it out of the corner of my eye. I don't even know that the lake stood out specifically. It's just a target. It's just a thing. It's like, oh, yeah, I didn't realize that was up there. I've never got north in Chiba. So I just thought, like, oh, that's a thing I can do. I can just try to go to that lake. And like I said, there's another line that seems to get closer. That's probably the one he took. But this one's so easy. Just go to Chiba Station. Five stops. And from here, like I said, it's probably a longer walk than I think it is. But that's okay. Like, it doesn't matter if I don't get there. Who cares? Who cares about a waterfall? Who cares about a lake? Who cares about a destination? Just an excuse to go walk through a place. Is all that matters.

But the lake is called Lake Inbanuma, INBA-NUMA, and then there's other lakes further on. This has the Dutch Windmill Lifety. L-I-E-F-D-E is there. I don't know, it's weird. Look on the map. I don't look that far. It's just, I don't know. It's very hard to tell. I do find that the scale of Chiba really throws me off. I just never know if I'm close to something or not. Because you have to kind of zoom out and then you go look at Tokyo Yokohama. Again, like what is just Chiba? Where you're just traveling within Chiba? By Tokyo standards, it's like shit, you know. You could travel all the way to Saitama or all the way to Kamakura, Yokosuka, you know. Chiba is very deceptive in its size. But I'm just going to drink this coffee and walk around. In fact, I wonder, should I drink this coffee here, hit up the washroom and then get one of those probiotic coffees for the walk? I think I'm going to have to do that because I've never even heard of that before. I got to try it.

Yeah, I noticed on the way here, there's a right-by-chiba station, just the next one over, still in central Chiba. There is a book off Super Bizarre. So it's like, oh, I got to go check that out. A great big giant book off store. But then it is amazing how fast it goes from the city to, you know, book off Super Bizarre and then all of a sudden it's greenhouses. And then after that, it's just feels. It's just incredible how fast it gets rural out here, which did remind me of like, oh yeah, that was my very first thing when I first got to Japan and you get on the train. I took the skyliner that first time, but you get on the train from Nareda and that's the first thing you see. You don't see the super technological Tokyo. You don't see super advanced Japan. The first thing you see are fields and mountains in the distance and just like little kind of, you know, weathered houses with corrugated tin roofs and stuff. And it's like, yeah, that does happen very fast out here, very fucking fast. But that's my plan for today. Walk around by the tourist station, see where I can get to, and the answer may be nowhere, but that's fine. Do you know what I'm going to do? This coffee is really hot. So I'm going to get one of these probiotic ones, but you can get them in hot and cold. So I'm going to get a cold one and then I'm going to mix them both together and then that'll solve all of my problems. Let's get our old friend, the translator out again.

Okay, additional acid bacteria, 10 billion like the guys that yeah, yeah, yeah, there's like three 25:00 different ones. So let's see if any of them are different. That one appears the same.

Oh, and this one's just a nice cocoa, so it's a little cheaper. All right, well, this time since I'm mixing two coffees together, I will get some sugar in this one.

All right, cold version with sugar, swiga card, the one minute countdown.

Cool. All right, well, I'm going to mix these coffees together and I'm going to go have an adventure.

So this is kind of cool just again with the just go to a random place and see what happens, you know, just like yesterday, just like every fucking day in Japan. You just go somewhere random and something cool will happen. So Sakura station in Chiba, as I was exiting with my combined coffee slash probiotic coffee, which it's so it's so nice to drink a coffee and to trick yourself into thinking you're doing something healthy for yourself with your coffee. I'll take it. But there was like a cool bronze statue. And then as I walked north from the station, just all along the road on both sides were all kinds of different statues. And I have no idea what they are because it was a sign below one of them. And when I translated it, it just said, hey, don't climb on this fucking thing. You know, they're like small-ish statues. They're like three feet tall, but there's just a bunch of them. And it's just really cool. And yeah, it's just like, I didn't expect that. That's neat. And then on the way to this famed lake, again, I think I may just put that off for another day. There's definitely better ways to get there. But then just on the way, I stumbled upon Sakura Castle Park. I met the Sakura Castle Park guide map. I've kind of snuck my way in. Again, I think there was another entrance I probably missed. I'm kind of over on the side by Gate of Sakura Castle. But apparently in here, Castle Tower remains. T-Ceremony Room bronze statue of the top of the samurai of Sakura Ota Masayoshi. National Museum of Japanese History. Small Museum of Sakura Castle. So again, just grounds. If nothing else, just ancient castle grounds. With one, two, three, four different washroom signs. Delightful. But yeah, this is more than enough for today. Not only do I want to make sure that I'm back to civilization before it gets dark, but also since it's Saturday. Saturday is my one day of the week that is the best for calling home. And I mean, I got to speak to my benefactors back home. The only reason I can fucking pay for all this shit.

Yeah, there's like a moat. So far, I've seen as the moat, but it's got like green algae in it, like that one lake in Central Park in New York. So it's already pretty. So for an unexpected thing to explore today, this looks good to me. And yeah, even just the walk here. It is, it's just very rural. It feels a lot like the outskirt area is a Fukuoka. So it is just kind of cool that even though it's a little tough to get to actual mountain hikes around Tokyo, if you do just want a taste of rural Japan, if you go way out west, it starts to feel like this, but it's probably easier to get to Chiba. If you're on more of a time crunch and you do just want a little bit of a taste of non-city Japan, Chiba is a good plan. Gate of Sakura Castle. This gate is said to have stood somewhere within Sakura Castle grounds. After the demolition of the castle, the gate was relocated twice within Sakura City, finally moved here in 1983. Yeah, I literally just walked under this gate, didn't even think twice about it. Because I guess that's the kind of thing that would just be, you know, it's just a little, you know, it's just like a little two walls in a roof. It is nice, very ornate, but I guess it's that, you know, in North America, that would just be a thing that's in a park. You don't really think that it has like historical significance because very little has historical significance in North America. I'm not quite used to thinking of things that way still.

Yeah, and just now walking down a nice little forest path. So even if this is a castle remains in the sense that most castle remains have been that I found in Japan in the sense that there's, you know, nothing left. It truly is the remains. That's fine. That is fine. All right, translator, you're serving me well today. So I've got various ways I can go. What do we got here? Left for the museum of history and folklore, up the hill to the Obi-Karua ruins, 30:00 right to the tea room and back to the parking lot. Well, I guess I'll go left around to this museum, go around the outside. Yeah, one thing I meant to mention, I guess I sort of mentioned it with washrooms that there is just a, there's a strange sense. There's just a sort of, I think it's a humidity thing, but there's just something a feeling to Japanese washrooms that is so distinct to Japan where even in Taiwan and South Korea, they just don't feel that way, but it's very hard to describe. I noticed that today on the train too. I literally might have just been like somebody shampoo or something, but I just like a very light scent that it's hard to describe, hard to put my finger on, it was very subtle, but a very nice, just smell. And I was just like, oh yeah, whatever that is, that's Japan, you know? North America doesn't smell like that, South Korea doesn't smell like that, Taiwan doesn't smell like that. Just these little things about Japan that are just so super distinctive, yet hard to explain. It's like the umami, the umami of the smell of a subway, the umami of the fucking washrooms. I was like, what am I talking about? It sounded like a fucking maniac, but there's something, there's more jarro spiders. I like how you jarro spiders here in Chiba know to make your webs above the height of a six foot two man. I appreciate that. Lord knows the west Tokyo spiders didn't take that fucking hand, didn't take that under advisement.

I am, however, gonna make it a mission to find. Just whatever the smallest little container of soap I can find. Hand soap, dish soap, any kind of soap. It doesn't matter. I just want a tiny little bottle of soap. I suppose even if I just get my hands on a tiny bottle somewhere, like a little mouthwash bottle or something, I could just put hand soap in it, or dish soap. But I do not. I'm not interested in not being able to wash my hands. I hate that feeling. I hate not being able to wash my hands with soap after I use the washroom. I hate it. It makes me very uncomfortable. And I just kind of put up with it last time I was in Japan. But now that I've been, like I said, six months in South Korea, three months in Taiwan, and I almost never ran into that situation. That I've run into that situation several times already in Japan. I'm like, nope. Nope. Fuck that. Fuck that. I'm not doing it. Now that the weather's cool enough, that I can walk around with this jacket. This jacket has so many inner pockets and little places I can hide stuff. Oh, I just passed two groups of two people. Still, this is nice. Chiba is not terribly crowded. I mean, I said it's Saturday afternoon. And there's still very few people here. I like it. I always hear about the overcrowding of Japan and the overtourism and stuff.

It's so easy to avoid that stuff. You know, it's so easy. Just don't go to Harajuku. Don't go to Mt. Kau. So many other places you can go. Hey, Joro, but yeah, I know it's weird to have a little bottle of soap tucked away in your pocket. It's strange behavior. It's going to be a little weird to just pull a little bottle of soap out of one of my inner pockets to wash my hands, but I'm doing it. This is one of the very few times that I've been fully let down by Japan. But the hand soap situation on a pass fail is a complete fail. I'll complete fail. Now that I've been to these other countries, they're all on top of it. They have all got it covered. So fuck it. I am not putting up with this Japan. I'm not putting up with this shit. I'm going to wash my fucking hands.

Be a man of my own destiny. All right. Now I'm up on the proper grounds. Good old drink machines. A lot of picnic tables, park benches. Some kind of building over to the side that I don't know what it is. This bigger building in the center that has a restaurant in it.

So yeah, again, castle ruins. I suspect in the sense that there was a castle here. It seems that what remains is not at all castle-like. But hey, whatever. I'll just wander around, see what we had to see.

And I also wanted to say that even though I've been saying how like, wow, I'll be back in Japan. It's got this zing. This zip, zap, zork that I did not feel in the other places.

Yeah, whatever this restaurant is, it's like a six full. There's a bunch of tables in there. There's people, but not a mess of people.

Yeah, you just get a little bit outside of the center. You just get a little bit outside of the big heavy hitter areas. And things are just not that busy in Asia. It's just not that bad.

One of these buildings must be like a museumy stuff. But I still have my coffee. Don't think I'm supposed to wander around a museum with my coffee. So I'll just stay outside. Get the lay of the land. Figure out what's going on. But yeah, I wanted to say even though I'm like, wow, Japan. Cool. There's an additional coolness to Japan.

But that is in no way to take away from the other places that I've been because even just today on the train. You know, it's on the train looking at the window, looking at Chiba. Go buy. And I'm like, ah, this is nice. This is cool.

Hey, here we are. So National Museum of Japanese History is this big building with the restaurant in it. But yeah, I'm going to keep walking around outside first because I've also just only been sipping slowly on this probiotic coffee because I didn't know where I'd find a washroom.

Luckily, there's tons of washrooms around here.

Well, there's a one to punch is there's a little sign outside that it's like, oh, yeah, of course, not everything is free. This is a 600 yen for this museum. There's that cool little museum nearer Chiba station that was free that I did like. Maybe I'll go back there at some point.

But not only did that give me pause of like, oh, yeah, generally, this is why I do kind of avoid museums. Not because I care about 600 yen. But it just brings into sharp relief that it's like, oh, yeah, maybe I don't actually care. That museum in Taiwan that I wandered through about the guy who was the leader during World War II and just it just washed over me. I'm like, I don't know, I don't know. But also I just edited it out and I just had a little coughing fit. And it's like, oh, yeah, it's another good reason to just stay outside and just walk at the grounds.

I am still, I am a little sick. I shouldn't be around people. So perfect. That's a win-win. I'm just looking for reasons not to go to the museum anyway because I'm a fucking adult. But that's an extra good reason. It would be irresponsible of me to go in there right now.

To stay outdoors where it's nice and sparse, but I can stay away from people, sip on a coffee, walk around, soak in the grounds.

But yeah, I was on the train looking out the window at Chiba going by, but then my mind started drifting to like specifically it was that little mountain hike. The, I was forget is that lion cub the mountain or lion's head mountain, but right by Shindian station in Taiwan. And I was just imagining like, yeah, I remember up on that hike and then there's a bunch of the little pakotas there. And then there's even like whole, just like there is on all the mountains there. These little shelters set up, not little. They're quite big. You can just sit at a big table and have a roof over you.

And there's a little Buddhist shrine there. And you can look out at the amazing view of all the mountains in the city all around you. And it's just like, wow. And then my mind drifted to some of those beaches on the east coast of Busan and like sitting at the Adia coffee on the second floor, looking out at the beach, one of those crescent beaches there. Sitting at that Adia coffee, looking at the beach in Busan is on my short list of best coffee shop views, favorite places I've ever sat at a coffee shop and did some writing in the world.

So yeah, Japan's got the special sauce. But man, those other places are beautiful as well. Yeah, this building is huge actually. This is gigantic. Who knows man? Maybe this one is fully worth 600 yen. It could be a ton of stuff in there.

But I'm the hand soap bathroom talking guy.

So allow my ignorance to reign supreme. But you know, I keep kind of thinking like, oh, I'm actually feeling pretty good. Everything's all right. I even just said that last episode. That's how I felt walking around yesterday. It's like, oh, I feel all good now. I feel all energized. But by the time I got home, I didn't feel like that anymore.

Again, I'm pretty confident this is all going to pass pretty fast. But sick of sick. Can shake it off briefly, but it ain't gone yet.

Oh, here's an interesting thing though. I actually learned how to read a Japanese slash Chinese word while I was in Taiwan. 40:00 Specifically, there's this one building that I walked by a bunch of times. It's like an auto parts place. And it was this fucking huge building, just gigantic building. And it had this mega enormous mural on the side of the wall that was kind of like off brand Pac-Man. You know, it was like Pac-Man inspired, but not close enough to get sued. And it was like little Pac-Man guy and Pac-Man ghost, but with like wrenches and lug nuts and stuff. And then at the bottom was entrance and exit in English, but next to it was the Chinese writing. And I remember it really looks like a PlayStation controller because the word for entrance looks like an upside down Y and a square, roughly. And that reminds me of the symbols on a PlayStation controller. But then I noticed it here in Japan. I'm looking at the sign right now. The entrance sign and an arrow. And it's like, oh, that's the same.

And then I put together that, again, ignorance man, but I've learned a few things in my life. That Japan has Hiragana and Katakana, but they also have Kanji and Kanji are just, they're not an alphabet so much. They're just symbols that specifically mean stuff from what I understand. But the Kanji originate from Chinese writing. And I remember in Vancouver, there was my friend Kazu, who was Japanese, and my friend Leo, who's Chinese. Who I'm still in touch with Leo. He still lives in Vancouver. I saw him a few years ago. Kazu I've talked to, or like he followed me on Instagram, you know, it's sort of kind of somewhere up in North Japan. I sort of kind of know a guy who I, or I did know a guy in 2005. But he was pretty up front with saying, I mean, his English was very bad at the time. And he said, like, it's gone now. It's just gone, man. I can't speak English anymore. I have a feeling I probably will not run into Kazu in real life. And I mean, that was a lifetime ago. It was a long time ago. But me and him, you store graveyard chips together and we had a good time. And it was really cool. And again, like I was talking about porn last episode, he thought it was funny that I knew these porn words. Opie means big breasts and, you know, Bukake and all this dumb shit. He's like, how do you know these words? And I was like, just porn websites, man. I got to know what to click on. He was, he was very tickled. But yeah, technically, technically, somewhere up in North Japan. I don't remember. Where is he from? Where does he live? I don't remember it anymore. But anyway, I do know a guy up there, technically. Also, there's a guy, I mean, I made a little documentary about the YouTuber Roger Swan, which is on YouTube, the story of Roger Swan, Tokyo Swan, where I took a bunch of his old YouTube videos and I compiled them together in like the story of his life.

There's another guy in North Japan who lives up there in Iwate, who really liked that little documentary and he, on my behalf, submitted it to a film festival. But a lot of it is based on, you know, old 360p YouTube footage. It just does not project well. It's very low res. He was not successful. But that guy too, he said, like, hey, if you're ever up there, I'll show you around. It's neat that I know these people. I know a couple people in Seoul too, but I didn't drop them a line. You know, I feel like maybe next time I would when I have a more even keeled opinion. But at the time, I was like, how can I go see my old friends? One of them is American, one of them is Korean. How can I even talk to them without telling them how much I hate this, how much I hate Seoul and how I cannot believe how polluted and fucked up it is. I was like, I can't even, because they, I mean, the expat especially, he loves South Korea. That's why he lives there. I was like, I can't, I can't even talk to them. But I'm also disinclined to anyway. I'm just a fucking weirdo. I'm just a weirdo. It's nice that I know these people, but it's like, I'm traveling on my own, to travel on my own. I don't know, I'm a fucking dumbass. But anyway, the point I'm trying to get to is that Kazoo and Leo became friends, but they did have a little bit of a hard time, because Leo's English was pretty good, but like I said, Kazoo's was dog shit. But they could communicate through just writing, I guess. They could write the symbols, and if I remember right, like they said to them differently, they pronounced them differently, but they meant the same things. And it's like, oh yeah, right, of course, because Kanji comes from Chinese writing. But anyway, I at least got that one word down. Enter an exit is a good one.