#21 Traveling from Itabashi to Akiruno, Tokyo

Transcript

Ah, laundry time. Let's make this. This is already quite a slice of life podcast. Let's make it super slice of life, or I'm doing nothing. I've been kind of realizing, I think I should really try to make an effort not to record near traffic. At first I was just like, well that's what happens. There's just traffic around, but it's just so fucking loud, you know. I got the whole day. I think I can wait to record stuff when I'm not near traffic, because it doesn't even seem as bad in person necessarily, but on a podcast it's like, fuck that's loud. But an empty laundromat between cycles, nice and quiet, bit echoey. Man, though this is the kind of shit I just love. I just love really just bland normal days where you just accomplish something easy and stupid, it feels so good. So I'm switching Airbnb's today, so I had to get up a little earlier than I would have liked to, but on the plus side that means I'm actually up while the sun's out. I didn't check the temperature, but it's still hot as fuck, and other hot as fuck damn, sweating my balls off. And the other day when I did laundry, I bought laundry detergent that I didn't need, because the machine did it automatically, which jeez, I thought the 10 kilogram machine I found was big. There's a, maybe this is the same one, 10 to 17 kilograms, but then there's a 16 to 27 kilogram machine. It looks like it's the top price is $12, $1200. It's fucking expensive, but it's a lot of goddamn laundry. But yeah, this place is more traditional laundry machine, so I actually get to use some of my laundry detergent. If I do one or two loads of laundry while I'm here before I go to Fuquocca, you know, I won't exactly get my money's worth out of the thing, but at least I'll get, I'll still use some of it, because I felt silly buying it for no reason. I haven't seen any, you know, just like in America when you buy, you just get one little tiny thing of detergent for 50 cents. Nothing like that. I think though in future, maybe, I should just use these machines that automatically have detergent in them. If I can find one in Fuquocca, when I get back to Tokyo, because I'm just don't want to carry my detergent, you know, on a plane, that's silly. Wow, talk about a podcast about nothing, holy fuck. But yeah, it's my final day in this neighborhood, but I don't know, it's like the little final test. I feel like I figured this place out pretty well, because I was like, okay, I know which laundromatic can go to, where I can use my actual detergent, different than the other one. It's next to this little pond. I saw the pond the other day, but it was later in the day. Now that it's earlier, it's got a bunch of, a bunch of old guys sitting around fishing. It is next to the elevated highway, which is funny, because so was the one by Nekke Itibashi. It's a shame that these places where you can just chill out and fish right by the traffic. It's unfortunate. But also doing laundry, I was again one pair of socks short. I have one spare pair of underwear and one spare t-shirt, so pretty much perfect. Everything lined up really well for laundry. Almost exact, except socks. I had no socks. So I wore my gross socks from yesterday to the laundromat, but then I took them off as I did laundry. And then just coincidentally, I'm in like the one spot in all of Japan, where there's not a convenience store anywhere that you can visually see. But I was like, I remember a family mart I walked past at the other day. I'm almost sure it's up this hill. And it was a little ways. It's like three blocks away. But I trudged up there while my laundry was going with no socks on, and luckily no one noticed. My pant legs were long enough. You couldn't tell I wasn't wearing socks, but went in, got some coffee, and a bottle pair of socks. And I just had to make sure I got socks. This actual ankle part, it's not those little tiny short socks. But luckily the socks had little diagrams on them. But this one I happened to get just has these colorful bands, little rainbow colors at the top. And I'm like, cool, whatever. But then when I opened them, convenience wear cross stranger things. It's like an official stranger things branded pair of socks. But I didn't see that on the packaging at all or anywhere in the store. Like are people aware this is a stranger things product? Or maybe they just don't care? Maybe it's just a nice bonus, I guess. Like you just open it and you're like, oh, okay, I guess I own stranger things socks now. But let's see, it's 10.30, dry my laundry. I guess by the time I get out of this neighborhood, 5:00 it'll be around noon. I can't get into the new Airbnb until four o'clock. So nobody hurry. I noticed this bag I bought in Montreal. It's too bad because it's like the perfect little size for a day bag. It's like a tiny little, it looks just like a normal knapsack book bag. It's just a tiny one. But it's some weird brand I never heard of before. I got it for four bucks at the Salvation Army. And it's clearly just a crappy brand because it is, it's coming apart in two different places. It's getting big tears in it. So it's like, all right, I got to get a new bag. And I still have a little bag I bought at Oyama Happy Road, the shopping street four years ago. The zipper, like the little handle part of the zipper came off, but everything else about it is perfect. So I stopped by there on the way home last night, but by 7.30, only the food places were open. All of the goods and sundries stores were closed. So maybe I'll go down there. Maybe it'd be kind of cool to buy a back up bag, a new bag from the same place that I got my last one. Could just be like, hey buddy, you remember me? Who came in one time four years ago and bought one bag for $10? I'm back. I think that might be the plan. Anyway, I got to put these clothes in the laundry, but I just wanted to mention it's just nice, just a nice feeling, just hanging out, sunny day, doing laundry. Even on a real basic level, just because the Airbnb I met, there's the main street that it's near. And then you got to take a turn at a big, you got to take a turn at a big store that sells like work gloves and helmets and that type of stuff. And then you got to turn the left and then turn to the right. So it's not bad when you're going in. It's not confusing, but in the morning I kept forgetting how many twists and turns I was supposed to take. So I just take the wrong one and go out on some weird side street and not know which direction I was pointing and all fucked up. Now I got it. Now I figured it out. I know how it all works. Just in time to move along to the next place, but still it's nice. It's like, uh, if this was an extremely low stakes boring puzzle game, I feel like I did it. I solved the puzzle. It's like a Rubik's cube that you only need to do two twists to finish it. It's almost done, but I did it. And it feels nice. And yeah, the enforced downtime, the laundry time, I don't hate it. I don't hate just having to stop for an hour and a half. Just wait for things to happen. It's weird that I can't remember. I know when I stayed in Fukuoka the first time that apartment had a laundry machine out on the balcony. But then the last place I stayed in Akiruno is the place I'm going to today, or like the same building. It's the same owner, the same building, but it's a different apartment. It seems like it's smaller at this time, smaller and more expensive.

A guy came in while I was talking to myself and talked about a way to bring into sharp relief. Like, what am I doing? What the hell am I talking about? I'm not talking about anything. Jesus, all I was going to say is for some reason I just have this blank spot about this property and going to, how did I do laundry? I was there for like three weeks. I definitely did laundry. But I don't remember there being laundry in the apartment. So I don't know, who cares though? Who the fuck cares? Although this guy who came in, he was in here just before me doing his laundry and then he came in just after. And I guess we get a little window into Japanese laundry philosophy because they rarely use dryers in this country. You know, they hang up their clothes a lot. But I presumed if you were a person who was coming into the laundry mat because you didn't have a laundry machine at home, you'd probably just do the whole shabang, right? But no, it appears not. He took his clothes out of the machine. And I mean, this is the perfect day to hang up laundry. It's fucking sunny. It's bright. It's hot as shit. So he just took his clothes on home wet. And he's going to dry them there. Not me though, because I need these things to be dry before I can continue. So I'm going to use the machine. But that's kind of nice. I guess my rambling had some kind of purpose. I learned a thing. I actually learned a thing about how the average Japanese guy uses a laundromat. And I guess, yeah, I mean, it was about three bucks to do this load. I don't know how much it's going to cost to dry, but probably at least that much. So, yeah, fuck it. If you live nearby, let the sun do the work. All right, drying time.

All right, I'm on, I'm on the Ouyama happy road. Oh geez, waking up early today, walking through the desperate heat. Yeah, scooter. Why not? Bring a scooter in here in the pedestrian walkway. Why not? Any talk of my shoulders getting stronger was wild wrongness. My brain doesn't work. So anyway, it's slightly rough morning, but now that I'm out of the direct heat, I feel better. But the reason I'm recording this is because I was doing a whole run about trying to find delicious bitter coffee. And I found this special machine because usually, you know, these coffees are like under two dollars. They're usually way less than that. This one, it's a scrap, scrap coffee roasters. I don't know what in the shit that is. I've never seen that anywhere. Original blend. And they have milk, cafe ole, and bitter cafe ole. And it costs 260 yen. So it's like 250 for this fucking thing. So it's like, dude, that's premium. This must be goddamn good. This is nice, it's nice little. Yeah, it's got the nice little covering over top.

Nice little music playing. I like this little street. But anyway, let's try this coffee.

It's one of the ones that comes in the little cup with a little straw.

Just poking into the cup ASMR.

Okay, here we go. This is my greatest hope to date. I mean, I don't know when I'd ever get this stuff again. But again, it's fun to keep your eyes peeled. I don't know. Surely this isn't available only here, but maybe it is. Maybe this is some special local coffee. It can't be. I mean, it comes in a little cupid stuff, but I haven't seen this anywhere. Scrop. Not a good name. Okay, let's try this. Too sweet. Just too sweet. I mean, this is the bitter one. What the fuck does the other one taste like? I mean, it's a good problem to have, I guess. But that's, yeah, if I had to paint Japan's coffee culture with one phrase, it would be too sweet. See, NWO of coffee. It's still not bad though. Just too sweet. Okay, I'm going to go look for a bag. It is good though. I mean, the aftertaste is very good. You can tell this is a bit of a premium blend, or maybe it's not. And, you know, I'm just easily psychologically swayed by the fact that this costs an extra dollar. But hey, whatever dude, whatever gets you there, even if it is purely a placebo effect. If it works, it works. This is pretty tasty. I would get it again. It has a nice sweetness. Because the only sweetness I don't like, as I've said before, but it's that sugar crisp sweetness. It just, it's like irresponsible levels of sugar. This is that pretty nice. Cut it a little bit, just cut a little bit of this sugar. This would be real good, but still very tasty. Will I ever see it again? Scrop brand? Maybe not, but again, fun thing to look for. I'll look for some scrop. I'll look for some dido crab soup and a can. I guess it's like I was saying with the laundry. It is like the stupidest RPG in the world. Just the stupidest quests in the world. The most meaningless little adventures. But then whenever you achieve one, it just feels good, feels cool. Cut that cough. It's just fade out.

I think I just caught the very end of that song. I didn't realize if these have been piano versions of 80s hits this whole time because that was, uh, whoa, here she comes. Watch out, boy, she'll cheer you up. I just heard that and I'm like, what's that?

Sweet. So at first I thought, oh no, maybe the store isn't here anymore that I got my bag from last time, but it is still here. They didn't have any sweet $10 bags. They had super fancy $30 bags, but I still got one because yeah, my $4 used special of indeterminate origin. Just that it's already falling apart and I only bought it two weeks ago or something. It's clearly got a bit. So I spent $30 15:00 bucks on the cool bag and I mean, I don't know, I don't know what things are worth. I'm not good at gauging stuff. But, uh, the other bag I bought in Japan, I just always thought it was cool because that whole time I was stuck at home, COVID times. Just every time I saw it, I was like, yeah, that's that bag I bought in Japan. So it's a double bonus. I do need another little wee bag. And it'll be another bag. I can go, ah, look at that. That's my two little bags. I bought in Japan. So far, so I've got my big book bag and inside are three smaller bags. And two of the three are bags I bought in Japan. So I'm amazed to this book bag I've got. It's Jan Sport. I also don't really follow brand names that much, but man, I bought this thing like 10 years ago. And it's a mess. It's all fucked up, but I'm still using it because it's still completely functional. Everything serious has broken about it or torn or anything. So Jan Sport is clearly awesome when this thing does need to be replaced. I'm going to go out of my way to replace it with another Jan Sport bag because they definitely earned it, man. What a good, what a good bag.

Anyway, there's the bag update and I even found some Wi-Fi here because yeah, Wi-Fi has been so much harder to find than it used to be. But I realized that I'm like, I'm pretty much know how to get where I'm going. I know I need to go to Shinjuku and then I need to get to Hajima via Tachikawa Station toward Ome. And at Hajima, I need to switch over and go to Akigawa. It's like I could probably figure this out, but it's the Chuo Line. That's what I'd forgotten. And I forgot to check when I left my Airbnb this morning. So it's like, okay, cool. From here I get to Ikebukuro, then go to Shinjuku, find the Chuo Line and sit on the Chuo Line for an hour or so, probably more than an hour. It's a long ride. Speaking though of these little twinkly piano things, that's one thing that I've noticed that's nice. They may have cut back on the Wi-Fi at convenience stores, but they've also cut down on the jingles, which is nice. 7-11 in particular used to have super obnoxiously loud jingles all day. And Daydream Believer was in their playlist of like the very few songs that they would play over and over. So even my life of having headphones in all the time and listening to my own stuff, I still got so much music, Daydream Believer that I never need to hear that ever again. And it made me feel bad for the people who work there. Like, you got to listen to this fucking shit all day, every day. But it seems a lot less now. I think maybe they've calmed down on the jingles. Maybe they've realized that it leads to a slow insanity in everyone involved.

But I write time to go jump on some trains for a long, freaking time for the whole afternoon.

Wow, it's louder in here than I thought it was. Alright, I met Tachikawa Station, which is medium far away. And it's nice to kind of know how this stuff works. I realized I was on the wrong... I had to go to Shinjuku, get on the Chuo line, but I realized I was on the wrong Chuo line. This one curves down south. I need the one that curves up north. But I figured they got a boat going through Tachikawa. Tachikawa is a big ass station. And I was right. So I'm here. And now I switched over to a different platform. And there was a... A thing about, are you sure you're on the right platform? No, not at all. I have no fucking idea. But I think I can at least get to Hyjima from here and figure out where, if I need to switch again from there. Anyway, the reason why I'm recording in this loud ass fucking station is of all the places on the motorway. Most obscure platform in Tachikawa. I found the Daito crab soup. 20:00 So let's try the fucking crab soup can. This will be good too, because I haven't eaten much today. It's getting on in the afternoon. It's like 230. I'm feeling a little package. So let's see. Let's see how we do.

Smells okay. I guess I don't actually have a lot of experience with crab. I did get... I got a spider roll once. Which is instead of imitation crab, it's a sushi roll. I'm ackey roll with real crab and I didn't really like it. I think this might be the train I'm supposed to take, but I'm afraid I can't. I'm in the midst of eating crab soup. So yeah, I can't even say if I like crab or not. I'm not sure. It's definitely the one. They said hi jima. Oh well. Maybe the next one will be even better. Let's drink this soup.

Oh, that's pretty good. It kind of just tastes like kind of generically salty. Not that different from miso soup, just a little bit crabbier. No chunks though, just liquid. But yeah, not bad. Not a bad little soup.

I don't want to just guzzle my can of soup. I want to save for the soup. Oh, there we go. There are some bits at the bottom, presumably crab. Man, there's not even a garbage. How do I get rid of this fucking can?

How awkward. I got an empty can of crab in my back pocket. I hope it doesn't smell crabby, but I got to get under this fucking train.

Alright, I made it. I'm going to put this recorder away. Now I got to find somewhere to throw away this can.

Empty can of crab soup in the back pocket. That's the current situation.

Man, I forgot what a good station, Hyjima Station is. The area around Hyjima is not the best if you're a pedestrian. It depends on which way you walk, I guess. But I've definitely had some runs around here where it's car culture out here. There's a lot of places where you shouldn't necessarily be on foot. And there's some kind of big air force base or something that takes up a lot of space. So if you walk anywhere near that, you get screwed. But the station itself is very small. It's like six platforms. But it's like super well maintained. It's got a bookstore. It's got a little bakery. It's got a new days, which is one of the not big three convenience stores. And I mean, I'm still definitely the point where I just find convenience store food still so enchanting. I'm not even close to the tired of it. So I mean, heaven just gone there this one time. Maybe I'm just caught up in the moment, but I feel like it's a front runner. Is it the best one? Because just everything I got was a little different. They had their own brand of non-sweet latte in a cup.

They didn't have any here, but I know sometimes they have these kind of bigger. It's like an Onigiri rice ball, but it's like folded over like a sandwich kind of.

I remember liking those. They didn't have them here, but I just got even just I don't know. I got a beef one and a chicken and mayo one and they're so good.

And then the dessert thing. It was called like an unbaked blueberry cheesecake thing. I don't know why it's an unbaked. But anyways, so fucking good. It's also goddamn good.

And I mentioned before how I used to, you know, blew my mind that I'd be at my Airbnb that had a medium-okay washroom. And then I'd come to the station, to Hyjima station and use the nice washroom with the cool fancy toilet. It doesn't seem surprising at all anymore because like there's cleaning staff all over this place. I think just because it's smaller, it's a lot smaller than obviously Tachikawa, especially Shinjuku.

This is like a boutique train station. It's so good. So yeah, I have a little time before I can pick up my Airbnb and I was gonna go to, there's a mall near Akigawa station. And I was like, I'll just go hang out there. But I was like, yeah, let me just stop at the new days, get some stuff. Let's just hang out for a little bit at Hyjima. Hyjima rules. What a good station.

All right, I made it to Akigawa station and my Airbnb was that you can check in anytime after four. No worries there. I didn't even really go out of my way to Dottal, a little bit at Hyjima, but it's 4.19 as I get here, so all good. So this is extremely similar to the last place I stayed in the sense that I stayed here originally because it was cheap. I was just like, give me whatever, give me whatever's cheap. And I really had no sense of the scale of Tokyo or how it worked. I didn't even really get how far west this was. But again, it's all kind of weird. I mean, I've been on the train all day. Technically, I'm really far away from all the famous stuff in Tokyo, but on the other hand, it's just some train rides. And you know, there's still a mochaneta family mart and I'm gonna go block past 7-11 on the way to the place. It's not so different. But I stayed here originally because it was cheap and I ended up really liking it. I'll get into it more, of course. But for all the stuff that is the same, there's other stuff that is not the same. This is where you really start to feel the countryside. The first time I came out here just to check where it was, you know, just to test to make sure I could get here and do where I was going. I happened to walk in a direction that just smelled really strongly of cow manure and I was like, whoa, like farms and stuff. Where am I? What's going on? This is so different from, you know, it could book your own stuff.

But yeah, then I ran into the strange situation coming back that it's like, like I ended up really liking this neighborhood. I really wanted to come back here, but everything was gone. And it's like, fuck. Like, not even for a bad price, just nothing. I couldn't find anything in this whole neighborhood. And then I remembered, by the station, there's one of these Toyoko ends where Toyoko ends is this chain of hotels that right now the sun's still up. So it just kind of looks normal. But when the sun goes down, the big sign on the roof will light up. And you'll be able to see it for miles around. There's another one around here somewhere, too. Where you just see in this guy, this big blue sign, this is ToyokoIn.com. So I was thinking, like, what if I splashed out instead of Airbnb's? What if I used a real hotel? What if I just, because I know there's one here, and I just want to be in this neighborhood, if only for a little bit. And I don't remember how much they were. Again, I mean, I just don't know this scale of stuff. It was a bad deal to me, but probably for a hotel it wasn't bad. But it was surprisingly unavailable. I mean, again, it's that catch-22 of the dual things. This is kind of the outskirts of Tokyo. This is kind of a less known, less bustling area, but it's also still Tokyo, man. Although, you can't really book a hotel room, apparently. But then I don't remember what was going on. I think there was, I mean, Airbnb, it's just a bit of an awkward interface at the best of times. I think, I don't know, I changed up something about how I was searching. I think I went to a certain area on the map and said, search this area, so it would more specifically give me stuff. And I guess I upped the price threshold, too, because at first I was still thinking, like I used to, let's find a cheap place. Back in 2019, all these places were under 30 bucks a day. But then, you know, they crept upward. Like that last place I was at was somewhere in the 40s because, because even the hostile type places had gone up in price. So for only, you know, $8 more, you get a whole apartment. But next thing you know, you're spending a bunch of money. But again, it's post-COVID. It's just how it is. And it's still all a very good deal compared to Montreal and Vancouver. The Canadian prices are insane. So I guess I bummed. I jumped up the prices. And I found another property by the guy who ran the place I stayed at here. It's this taxi dispatch place called the Legal Mind Building. That's why I always remembered it. It's such a weird name, the Legal Mind Building, and that it was a taxi place on the bottom floor and apartments in the rest of the building. I found another entry. The guy's name was Max. I was pretty sure. But it was like $70 a day. And it was kind of not that bad. 30:00 It was close to here, but sort of near here. And I was like, isn't that the guy? I think that's the guy. As a side note, whenever I open up the Airbnb app, man, it just throws you random suggestions on the front page. And it's like, hey, stay at this cool place for $700 a night. And it's like, what in fuck's name in my Airbnb history makes you think that I would ever want to do that. They're just tossing random shit at me. The high end Airbnb is a whole different world, man. So yeah, I think I searched like find other locations by this owner or something. Anyway, and that's what I found. Finally, it was like, oh, sweet. Because I was really like, then I was thinking like, oh, may station. There's some stuff by Oh, may. Oh, may is not really close to here. But you can loop around on the train. I could get back here without too much trouble. And I am curious about Oh, may have never been up there. So I want to explore it at some point. More than stuff south of here, that was the kind of the best I could do was like, can I just get somewhere sort of near here. But then yeah, I found this other entry by that guy. And I was like, I think that's the same fucking building. I think that's the legal mind building. Like, sweet. I got exactly what I wanted, except before I got a whole apartment. It was like a great big, the full shabang. The person next to me was just like a normal Japanese person who would, I don't know, come out of the apartment in the morning. Smelling like cigarettes because they smoked and just be going to work. And it's like, oh, that's kind of cool. I'm just in a normal apartment building. I'm just in one of the apartments. It's not Airbnb up at all. But I presumed during COVID, he just turned it into an apartment. So that place is gone. So I mean, I guess we'll see now. I'm going to go check in. But he seemed to make a real point with this new one of mentioning how small it is. I should not expect this to be big. But what do I care? I don't need space. But it's also more expensive instead of whatever the other one was, you know, 20. It was like pretty cheap. I'm going to say like 23, 24 bucks a day for a whole apartment. Now it's like 47.50. I believe a day. But I was like, fuck it. I don't care. I don't care if that is pretty expensive. Because I'm learning that's just the new norm. That's just how it is now. And it's literally exactly right where I wanted to be. It's in the same building. And again, I've probably been saved from myself because yeah, I spent three weeks here before just wandering all about and just loving this neighborhood. But, you know, I don't need to be here for three more weeks. I'm here for a week. And I'm sure in a week I'll soak it in plenty. I mean, that last place I was at, it seems like, oh, sure, I'd love to just walk up and down the Shakuzhi River every fucking day. And I'd love to just go to Ikabukuro over and over. But, do I really need to do that? I already did that. After two days of doing that, it's like, yeah, okay, I got my nostalgia tanks fueled up. Now let's go find a scary park. You know, let's go somewhere else.

So I think it'll be the same here a week. I feel like it's good. A week is plenty. But I'm very glad that I get to come back here.

However, here's where the double-triple, quadruple, weird super flips. So there's the different layers of dreams. We're in fucking inception here. Where, you know, I would just daydream a lot about Japan during COVID, like I've said many times already. But this was a great one. You know, wake up in the morning and there's like a field across the street from this building. And it's just so the mountains, even just coming in on the train. It's like, oh, yeah, near the edge. You can see layers of mountains just rolling off in the distance. And it's like so beautiful. Like this is fucking the best. Went over the river, the Tamar River that I now know the name of. So in that sense, it's like, yeah, the dream's real. This was all real. This was never a dream to begin with. It's just a place. It's just a place that is super cool, that is different from where I'm from, and that I just, you know, kind of was my constant goal during COVID stuff. Like I would be so cool to go back there. So that's all coming true. You know, here I am at Tajikawa, here I am at Hajima, here I am at Akigawa. I'm fucking there.

But on the other hand, the other kind of dream that happened was that the 430 song, I've learned it's not a 5 o'clock song. It's a 430 song.

428. Probably my watch is wrong. It probably is 430.

But because I got up early this morning and have been traveling across the city all day, my legs are kind of hurting. My brain is kind of hurting from not being awake.

Whenever I got to go up and down stairs, I got to lift this goddamn bag that I've got. And I just got like a really bad hand cramp in the last train. 35:00 I was just like massaging my hand and like, geez, this is really hurting. What the fuck? I'm an old goddamn fuck. So just because of the exhaustion of traveling across the city, the magical dream part is definitely being, it's in battle with the exhausted dream part. I feel like I'm in a dream in the bad way of that I'm just not all the way here. I'm just not all the way awake.

So I suspect it'll really hit me tomorrow. Tomorrow I'll wake up and I'll be at Akigawa in the same building and everything. Not the same apartment, but pretty goddamn close, unbelievably close. At twice the price, but hey, whatever. It's well worth it.

But yet today, I just got to go check in and take a nap. So I suspect that'll be it for this episode. Join me next episode where we explore the beautiful outskirts of Tokyo.

Western Tokyo. It's really, it's hard to say. Like, what is my favorite? Because I mean, my last trip was really just the three things. It was Naka Itabashi and Fukuoka and not even interior of Fukuoka, but the Umabayashi station outskirts of Fukuoka or Akigawa. I mean, I do think Akigawa here has a strong case. It's a strong contender as my favorite area. But it's a dumb thing to even why they even bring it up because all of them are so good in their own different ways.

I mean, maybe Fukuoka, but hey, whatever. I'll be getting there soon enough. So we'll see. Till then, stay tuned. Let's finish with the sound of my wheelie bag rolling across the ground.