#28 Seeing Mount Fuji at Sunset from Chiba

Transcript

Yo, so I've got a little podcast update that my idea was to just record audio about specifically visiting Japan because the first time I visited, it was so cool and I wished I had more of a chronicle of it. And then I presumed you know I'd go home for probably quite a long time and during that downtime I could just keep putting out the podcast about Japan. So the idea was a weekly schedule even though especially in Japan I recorded pretty much every day. And it leads to a weird lead time of you know this episode right now I'm in Chiba but I believe at that time I was either still putting out podcasts about Montreal or the podcasts had just reached Japan you know it was trailing behind. As I record this now in real life I've been gone from Japan for three months I'm in South Korea right now but I'm just finally putting out the episode about you know being in Chiba and just you know it's like this little trail of podcast ducklings following along behind me. And I do have a ludicrous number of geez what am I up to now you know this episode is in the 20s but I have the raw audio for a little over a hundred at this point.

There's lots of podcasts to come if you've been enjoying this so far thank you very much for listening anyone who's dropped me a line thank you very kindly I find the best thing to do on the modern internet is kind of to do nothing just let the algorithm have its way you know these will just sit there and if anyone is googling specific locations maybe they'll come across the podcast and they'll be like home what is this and then they can check it out you know I think this is relatively evergreen just some guy wandering around. Maybe people will find it maybe they won't either way whatever but for those of you that are here I appreciated very much and thank you. And I hope you're enjoying this because with the hundred episode back catalog ready to roll it's like yeah it's going to take like two years at one week for those to come out. You know that's lots of lead time lots of podcast to keep me busy while I'm back in Canada but I've recently realized that the flight back to Canada is frightfully expensive it is just so brutally expensive. And I've only really been gone not that long less than a year you know so less than a year out in Asia this is really no big deal there's no need to be rushing back to Canada. You know I still keep in touch with everybody do a little video calls with my mom and stuff I was talking to her and she's in no big hurry for me to come back she's like yeah you know I mean if you're out there anyway you're just going to get itching to leave once you get back to Canada you might as well stay longer and do more stuff and see more stuff. And I agreed because it's like yeah I could either spend minimum the cheapest flight back to Canada is like sixteen hundred dollars at the peak of summer it's just brutal or I could just fly to Taipei for two hundred bucks. You know the options seem it seems clear that I should hang out here longer take my time getting back to Canada what's the hurry.

And that being the case it's looking more and more like perhaps I should just go back to Japan for a second visit while I'm still in this part of the world. And you know I had that little handful of episodes about Montreal I've got a handful of episodes about South Korea but if I go back to Japan you know we're going full speed ahead again I'm just going to be recording ludicrous numbers of podcasts because I find every little thing so fascinating there. So this is just too many podcasts so what this means is we got to up the production schedule instead of weekly this podcast is going to be twice a week so we've been coming out on Wednesdays now it's going to be an episode on Wednesday and an episode on Saturday. And again if you're here for the ride as they come out thank you very much if you come here in the future great you know they're just there for anyone that might find it interesting. What is it like to just wander around X Y R Z specific weird little part of the world. So yes starting from here this is the Wednesday episode my arrival in Chiba and then on Saturday we'll get day two in Chiba and then oh my god day three in Chiba. That's the day I got super duper drunk went to an izakaya and that's a whole man that's a story and a half and then after that.

So when I met the guy from the Buddhist sect and went along to a man there's just a lot of stuff happened in Chiba. So stay tuned and yeah I hope you've been enjoying these thank you again for listening and yeah this is the report that I guess I'm going to be traveling a little longer. 5:00 Then I expected maybe a lot longer than I expected. So this is now a twice weekly podcast Wednesday and Saturday.

I think I'm also slowly getting better at these podcasts I mean there's not much to it it's just me walking around rambling about what is happening around me. But I'm slowly picking up stuff like I realized in those early episodes I really need to be a little more mindful of traffic. I was really letting the traffic run wild and in this episode in particular this Chiba one listening back to it.

I don't know if that music is from there's like a clothing store here but that sounds like a for real piano that doesn't sound like a recording.

Wow weird though I tried to walk toward it and it disappeared. Oh there it is again. Phantom piano. Is that just coming from that house? Maybe someone's practicing piano.

Oh my god do you hear that?

Oh yeah there it is there's a window this has music so you have some kind of music school up there.

So if anyone was curious if anime music is also popular in South Korea yes it is because that's the that's the Evangelion theme. I think nothing in Evangelion is held up better than the music. A lot of things about that series are very strange in retrospect but the music is so fucking good. It is like the best anime music of all time all of the songs on that soundtrack are fucking amazing. The Ray theme all the different versions the attack song holy fuck. Anyway that was cool but that ties into what I was just going to say is listening back to this Chiba episode it's so scatterbrained. You know I started telling one story and then I'd spin off into a second sub story and then spin off to a third story and then come back to the first story. And you know sometimes that just happens because you walk by a fucking building where the Evangelion theme is playing. But sometimes there's no particular excuse for it. I mean yeah even just assisting to this episode and I was like buddy pick a lane finish a story before you start the next story please. So yeah maybe I'm overstating it but I found this a little hard to follow. But again as I do this and as I get a little more comfortable with it hopefully I will get my mind together. You know even though it is just rambling it doesn't need to be rambling to that degree. So anyway we Sally forth we carry on the podcast continues to evolve. So yeah without further ado let me introduce you to the magical land of Chiba Japan. Let's go.

Uh-huh. All right I'm in Chiba and my Airbnb guy, very nice fellow. Made me a little map which I forgot to bring but it's a little after three so it's going to be dark in a couple hours less than a couple hours. But he mentioned one thing that seemed easy to follow is there's like a monorail that goes through Chiba. He said hey if you go to the monorail and you follow it and just keep on walking straight you'll get to the waterfront Tokyo Bay. I think this is called. It is indeed. See yeah he lives pretty close to Chiba station.

And here's Chiba Port Park with the Chiba Port Tower which I told him I was scared of heights so I will not be going up that. Oh there goes the monorail overhead.

There's one like that near Tachikawa also. It's kind of cool because the monorail in Vancouver, the rails on the bottom, this is one where the rails on the top.

And the car hangs down. I wonder if it takes normal sweet-cut card stuff. Probably I should look that up because I should take it just to say I took it. Yeah, Chiba Port Tower, Chiba Perfectural Museum of Art which I will take a gander at as I walk past. But this seems like a good first quick little thing to try to do while the sun's still up.

So this is one of these little weird situations that would just be a pure bonus for other people. That's one reason why I was thinking of calling this introverts holiday.

Is there were a couple of Airbnb's specifically in Fukuoka that I didn't book because the reviews were too good. One of them in Fukuoka especially was like the exact neighborhood where I wanted to go because there's this cool hiking path up into the mountains that I found last time that I'm planning on hitting up. And instead I got a place that's like an hour walk away. And then a second place that's even further than that, although I realized that might not be as far as I thought. Because I was looking at Airbnb's and my Airbnb from 2019, they were near the entrance to that mountain. But then I had a very long walk home after I was done doing the loop around the mountain. Where now it'll be a longer walk to start, but it should spit me out closer to my Airbnb at the end. So I think it'll all work out fine. But it's one of these cases where I just feel like a weirdo.

Because this guy's like, I've never seen reviews so good. People loved this guy who was like out near Umabayashi station, which is exactly where I wanted to be.

One review was like we came here on our honeymoon and me and my husband are already planning on coming back to stay at this exact place again because it was so awesome and this guy rules so much. And then he, I'm inside some kind of a, oh, here's where you enter the Monterey line.

Actually, I might save that for a nighttime thing.

I bet the city looks cool at night. And there's the tower looks kind of like the Fukuoka tower, but I think smaller.

Basically, it just looks like a building, a long tall building, as opposed to like the sky tree that is more of a sea and tower-looking thing. But yeah, this guy was super friendly and you cooked meals for us in Nihonga with us and we had beers in Yadayada. And I hemmed in hot about it for a little bit, but that's the reason I didn't book it. Is because I wanted to stay for like three weeks in Fukuoka. And I was thinking like, maybe a week, maybe I could go there for a bit. But I just don't want to entwine myself into someone's life. I don't want, I just want to, I mean, I guess it's been pretty clear if you've listened to these podcasts so far. I'm more than happy to just walk around by myself and wander randomly and head out into the woods or just stay in the city, but just walk around all day. I find it's a snow problem, you know. It's not hard to fill the days. The days go by plenty fast.

I'm never wishing, like, oh, I wish I had more to do, I wish I had something else to fill up the day. That's never an issue.

And in fact, I noticed that today, kind of the whole reason I'm stopping in Chibas, because if I were to try to get all the way to Nareda to fly to Fukuoka today, that's what I did when I first left Japan in 2019. I left from Akikawa Station and I had to leave it like six in the morning to get all the way across Tokyo in time. It was mental. So in this case, I didn't have to leave until, you know, 10, 30 or 11. Because I'm only going halfway, just going halfway, hanging up Chibuff for a few days, then continuing on. Seeing what this is all about.

But yeah, I had these ideas that like, ah, it'll be so leisurely. What an easy day. Maybe I'll do my laundry while I'm in between Airbnb's or whatever. But I'm glad I did my laundry yesterday because there was no time. Just like... This wasn't too bad because from Hijima, I managed to get some kind of a super duper mega express all the way into Central Tokyo that only stopped like five or six times. I managed to the local into Chiba, so it stopped 21 times or something. So the whole trip was like two and a half, three hours, I don't know. But yeah, basically I had to like message the guy. I thought I was going to show up at X time at like two o'clock and I was like, I think it's going to be more like three. Just the whole day gets eaten up so quickly. No matter what you do. Like even yesterday, all I did was hang out at the mall all day, but most of that was just editing a podcast at a Starbucks. Do that, do laundry, it eats up the day. 15:00 Rambling locks them where? That eats up the day. Having to travel across Tokyo? That eats up the day. The days are just wicked short, man. There is no time. I didn't finish either of them, but as like a writing exercise, I started writing a Batman story and a Superman story. And they're both about time management. Since superheroes are always a metaphor for something, that's what's always on my mind. Every time to do the things you want to do in the day, I wish I could just not have to sleep and I could just stay up 24 hours a day. Then I would maybe get a little more done, but probably not. It would just the time would just get eaten up. So like in the case of Batman, it's like there's only so much time in the night. You know, they treat it like it's like this infinite expanse of him just at night running around stopping crimes. But the reality is, especially in the summer, you know, wait a while before it gets dark. Then you got to wait a while before anybody's going to be willing to start doing crimes. Then it's going to be like 3 a.m. If you're lucky, that was going to be my take on Batman. Is if he can stop one thing for night, that's considered a success because that's, that's just the reality of how much time there actually is. All right, the monorail has turned off to the side. I'm still going forward. And I should get a coffee actually. I did have one coffee this morning, but I could use another one. And then the Superman one Superman's weird to me because I just don't understand Superman. I find him a lot tougher to sort out what the point of Superman is. But in his case, it was going to be that he doesn't need to sleep very often. And I never really understood this idea that Superman would be America's superhero. Why would he just hang out in America? I would think he would follow the sun because he's like somehow sun powered or sun based. It's never quite clear on like is everyone on Krypton, were they all super powered or were they all normal. And then it was Earth's yellow sun that just made him super, I guess that is how it works. Anyway, he likes the sun. So my thinking was that Superman would follow the sun. He would just follow it around the earth for like the whole week. So I would have him follow the sun for the whole week and his adventures for the week. And then at the very end, he goes to bed finally.

But I especially never worked on that story because Superman is so hard to figure out what the point is.

So yeah, traveling eats up the day pretty good. I actually decided to get one of these vitamin C drinks. The one that's my favorite is actually really hard to find. It comes in this little tiny green glass bottle. Was that a Tully's? Nice. I love Tully's. Tully's is just, you know, it's like Starbucks, but I should go there and hang out.

This vitamin C drink comes in a tiny glass bottle and it's just packed with vitamin C and you drink it and it's real sour and it's like, wow, but that brand is hard to find. So this one's bigger.

This is an Asahi Mitsuya vitamin C drink. A bit bigger, a bit more liquid. I like small amounts of liquid and a large amounts of punch. But I noticed I've kind of been, I did bring vitamins with me, but I've been slacken a little on taking them.

And I've noticed I got a little canker sore forming on the inside of my mouth because my body, I can always tell. You know, sometimes like vitamins seem like a bit of an abstract thing, but not for me. I can really tell when I'm not taking my vitamins because my body starts doing weird shit like getting canker sore. And one more quick side story. I still feel like the luckiest man alive because I've just avoided getting a cold this whole time. And there's so many times when I'm sure that I caught a cold from somebody or someone around me is coughing like crazy. I did have like a little bit of a grumbly throat for a few days in Montreal, but no big deal. And yesterday I felt it for sure. I was just like really tired and just feeling just like indisputable evidence that I was getting sick. 20:00 You can just feel it. But then I woke up today and I felt okay and I'm like, God damn, I did it again. I'm so fucking lucky. But a little vitamin C wouldn't hurt. Anyway, yeah, so I hemmed in hot about this place in Fukuoka because I didn't want to, I didn't want to hang out with somebody. You know, I wanted to just walk into the mountains all by myself. Just wanted a little bunk to go bunk down in and that's it.

So then I hesitated long enough that then when I went back to check the listing was taken. Which happens a lot too. I think with Airbnb, it's a good policy that if you see a place you think you might want, you should probably just book it right away.

Because it's a very big world and there's a lot of people traveling. So whenever you're looking at it, we'll probably not be there for long. And also, you know, it sort of occurred to me too once it was taken. But it's like, yeah, it's best that I didn't book that place because whoever else got it is going to like it. You know, they're going to want that experience. Like maybe they're in Japan for less time than me. And maybe they're not just a weird loner like I am. Maybe they are, you know, that's why they travel. That's why they want to make some friends, meet the locals, do the whole thing.

Because I remember before Airbnb, even couchsurfing.com was getting to be pretty popular. And the idea was you could just host people, just offer your couch for people traveling. And it wasn't for money. It was just to meet people just to have that experience. And then when you're traveling around, you don't necessarily need any evidence that you've hosted people. But you know, it doesn't hurt. Like the whole thing was kind of just based on social this as far as I understand. If someone sees like, oh, look at this person, they've hosted a bunch of people at their house. They're extra willing to host you at their place, you know. And in theory, it sounds great. Sounds like a great way to just travel around the world. But I just knew it would never work for me because again, you're just too intertwined with someone else's life. And I don't want to do that.

You know, getting nearer the tower, hopefully we'll get away from some of this traffic. There are a lot of trucks. And not like the small little cute trucks that are in a lot of the other neighborhoods. These are for real full-size trucks. And a couple of, what are those called? Like the big trucks, things that carry other cars. You know, like, they're towing around a bunch of cars. I know there's a name for that, but I don't know what it is.

So this place I booked because it was really close to the airport. It's like 40 minutes from here to get to the airport. Pretty direct, I believe, from Chiba Station. So that'll be nice because I just didn't want to have a stressful travel day. Like if I pushed all the way through, if I traveled straight all the way to the airport, I really would have had to get up a six in the morning again because, you know, once I get there, then I got to figure out where my peach flight is, which is, you know, a weird little domestic airline in some strange corner of the airport. And, you know, I just, I don't like being stressed at the airport at all. I want to get there as early as possible. And as I learned in Calgary, apparently I can get there a whole day early. And it's no big deal. It's actually kind of fun. So I just didn't want to push it. So it's like, yeah, just stop in the middle. Check out Chiba for a few days. And then I can leisurely go to the airport. Set that all up. Take the nice little flight to Fuquaoka. And then the place I eventually booked in Fuquaoka is just an apartment with a key code. So I don't even need to meet up with people and stuff. Should be a pretty easy day. The biggest problem is going to be the weight limit on the luggage on that airline. We'll see how that goes.

Here we are, the Chiba Perfectural Museum of Art. I'd like to say that I'll go in, but that's one of those things I learned about myself at some point, too. I just had to accept my shallowness is that museums don't really do much for me, especially in New York. It's just like, hey, you're here. You're living in New York. You should go see all the stuff. And like I'm not saying it was bad, but it just doesn't really sink it. For me, it needs to be something that I can, you know, like something less abstract. So the Natural History Museum is pretty cool, because it has like dinosaur bones and stuff. Or I don't think it was that museum, but there was one that had medieval armor. And it was cool just to see, like it was small. And it's weird, because you recontextualize your idea of the past, if you know all these, like, armies fighting. And it's weird, because I'm six, too. 25:00 It's like, look at all these little midgets fighting, like these angry, tiny little men, because they're very small. It was very small, these suits of armor. And it's just weird, because they weren't small at the time. To them, they were all just normal people-sized. But when you look at it now, it just seems like, I mean, probably all the fussing in the feud and probably could have been talked out. It's probably not really a lot of need for any of the wars of the past, but it's just extra weird to think that it's like these tiny, angry men fighting. But it was just neat to see them, like, to have something to grasp onto. Or I went to a museum once about the history of the skateboard. And to me, like, that'll always stick with me, because I learned about fat boards. These are these big, thick boards that were, like, around in the 80s for a while. And they were, like, 84, I'm going to say, I might have the details wrong now. It's been a while. But I've never heard of those before. And it's just really neat to, you know, just the progression of the banana board, which is kind of like an alteration of a surf board. To the modern day skateboard, but in the middle there were these different types of skateboards. That's the kind of stuff I dig. But just a general all-purpose museum, I mean, it just kind of washes over me. I don't remember much of what goes on in those.

Yeah, I'm very close to the tower now. And yeah, it looks like a building, but if I remember right, the way the Fukuoka tower is set up, it also looks like a building. But there's nothing in it. So under this is the same. I see some lights up at the top, but I mean, obviously, I guess that's where you take the elevator up and see the view. But being a scared of heights bitch as I am, I shall not be doing that.

But yeah, I'm away from the traffic. So this is nice. Let's go. Go see Tokyo Bay.

So yeah, this place in Chiba, not only did I want a place to stay in the middle, but it seemed kind of handy, and it did in fact work out as I thought it might. This guy has like a room that he rents like a dedicated room, but it was booked already. And another room with four bunks in it, but instead of a separate listing for each of the bunks, it was only one listing. So if you wanted to book it as three or four people, there you go. But if just one person books it, he's got like a message on the Airbnb that like the only awkwardness here, is if one person books it, the listing disappears. So it is possible that this may be available, even if it doesn't look available, you know, send me a message and we can sort it out. But Airbnb frowns quite highly on, you know, doing stuff outside of the Airbnb system. So I presume that in this case, if I book it for four or five days, whatever, I think I'm here five days, probably it'll be just me, you know, that's the chance desire that's how it'll work out. And indeed, that is what happened. So I was like, that nice, you know, I basically got this whole area to myself, not to bad.

I can see boats way in the distance. Some buildings on the other side. Just kind of cool. I've never been down to the bay before. But yeah, the point of all this rambling is, and I know that this is the most insane, stupid shit to be like hangdog about, is that the guy is so friendly. He's so dang nice. He's this older Japanese guy. His English is not great, but I mean it's like about the same as my French is. He was saying, as you show me around and whatever. He made a little map for me. It's all good. Then he was like, hey, me and my friend, tomorrow night, we're going to an East Akaya. Can you come back here, like around four or five o'clock? And we'll go. We'll go to the East Akaya. We'll hang out. His English is better than mine. We'll hang out and we'll talk. And I know it's going to be a good time. I'll have fun. It's an experience I would never have normally because I'm too much of a bitch to go into a store by myself. It's not a convenience store. I would never go to an East Akaya in a million years. So I know I'll come back with a tale of like, yeah, it was great. What a good time. But I still don't want to do it. It's like, darn it. Darn it. As afraid this might happen. This guy is too nice. So tomorrow I'm off to the East Akaya. And again, it's like, what am I even, I'm not going to belabor it now because I know tomorrow it'll be great. I'll be glad that I did it.

But as he was pitching me the idea, you know, I can't not do it. I can't just like not show up or ghost the guy. I can't do it. It would be very uncanadian of me. I said, I'd be there. I'm going to be there. But I just were my smile got a little strained. And it's like, oh, oh, oh, you're being so nice. Everyone else in the world would love this. This would all be a bonus. I'm just the weirdo who, you know, I booked this because I thought through a loophole. It's like, hey, you know what? I bet I bet this little nookie's got over on the side with the four bunks will be just me. And it worked. It is just me. But he's so dang nice. So the bay from this particular vantage point, not so good. A lot of industrial stuff to my right. And then across the bay, more and more industrial, industrial, industrial, then halfway through. Then it sort of looks a little better. This is a bit like, I mean, a really good shoreline is Vancouver. Vancouver is pretty great. Pretty much wherever you stop at the side of the water. It's probably going to be pretty nice. This is more Toronto. Toronto, it's very hard to find space by the waterfront. It's a lake in that case. That is not big industrial buildings and shit. You know, they built them back in the day. Now everyone wishes they weren't there, but they are. But anyway, there is a nice little park here. So let me just wander around it. See what there is to see. But yeah, when I first booked this place and I sent my little introductory message, I was like, hey, yo, I'm Keith from Canada. Never been to Chiba before. Excited to go check it out. And the response was something along the lines of like, hey, cool, right on. Good to see you. But Chiba has nothing here. There's nothing here. It's boring. And I wondered if maybe it was like something about like, sometimes the translations can get pretty, pretty wonky. I try to formulate my sentences as like very short sentences. Nothing to run on. Because I'm not quite sure how it's coming out the other side once it gets translated through the auto translate. But no, that is indeed what he meant. Because that's what this guy said to me today. He's like, I was like, alright, cool. I only got a little bit of daylight left. So I'm just going to go wander around. And he's like, alright, but Chiba is nothing here. He's like, alright, there's the bay. There's some castle ruins not too far from here. There's the museum. There's the tower. I mean, yeah, I guess I already seen it. Oh, oh, hey, there's a nice thing.

But he's like, yeah, but that's it. You know, what you see is what you get.

But after all the time in the woods, a little city time ain't so bad. Although that is, yeah, this industrial stuff is not just for show. It is just constantly grinding away out there. But I just realized I can see Mount Fuji. Never been some kind of big Mount Fuji guy. People get weirdly obsessed with Mount Fuji. But this is actually a neat shot that it's like all this weird industrial crap and then right in the middle is Mount Fuji. And what problem is, since I'm just using this dump camera phone, it doesn't have a very good zoom. I'm not sure how great this picture will turn out, but it seems okay.

Just a little tiny Mount Fuji in the distance. But yeah, that's kind of cool. I believe this is the first time I've ever actually seen Mount Fuji.

And yeah, since the sun's going down, it's got like this orange hue around it. And yeah, just being surrounded by the weird industrial crap. That's kind of a bonus. That's kind of neat. It's neat too, because it's really cloudy today. But just the way things are situated, it's just like clouds, clouds, clouds. And you can see Mount Fuji. And it's cool. That's not bad. This is already turning out all right. And yeah, I mean, maybe if I was here for ages, I'm sure this guy has probably lived in Chiba forever. That's why I told him basically that was my response. It's like, hey, this is all exciting to me. Like, I don't care if all I do is at once. There was a new day, you know, in the station. There's a loss inside the station. There's a 7-Eleven between your house and the station. That's more than enough to keep me happy, my friend. I think, too, this is coming back to me. I haven't looked it up since, but I think when I was just doing random research, when I was back home, hunkering down during COVID, I think the reason I didn't see any new days until I took the subway out west is I think new days the convenience store chain is actually owned by JR Rail. So they're in the subway stations, which would, that would check out because they are always in the subway stations, it seems. So when I wasn't taking any subways, 35:00 that's why I didn't see any.

Oh, and speaking of random research, I finally remembered to look up bears and wild boars since I ran into a guy out at the edge of Akiruno who was wearing bear bells.

And I saw a sign warning about wild boars. Hmm, there's a public washroom here, but it's all blocked off. I've never seen a washroom with just the caution tape on it before. However, I'm going to get a coffee anyway because I have to trust that there's another washroom around here somewhere. Oh, yes, speaking of the vitamins he drink, too, there's this other brand that I don't know what the heck the flavor is, but it's another one of these vitamin drinks that's like in a brown bottle and it tastes so bad. It is like medicine, but I don't know what's in there. Maybe it's amazing. Maybe it's every vitamin in the world, but the vitamin C drinks taste so I better. Oh, here's one right here. Oro Nomen C drink. Yeah, I got one just to be like, do I really hate them as much as I thought I did, and yes, I do. They're gross.

Here we go. Get a nice little, oh, did I get a cold coffee back, so then? Oh, well, it's okay. It's really not, uh, still pretty decent weather. It's not particularly hot or cold right now, so that's okay. But I got the slightly bigger one, not the huge 600 milliliter monstrosities, but how big is this one? I don't know, but the medium size can't. That's how much confidence I have that there must be a washroom here somewhere. I'll walk toward Fuji-san and trust that it's leading me to a washroom. Yeah, one nice thing too about spending the day in the subway around here is it's really not bad, not only other new days, convection stores everywhere. But in most places, if I was on an epic day-long journey, I would just dehydrate myself to not have to worry about having to pee on my three-hour trek. We're here, I was like, woke up feeling a little low-key, and I was like, yeah, fuck it, I'm just going to get a coffee out of one of the many machines. There'll be washrooms all over the place on this journey, and there were...

Ah, that's good. You know, it's complaining a lot at first about the sugary coffee, blah, blah, blah.

But if you haven't had coffee since this morning, this is more than good enough.

But yeah, I finally looked up the state of wild animals, because I knew there were not bears in Kyushu, the southern island where Fukuoka is, which is nice. But yeah, seeing the guy with the bear bells the other day, it's like, well, clearly, as taking that to presume that maybe bears are only in the north, but while this guy have bear bells. So it turns out there are... There's black bears and brown bears. I don't remember the specifics of which is which, but one of those types of bears is only in the north, and the other is very much on this island, Honshu, the main island where Tokyo is, and the wild boars are sort of the opposite. They're not in the north, they're only in Honshu and Kyushu. So, Tokyo's got all this stuff, potentially. It's got bears, it's got boars, it's got snakes. It's only got one of it's 50,000 types of spiders being venomous, but technically. So yeah, I guess that's just something that never came up and normally wouldn't, because obviously, you know, right now in your Tokyo Bay in Chiba, I don't need to worry about bears and boars, but I didn't expect when I was exploring Musashi Utsukishi station and way at the edge of Kamene Park and stuff. I just didn't expect to get to the edge of the map, you know, where you very much get to the end of of the the city part of Tokyo and you're just really are heading into the woods and heading into the national trail system and stuff. I didn't venture very far into it just a little bit, but I guess that's something I need to be somewhat mindful of, because I'm definitely going to go back at least once more to make sure I see that waterfall properly. But I don't think I'm going to go down the horrible stairs. I think I am going to go around to the back way through the forest tree trail, but then maybe I'll go up the stairs on the way out. Going up steep stairs is not nearly as bad as going down them, but I wonder, I mean, for the little bit I intend to be in the woods, 40:00 I think yet another in my series of famous last words, I, uh, I think, you know, I'll bone up a little on my basic bear, because as I understand it, it's like you just don't want a bear to be surprised. If you see a bear, it's best just to call to it and just say hello bear, you know, just let the bear know you're there and just let it go about its business. And if it does attack and try to eat you, something very fucked up is going on. You're in the middle of a bear famine or something is really unlikely to happen. Startling a bear out of nowhere apparently is like that's the trouble or, you know, getting between a bear and it's cubs somehow. In normal cases, well, I mean, even if I was going to, uh, go try to buy like bear mace or something, where do I even get it? I don't know. I just feel like it maybe is all a little excessive. I don't think I need to do all that stuff, but I guess it's just good to know what is around, because I just, I really didn't even know that there was a potential for bears. When I'm just, you know, getting off the subway and walking for a couple hours, it's really, it seems so close to civilization, but I mean, I guess I guess that's the point of the encroachment of humans, right? It's like, you know, that happens in North Vancouver also, when it is the time that there's a bit of a bear famine going on, they'll just wander into town.

Some bears wandered into, uh, Fredrickton while I was there a couple of years ago. Super rare, but it can happen.

Anyway, arrival into Chiba so far, pretty, uh, pretty industrial. A lot of big grind and factories, a lot of trucks and stuff. Oh yeah, on the other side of where I'm walking, there's a bunch of those like giant shipping cranes where they move big crates onto, uh, onto ships and stuff. I'm a little touch anxious about, uh, tomorrow's Izakaya adventure, or whatever, I mean, again, I know it'll be fun once I'm doing it. It's the lead up. It's like doing a speech in school. It's not really that bad when you're doing it. It's just the anticipation leading up to it. That's the worst part. But it kind of reminds me of when I lived in New York, eventually, you know, New York, it was like, hey, let's go into Manhattan. Let's go hang out at bars until fucking four in the morning. Let's go do stuff. And I lived there for a year and a half, and I did start to, as time went on, just, uh, turn down more and more invitations. And I didn't know how to explain it or describe it. What I eventually came up with is fun's not fun. You know, going out to Manhattan, hanging out at a bar, surely that's fun. That's fun for everybody. Does that fun? Or tomorrow, you know, like it's, it's, it's, it's not a source of anxiety or it shouldn't be. It's supposed to be fun. Go do an Izakaya, eat some food, drink some beer, have fun. But to me, fun is not fun. Fun isn't fun. Fun is a job you gotta do. And then you do, after the job's done, you get nice memories. You get a nice story. You have a nice experience, but it very much feels like work. Fun is work to me. Fun isn't fun. What the hell is this? I've just been walking as close as I can get to Fuji. Oh yeah, there's a view and a half, holy shit, that view's way better. So I'm just at the peak of this little park.

And there's a thing overhead that it, I mean, it's weird. It almost looks like a roller coaster, but I guess it's just, I guess it's just a roof, just like a twisty roof for if it's raining or something maybe. And there's people fishing. Yeah, this is the end of the line, but that is a way better view of Fuji. Picture time. I don't know if anything else is going to happen to me in Chiba today. That could be the end of the episode, but I think we know what the episode image is going to be. It's going to be sunset to Mount Fuji. And it really is pretty cool.

Good old Japan, man. Just wander around randomly in random places at random times. And cool shit's going to happen. And from here, you can kind of put the industrial stuff to the side and not focus on it. You see more out into the proper bay. And there's just a bunch of ships that look much more like the Vancouver water. We just see the ships in the distance. Very pretty, man. There's a lot of people fishing down here. Yeah, I mean, so far. You know, despite 45:00 the industrial nature, this is pretty good. So far I'd give Chiba a thumbs up for a very short visit. You know, if I stayed here for a month, I'd probably be like, Jesus, I gotta get that out of here. But for a few days, I think this is going to be all right.