#39 The amazing view from Shiomi Observatory, Fukuoka

Transcript

Alright, walking on a bit of a back street to get things quieter for podcasting, though I see a road right next to me and this is very confusing as usual, so we'll see. I'll see how long I can manage this for. So I got a slightly odd start to the day. Yesterday I was like, I'm going to have a super adventure tomorrow, but I mean don't get me wrong, I'm still going to have a super adventure, but last night I did a little phoning home and there's a 12-hour time difference between Japan and my hometown. So I was like, well that's as bad as it could possibly get, but it turns out I was wrong because then they pushed the time back, the time zones changed because twice a year in North America we shift the time by an hour just so the sunlight lines up slightly better with it not being dark all the time. So now it's a 13-hour time difference. So I got to stay up pretty late and the people on the other end got to get up pretty fucking early to make this shit happen, so that kept me up pretty late. And then yeah here at the road I think I'm going to have to connect to the road, but then I was talking last episode about that album Spider Land was on my mind. What is this?

stairways up into is this a park? Jodo Shugo Kurakuji Shrine. All right, okay let's take a quick detour to the shrine. But yeah even though it was late and I probably should have gone to bed, I had that album Spider Land on my mind a lot and there's a documentary about the making of that album called Breadcrumb Trail. It's on YouTube. So I stayed up and watched it and it was awesome.

I haven't actually seen that documentary since I mean in like 10 years, almost. Such a strange scenario. It's just these kids from Louisville, Kentucky who they had been in many bands before. This band's slint they did. They were in many bands after. They collaborated together on different things even after that band broke up. In a weird way that particular band was not especially special to them. But it just kept gaining momentum that album Spider Land, gaining momentum and gaining momentum until nowadays in the like alternative metal scene or art rock or whatever you want to call it. It's super fucking famous and super influential. And it's interesting to see their perspective where they're just like yeah I mean we worked hard on it. We were proud of it. Things just weren't working out. We didn't we didn't keep going with that band. We just you know to them it was just just a thing that they did just a couple of years of their life. And then all these decades later it's the fucking shit.

This is a very nice temple. I've very much run out of things to say about temples. They're all god damn gorgeous. This one is quite a large temple by just the standards of a random temple in a neighborhood. It's got two statues up front. They look kind of like lions but I don't know what they actually are. The faces are kind of like dragon faces but they have tails. And yeah it just again it just looks like to me to a dumb North American it looks like a movie set. It's like man that's a real building. Look at that shit. It's so cool. It's just all you know ancient Japanese style architecture. Just look sweet. All right yet another temple down. I used to do a little game an unofficial game in Vancouver where I would just try to find branches of the local library without a map just walking around because they're so surprisingly hidden ones.

This is not the most idyllic place to have a shrine. That road is actually pretty loud.

But every time I found a new branch of the local library it was like trying to gather all of the you know we didn't like deal with Grand Theft Auto games where you got to find a hundred whatever is a hundred of an item. I don't know if there's a hundred branches of the library but there's a lot. So every time I found one it's like I found another one. I had it into my collection but if I tried to go to every shrine Jesus Christ not fucking possible and pointless.

But yeah they're just fucking everywhere. Well I didn't take up as much time as I had hoped. Is there any way to get off of this street and still get to where I'm going? No there is not. All right well let me just ram below a little bit even though this traffic.

So I watched the the breadcrumb trail documentary and it's like one of those things where I know I shouldn't be doing it because I want to get up tomorrow and use the sun like shouldn't stay up till three in the morning watching a god damn documentary about a band no matter how fascinating it is but I did. So yeah I went to bed really late. So I was trying to figure out because I knew it was going to ruin today. I just can't. I cannot talk with all the traffic. I just can't do it anymore. Fucking hate the traffic. I'll get back to this once I get away from the traffic. I was up at 3 a.m. pause dot dot dot.

Hmm this traffic actually got so bad that it's gone under underneath under a tunnel and I'm above it. It's like I can hear it under me but this isn't too bad. Let's see how long this lasts. But anyway I was trying to figure out even before I went to sleep. I'm like shit okay I was going to have a big adventure tomorrow which means either go hike up Mount Abreyama or try to get to the islands way out in the bay of you know not really islands. The peninsula out in the bay to the north but both of those plans require an early start. Don't want to get stuck in the woods when the sun goes down obviously as I've learned several times already and it probably wouldn't be so bad to be out on the island when it gets dark because it gets dark by like 5.30 so you don't get a ton of day but there's still a lot of evening left to do stuff it's just dark so that might not be so bad but since I've never been out there before I would prefer not you know I'm not quite clear of the scale I have heard that the scale out there is quite large I probably got some walking ahead of me to get to this secondary island the shrines and stuff so it's not the greatest idea if I end up waking up very late. Wow this is actually great I can't believe how quiet this street cut is all you need to do make tunnels under every street and then all the streets can be clear all the cars should be underground. Jesus actually amazing can you imagine if a city was made that way if you want to drive somewhere you don't get sunlight you get to go underground that'd be fucking the best that would be so good then it would all collapse in a horrifying infrastructure of a death and destruction so I thought what could I do because this wasn't really a big problem in Tokyo it didn't matter if it got dark it was fun it's like all right now it's dark it's just that I'm doing these fire flung fucking rural adventures out here in Fukuoka so I thought I could just go downtown I haven't really properly done that you know what I call the downtown I'm where it's like all the all the fancy shit there's a big mall called Canal City I have not been to yet and I could just walk around I don't really know downtown Fukuoka that well but it's just generally pretty just all lit up at night the neon reflecting off the canals there's worse things you could do so I was like I'll do that that's the plan for tomorrow but then I woke up early-ish at like 10.30 and my first inclination was I you were up all night just go back to bed then I was like no no no no no no no no no no no no no you could just get up right now and this is you know not early early but early enough to justify those other adventures oh here we go I'm merging back into traffic now wow that was fucking nice just a nice little hump just a nice little walking hump that went over the traffic I'm delightful see I just decided fuck it just push it dude just get up get move it drink some coffee because in particular if I go out to those islands it's going to be a train ride you know maybe hiking up the mountain when you've been up till three in the morning the night before not the best plan sitting around standing waiting on a train not really that bad and very easy to escape from unlike the fucking mountains so I decided to do that and I got up and beautiful goddamn day out I think it's 12 degrees but I think it actually might be more like 14 today very sunny clear skies I'm wearing 10:00 my windbreaker thing that I bought in Montreal because it's probably going to be windy out on the island and it's a little too heavy it's more than I need for this weather it's like just beautiful and I feel bad already that last episode I was complaining about how cold my Airbnb is because when I was calling home turns out they already had snow there only one snowfall but then it stayed cold enough for the snow to stay on the ground and it's just like well fuck god damn I mean of course you know it's like late November of course that's how it is in Canada but I just I said it before and I will say it another hundred times easily I cannot believe this weather in Japan it's fucking wild it is 20 times warmer than I thought it was gonna be I just can't even believe it it's it's ridiculous and then when I got outside it was so beautiful that I did feel that little tug that it's like oh I could go the other way I could go do the mountain thing but it's like no no no you'll regret that four or five hours from now because you did stay up all night this is yeah you know if you hike up a mountain you're gonna feel that shit where if you just take a train and drink a lot of coffee you're probably fine speaking of yeah I see a train passing by but that's not quite the one I want to go to I was gonna do the train that I took yesterday try to take that see where it terminates and then I guess hook over to Hakata station figure out how this all works I really wasn't quite sure what was going on with the trains but the other train line that I didn't try yesterday is a Takeshita station also the name of an excellent wrestler from DDT Pro Wrestling currently in AEW Kunosuke Takeshita I noticed on the map that that train line is a little red JR symbol there's so many JR trains that they're different colors and the little red one it's also a little red symbol out on the island Saito Zaki I believe is the station name so does that mean if I get on this train which this has been a very easy walk way easier than walking all the way to Hakata can I just get on this train and it'll just take me all the way to the magical island in the bay that I didn't think I'd ever be able to get to without navigating a ferry but it turns out there's just that freaking train line that goes straight to it is that what's going to happen today that's insane that's so magical and amazing it's fucking insane and arguably mainlining coffee to make up for you know again it's not like I'm like super tired I just you know a bit more tired than I'd like to be but mainlining coffee is actually even probably easier while on the train than when I'm just walking because when you're just walking it's pretty likely that you'll find a convenience store with a washroom or just a park that has a bathroom in it but if you're on the train line I mean every fucking station has bathrooms it's even easier I haven't really done a ton of train travel this trip but oh yeah and there's another thing just my brain slowly coming back together where I was so bamboozled and gobsmacked about these these train lines that are not part of the main Fukuoka subway system I remember now this is just how I don't know my brain does not hold information well unless I directly do something myself and probably buy myself that's when I really internalize information because I do remember now when I was booking all this stuff several months ago I was talking to my friend Brad just texting him about oh yeah I'm heading back to Fukuoka trying to explain where my Airbnb's were and I was like oh yeah and this one seems to be near some manner of station I'm not sure what that station is like now that I think back I was somewhat aware of these stations because I remember I mentioned it and he said oh yes just one of those you know regional commuter train things and I do remember thinking like yeah he seems to really think I know what that means you know that he really just kind of casually because he normally Brad would be you know he would explain a concept if it was a concept that needed to be explained and with that one I guess it was notable that I noticed that he expected me to know what that meant and I just remember thinking like what does that mean exactly what what is this train system but then the conversation just moved on to something else but now I suddenly remember because me and him went to see the world's largest reclining Buddha which is also on my list if things to do again in Fukuoka we in fact took one of these trains it left from one of the major stations probably Hikata 15:00 And yeah, we just rode this train line way up North, around the coastline kind of into the mountains and then we got off at this extremely ancient station and we saw the Buddha and we hung out there for the afternoon. So it's like, oh yeah, I've literally done this before. I've been on one of these trains, but it just erased itself from my memory. Not the trip, I knew I went to see the Buddha, but how did I think I got there? Fucking magic? But I think it's because I was just following him that day like a duckling and just letting him handle it and I just never committed that process to memory. Because this used to happen to me all the time when I lived in New York as well. People would take me places in New York and I would have no fucking hope in fucking hell of ever figuring out how to get back there by myself. But then if I went there by myself, then I knew how to do it. I don't know, it's weird. I'm very selectively stupid. I'm fantastically dumb in certain weird ways that like, I don't know if it's my brain trying to fucking conserve energy or something. But yeah, if somebody else is taking the lead, I suddenly become follower number one. I am follower Jones. I am not using my own head anymore. But then when I have to do stuff on my own, maybe that's why I like traveling by myself. It just feels like such an insubstantial experience when I'm with other people because I just let them marshal my life. But if I'm by myself, then I got to figure it out. And then it becomes a vibrant experience that I won't forget.

And I guess maybe it would be handy to not be that way. But I mean the New York examples from 2008, the Buddha examples from 2019, here we are now in 2023, it's clearly just how I am. It strings back through my entire adult life. It's not gonna change. Somebody just waved to me from their car as they went by.

I'm holding this weird fucking recorder. You seem nice enough.

All right, speaking of forging paths on my own and figuring out how to do stuff, have I gotten turned around while talking to myself?

Nope, I think I'm still on track to catch the station.

You know, I'm walking past this restaurant, Royal Host, a spinning sign.

They, you know, it's clearly just like a family restaurant. Like the Buddhist guys took me to Coco's and I know about Jonathan's just because it pops up all the time. You know, even in Mangan stuff, I don't know, Jonathan's for whatever reasons or people I was going to hang out. And of course there's Denny's. These are all interesting to me. You know, it was quite exciting to me to infiltrate Coco's and to actually go inside and see how it works and see a robot delivering stuff. And I always think about how fantastically boring my hometown is. Like if you really dig, you can find some more interesting stuff. But in general, it's Wendy's, it's Burger King, it's McDonald's. If you want to get fancy pants, you can go to Outback Steakhouse or whatever. You know, it's all just franchise shit. But you know, now that I've been walking around Japan for a while, it's also all franchise shit here. It's just fucking chain restaurants and convenience stores. It's just that to me, that's interesting. But I bet there's Japanese people that feel the exact same way about Jonathan's and Coco's and Denny's, especially Denny's. As I feel about all the fucking boring-ass places in North America, like that is a kaya. The nor Hiko took me to Inchiba. That really is, you know, and you're saying how it's hard to find those places. That really is like the cool, unique, interesting place.

I bet if I grew up in Japan, I would be bored as shit of this country. But luckily, since I can only visit once in a while, every little thing is magical. Every little thing is just the best.

I've heard though, because there is a lot of French influence in Japan. A lot of French signs, a lot of French feeling neighborhoods.

And I've never actually been to Paris. But I'm pretty familiar with French culture from Canada.

It's just me, in Canada, the end of Belangue. 20:00 That I've heard because Japan is so meticulous and so spotless and so, you know, prim and proper. Everything in its right place. There's not even garbage cans on the street. People just don't litter. That's not 100% true, but generally, by world standards, it's fantastically clean. I've heard it's like a phenomenon where people will go visit Paris, Japanese citizens will visit Paris. Because to them, that's their version of a magical place. You know, the same way I think it's amazing to be in Japan. They're tired of Japan. They want to go to Paris. And they got this idea in their head that it's like storybook France. And then they get there and it's fucking gross. You know, it's filthy and disgusting and disheveled. And they have like minor freakouts.

They just don't know how to reconcile these ideas. And I can really understand how that must feel. I definitely know what they mean. It's such a great feeling for me to come visit Japan and see all the ways that things work and all the neat little mechanisms I wouldn't have thought of. And all the interesting thoughtfulness and just the stuff that's different for my culture in a better way.

But what if I had come to visit and everything was just all fucked up, you know? And everything was. What if there was just garbage everywhere? I don't know. I've heard stories of like, I got a friend who teaches English in rural China. And you know, I don't know. You can look it up. You can look up the stories. But like kid shitting in the street is not a thing that doesn't happen. Like that must kind of suck when you build something up in your brain. And then you get there and it's a real letdown. Where Japan? I mean, I wouldn't say I built it up in my brain. I wasn't even sure I was ever going to come here. But it had been built up in my mind inadvertently just through manga, anime, and video games, you know? My entire life has been intertwined with Japan in some way. And then you get here. And not only is it as... Ambulance.

But then you get here. And not only is it as good as you hoped it would be. And many ways it's better. Like that's pretty fucking great. And then you kind of get that extra cherry on top. What is that term? Oh, the Geijin card. Geijin just means outsider, foreigner. Where you can kind of get away with some bullshit if you're a foreigner because people don't expect you to know how things work. So like when I was trapped in that golf course the other day. If I had had to explain my way out of a gate or something. I was going to have to pull the Geijin card. Just like I'm sorry. I just didn't know what I was doing. I got lost on a path. I don't know. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I'm a fool. I'm not from here. I'm sorry. And it would be fine. You know the Geijin card. But the other nice thing about the Geijin card, especially if you're not living here, if you're just visiting, is there's obviously things about a collectivist eastern society that are not going to jive with my upbringing, my mindset, just my basic ideas about how human life should be. But you just don't have to give a fuck. You're just visiting. You can just ignore that stuff. You know what? I'm not here to change any societies. I'm not here to fucking tell anybody how I think things should be.

I'm literally just here to walk around and soak it in and check it out. And if there's stuff that seems a little weird and seems a little suspect, I can just let it go.

So it's kind of the best situation, I think, kind of the best of all worlds.

I'm almost at this station. I got across a river. What is this river called?

It's a Naka River. There's a little green line going over the river. Is that a walking path? A walking bridge? I'm just going to keep walking straight. See if I can get across the river. And then to catch the station should be right there. It's kind of the best of all worlds in some ways because the people I do know who are more knowledgeable and have spent more time in Japan, they certainly have more criticisms. You know, once you have to deal with the bureaucracy and deal with the society, I mean, I complain about every dumb little thing. Oh, geez, the water was too hot in my fucking Airbnb. I could complain to you about North America till the end of time. 25:00 I have criticisms and they go deep. There's no question I would feel that way about Japan if I ever tried to live here. So I'm not gonna, I'm just not gonna try. I'm not gonna get too involved. That's not what I'm here to do. I think that's all right. You don't have to fucking be the world police. You don't have to fucking solve the problems of every culture and society on Earth. You can just fucking not worry about it because it's not your goddamn business. That's my plan.

Speaking of sort of about weird societal things in Japan that I'm just gonna choose to ignore. One thing I forgot to mention, when I went to that gigantic porn warehouse yesterday, see last episode for details, one thing I forgot to mention that was kind of funny is when I went in, they were playing Earth song by Michael Jackson. And I hadn't thought about that song in a while, but if you haven't heard Earth song, it's the secret best Michael Jackson song. You know, like secret best in the sense that nobody ever brings it up, nobody ever talks about it, nobody ever puts it in the list of classic famous Michael Jackson songs. But it's the best Michael Jackson song. Earth song is insane. It starts off good, and then it kicks it up a gear, and you're like, holy shit, this is amazing. And then it's just relentless. It just won't stop. It's such a good song. But it's weirdly under the radar. You know, it came out in 1996 when Michael Jackson was past the peak of his powers. But yeah, for my money, secret best Michael Jackson song, Earth song. And yeah, just like that, that was playing. Like the irony was not lost on me, that a Michael Jackson song was playing in this store, this gigantic porn store, that just had rows and rows and rows of like manga about, you know, you can connect the fucking dots, right?

You know what I'm talking about? Michael Jackson could have been the star of those fucking comics, is what I'm trying to say.

So anyway, go give Earth song a listen, and then next time, next time it comes time to donate money to a sexual abuse charity, donate an extra $5 because you listen to a Michael Jackson song. But it's a really good song, man. It's crazy good. All right, yeah, here's the walking path. Right over the water, straight to the station. Everything is going swimmingly.

Jesus, is that construction? I don't even notice because I had headphones and listening to music.

How is that construction everywhere at all times? I don't even know where that's coming from. Maybe it's not. Maybe it's just the general rumbling of the station. I don't know what that is anyway. The plan is generally working. I got on this train, and it's like the other one I was on, where instead of the subway layout of chairs along the edges, it's front and backward facing chairs like a real train, and it was super duper crowded. It's a Sunday today. It's like, oh jeez, you know, I don't regret all the times I have not taken trains so far on this trip, because yeah, crowded trains kind of suck. But it squeezed my way in, and luckily I was only one step away from a kind of station. So as soon as we get to Hakata, everybody left, almost everybody, but not everybody, because if everybody had left, I would presume it was the terminal station and get out and figure out what was going on. But enough people stayed, and some people got on. So I'm like, okay, good, this train does keep going. So I stayed on and got a little seat, and then I noticed that there's washrooms in there. You know, it's like washrooms back this way. It's like, yeah, this really is like a real train. I'm like on the dang Darjeeling. So that made me think, like, hmm, well, if this goes this way, you know, to the Tysaito-Zaki, to the cool island, what if I went the other way? Then what would happen? What the heck's out there? So maybe, we'll see. But then today, as we're going along, we got to the point where it's like, okay, we should be curving around the bay soon. I should get some sweet views coming up. Maybe I should get my camera ready, and then the sweet view didn't happen. And it's like, okay, here's where we were supposed to turn left to go to the islands, and we just turned right instead. So it's like, all right, get off, get off the train. So that's where I am right now, the train after the split. And it looks like I got to go back, not one stop, but two or three. And then that's where there's a split. There's two different red lines. But since I had that idea of, like, what happens if I go the other way, I briefly considered, like, maybe this is fate. Maybe I should just stay on this line and see where it goes, but it just goes up the coast really, really far. And I don't know to where. I mean, presumably to nowhere. 30:00 If the choice is just random nowhere, or the cool peninsula that I want to go to, I'll go to the cool peninsula. But yeah, basically, besides the fact that I missed a transfer, basically this is working.

Genius Idea Alert. There's a train that just showed up, but it's not my train. It's the one going the wrong way. I realized while I was sitting there, standing there, waiting for a train to arrive. It's like, all right, I got to go back two stations to get the transfer. But then I was looking and I'm like, you know, I could just go back one station and walk from there to the other station that I want to get to to get me back on the proper line. That'd be kind of cool. It's still early in the day. It's not even 1 pm yet. And you know, soak in this neighborhood a little. Get a tiny little taste of this. You know, I'm already tired of being on the train. Then I realized, wait a second, why go back a station and do that? Let's just do that right now. So I got off. So that station is FU-K-K-O-D-A-I-M-A-E. And I'm going to take a little journey over to Wajiro, W-A-J-I-R-O station.

And then Wajiro will take me a few more stops to the promised land. Oh, there's my train that I was supposed to catch.

But yeah, this seems like a cool little divergence. Why not? Take a little mosey, because yeah, once I go back two stations, then I got to make sure I'm on the right line.

And then I got to wait again for another train. It'll definitely be a little faster in the end. But this way, I get to walk. I'd way rather walk. It's a beautiful day out.

Never been to this neighborhood. Just take a little mosey through Wajiro Gauka. Let me just make sure I'm walking the right way, which is never a given. Yes, I am. And as a bonus, I got a new coffee to try from the machine. This is Yakult. Y-A-K-U-L-T. It's not a company I see a lot. Apparently, it seems like they sell mostly fruit drinks or yogurt or something. But they had a cafe O'Lay. So I'm like, alright, let me try that. And it came out in a carton. A little carton, like in your school lunch. Except coffee. So let's try this bad boy. I predict coffee milk and sugar. That's like that Futurama joke about the seven herbs and spices, the secret recipe of KFC. But then they discover the secret recipe and it's just chicken grease salt. You can't go wrong.

Stabby, stabby.

Hmm, that's good. I mean, I guess the difference between all these coffees in Japan, obviously the black coffee is black as hell, black as night. But beyond that, it is, you know, it is just coffee sugar milk. But there's subtle aftertaste that are different.

And if it does not have the aftertaste of sugar crisp, then I call that a win. And this does not. It's hard to pinpoint what this tastes like. I don't know. It's just nice though. That tastes good.

Riveting, I know.

Alright, let's cut this recording because there's obviously a train coming. Let's get out of here before the train noise happens. Oh no, here comes the train. I didn't press stop and time. Oh no. Oh no, here's the train. There comes the train. It's actually not that loud. It's sort of nice and calm.

A little conductor in the back sticking his head out the window. It is interesting. These things are like hybrids between the subway experience and a train train. There's pseudo trains.

Alright, next stop, the actual station I was trying to get to.

Alright, let's play a little game. See if you can guess what that pretty piano music was all about. Where was I just at that had that play? For a context clue and based on the history of this podcast, keep in mind that I just drank a coffee. So that's the other name that could easily have worked for this fucking podcast is the Toilet Report. The Toilet Report with small bladder McNally. What is this door called? Unfortunately, the name is not in English, so I don't know. I would like to give them a shout out. The fucking logo is an M with two dots over the M. Jeez, that's really clever so that the M looks like two stick figures holding hands.

What a good logo. Maruquillo Wajiro. Which I'm guessing is a grocery store chain.

I was walking past this place. I noticed a little blue and pink man and woman washroom sign pointing around the corner. I was like, oh, that's a little unusual. It's not even in the store. I guess that's kind of like a gas station in North America where you go around the corner. So I think that's not very common either.

Because of all the near-do wells doing near-insed washrooms, you know. It's like you got to get a key and then you go around the corner and unlock it. And then you end up in a goddamn nightmare portal. That's my memory of washrooms, you know, gas station washrooms in North America.

So I think they don't even do that no more, really. But in this case, man, go around the side of the building. It's fucking perfect. Everything's meticulous. It's playing nice piano music and inside. There were artificial plants. There were hand towels. Everything was so nice. It was almost like someone's house. That is like one of the nicest washrooms I've ever seen in my life. I should have gone into the stall just to see. Like does it have the super magical amazing toilet, too? All I use was the fucking urinal. What a wasted opportunity. But man, talk about delightful. What the heck? I don't know. I mean, I guess it does come down in some ways to the aforementioned near-do wells. Like, you know, where the heck am I? I'm just in some random stretch between two random stations. In Fukuoka, nobody is here except locals. There's no other reason to be here. I just happen to have taken the wrong train. And I was like, I'll just take a little stroll between trains. So if nobody is here but locals, and in general, Japan mostly, is not a nation of people that just want to fuck everything up for no goddamn reason, like North America is.

Like, yeah, who's going to mess with it? What's the danger? You can just have a nice public washer. It's fucking so great. I love it. I goddamn love it.

All right, I made it to Saitozaki station. And right at the end, it is weird because the stop just before this is where 99% of people get off. Literally everyone on our train car got off except one Japanese guy, me and my new friend that I just made. It's funny that I was just talking about Paris and France, because I just met a French guy, Klemon, from Paris, where we were both at that station whose name I don't recall now. Why'd you row station? Yeah, I believe that's the one I was at. And he was asking somebody which side of the train track to take, and I presumed he was asking to get to here to get to Saitozaki. So I said to him, like, oh, are you trying to get to the cool island in the middle? And in heavily accented English, he said yes he was. I was like, all right, cool, that's where I'm trying to go too. So it's, where is it? Help me out. 40:00 Let me take advantage of your willingness to ask someone what's going on. And yeah, basically he was here. He's here for a month. He's got to leave sometime in December. He's here for school stuff, like a school trip. He said he was just in South Korea and it was very cold. And someone else told me that too, that I should prepare if I go to South Korea after this, that it's not going to be like this. It's not going to be tropical like this. Despite it being quite close, it's pretty cold in the winter. But yeah, he was also carrying a big plush Pokemon. It's the big pink one. I think it's like the slow Pokemon. What does that one called? I only know it from the memes. The very slow big pink Pokemon. I think that's the one. And he said it was almost like an accident. You know, like you just presume the claw machines aren't going to really work. You know, you got to pile a bunch of money in them before you finally get an attempt where the gripper really grips. But in his case, it just worked. He just won it right away. He said it was like a great deal. But now he's got to walk around with this. It was really big. This big, the size of like a, I don't know, like a medium sized dog. Obviously not heavy like that because it's just a plush. But you know, this thing under his arm was like a significant problem. So he's like, I don't know what I will do with this. I must go to a convenience store and get a bag. Oh, that's a bad, I apologize. I apologize, France. That's not, that's not how you sound. I talked to him a bit in French. It was kind of cool to be able to actually use my French for something.

But yeah, we just kind of chit chatted about, oh man, can you believe how warm it is? Oh, Japan. Whatever. How you doing school stuff? Cool. Not me. I'm just an old guy. I just had money to spend. But yeah, we had a nice little chit chat. And then we got to Saito Zaki. And from here, he has things a little more well planned. There's a bus stop. And he's like, I'm an next step is this bus, which is going to take him to the other island that's connected to this island with all the shrines and stuff. Which that is kind of my plan too. I'm just going to wander and see if I can just get there on foot and see what happens. Because it's still like just ludicrously, nice, out, super beautiful. Several hours of sun before it gets dark. I got all afternoon. Technically, I think we're trying to get to the same place. But you know, it's kind of fun to have a train buddy for 10 or 15 minutes while you're just on a little journey. But I didn't want to, you know, encroach. Like, hey, let me hop on your whole journey. You got a bus. Let me take that same bus as you. And it's like fun as it is. It's like, I'm having a little chit chat with somebody. I mean, we're out of stuff. We say that all the things are hard to say. Oh, you're from here. I'm from here. You're here for this. I'm here for this. Oh, yeah, this is cool. This is neat. He highly recommended Osaka. He said Osaka is worth it. You know, like as far as these busy tourist cities, Kyoto and Osaka. He told me to go to Osaka. So, you know, there we go. Got that tucked away. But yeah, then I said, fair the well.

Good luck with your prize. Then it's like carrying a child around all day.

And fair the well. Yeah, that was kind of neat.

And yeah, so that stopped right before this. Let me get the name. Oh, he had a similar mountain hiking experience, too. I can't remember what city he said it was in. But he went on like a tour group thing until like a castle in the mountains. But he, because I was saying how, yeah, like at least here, if it gets dark, it's easy to get out of here. Where I was on the mountains the other day, and it got dark. I had to go through a golf course, told him that dumb story. And he said that similar thing happened on this tour group he was on like once you get on the ridge of the mountain. There was no escape from the ridge. They had to just walk up and down and up and down and up and down the peaks for like four hours. And it started to get dark. And yeah, he said a similar thing of like, he knew it would be okay because he was with a tour group. But if he had been doing that by himself, it would be a significant, a significantly more stressful endeavor. Be out here. No worries. So yeah, the stop everybody else got off at, except me, Clemont, and one Japanese guy, like literally everyone got off at Umino Nakamichi, UMI, N-O-N-A-K-A-M-I-C-H-I. And I think that's because this is where there's like marine world, Japanese famous car museum, sunshine pool, flower museum, you know, all the stuff. The stuff you would come here on a Sunday afternoon to go do. 45:00 Hey, let's go on a date. Let's go to do the stuff. Then going this one extra step to Saito-Zaki, you know, Clemont was here for the bus. I was here just because it's the farthest station. And yeah, this is dead. This is dead. You would never know that there's anything touristy to do around here at all.

This is super quiet. I mean, a motorcycle went by, but there's no people. Like no people. This is like a ghost town. You would think this is a zombie apocalypse right now. It's like eerie. I think there's someone on a, okay, there's a car turning toward me. But on foot, there's no one. And there's no signs of activity.

I'm walking by a hair salon that's closed, I guess, because it's the weekend.

It's just kind of remarkable how you can go from, you know, marine world, super duper, everyone's doing stuff. You go one more stop on the train.

And there's no one. Which works for me. This is what I like.

So yeah, I'm just going to ramble my way across this island toward Umino Nakamichi Beach, which is like the road that connects this island to the final island in the chain. Again, not technically islands. But you know what I mean.