#54 Meeting a friend on a mountain in Japan

Transcript

Ah, the classic exiting the apartment ASMR, if only got today and tomorrow. And then I'm off to the airport. Ah, out the door. Now here's a new adventure. I got to figure out where to dispose of bottles, because one of the things with keeping this apartment, making this apartment more of a the hotel experience that Airbnb does more these days is they did give me a two liter bottle of water.

In the fridge, which was kind of nice, so I didn't hate it. Here we go, dispose of view. Yeah, finally drank it all and it's enormous. So I can't just toss it in one of the other bottle disposal things, so I got to actually use proper garbage in Japan for once. But there we go, bottle returned deed done. Now the other standard thing of I got to I had curry noodles yesterday. So fucking good with a hard boiled egg in them. And just all my other miscellaneous garbage in the curry cup. Gotta go toss this by the JR station. Today I'm planning to do the whole loop. I'm going to take the JR station to Hakata, then take the Hakata subway to Umabayashi. Gonna do my last ascent of Mount Aboriyama. And then I was like, oh man, do I finally write at the end? Do I finally have to learn how the heck I get onto this train at Hakata? I mean, I guess I'll just pay attention also when I get to Hakata where I fucking exit from. Surely I can just work that in reverse. I don't know, but it doesn't matter because I don't think I'm going to need to because then I realized I could just take the train down to Tenjin. At Tenjin, I can get on the Nishitetsu line, which is the sweet one that I totally dig that has the cool machine with the ice matcha and shit. And then I can take that back here because I am perfectly in the middle of the Nishitetsu line and the JR line. Man, I'm going to miss this location. It's so red. Oh, and the street fair.

Still going. Classic. All right, let's time travel forward after my subway travels.

Man, Hakata station is not my jam. I mean, I've only, I guess I was at Shibuya station for like a hot fucking second on my way into Tokyo the first day. And then that's it. I haven't been back to Shibuya station. I haven't been to Shinjuku station. I don't remember Ikubukuro being as bad, but I guess I haven't really used that one either, but I kind of know that station. And I guess that's what it comes down to. If you know the stations, then it's no problem. But man, just the second I fucking get here, yikes dude. So there were some people who stayed on my JR train. So it does pass through the station. It seems it does not just turn around and go back. So that would be worth an experiment just to see where it goes, to see which way it goes. If I were here longer, you know, next time, next time I'm here. But yeah, geez, today I got off and it's just, it's just like endlessly following arrows for eternity. I figured because I wasn't transferring to another train, I'm just going to the subway. Like this will be easy. It's a very simple subway system. How hard could this be? And then it's like go here and now go here, now go here, now go here, now go here, now go here, now go here. And now I'm going to line behind a zillion people. I think I'm almost to the, you know, there's only two lines. There's the airport line and the Nanakuma line.

Yeah, and I think I'm still heading toward Nanakuma, I guess. Jesus, now what the fuck is going on, dude? It's so annoying. Now these are exits. Come on. What's happening? Yeah, this station is a fucking pain in the dick. These mega stations. Again, like this one's probably not as bad as the Tokyo ones. But I'm just staring at symbols and it's like this one, like none of these arrows 5:00 say subway. Come the fuck on, dude. What is going on here? Okay, I think I've got to go down this way. Fuck me anyway. Yeah, I don't like, I don't like big stations in Japan. This shit, fucking sucks.

Oh, I made it to the Miyashi station, walking away from the station. Go say my goodbyes to my old Airbnb. It's an insanely beautiful day. It's December 10th.

Now I'm pretty sure. Yeah, I'm curious to see what it's like when I get back into Tokyo, here it is still somewhere around 20 degrees. It's so fucking warm. You know, I follow a lot of Japanese photographers on Instagram because, you know, in Japan, just any fucking random thing, you take a picture of, looks amazing. And there's a lot of pictures of snow and not just up north, but like Tokyo snow. And I'm like, really? I do think I heard somewhere that this year is unusually warm. They were having problems up north with bears attacking people more than usual because something went wrong with crops and things just because there was too much fucking heat. So maybe this isn't natural because this is insane. It's just summertime right now. It's fucking out of control. And the Japan and the winter pictures are really beautiful and I love snow.

Definitely at some point in my future, heading up to northern Japan is in the cards.

But down here in Fukuoka, fucking forget that shit. It's so warm. Although the mountains are finally starting to turn to fall colors because the mountains here are just covered in trees. So I mean, it's still like maybe 20% of the trees are turning orange and red.

Maybe a little more than that. We'll say 30%. But yeah, it's like, hey, here's already the best thing you ever saw. Here's an A plus visual. We can do better. We can make it a little more beautiful.

Why the fuck not? But yeah, that was quite the to-do. I was, I'm going to say I was shocked how hard that was to navigate that stuff because you know, I didn't look into it too closely. It's like, I'll just go, I'll just fling myself into it. You know, that's fine. But when I kind of get turned around and lost and don't quite know where I am out in the world, that's a lot more fun. Because you know, you're out in the world. Actually, it's funny to say that because I just realized, like, did I miss a turn? Am I not going toward my Airbnb? But yeah, like I'm walking around outside. It's beautiful, it's gorgeous. It's not quite one o'clock yet, so I got more than enough time because I'm just going to do my nice little, a cent up the mountain. And then I might go back down the other side to the Apariyama Canon temple. Or I might just go to the main observation deck and get a hotdog. We'll see. But either way, I got enough time. So it's you know, it's all right to wander around a little, get a little lost. But when you're wandering around getting a little lost in the major stations, I don't think that's fun. I was getting the pedestrian equivalent of road rage. I was grinding my teeth a little because I'm pretty sure they extended this Nanakuma line, I'm on, so that it does go all the way to Hakata. But if so, I didn't get on the right line for that to work. So I had to transfer a tangent. And I guess I've never done that before. So I was just in my mind thinking of a Toronto transfer or a Vancouver transfer because the subway line's not that big here. It's about the same as Toronto or Vancouver, probably a little smaller. So I just expected, I was just a passageway, you know, the connection will just be connected. A hop skip and a jump. But even though the subways are comparable in those cities, there is a lot more going on around here. A fuckton more. So yeah, the transfer at tangent between the two subway lines, a word to the wary.

It's a Lord of the Rings level adventure and fucking sucks. And yeah, just really pay attention, I guess, to the science because I was just kind of like, okay, there's an arrow, there's an arrow, there's an arrow. And I think, I think it's just that the little subway graphic actually looks quite a bit like the train graphic. I think I was following the wrong arrow. I had to do a bit 10:00 because after you follow like eight arrows and you are not even remotely going anywhere near where you want to go, that's when I started getting secretly pissed, you know, to myself. Just like, what the fuck, man, this is fucking tiresome as fuck. Where the fuck do I go? Please be more clear because then even when I did get to the point where it's like, okay, let's really pay attention. But there's still just kind of a vague sense of like, hey, subway, passageway to the subway, this area. So that sucks, that fully sucks. I actually think that thing I was doing the other day, it's like a weird silly thing to do, but I legitimately think it's the best tactic is to just say, forget those big subway stations, don't deal with Hakata, or tangent, just walk to the next station because the next station is going to be a little tiny station with one route in and one route out. It only goes this way or that way and you just can't go wrong. It's so easy compared to a station that has 18 possible fucking ways to exit. All piled on top of each other intertwined with, you know, they're both kind of like malls and they're just big stores and it's just, it's too much, dude. All right, so I'm next to the, my classic Airbnb from 2019 with my perfect view of the mountain that I see in my dreams, and I'm going to upgrade a mount of trees that are changing color. Nah, it's not 40%, 35%. There's like patches that are still fully green, but then there's other parts that are mostly orange. I don't know how much I'll be able to tell once I'm on the mountain, it probably won't seem too different from there. Well, I'm glad I came out here. Say goodbye to the siren. I'm sure we'll have another siren once we get up on the mountain. There's always a siren. The greenhouse is going to go head to the 7-11 to stock up. Ah, the beauty. Fucking love this fucking mountain. But yeah, beyond that silly technique of just walking to the next station, which I do legitimately think, because like it does take longer, but I mean, it took easily half as much time just to walk through the tangle of the station. I could not believe how long it took. I got back into that, that underground part of tension. It just goes on forever, the underground mall. Yeah, I'm just walking and walking and walking. It's like, man, if I had just bailed out and walked to the next station, I'd be halfway there by now and I'd be outside having a nice walk, you know, instead of underground packed in with people slowly unraveling. So yeah, legitimately think, just get out, walk to the next station. Not bad.

Alright, just took a little stop at the 7-Eleven, stood outside. My favorite thing, stand outside a 7-Eleven, watch the fucking world go by, say my goodbyes to the fucking Green House. But that's one thing that's nice too, is now that COVID's over, it's not goodbye, it's a see-a-later. Is there a better way to say that? That's not as corny, sure there is. But yeah, now it's like, yeah, you see-a-later fucking Green House, but I'll see you again, dude.

Life's not a place that's a process, it's a bean world quote that is not entirely applicable. You know, I'll just continue to move around, to travel, you know, I'll be back here.

Might take a little while, might not take a little while, I don't fucking know. Man, I think I'm tired today. My brain is like not firing. Probably once I start going uphill it will though, I'm at the nightmare steps now, so yeah, I'm really surprised how hot it is today, this is fucking weird. Although I guess when I used to go up this mountain in 2019, I mean, I am not a take your shirt off kind of guy, unless it's extreme circumstances, but many times on this mountain I had to take my shirt off just because I was gonna die. Luckily, there's not a ton of people on this mountain. I very rarely met anyone else while I was walking around with my fucking xylophone skeleton bones out.

So this ain't that bad, but I'd say this is among one of the hottest days I've been here. It hasn't gotten much hotter than this. Very unexpected. Yeah, in fact, why did I even turn this record on? Look at those fucking stairs, that shit's insane. If I have anything to yammer about, I can surely do it once the mountain is leveled out a little, maybe even on the way down. I don't need to try to talk 15:00 while I'm going up a hill. Nothing I have to say is that important. None of it's important at all in fact, so we can certainly wait. So yeah, let's save this fucking oxygen for the act of mountaineering by which I just mean walking up a semi-steep path, you know. It's not like I got grapple hooks. I suppose mountain climbers don't use grapple hooks, right? Oh, maybe they do. I don't know. Who knows and who cares? All right, there we go. I got something to talk about now. So I went up the nightmare stairs and I just stopped at the little deck at the top where you can kind of, since the leaves have fallen off the trees, you can actually see from up there. It's a pretty nice view. So I was just standing there and I'm like, yeah, you know, I should pull out my phone and do a little writing.

That's a habit I meant to build up while I was here that I have not. It was like just pull out the phone once in a while. Do a little writing throughout the day. It'll add up. And I had a story idea that I came up with when I went to that little peninsula up in the north. Gave me a story idea. So basically I jotted a bunch of notes down about it. And I wasn't even doing actual writing. I'm just trying to split those notes now into separate files. But it's the worst thing about writing on a phone. Writing on a touch screen is not so terrible now that I have a better phone than actual Google Pixel. It really does make a difference. A cheap touch screen trying to write with that. It's a nightmare. Don't even bother. But cutting and pasting blocks of text. God damn, it's the fucking worst.

So a bit embarrassingly because I do think I'm more tired than I thought I was. I did stay up kind of late. And I'm not good at sleeping in Japan. I think just because, you know, I hope in my eyes for whatever reason. And I realize it's sunny and beautiful outside. And it won't be for long. And I'm just like, well, shit, I better just get up, you know. And then two hours later, I'm like, God, I'm a cranky bitch today. So I was yelling at my phone. I'm like, God, fucking damn it. Come on. And not long after that, a foreigner appeared. And I'm like, oh, it's like, let me get out ahead of this right away. I just said, oh, hey, I don't know if you heard somebody yelling at their phone. That was me. Sorry. Because I don't know if you heard me or not, but it's just, you know, let's just diffuse that right away because it's confusing and embarrassing if you heard somebody swearing at no one at nothing for no reason in the middle of nowhere.

So this guy, big younger than me, probably in his, a bit younger. Yeah, mid to late 20s. Quite a bit younger. Had a little ball cap that said hiking. And it's just like, hey, buddy, cool. Hey, where are you from? What's your deal? So he's Tom from Germany. And he's here for work. And he actually just came down from from this path. So I said, okay, I'm going up the path. You're hidden down. And he's like, yeah, there's a drink machine up there. And it's like, I know in a hot dog guy, right? And he's like, yeah. So somebody else experienced the joy of the hot dogs. And he said, he was on like this huge hike once that was, how many hours did he say? Quite a number anyway, like a whole afternoon of hiking. I can't remember where he said this was. Some city I'd never heard of. Where midway through, there were drinks. But there wasn't electricity. It wasn't a proper drink machine. It was one of those pay on the honor system things that I've seen around for, for just local produce for vegetables and stuff. But it was drinks. And you just leave money on the honor system in the little coin box and take a drink. It's like, that's fucking amazing. That's awesome. But he's here for work. He's here in Fukuoka being trained. And then he's being sent up north. And apparently, despite this weather, there is actually snow up north right now, he said. And he's a little disappointed that he just the way it's going to time out. He's not going to get up there for the winter because he really likes snow. And obviously here in Fukuoka, it's fucking insane. It's so warm.

So me and him are kind of peas in the pod. We like hiking around. We like snow. I guess the difference is he's a responsible adult who has a career path.

But yeah, apparently, apparently, this is a good time to get in with a company in Japan. They're looking for people. Of course, by the time this episode comes out, it'll be not exactly up to date. But I assume economies of countries don't turn around on a dime. 20:00 Anyway, no one's here for fucking career advice, so whatever. I'm sure you've done your own research if you're interested in working for a company in Japan. But yeah, he was saying that the company he works for is like I think America based, but in partnership with Taiwan. Anyway, a lot of Taiwanese and American people. So the upside is there's not a lot of like the Japanese politicking that happens at a Japanese company where, you know, unspoken rules or things about singularity that you're just supposed to understand or whatever, just the different things that they do that are not necessarily intuitive to a Western mindset. And again, I don't know either. I don't know. I've never worked at these places. But the stuff you hear about of just like, you know, maybe not being able to speak is directly about your thoughts about things and having to run things up the chain in a specific way and having the group decide on stuff. He said, it's not a lot of that. But as they are in Japan, they do have the crazy work hours, 12 hour work days. Not at all uncommon. And he said he's also learning Japanese and it is tough. Like he can ask for directions. He can order food and that's about it at this point, but he's working on it because we both also commiserated about like, you know, I mean, he's a good example. The guy's from Germany, but his English was excellent. And that's just kind of what I presume, you know, it's, it's very entitled of me, but that's how I always, it's what I always expect. Not that I've traveled to so many places, but especially if you like work at a coffee shop or something, a lot of different people come through. I just always presume everybody speaks English because everybody does, you know, even I met this lady at the Nanzo in Temple who was like Spanish of some kind. And she was asking me if I knew directions to something, but I was like, I'm afraid, I'm afraid I do not. And she prefaced it by saying she couldn't speak English, but she totally could. Then we just talked in English, you know, she's just like, not confident in her English, but she could speak English for sure. To enough of a degree that we could talk, at least enough for me to say, I mean, I can't help you. I don't know what's going on around here. Sorry. But in Japan, it's not like that. It can be a literal stone wall of just like, nope, this person is not fucking with you. They cannot speak English. They do not know what you're fucking saying. Any random English that they did happen to learn in school or something is some weird, you know, version of English where, you know, like they might know that a sando is a sandwich, but they don't know the word sandwich. They don't know that sando is a abbreviation of sandwich. You can't say sandwich. Sandwich is going to get you nowhere. You got to notice a sando. That type of thing.

It's such a distant cousin to English that it's not English anymore, you know. It's not, you can't talk to him. Again, as I always say, it's not a criticism. It's my job to learn their language. It's my fault that I haven't, but I'm just saying it is a thing. So that's where Tom from Germany was like, yeah, I mean, this is a lot tougher than I thought it was going to be, but I got to learn this language even if people at my work speak English. I really can't live in Japan without this. So that's the update from random Tom from Germany. That'd be the kind of thing that I don't know how I could do it, but when I do meet these people, I don't know, I guess when I was younger, I was a little more obnoxious about podcasts and stuff like this. Maybe I would have pulled out the microphone and crammed it in a space and be like, hey, do you want to be on my podcast? And I mean, most people probably would.

I could have got some, some sound clips from Satoru from fucking Chiba and Klemau from France and Tom from Germany. I could go out of my way to find people to talk to, but yeah, now that I'm a little older, I prefer not to put people on the spot and like that. It's just such a weird thing to do. And it's not like I really did that when I was younger. I mean, when I was younger, I guess like when I lived in New York and stuff, I did, in fact, crammed the microphone and people's faces a lot, but everybody I knew there knew I was into podcasting and stuff. It wasn't just like a 25:00 stranger on the street. But yeah, that's what would make this, it would make this podcast a lot more premium if I could somehow actually have the conversation with these people. But I'm afraid my secondhand recounting is the best we're going to get, because I want this to be a non-obtrusive fucking project. But yeah, and I told them like, oh, you've never been to Germany, I've only been to the Netherlands. And he said, what I secretly suspected, but I would never, you know, it would be arrogant of me to say this without having been to Germany. But I'm like, this seems an awful lot like everything I've heard about Germany and like German YouTubers and stuff. It seems like an awful lot of that lines up with the Netherlands. And I mean, Deutschland means land of the Dutch, doesn't it? It's obviously connected. But, you know, I wouldn't say that myself. I don't know, I've never been to Germany. But when a German guy says it, he's like, that's basically the same. I'm like, oh, all right, all right. Fair enough Tom from Germany, you said it not me.

But yeah, that was kind of nice, because I mean, you know, I do run across in Tokyo. There's foreigners fucking everywhere. But out here, you know, I run across the occasional foreign guy. And especially when it's in a weird spot, like when I went to just the other day, the random park with the lake in the middle where I went to the hard off and got some headphones. Just, you know, have a nice easy day. On the way back from there, there was a foreign guy just standing in a parking lot and checking his phone. And I so want to just go like, hey, dude, give me the Tom from Germany, pitch. Who are you? Where are you from? What brings you here?

Let's talk for a minute. But most of the time, other foreigners, I find just kind of, ignore you in Japan, because I think it's like, like we all kind of know what's going on here. We know there's a certain type of westerner that sort of just has a weird love for Japan. And loves being in Japan and wants to come to Japan. And you know, it's like our, like deep down, regardless of where we fall on the spectrum of social ability and social success, yada yada. Probably, probably if you're a white guy who showed up in Japan, you're above average intelligence and below average, every fucking thing else. You're probably a little bit unhandsome, a little bit unsuave with the ladies, a little bit, a little bit lacking in everything, a little too knowledgeable about manga, a little bit too into video games. Like, I think we kind of all know roughly that about each other. So I think maybe, maybe other foreigners, like when they pass each other in Japan, just kind of want to be like, oh, let's just not, let's just not broach any of that. Let's all just pretend this is just normal as hell that I'm here and you're here. Like, hey, that's fine. Why would I even notice you? You're just some guy in Japan. But it's like, hey, I know you, I know who I know why you're here. I know to some degree what's going on here.

Yeah, I think it's probably pretty uncommon for somebody to just fucking nail life in their home country. Like, I just, I did it. I fucking rocked everything there is to rock in this society. I'm the top of the heap. Now I will go conquer Japan. I don't think that's what tends to happen. I think it's like, oh, I'm kind of lagging behind here. I'm falling behind in this particular societal race a little bit. But if I go to Japan, I mean, it's just cool anyway. It's just fucking sweet. But also, now I got a little leg up. I'm the guy who can walk up the steps to it at a time. I'm the guy who holds onto the fucking the bar way at the top of the subway, not the handhold. I'm the guy who hits my head on everything all the time. I'm a little bit special in Japan. I think that's probably safe to say. And if there's one thing I've learned in my what little travels I've had in life, it's that every stereotype is true. They're all true. They didn't come out of nowhere. They're not just unfair. You can't just broadly paint a situation with one stroke of color. Of course, I'm going to put that. It's the same as, you know, any generalization. Of course, it doesn't 30:00 apply to everyone. But the idea that it doesn't apply to anyone is just willful ignorance.

It totally applies to many people. Whenever I see these other people walking down the street, they're just another version of me. You know, you can twist the knobs a little bit. Maybe they're here for a shorter visit. Maybe they're here much more permanently. But deep down, we probably all funnels through similar fucking, similar fucking life experiences to get us here.

Which is that's one thing that's a little nice about that I came here later in life. That I'm here at the point in life when what I really like is hiking up mountains.

That's kind of handy because if I came here when I was 24, I would have bought like just one of those like passes at the game center so you can save your progress. And I'd go into one of those mech games where you sit down in the mech. And like my life would just be city shit, video game shit.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but it's nice that in my old age, I still get that that glaze, that susan of Japan. That's all here. All that stuff is here and it's very cool. But fundamentally what I'm looking to do is just walk around in a park or on a mountain or in nature. And geez, even just that little talk with Tom from Germany with his, did I mention that he's wearing a ball cap that said hiking? This guy fucking loves hiking.

But yeah, hiking is what I want to do with myself. There's no fucking end to that all over the place.

He was telling me about cities I never fucking heard of before. And to be fair, there was no evidence. Despite what I just ranted about, Tom from Germany showed no evidence of caring about anime or manga at all. Or video games or any of that. Maybe he did, but maybe he didn't. Like Chris Broad, he's kind of the most famous westerner who does videos chronically in Japan on YouTube. He's not especially into any of that shit. He just like Japanese films, cinema.

So yeah, it's not all just fucking nerd shit.

Maybe too. I mean, maybe it's not a coincidence that, I mean, it's pretty different where. I met Klamon from from fucking France, carrying a big plush Pokemon under his arm. And I met Tom from Germany on a mountain. You know, different venues. Let's just put it that way.

Maybe Tom is just here for work. And his only connection to Japan is hiking. It could be. It could be, but to be honest, I mean, if I was going to put money on it, I wouldn't put a lot.

But anyway, that was pretty cool.

It definitely kind of perked me up, too. I mean, between just the miserable start of the day, getting lost in not one, but two subway stations, boom.

And then I clearly wasn't shaking it very well, because I was yelling at my phone.

Nothing like a nice talk with someone. Normalize your brain a little. Bring you back to, to level.

Man, also, I guess speaking of, it kind of fits in, but just like the stress of getting lost in the train station and stuff, it's relatively small. But I guess this other example is, too.

I'm always surprised, like, it's sort of hard for me to, to determine where I'm going to feel stressed out. It's not especially logical. It doesn't necessarily, it's not easy to predict all the time. Because my flights coming up, back to Tokyo, and as I chronicled in my episode coming to Fukuoka, I got a discount flight on Peach Airlines. And basically, functionally, you cannot have baggage. Your bag needs to be under seven kilograms, which my clothes alone are seven kilograms. If I put a computer in after that, it's over seven. But I came up with this wacky plan to fill my pockets with everything else that I owned, because I have all these layers. Oh yeah, me and Tom commiserated about that, too. He's like, God, it's so hot. Like, what am I wearing all these layers for? And I was like, yeah, you're telling me. Like, when I got wrapped around my fucking waist here, a hoodie and a coat. What am I doing?

But he said he also heard it was unusually warm this year. This podcast will come out in 2024. 35:00 So I'm speaking of the winter of 2023. None of this information is useful anymore, weather-wise. This is not at all a guide to what it's actually like in December in Fukuoka. But this year of 2023, it's fucking insane. It's summertime in the winter time. It's fucking nuts. But anyway, I managed to get away with this stupid plan on the one route. But it was awkward at best. Because yeah, I managed to fill all my pockets with all my early possessions and I can get worked.

But then I had to go through a security check. So I had to take all the stuff out of my pockets and put it back in my fucking bag. And it was like, I can't believe I got away with that nonsense.

So it's like, on the way back, I'm just going to pay the $25 to check a bag. But I was putting off doing it and I just can't put it off anymore because I'm leaving in a couple days.

I was putting off doing it because I knew it was going to be a real to-do.

I've got two bank cards as a backup. Okay, something happens to my one bank account. I have another one. So the backup account I never used. I haven't used it at all. While I've been here, it's just the backup. But it's the one that has my name on the card because I don't have a proper credit card. It's just like a visa debit. It's like a debit card for my Canadian bank. But you can use it as a visa online. It has my name on it where my other account doesn't have my name on the card. And I guess there's a lot of fraud that goes on. I don't know specifically how it works. But if people steal credit cards, apparently one of the things they do is they buy flights.

In Asia, this happens a lot in the Middle East, apparently. And then I guess they sell those flights then is how they wander things through. So a lot of these airlines require that you show the card that you bought the flight with and it needs to have your name on the card. So I have to use this one card because my other bank card doesn't have a name on it for whatever reason. And I guess because of these fraud shenanigans, that's probably also why it didn't go through. When I tried to book this peach flight back in September, it didn't work. And I had to call the bank and sit on hold and tell them about this thing and they can say, oh yeah, I see this in the records there it is. And then they say, okay, do it again within the next X number of minutes and it'll go through. And it's like, oh thank you. Thank you so much for letting me use my card. And I guess I shouldn't be complaining. I mean, I guess it's good this fraud prevention if someone did steal my card. I guess I would be glad that this didn't work. But in the moment, it feels very annoying.

And I just knew it was going to be extra annoying this time because it's like all I got to do is add on 25 bucks to this fucking thing. But I bet it's not going to work and it didn't work. And I'm like, well, let me try the other card because this is just an add-on. It's probably doesn't matter which card I use, but it didn't work either. And the reason I was putting this all off is because I knew this is what was going to happen. And I knew I'd have to call my home bank, but I don't have a phone or a phone number. And it's like not a big deal. It's not a big thing. But it's surprising how how subtle of a problem can really lead to anxiety. Because I just, it's like, I'll just put it off. I'll just put it off. And then as I realize that I can't put it off anymore, I mean, it's I guess that's the point of anxiety, right? Sometimes it's there for a reason. Presumably back in the past, one's anxieties are probably quite directly related to dangerous situations. It probably worked a lot better when life was less abstract. But nowadays, I mean, yeah, you get anxious about stuff that doesn't necessarily make any sense to get anxious about. But I mean, luckily, I think as a society, we've gotten a lot better at understanding this and acknowledging this reality in each other. But it's just weird. It really is weird to just be like, I don't know why this is stressing me out so bad, but I can't help that it is. It just is. You know, I just don't want to do this. I don't want to figure this out. Because I presume what I would have to do. I've barely ever used Skype in my life. But I was like, I know with Skype, you can make phone calls. You just got to buy some Skype bucks, buy some Skype credits. None of this is a big deal. So what? Buy some Skype credits, call the bank. It's like, whatever. But it's just enough of an unpleasant situation that I don't want to go through. That it's just so much easier to put it off, but then putting it off just makes you feel anxious and bad because you got to do this. So anyway, what I found out, which again, information that is literally decades out of date, probably every person on the earth who's ever used Skype knows this. But just as a test, I went and dug up the the bank phone number and like, let me just try this. Let me see how to actually 40:00 make a call in Skype because I didn't even know how to do that. I've only ever used Skype like when other people are doing podcasts that I'm the guest on. Sometimes they want to record through Skype. So I've been the guy who just answers a Skype call and that's it. But then it's a 1-800 number. To call the bank in Canada. So it was just a free call through Skype. And it's like, oh, like I'm all worked up about this thing that was not hard to do, was not a big deal, and wasn't even complicated or confusing. I knew what was going to happen. I knew how it was all going to go. But I just felt so bad about it. I hear someone coming up behind me. I'm going to wait and let them pass. And then I'll get back to yelling into the woods about nothing.

It's actually quite a number of people up here today. That's the third, I guess technically the fourth Japanese person I saw, because one of them was a couple. And Tom on top of that, because it's a Sunday. And again, this weather is fucking insane. And I did meet people up here once in a while in 2019 here and there. But on this trip, not a soul until today. And there's a bunch of people. But again, it is the platonic ideal of a perfect day. God's template for perfect weather is fucking today. Shit is nuts. Apparently it's supposed to rain the day I get into Tokyo. I hope not. Rain and not a travel day. And then it's supposed to get sunny the very next day. So hopefully that's incorrect. But I guess we'll see.

But yeah, like, realizing that I can just make the call for free, it's like, oh, that's nice. I mean, I guess it kind of makes sense, but I just didn't know what... I mean, I didn't know anything about Skype, I don't know. So that took care of some of the anxiety, but there was still some remaining anxiety. Her remaining 20% anxiety level of like, ah, but I still got to call the bank and go through all the fucking stuff and wait on hold forever and talk to a person. But it's like, just do it, just do it. You know?

It is. It's not quite the same thing, but back in school with speeches and stuff. I mean, I hated speeches, but I'm good at speeches. It's one of those things. I'm very good at public speaking, but of course I don't like it. But I used to volunteer to go first. And people thought it was like, oh, look at this fucking suck up. It wants to go first. And I mean, it did help in that regard. The teacher does look fondly upon the person who volunteers to go first.

Especially if then they fucking give a bang or speech. But I did it because it's just sitting there waiting. The anxiety of waiting to be called up to give a speech is fucking awful. It is not a benefit to put off doing the thing. You know, it's way worse. So it's just like a fuck it. I will just volunteer, please. So this isn't necessarily the same thing. It's like, okay. I guess I don't have to do this to do. I could do it tomorrow and say, no, just fucking do it. It's one reason why I was up till like 1.30 in the morning yesterday. It's like, just call. It's the middle of the night here, but it's perfect timing back there. Just goddamn do it. Get this done. Call the bank, do the thing.

And yeah, I wish I could explain why it made me so anxious, but I just don't know. And it'd be similar this morning if you could have jumped in my brain while I was wandering around Tengen station. And the seventh fucking arrow still is not necessarily leading me fucking anywhere. You'd be like, I can't, this doesn't make sense that you're having this much of a bad time with this. Just relax, dude. But I cannot. I cannot choose what makes me lose my shit and what does not, unfortunately, can just try to learn to work through it and try to learn how to wrangle my own.

Dumb brain. Though along those lines, also the, the Fira Heights thing. That only developed when I was a teenager or late teenager. When I was younger, I loved climbing trees. And me and my brother would literally tie ropes to trees and repel down like cliff sides. It was fucking crazy. And then I remember, I was on a roller coaster.

When I was 17, I mean, we went to Disney when I was in second grade. And then we went back when I was 17 because my mom was like, hey, let's our last chance to go as a family to go do this stuff before you kids move out. Little did she know I wouldn't move out till I was like 23 or something. 22, probably 23. But yeah, I remember I was on a roller coaster, like Universal Studios. And that's when I first realized like I did not enjoy that. That was not fun. 45:00 In fact, I hated that. And that was scary. And I never gonna do that again. And I don't know that I ever went on another roller coaster again. There's this fucking roller coaster used to be there anyway in 2008 in Coney Island in New York. That's wooden. It's famous for being one of the last remaining wooden fucking clack at a clack clack roller coasters. And I went there with the girl I was dating and her friends and they all went on and I did not. And her friend was trying to shame me into it. Like, oh, you just want to hold our purses and I'm just like, yes, I do. Yes, I do, ma'am. Give me all your purses. I'll stand right here and hold all of them. I'm not getting on that fucking thing. I hate it.