#56 Flying from Fukuoka to Tokyo

Transcript

Alright, my final exit of the Fukuoka Airbnb to record this while I'm juggling all my stuff while traveling is very silly. Oops, it locked on me. My final time and I messed it up. Okay, a door closed. Beed a loop. Phew, alright, so I'm heading off to Tokyo.

Oh, out the door. It's overcast and it's definitely been raining, but it's not technically raining right now. The end this kind of adds to the guy Satoru I met who is theory about Airbnb was that it's just becoming a hotel thing. One more, one more little piece of evidence with that is as I was checking out the guy, messaging me saying I could take one of the umbrellas if I needed it. And there are some fine umbrellas, nice big umbrellas, but it just won't fit in my book bag, you know, especially because it's supposed to be raining in Tokyo today. I'm tempted if I could squeeze it in I would. Yeah, one of those things that's very nice, but clearly contributes to the price too. Take, take slippers, take umbrellas, take toothbrushes, just take it all. Also give me $48, please. Every day for this. Alright, whatever, I really just wanted to, this episode is starting off so bad. I really just wanted to get the sound of opening the door and then I messed that up and I'm traveling with a big book bag. This is fucking dumb. Hopefully I'll get to the airport in time. I woke up at 8.30. Even though I had everything ready to go, it's amazing how everything just takes longer than you think. Yeah, it's like 9.42. That's how long it took just to basically get my shit together and get out of there. But the flight's not to 1.30. I'm plenty early. But not really. I mean, you know, I try to usually get to the airport like three hours early just to be nice and comfortable because it's insane how fast that time adds up. Even if everything goes well today, that really only gives me an extra hour over what I normally do. I've said it before but I'll say it again. One of the greatest things you can give to yourself, that you can gift to yourself, is to get to the airport really early and just take away all that stress. Anyway, I'm going to turn off this recorder and get to the airport because yet, presumably, it won't be a big problem. But I haven't had good times at Hakata Station so far, so we'll see.

Man, time sure does go by fast. So yeah, I got pretty much everything ready to roll yesterday. I took a shower last night, so I wouldn't have to bother taking one this morning. Although as we speak, I'm kind of sweaty, but I mean, I guess I would have been anyway. It wasn't a, it was between home and the airport that's wearing all my layers and my various coats and my two pairs of jeans and all this stuff, I guess this was inevitable. I ate whatever food I had in the fridge at last night. I had all my stuff, 95% ready to go, put it all in the corner, ready to roll. And yeah, still, it's just, I set an alarm for 830 and I actually woke up like five minutes before that. I didn't sleep a ton, but I don't feel terrible. Right here to the airport wasn't that bad because unsurprisingly, getting to the airport is much better sign-posted than trying to get to a random Umabiyashi station, and no cares about, on an entire line that kind of no one cares about.

But yeah, by the time I got to the airport, kind of situated myself, figured out what was going on, went and weighed my bags to make sure everything's okay, found the airport line, blah, blah, blah. Like the check-in starts in like 40 minutes. I had this idea that I'll be traveling all day, all the live long afternoon. I can edit an episode of this very podcast, but like yeah, at this point, is it worth it to even pull out the laptop? When I've only got 40 minutes? Kind of not really, you know. I don't know how anyone gets anything done ever. There's never, never enough time, ever for anything. And I'm trying to download a podcast with airport Wi-Fi. Never mind that. Disconnect Wi-Fi. Why even try? It's just frustrating. Ain't going to happen. Yeah, that is a bonus, even though last episode I was complaining about the planes flying over Fukuoka constantly, or at least that area I was in at DesiFu. And it is certainly true that that happens, but jeez, it's easy to get to the airport. Holy crap. Compared to the epic journey to get to Nareda, this is like insane. It literally, it's two stops on the subway. It's 5:00 fucking, it's, I don't know, is it worth it? I mean, it's probably worth it as a traveler. If you lived in Fukuoka, I don't know, it might be a little annoying. And this is a lot less stressful. I mean, you know, there's just the anxiety of the world, the day-to-day anxiety, but traveling is also, travel days are kind of fun at the same time. Kind of exciting, kind of a nice taste of an unusual experience. So it's way more that way today. It's a nice balance of just the normal day-to-day anxieties of going through a bureaucratic process, but also kind of exciting and fun at the same time. As opposed to when I traveled here, for anyone who heard that episode, traveling from Tokyo to Fukuoka, where this airline, it's peach airlines, and it's a pretty cheap airline for domestic flights in Japan. But you can only have seven kilograms of luggage, or you got to pay extra. And I did it. Instead, I came up with this kaka-mami plan, since I have all these coats, and each coat has a pocket where I put all my stuff in the pockets, and I managed to get my bag down below the seven kilograms, fucking insane. Then I put it all back in, but I was just nervous the whole day. It's just such a weird scheme that if anybody catches me doing it, it's embarrassing. I'm a 43-year-old man. If I can't afford to pay a bag, what am I doing? If I can't afford to pay for a check bag, why am I even traveling at all? Why am I here? Come on.

So I didn't feel good about it, even though I pulled it off. So I just paid $25 for the bag this time, and yeah, it just feels a lot better. It makes the airport semi-fun again, instead of just like a little stressful. But I'm definitely going to look around a little more next time for other airlines. It would be nice to not pay $25 extra for the bag, or there is like, you know, I bought the cheapest possible package. I bought the cheapest possible package, but I could just get the one, Jesus fucking. Oh, okay, never mind. Never mind. I'm too tired to put up with this kid screaming and people clanging shit. Who the fuck cares? I'm talking about baggage. It doesn't fucking matter. I'm at the goddamn airport. Now that I've been yammering for a little bit, it's more like half an hour until I fucking check in. Let's just go check in and fucking cut out with this goddamn podcast yammering. Well, this is kind of nice. I'm in Narita. Man, that was such an easy flight. I didn't even realize we were landing because it's a domestic flight within Japan. They weren't going too far out of their way to make English announcements, and I wasn't paying attention, anyway, because I had phones in, so we just suddenly co-donk landed and I was like, oh, fuck, all right, not right. Again, it's just a weird feeling because that just didn't really happen in Canada. Usually if you're on a flight, you're on there for four or five hours. Vias is nice because it was so stressful when I got into Narita before, where I just remembered nothing. None of my 2019 experience seemed to do anything. I couldn't find how to fill my sweet car. I couldn't figure out how to get money. I couldn't figure out how to get to the trains. I couldn't figure out anything, and I thought I needed to get to my Airbnb by 10 when it turns out it didn't really matter. But it was all just kind of weird and lame, and I was all confuzzled from a long flight. Where now it's just like, ah, it's like a little after three. I can't get into the new Airbnb till after four, but it doesn't matter. When I do, it's just a little coat thing. Should be all good. And yeah, I can just stroll around. There's an arrow trained. Good enough. Good enough. And since I'm going to the Skytree, I'm pretty sure these trains just kind of go through the Skytree. I got vague memories of that. Again, I should be looking these things up more ahead of time, but whatever. If I can get to the Skytree, I actually have to... No, I guess that's the same side of the Samita. Yeah, I'm pretty sure, anyway, from the Skytree. I can just walk from there. It is overcast. It's very gray, but it doesn't seem to actually be raining. So that's a bonus. Man, one thing that has been an excellent piece of equipment while traveling is my mom, before I left. She gave me this thing she had that was just a inflatable neck pillow. Because those neck pillows, they're the ones that you can buy in the airport. They're full of like beads and they're crazy expensive and they take a lot of space. I don't know that I necessarily recommend that. But the inflatable one, it goes down to like 10:00 nothing. It gets so small. Easy to travel with, even with my extreme lack of space. And then you inflate it and then you know, you know, protects your neck. Just gives you a half way fall on a sleep. It's so nice to have the little neck pillow to keep your neck from getting all fucked up. However, this being a very short flight, I didn't even think about it. It didn't even occur to me. And then once I got on the flight, I realized like, hey, I'm exhausted. I'm definitely... I didn't fully fall asleep, but I definitely spent half an hour semi asleep listening to music. And I didn't have my little neckie pillow. But one thing I realized that's kind of cool is you can just take one of your many coats. So you're like me and you just have tons of layers of coats and you roll up the coat and you wrap that around your neck. And it does a pretty good job. It's a pretty good neck pillow replacement. All right, what the hell is this? Now J.R. Line, K.A. Line. So I want the J.R. Line. Yeah, this is all looking pretty familiar. This is the place. Now I'm just going to find the slowest cheapest train I can find and sit on it.

All right, I made it. I'm on my way to the new Airbnb and there happens to be a park in the way, so there might even be some quietude. It's been pretty loud since I got back into Tokyo, but here it seems very quiet. See, this worked out pretty good. So I always have trouble with Google Maps directions and stuff. Subways in Tokyo. It's very confusing. And I think part of the problem is I don't have consistent internet. So I had to search the directions at the upstairs part of the airport when I had Wi-Fi because then once I went down into the subway, didn't work anymore. And it said there was a train that would take me to the Skytree station, which is like three and a half kilometers from the Airbnb. It's on that same little island because there's a lot of fucking rivers around here. But that was no problem. It's like, all right. But then the train that showed up said it was not going there.

It was going to Zushi, which is down in Yokohama, but passing past Chiba and presumably passed the Skytree to get to Yokohama. So I was like, I mean, I guess this train is leaving at the same time as the other ones that it was leaving. And I don't see any other trains. I just don't know, does that other train actually exist? It's very hard to say with Tokyo Subways. So I was like, fuck it. I'll just take this one. And it turns out it was even better. It took me to Kinshijo Station, which is even closer to the Airbnb.

Here's some benches. Let me take a little load off. It's about six o'clock, so it's not that late, but it's pitchfuckin' black. So this park is pretty empty. So let's take a moment to settle away park. This is called. Oh, there you are. There you are, Skytree.

You sure do look close, but I know better. It's overcast, but it didn't rain, so that's good, because yeah, walking here in the rain would suck. So one day I would like to avoid rain is when I'm traveling between Airbnb's. And yes, since it's really cloudy in the sky, it makes the sky-tree look kind of pretty and I can't. I don't know if I can quite see the top. I don't think I can, but I guess I'm not really sure what the top of the sky-tree looks like for sure. Maybe that is the top. Man, the first thing I was thinking, too, because I, because I haven't eaten and almost haven't drank. I did have some coffee that I had to get rid of, because it was in my fridge this morning, and a little bit of water, and then at Narida I got one of those vitamin C drinks, because I'm just around people all day, and I'm still scared of getting a cold. But yeah, I was like, dude, I could go for some refreshment, not just liquid, but also caffeine. And that thing I got, that Tully's drink, which I don't remember what it's called, it started with a G. The thing that was black coffee and carbonated soda water. So it was like less intense than a black coffee. And it had a little bit of carbonation, and it was so good. But the reason I got it is that I'd never seen it anywhere before, except best convenience system, the unique, cool convenience store, and Desaifu, that makes their own stuff. And even they only had one, 15:00 I got the last one. And I think maybe they ordered it specifically, just as another reason to make their store stand out. Like another reason you might want to go there, to get the drink that's not common, because at the station I went in a new days, and they had, it looks like it is pretty easy to get just normal Tully's black coffee. And then there, whatever they're latte, sweetened one is called. But they didn't have the thing. So I went to a family mart after I left the station, and they didn't have the thing. And I went to a 7-11, and they didn't have the thing. And I kept holding off. I'm like, I don't want to get any of these yet, because maybe I should go check into the Airbnb first anyway. And they don't have the thing, but they do have Tully's stuff. So I just didn't like, oh, I think this is just not gonna happen. This is not a, this is too uncommon. It's nice to have a white whale, but this one really might be. I might never see this thing ever again. And then on the way here, right before the park, I did find it wasn't an official Tully's machine, because I think I've only seen one official Tully's machine by the Nishitetsu station at Tenjin in Fukuoka. And it had some wild shit. It had, like, unsweetened machete and stuff that I also hadn't seen before. So I bet they had one in that machine. But this one, it was like half Tully's stuff. And they didn't have it, but they did have Tully's baristas blend. So I tried that just because I don't know what that is. It's not the full latte. It's not black. It's something else. So I'm gonna crack that bad boy open, because Lord knows I could use the caffeine. I was falling asleep in the train. Not that bad of a ride though. I mean, probably. I don't know. I think it was under 90 minutes. It felt like it went by fast. A limited express. Didn't stop all that often. Stopped. Just where it needed to though to get me here. Let's try to use this thing in the dark. Turn on the light. I like this too, because it's like, I love the small bottles in Japan. So this is still like a, a can that looks like a bottle with the twist off top, but it's not the big one. It's like, it's still a small one. Just a nice little small bit of coffee, which is exactly what I want right now, because maybe I'll walk around tonight. Maybe I'll just pass out in my little fucking hole, my little capsule. But one way or the other, I do not want a bunch of coffee. Just right is a comfortable, smart bottle. A moment of coffee to carry around. So yeah, I mean, it doesn't really say what this is. It just says it's just right. So let's fucking find out. Bitch, let's see what you got. Tully's barista's blend.

You better be exactly perfect. It is cool just to stand here in this park and just look at the sky tree. Hey, sky tree, how you doing? There's trees in the way. I can only see the top of it, but it's still pretty cool. Okay, here's the big moment. Have a night coffee all day since this morning. This is your best chance to be delicious, barista's blend.

It's not bad. Yeah, it's okay. You know what, it's good enough. It's fine. It's inoffensive. But yeah, it's so weird to discover a new thing that apparently everyone in Italy already knows about and just so immediately clear that I'm going to get stone walled on that shit at every turn. I don't know where I'm going to find that. And I suspect, I mean, I don't even know where to get just soda water around here. Maybe you can though. But I suspect just mixing black coffee with soda water. I mean, can it really be that simple? Is that going to be good? Is that just like me just making gross alchemy that's going to be discussing? And though, as I was waiting for the train to the airport at Hakata on the train platform, there was some kind of ad advertising Fukuoka, I guess, which is weird because that's where I was. But you know, you can see the Fukuoka tower and you can see all the buildings and stuff. And I had that little nice little moment of like, yeah, fairly well Fukuoka. I think we had some good times walking up and down mountains primarily. I will definitely be back someday and just because I love making my own missions. It's like, well, saga. Now that I know there's cool stuff in saga. And the only reason I care about saga is because I accidentally walked through there. But that's all it takes, man. It is like I make like tourist destinations for myself, like rather than they being the official ones. It's just a tourist destination for me. And the only significance to it is that I was there before. 20:00 But if that works, whatever, it's just how my brain is wired and it keeps me away from the crads, I guess. But yeah, then getting on the train and passing through Chiba, I was like, God, Chiba. Ah, the memories. Only five days in Chiba, but it also seems like I did a lot of stuff in Chiba. And then once I got here and I'm by the sky tree, I'm like, ah, fuck yeah, back in Tokyo, near the sky tree. It's just so fucking good, dude. Japan is just so good. I mean, it's the feeling of traveling in general, too. Hopefully. I mean, hopefully South Korea just knocks it out of the park and I don't know where I'm going to go after that or whatever. If I can just string together a bunch of stuff, I mean, why not? That'd be great. But if I could just do the Japan thing, I mean, man, man. Like just the amount of stuff left to do. Oh, yeah, so that was another thing. As I was, you know, I actually checked my bag, you know, not the worst thing in the world. Again, I feel like $25 is a lot of money to check a bag, but the process was fine. And I guess it did make the flight easier. On a longer flight, it probably legitimately is a worthwhile thing to do. And I saw some of the other airlines, Anna, ANA, I think, is I think a more major airline. And they had your carry-on could be 10 kilograms, which I'm like, I bet I could do that. I could make 10 work. But then your checked was only 20. So slightly different from seven carry-on in 25 checked, but basically all the airlines do this, I guess. It's just a thing. At least around these parts. I think in Canada, you do pay a shitload for flights, but you just don't have to worry about that. But that's not how it works around here. Oh, yeah, I don't hate this, but it's just blended all in, Maddie. Yeah, I ain't Maddie for not being my favorite thing, because you're my second favorite, your coffee. You're so good. Honestly, too, I don't know, it's weird, because I don't even really like black coffee. So I don't know how much of it was just the shock that black coffee and soda water is good. Maybe it's not as good as I thought, but I just, it was on my mind all day. It's like, God, I hope I can find one of those. That's what I want.

But anyway, as I was checking in, I just asked the guy, so was this the line? This is where I go to check my bag. And he said, yes, Okinawa is like, no, Tokyo. And he's like, okay, take this branch over to the right for Tokyo. But yeah, that made me think like, Okinawa. If I just got on that other plane instead of this one, I could go to Okinawa. How great would that be? Just another thing to explore, new stuff to see, new stuff to do. And like, that's just endless. When does that end? There's so much of Kyushu I haven't seen. I've never been up north. I've never been anywhere. Except fucking Tokyo and Fukuoka. And even those, I'm not even close. Not even close to filling in the blanks. Like, man, especially because I was thinking how like the YouTubers that I watch who do Japan stuff, it does seem like at about the 10 year mark, you know, you get to that point of like, well, I did it. I mean, I kind of have been to every prefecture and I've done all the stuff. But I don't even think that would happen to me because I wouldn't ever do all the stuff, quote unquote. I would just find my own stuff to do. Find my own weird little dumb parks and waterfalls and shit. Make my own adventures. I just feel like it could literally be endless. I could just wander around Japan for my whole life and I wouldn't be done by the, by my sad, decrepit death. Because yeah, it's that sort of, it's, you know, the duality of, I want to the premium, expensive experience of flying halfway around the earth and then paying to live in Japan. But once I'm here, I don't want anything. I just want to walk around. Getting here is expensive. The accommodations are medium. They're not so bad, really. But then beyond that, I don't like want anything. I don't need to be entertained. I don't need to have a thing to do. I just want to walk around. That being said, I really am central. There's fuck here. I was looking at the map and there's a, this thing called team lab planets that I've heard of before. I think I saw Amy from cakes with faces on YouTube go here and then Anna, the girl I met from Columbia. She showed me all her pictures and videos from the place. I was like, you should go. And it's like a, it's like an exhibit, but it's light based. You go in and it's like the floor is reflective and the walls have crazy light shows and you can't tell where you are and everything's all nuts and cool and weird. I think there's even like a room that like there's water. You have to take off your shoes and roll up your pale legs, but then it reflects all the lights and shit. So I mean, it's not impossible. I could do that, but it's like right here. I'm like holy crap, I can like walk to that easily from my Airbnb. Interesting. And then I've scrolled over a little Tokyo Disneyland, like really? Just right there? But I'm going to look up how much it is at a curiosity, 25:00 but it'd be also just weird because I don't want to go on any rides. I don't want to go to any restaurants. I don't want to buy any merch or any stuff like that. If I did go to Tokyo Disneyland, I would not wait in a single line. I would just walk around. I'd just walk around all day, just soak it in. Just what's it like to walk around Tokyo Disneyland? I presume it's not especially affordable. I don't think that's going to happen, but it's just interesting that I never thought about where it was. I knew there was one, but it's right over there. I'm pointing toward it. I could just go walk. And yes, so this neighborhood, why I decided to book this place is, I saw quite a number of places, hostile type setups here by the Semita River near the Skytree, because again, I guess if you're a tourist here for a limited amount of time, it's a good place to be. You want to be near the landmarks. You want to be where the fucking action is. But there were enough of them that I just presumed like, okay, I'll try one of those at some point. And they were pretty cheap, but then I let it sit for a week and a half or so while I let it roll around in my brain to try to, you know, sometimes it's hard for me to make a decision. I just got to let my brain percolate, which is why I haven't bought my exit ticket yet from Japan, because I don't know. I mean, I do know. It's going to be so. I just got to do it, but there's the fine line of like waiting till I feel comfortable. Like, yeah, that's the move, but not waiting so long that I fuck myself because I didn't get stuff in advance, far enough. But yeah, those places, even though there seem to be many of them, suddenly they were gone. Like, Airbnb is definitely a case where you can't presume stuff is going to stay. It doesn't matter what time of year it is. It doesn't matter if the place doesn't seem particularly amazing. It doesn't matter any factor. There's a lot of people out there also using Airbnb, and they're just going to sign up for your stuff. And I can definitely hear airplanes going by, but there's so much higher in the air. It's just a gentle home. It's not at all like it was in design. But yeah, then I found this place that I'm going to, and it's, I don't remember, I'll figure it out at some point, but not too expensive. Oh, I think I said the other day, right? I just like $22 a day. Man, were those other ones even cheaper? I feel like it was all around this amount. And it's by the Skytree. And yeah, I got a little Skytree story. I'll get into in a moment, but but it's also the capsule which again, I'm cautiously optimistic because I haven't been there yet. For some reason, I just feel like the capsule will be okay. I had so much more room than I really needed at that Airbnb. And I didn't even properly use this stuff. I like microwaved coffee in the morning, but I could just get coffee out of a machine that's already hot, much as this one was. You know, I made, I made ramen. That's all you can make ramen at the fucking convenience store. You can just make it right there and hang out. I really just don't need the room. So I didn't really like the bunk bed scenario from when I first got to Tokyo, but I think being in the little capsule put some headphones in, I think it's going to be all right. I don't think I'm in a mind. I guess the only thing is I don't know that this place has like anywhere to lock up your stuff or whatever. And again, like the only thing that's important, like when I travel today is just really the birth certificate and the laptop, but I do get the feeling I might have to just carry around the bag with my laptop all the time, because I can't leave it there. That's the, that's the feeling that I get, but I guess we'll see when I get there. And then yeah, I don't think anybody would bother fucking with the rest of my, probably no one's going to fuck with any of my shit. This is also, I'm sure I've said this before, but this exact mindset is how I lost my passport. The first time I was in Japan, I didn't want to leave my stuff in a communal's place, because what if, you know, and I feel like in other places that's actually Japan you're more likely to get fucked with, but then having it on my person without a plan, you know, just having it in a pocket is how I lost my passport. Where it turns out it is better to have your passport on you anyway, is in case police stop you or whatever you're supposed to have it, but now I've got it, you know, under my shirt in a dedicated little zipper bag fucking zipped and slung around my shoulder.

But if I just left it, I wouldn't have lost it, you know, if I just trusted my fellow man, but I'm still like, yeah, I don't know, I feel like if I do just leave my laptop, like yeah, it's, it's very likely nothing would ever happen. No one's going to open my stupid fucking capsule. No one's going to mess with anything, but I don't know, it still just seems weird. Maybe it's just the North American in me. It seems weird to do that. You can't just leave your computer and just like, well, by sure hope nothing happens to it. I don't know.

That being said, I just built coffee on my hands. I'm going to walk across this little area and go 30:00 wash my hands and leave my bag on that fucking bench because I do have that much trust in my fellow man that I can walk fucking 15 meters and go wash my hands.

Oh man, and the weather is fully wonderful still in Tokyo. Like, yeah, I just washed my hand. And it's wet. It's just my wet hand. And I'm just walking across a park and I didn't even bother to dry it off. It's like, eh, whatever, it'll air dry. And yeah, it's like not cold.

It's not even a problem that I have a wet hand out in the evening. I saw on Instagram, you know, I just followed Japan photographers because they take such cool pictures. And I saw some snow pictures of Tokyo. You know, they're like, hey, it's Tokyo and you're snow. But are those from previous years or something? There's no fucking way it's snowed here while I was gone. It's not possible. It's like so warm right now. It's like 12 degrees or something. Maybe I'll get a little snow for Christmas, but I don't think so. I don't think that's gonna happen. And I mean, it would be really cool to see Tokyo in the snow, but eh, that's fine with me if that doesn't happen. But yeah, the old Skytree, my tale of the Skytree, I'll just tell it briefly because I actually did a whole podcast about this. My podcast, XO, I did two podcasts about Japan. I did one about Mount Apariyama and one about walking to the Skytree. So if you're interested in the full, the full version, if you go to KeithCourage.com and just scroll down to podcasts, it's the podcast called XO and, you know, those are the episodes hiking in Fukuoka and the Skytree. Basically, when, oh yeah, it's convenient. I brought up the passport thing because I was part of it. When I lost my passport, I also had bank card problems, which was just ridiculous. I just hadn't thought of it because my bank card only expires every four or five years. I don't even know how often. So I didn't realize it was set to expire while I was here. So I was having bank problems just living off cash and I lost my passport and I was just stressed out. You know, as I was saying the other day about just calling, just calling the bank stresses me out, everything stresses me out. So it's safe to say losing my passport and having my bank card now work really stressed me out. I was very fucking stressed out. And I was in Ikabukuro and I saw this tower. I'd never heard of the Skytree. All I knew about was Tokyo Tower, which I've still never actually seen. I didn't know there was a newer tower. I think 2013, I'm gonna guess, is when they made this thing, this tower in the distance that looked somewhat like the CN Tower of Toronto fame. And it just was looking at it. I would always see it from this one overpass at the edge of Ikabukuro where as you walk across the overpass, you can see down the train line and see really, really fire. And there was this tower. So I'm like, okay, that's clearly fire away. But you know, like I said right now, it looks like it's right here. It looks like I could fucking touch the Skytree, but I bet it would take me fucking an hour to walk there. It's way further than it looks like it is because it's one of the biggest towers in the world that turns out. I didn't realize that. So I mean, it was far enough away and covered by the skyline of Tokyo that I was literally probably only seeing half of it, maybe a little over half. And I thought that was the whole tower. So not only did it look big and far away, but I thought it was half as big as it is. And it was already pretty late. Oh, there's the top. Okay, so I wasn't. Maybe I wasn't seeing the top clouds are going away from the Skytree. It's a little green colored today. So of course, I've never been up in the Skytree. Way too scary, but even just standing at the bottom and staring up, I gotta go do that at some point because it's some vertiginous almost. It's fucking pretty crazy feeling. But I saw this tower. I had been seeing it here and again. And it was already pretty late at night, but I was like, fuck it. Dude, I'm just stressed anyway. Plus, it was really hot. And I knew in my that Airbnb, it would still be hot until like three in the morning. So I had a lot of reasons not to hurry back. And I was like, fuck it. I'm going to walk. And I walked all the way to not all the way to the Skytree. I got to the Samita River. That's what I finally gave up. I was like, that's close enough because you know, again, it's like right there, but it's going to take another 40 fucking minutes to get there. That's fine. But then I lolligagged and dicked around enough that I missed the last train. So I had to walk all the way back. But it's one 35:00 of those things that in hindsight is a wonderful memory. It took that stressful time and made it into an adventure, you know? It's like, there's the tower. And I'm traveling to the tower. Classic. Lord of the Rings shit. So that always just kind of made the Skytree a little, uh, you know, one of those things, just one of those things that even though it is obviously a tourist trap type of deal, I'd never heard of it. So it doesn't mean anything to me on that level. It just means something to me because I took an epic journey there. So now the Skytree is one of my little spots. Like, yeah, I got to go see the Skytree. And then I was thinking, as I've also said several times, as I was during COVID lockdown and just planning out my return to Japan, it's like, I got to do this. I got to do that. I got to do all those cool things that I did. I'll go do them again. It's like a weird pilgrimage to, uh, pay homage to the, to the memories. So I was going to walk from E.K. Bookerrow at some point to the Skytree. And I was like, yeah, you know, if I'm going to do that, it would be pretty cool to have an Airbnb near the Skytree. So I don't have to walk back. I could just do the walk and then be done. Oh man, yeah, there's like clouds. Whenever clouds pass in front of the Skytree, it looks fucking cool as shit with the clouds behind it too.

So it's just like really, really neat looking. But yeah, already while I've been here, I mean, I kind of feel like even just that walk I did from Shibuya to Itabashi. It's like that walk was longer. That already took some of the, the pizzazz out of it. It's like that walk was longer and I had my book bag on that journey. Wasn't as pretty or as meaningful because I wasn't having a crisis and it wasn't nighttime and beautiful. Instead, it was just daytime and sweaty and hot, and I was just changing Airbnb's. But as far as pure epicness, I already did a bigger walk. I don't know for certain if it's bigger, but it's probably. It's about the same at the very least. And then, I mean, all the stuff I've done since then, Jesus, I've been on so many weird fucking epic walks to different places that they just blow this one out of the fucking water. So I'm not saying I won't do it, but it's not high on my list anymore. I don't, it's not like I got to go do that. It's like I sort of doesn't matter if I do that. If anything, I might do it in reverse, actually, because one of the coolest parts of the walk, and it's not that far from here. I'll at least go over there for sure, is there's this one cemetery that's also a public park. And on the walk back, I went through that cemetery, and I was like, what an eerie, cool feeling. People are just walking their dogs and stuff, but it's a big cemetery. And then the YouTuber Tokyo Lens, he did a video about it. And I was just like, what the fuck? That's the place.

So off the top of my head, I don't remember what it's called, but it confirmed to me that that was real, and in fact, not a dream. And I do, I do want to go back there at night. I'm going to do that for sure. But yeah, I mean, it's just again a central to stuff. Disneyland's right over there, you know? There's trains all over the place, that a sakusa neighborhood that's just across the river. It was very pretty to walk through. I was like, whoa, all these shrines and stuff. Little did I know, it's like a famous, again, touristy spot, and it's full of shrines and stuff. So I'm sure I'll head over there and check it out a little more at some point, because I just passed through it. But yeah, then Oeno and Akihabra aren't that far. I wasn't sure if I was going to bother doing the Akihabra thing, because I already did the UK Booker thing, and I just like that place better. But I might go. I mean, it's right over there. I can walk.

So I think I'm here for a while, two weeks maybe. So it should be good, because there's just a bunch of city stuff to do, because basically my bucket list for Tokyo is still just the nature stuff out west. I want to go to Ome station. I want to go to the other station that's even further than Ome. The name I can't remember. I got to go back to the Akigawa area at some point. If nothing else, then to see the Congo Falls, you know, is actually kind of handy that I fucked up on that journey and missed the waterfall, because if I hadn't, it'd be like, oh, you know, I'll do that again next visit. I'll just put it off. This is a great excuse to go do that again, because I didn't see the waterfall properly, so I got to go back. But that stuff is so far west that I might wait, because my next Airbnb is much further west, so it'll make all that stuff a lot easier to get to. It's very far from here. But here, I mean, this is the quote unquote the real Tokyo. This is the stuff where all this stuff is, all the touristy things. Anything you've ever heard of 40:00 is here around here. It remains to be seen how much I'll give a fuck about all that. But again, just wandering around. Stuff will happen, even if it's not the prescribed stuff. Something's going to happen. That's going to be cool. There's even it's a weird little wrestling organization called Chaco Pro that does their shows just in like a random little gym on a corner.

Not too terribly far from here. I mean, not extremely close. I guess it's on the other side of the Royal Palace and stuff. I'm not quite sure when they film stuff, but people literally just go stand in the window and just watch. I was like, I mean, I could maybe do that, but I'm not sure. We'll see. If I am going to do it, this is the time because again, I'm just close to everything. It's like cool. All right. I guess the only way this could go wrong is if somehow the Airbnb set up is fucking terrible somehow, but I guess I should go fucking check in and find that out.

Well, the rain that was predicted is here now. I literally, too, I just went inside. I don't know. I've been inside like 20 minutes and I just swapped out my rain-resistant jacket that I've been wearing all fucking day. I just took it off because it wasn't raining out and it's not cold. It's fucking warm. I take my big soft hoodie that is the worst thing to get wet because it's like wearing a towel or a bathrobe, but I was not raining that hard. I got my little foldable umbrella from home, but yeah, even just this person walking up the street toward me has got the giant umbrella like I had in Fukuoka that was just there from the Airbnb. And man, those big umbrellas are so good. Like, now I'm realizing why looking at this little pathetic umbrella that I have.