#57 Visiting the Tokyo Skytree

Transcript

I found a nice little walkway along the Onagi River, not Oonagi with a U, which means eel. This is Oonagi with an O, which I have no idea what that means. I know Ooni means devil, so could this be the devil eel river? Probably not. There's probably no relation at all to those sounds. And it's actually really calm and nice. You know, it's one of these Tokyo rivers that's like 10 meters across, although around here there's a bunch of a bunch of stuff because it all is leading into Tokyo Bay. So there's some of the really big rivers, too, that strike me more as like that Canada-sized. Whoa, that's a river. But this is still a very respectable river. It's really nice. And there's like, I just walked under a big industrial look and pipe that goes by overhead. And now here's a really rusty train bridge. And then ahead of it is a truck. I'm trying to figure out what this neighborhood is. I basically started on basically south of the Skytree and now I'm walking east. It's mostly, I mean, when I first left, I guess that specific area, just because there goes a train across the rusty bridge.

But I guess that specific area around where I am does seem to have quite a few places for people to stay, I guess, just because of the Skytree. I do wonder, I wonder what the story was with making the Skytree. Because again, I've never been to the Tokyo Tower, but I was in the vicinity when I had to get my passport renewed at the Canadian passport office, the embassy, but I just wandered around randomly and I was like, hey, if I see it, I see it. And if I don't, I don't, and I didn't. But now that I have maps on my phone, I mean, I should probably just go wander by it at some point.

But yeah, I wonder, putting the Skytree out here, I got to imagine before this Skytree, there was probably not a lot of people coming out here. I guess the, you know, the row of temples and stuff across the river is pretty famous. But yeah, this place, yeah, when I first left, I was like, okay, this must be like a hotel type place because I saw some other hotels, I saw another foreign person walking around. It's like noon or something. She's probably closer to one now. And the place I'm staying, it's connected to this weird little bar that I don't know, it wasn't open last night. It wasn't open today. I don't know when it opens. There's like a, I don't know, wine and mushrooms. It's very fancy pants and I guess they are only open in very limited capacities, very limited times. It is kind of neat though, having an Airbnb connected to a little restaurant because it just does feel kind of neat to walk through it with no one's there. Nothing's going on yet. And there was a delivery out front. Somebody just left a box on the bench outside so I get to bring it in. And it's like, hey, it's like I work here. I'm pitching in, I'm helping. But I noticed other stores like that kind of boutique-y little restaurants and stuff that aren't open. A lot of stuff not open. And then as I walked some more, it's like, okay, it is mostly, it's just residential, I think, generally, but it is like mixed because there's also some factory-ish kind of stuff going on, just a little bit, but some warehouses and stuff. And I guess that's one thing with Japan in general, is it is sort of more mixed than North America is where every neighborhood kind of does everything, just to different, different percentages. Because yeah, back in Canada, I grew up on a busy, noisy street, which was a bit of a bummer, but it was nice that at least because I was on the major, the city split into north and south, so I was on the major route of the north side of Frederickton, New Brunswick. So there were stores around, convenience stores and drugstore down the street, and if you go a little further, there's fast food and whatever. Where my friend Andrew, he lived in the Nashwalks, this suburbs. And you know, very nice, quiet suburbs where no one's going to steal your bike, that's nice. But I remember he had to ask his dad once when we were hanging out to get a ride to go buy a bag of chips. He's like, yeah, I got a few dollars, like we can go grab some chips, but I'll ask my dad and his dad just like, no, I'm busy, I'm not driving you to buy a stupid bag of chips. And it was like, I was like, and that is weird, but it is kind of true. We'd have to walk for half an hour each way from here, just to buy a bag of chips. I mean, it's not like we were up to anything, and we could have done that. But that's like the North American residential areas. There's fucking nothing there. It's just houses. A half hour walk is like a bonus. If you're in a really big suburb and the states are something, forget about it. You're never escaping. Go get a car.

I'm walking under. Oh, there's words on it. The Shin Kai Bridge.

I'm looking at the symbols and it's like, hey, I could use this as a learning opportunity. Shin Kai Bridge. It's like, that's fucking if, as if I could ever remember, these extremely complicated symbols. Just from walking by one time, I think I'm just going to keep walking down this bridge and just see what happens. See where I end up. I think there's a park eventually if I get to the end. I was going to wander toward the sky tree just because I didn't know what to do from here. I'm like, I don't know. I mean, I guess the sky tree, right? But I'll get to it and know hurry. So when I found this nice little river, it's like, yeah, I'll just walk here. But yeah, that was another thing as I left. It's very, very nice day out. Very beautiful, beautiful, clear skies. It's a little breezy, but the weather is like, man, it must be like 14 or 15 degrees. It's very nice. And I noticed once I stopped trying to puzzle together what this neighborhood is, where does this neighborhood fit into the Grand Mosaic of Tokyo? What is the notable stuff? How does the percentages and the blah, blah, blahs? Once I kind of gave that up with my brain, it's just like, I don't know who cares. It's just kind of everything. Yeah, mainly residential and kind of everything. Stop thinking about it. Just fucking enjoy walking around. And it's weird because it was like a little, I had like a little mental force field up, not a force field, but just something where I wasn't focusing. The irony of like, I wasn't focusing on where I am because I was focusing too much on where I am. And then when I stopped, I just was like, ah, man, this is, I just feel good. Not because of this neighborhood specifically, though, I like that it's not very busy. It seems like there's like people walking around and stuff, but it's certainly not like crowded. So that's obviously my favorite feeling. But just walking around, it's like, ah, I'm back in Tokyo. Not only that, but I'm in a part that I've never quite been to. I've only really been to the Skytree. And now I'm a little beyond the Skytree. And it just made me think of in the anime Super Cub. When the main character is just all about a girl who becomes obsessed with motorcycles, Super Cub motorbikes. And when she looks at her motorcycle, she gets this goony look that she's just like, yay, my fucking motorcycle is so cool. And it's just how I, just like, I feel like that right now. Just like, you're just walking around, walking around nowhere, going to nowhere in Japan. Got it a little warm tea. The teas are like, either you get the, like, the barley and the wheat tea that have no sugar or you get the English style royalty stuff that is mega sugar. So I got mega sugar today, but it really is good. It's like candy. Somehow like too much sugar and coffee I find off-putting, but too much sugar in tea. I don't do it off it, but it really is fucking good. God, it's good. Man, it's just nice. It's just like, yeah, dude, this is fucking nice. So yesterday when I got caught in the rain, it only got worse. Man, did it get worse. I did look at some umbrellas, but umbrellas ain't, I was hoping they'd just be, I don't know, super cheap, as they are. They're just made in China, disposable umbrellas that are everywhere, but it still cost me like 10 bucks for one of those great, big, cool umbrellas. And the weather does not have any more rain in the docket. I'm not sure when the rainy season is, but I think it's in the summer sometime. So I don't think there's even going to be a bunch more rain, even if there is. I mean, there's umbrellas everywhere. It's just that thing of like, if I were to just take an umbrella that's around, I really got to be sure that it is just an abandoned umbrella, that it's not someone's umbrella. But I mean, Tokyo is just littered with umbrellas. Surely if I need one, I can find an umbrella somewhere. My little collapsible umbrella. It's so nice because it's so portable. I've got it on me right now, but one of the sprockets finally broke and I'm like, man, how am I going to fix this thing?

And I realize I do have band-aids. I bought a bunch of band-aids from a convenience store, and I rarely need them. I only use them if I'm starting to develop a blister. And right now, my feeder is nice and calloused up. No problems there. So it's like, I think I can fix my umbrella. Just with these band-aids. In fact, maybe I'll sit down next to make it to a bench and I will do that. Because yeah, it's probably ready to let this fucking umbrella go. It's just extremely useful to have an umbrella that you can fold down into a small size. And that doesn't seem extremely common around here. Because again, I guess when they get, when they get rain, they get for real rain. So they just want a great big effin umbrella. And no fooling around umbrella.

And there's a guy walking backwards on this path. I respect the dedication because it does work 10:00 different muscles. It's an interesting feeling to walk backwards, but it's hard to do because there's not that many places where you can just walk backwards without worrying about it. So here he had to keep looking back over his shoulder. Definitely look like a pain, but he was doing it. He's sticking with the plan. But yeah, I went to just a family mart and I just got, it's not the kind of thing I usually get here, but it was really good. It was just like a little wrap with like shredded cabbage and I don't know barbecue chicken or something in it.

But yeah, just stood outside under an awning next door, watching the super hard rain come down and it's like, oh, this is actually, this is kind of nice. That kind of like perfect movie rain straight down.

And back at the Airbnb, look, I'm saying yesterday last episode, the guy who I helped get in the other Canadian because he didn't have all of his info from the Airbnb. So I got us in the door. Anyway, he was there and yeah, I was going to give him the door coat, but he disappeared off somewhere. So I saw him again and he's like, hey, can I get the door coat? I guess, yes, I will give you the door coat. Turns out his name is Daniel. Daniel from Vancouver.

But yeah, I think I'll just, let me just ramble a little bit about this Airbnb because it's weird. It's like, it's got definite issues, but I guess I feel cautiously optimistic still about it. I have, I don't know, I feel a certain fondness for this place, but there's a lot of things that could wear on me. We'll see. Principle among them being because I'm, it's like bunks, not not capsules. I thought this was like a capsule hotel place, but it's not at all. It really is just, they had this weird little restaurant that's only opened 10% of the time and upstairs they've converted it into mostly rooms. So the bunks are only, I think my room is the only one with bunks and it's only four. So it's not that bad and it's a really good deal. Like I was feeling a little bad about spending $48 a day in Fukuoka for an entire apartment. I mean, it was fucking awesome and I'm going to go back there if I can next time I visit Fukuoka. It's worth it. It was a really good place, but that adds up really fast. Where this place is like $22 a day and that just feels better to me because like, I'm not traveling for an apartment. You know, I could do that anywhere if I just wanted a cool apartment. It doesn't matter where it is. I don't really care about the apartment. I care about the place. I just want somewhere to go fucking pass out at night, you know. So I love the idea of just spending $22 a day. That's, to me, that's like perfect. I don't feel guilty about spending my poor deceased dad's money to travel when I'm only spending $20 a day to stay in Tokyo. You know, he would be okay with that. He'd be like, good job. That's a good deal. Whereas once you get up to $50 a day, it's like, are you just, what is this? Are you really trying, are you trying to be careful with this money or are you just blowing it like a big fucking spoiled idiot? I guess everybody's got a different place where they would feel that way. For me, it's somewhere between $20 and $50. I mean, $50 is a lot more than $20. If you're just staying somewhere for like two or three days, like, hey, whatever. It's actually a great deal to get a whole apartment for $50. But I'm here for 90 days, you know. It's the only way to make this sustainable in any way, or comparable, I guess. When I can travel for about the same amount of money as I was spending back home or wherever, then it doesn't feel bad. I don't feel guilty about it. It's like, yeah, well, if I was living in, especially if I was living in Vancouver or Toronto, I'd be spending this money anyway and I get to spend it traveling around to a different place, like sweet. And if the tradeoff is, I only get a little wee space to myself. That's fine. You know, everything out and fits in a book bag. I can deal with that. And in fact, yeah, this bed I've got, it's a little bit wide. So basically half the bed is just where I put my stuff and the other half is where I sleep and that's it. That's all the space I got. But I mean, I think it's okay. That part doesn't, that part doesn't bother me. Hmm, where did all that noise come from all of a sudden? It's weird because I've not done walking down the river. It's still a very long path ahead of me with a nice scenic view, but suddenly everything is loud as fuck and I don't even know what's making that noise. All right, well, I'm going to take a quick break until I get beyond the noise. Some phantom construction is going on. But snoring guys, snoring guys is the one legitimate problem. And that's not an actual problem with the place. It's just bad luck. And if I was in capsules, 15:00 that you know, it would help some. But the fact that we're just in beds, oh my god, it's like he's next to me. It's like his mouth is next to my ear and he's just snoring. It's insane. Wow, this fucking guy is. And I know if you're a snoring person, it's not, you can't help it. It's just something weird with your biology. It's somehow you're not aware you're doing it. I don't know how that's fucking possible. But this guy is a fucking big time horrifying snorer.

So that sucks. But that's not the place's fault.

Okay, the noise ended. It's cautiously walking to see, see if it starts up again.

But yeah, this place, it reminds me a bit of the place in Senggenjaya in the sense that with Senggenjaya, I could tell it was a relatively new property. And they had initially really tried hard to make everything fancy pants. You got a little tablet, you got to sign in. It really like tried to give the vibe of it being like a hotel experience, you know. But it had gotten to the point that they'd been running it long enough that it was starting to fall apart a little, like their instructions were at a date, they were telling me to download apps and weird stuff that don't matter anymore. The app was supposed to like unlock the door with an app and instead they just taped the lock permanently open with a sign that says, don't worry, doors just open, you know, just a lot of weird shit to where it's starting to get a little unraveled. This place is also like that, except this place started off actually being cool. Like the way that the restaurant on the bottom floor is like a very cool hip place, not that I've ever seen it in action or seen anyone in it. But you can just tell, walk it through it, like this is a rad place, this place is cool. And the whole Airbnb has that feeling, like you go up some really steep, not quite Amsterdam level stairs, but steep enough that as you walk back down the stairs, it very much triggers the feeling of just like there's a pit here, there's a hole. If I fall, I'm really going to get hurt, so be careful. But then up on the second floor is my little room with the four bunks and a bunch of private rooms. I wonder how much the private rooms are. It would be very nice to have a private room, but it's probably considerably more than 20 bucks a day. It's such a shame too, but the snoring guy, because the other two guys are a dream. They're so quiet. But then there's the fourth floor with more private rooms. And there's like just so much stuff that you could tell at one point was very cool. There's like a little nook with some magazines and books and stuff and a little place you could sit and a little microwave. And I'm like, oh, I guess you could kind of do some cooking here, but a good example of how they've obviously been running this for some number of years now and have stopped kind of carrying is like, there's a fridge. And the fridge has got the sign that's like, hey, label your stuff so we know what it is. If there's only able to stuff, we might have to throw it away, but then under that just out of order. No, sorry, there's not actually a fridge and upstairs is like, oh, there's actually a laundry machine here. But you got to spend 200 yen to do laundry and I'm like, I guess that's not so bad, but it's also well piled up with all the towels and stuff from this actual property. So it's like, I don't know what I'm supposed to do fight through your stuff. Like, I don't know, it's like a weird combination of organized and chaos and it's like, oh, in some ways this is cool and thoughtful and in some ways it's all just kind of weird and messed up. And the, yeah, the entry thing very much was like Seng and Jaya where just the instructions were bizarre and seemingly irrelevant. I don't know. Communication from whoever runs this place is a lot less than a normal Airbnb.

And yeah, the other guy, Daniel from Vancouver, like they just never sent him the info at all. If he didn't run into me, you know. And then how he was still asking me when I got back after walking through the rain for 90 minutes, like, hey, can you give me the door code? I mean, presumably that means that they never got back in touch with him about anything yet at that point. So it's kind of like the guy I met in Montreal, the guy from India. It's like, I'm lucky that I'm having an okay experience with these places, but it's like the role of the dice because this other guy who's also here is not having that experience. It's just like, hmm, eerie. So I don't know. The place is kind of cool and kind of neat, but also kind of shit and kind of no one cares. But I mean, that kind of works for me. I mean, I don't want to be pampered. I don't necessarily want to be catered to. 20:00 And it's such a neat feeling to just be in some some neighborhood, a little sense of this guy tree, and you just know the code to go into this fucking restaurant. And you just walk to the back of the restaurant and go through a door and go have some stairs and just go pass out in a bunk up there. It's like so, it's so cozy and neat. I don't know, because I'm just going to spend all day outside anyway, walking around. Fuck it.

But yeah, my main plan, my strategy whenever I'm in a place like this, is to try to stay out of sync with everyone else's routine, which so far has been no problem. Everybody pretty much went to bed by like 10 p.m. yesterday. And then I heard people getting up and taking off at like the crack it on, like real early, like I think the snoring guy left at like 6 a.m. So I stayed up until way too late. But the nice thing about being out of sync and even in some ways, the nice thing about snoring is you know for sure somebody's asleep when they're snoring. So I knew I was not disturbing the guy under me by climbing out of the fucking bunk bed and going to pee because he didn't stop snoring. There's like no problem. And his snoring is so loud that it's almost like, I mean just because it's so awkward at night when it's that quiet and every little time you move it makes the bed creak. And it makes a noise or you rustle the curtain in front of your fucking bed and the little runners that it's on make noise, everything makes noise. But this guy's snoring really absorbed all the noise. So I didn't feel bad either about just that I was still up doing stuff. There was no way I was keeping anybody up, you know, if anyone was being kept up it wasn't my fucking fault.

The problem was just once it finally was, I don't know 2 a.m. or whatever and I was like okay I gotta go to bed. I just put my head at the opposite end from the snoring guy just to get any kind of distance. And I always just put in headphones and listened to like rain sounds, that's what I do every day. So I was cranking up the volume to try to fight against the snoring guy because it's one of the best techniques I've ever found for fighting against snoring people. But man like normally I gotta turn the thing up to, I put it on 2 or 3 normally. And if I gotta put it up to 5 it's because I'm in the fucking airport in Calgary. I had it up to 9 with this guy. I just was like, I just don't know what to do. This fucking guy is so insane. I don't even know evolutionarily. What's the deal with snoring? How did those people not just get found and killed immediately every night? You know, how come a saber tooth tiger didn't go well obviously that snoring guy is right over there I'm gonna eat him. Why does this exist? I don't understand it at all.

Because it is just so loud. It is fucking crazy. It is fucking crazy. If you're a snoring person do something about it man. If anyone has ever told you that you have a snoring problem do something about it. You're ruining everyone's fucking life. I know you can't hear it. That's not the fucking issue. No one cares about you. You can fucking fuck off and die. No one wants you alive on the earth. You snoring person. You're the fucking worst. Yeah, like it just didn't seem as evident obviously when I was awake and just editing shit on my computer. Once I'm trying to sleep though, fuck it's like a jackhammer in my fucking skull. You snoring cunt. So anyway, for some reason too in my sleepy brain when he did get up at like 6 a.m. and left. For some reason in my mind I'm like oh good, he's gone. That's all. He's moving out today. I only had one day of him. That's fine. But then when I got up and once I rolled out of bed after everyone had left. Unfortunately, his curtain was closed but he had a bag near his bed just like yeah he's still here. He's not going anywhere. He wasn't there right that moment obviously. This guy, you always know where he is at all fucking times because of this snoring. So anyway, I'm there for a while. I'm there for like two weeks. So you know, people will cycle in and cycle out and hopefully that guy cycles the fuck out very soon. But anyway, there's no evidence of anyone else being there except us except the four of us in this little room. There might be people in the other rooms but I just haven't heard them or seen them or anything. So yet today by the time I finally rolled out of bed, like the whole place was just empty. No one was in my little room, no signs of anyone anywhere else, no one even in the restaurant downstairs. 25:00 So I just took a nice shower, had a little shave, brushed my teeth, like no problem, no one's here, everything's cool.

Because if it were full up, I mean there's like two showers one on each floor. It probably wouldn't be too bad.

But basically this little routine already seems like relatively comfortable. I'm going to come in later than everybody else. I'm going to wake up later than everybody else. Basically it's sort of pseudo feels like I got the place to myself a little bit.

The only problem is the snoring guy. That snoring guy is a serious issue and I don't know what to do besides some other him in his sleep. He's probably trained to survive that. I'll start snoring out of his ears or something.

I've never even seen the guy. That's the other weird thing. I've seen the other two guys but not the snoring guy.

So yeah, not ideal, but I mean definitely not terrible and I really do think once that snoring guy leaves. Even if a different snoring guy moves in who's only half as bad of a snoring person, then I think it's very doable. If somehow the snoring guy is there for the whole two weeks, that's trouble and I don't know what I'm going to do. I mean maybe I'll just get used to it. I was a little bit getting used to the fucking trains going by and that you got what you never know. So yeah, even though the place is like a bunk situation which I just need to be more vigilant in future. Like what am I signing up for? I'm just tired of these bunk beds. I don't want to do that shit anymore. But the price is certainly right. The place is actually kind of cool and this is a very neat neighborhood to just stroll out of a...

It's like you know just creeping out in the morning and slowly they crept out to get some air. But not only am I walking out in kind of a cool street and a sort of cool seam in neighborhood, but I'm just walking out of a cool restaurant. It's just weird. I guess way back when I first came to Japan 2019 way back. I did see a place similar to this. Like this is what they advertised was like it's a... I think in that case it was like a cafe. And at night the cafe converts into an Airbnb. But I remember in that place it was a good deal and it was a good location. But it was a... You legitimately have to leave by this time and then you can't come back until this time. Like you got to be gone all day because in the day it's kind of like the same space. The space is a coffee shop that then converts into like an Airbnb thing which I was like that's a little weird I don't think so. That would have to be really fucking cheap.

Hmm I've come to a branch in the river. So there does appear to be a park on the other side but I don't know how to get there. I think I gotta go up and over a more serious bridge.

Hmm it's a lot quieter on the other side. I think I can get over there. I'm gonna do that. Backtrack a little. Well there's people kayaking down this river. This is a fucking gentle river. There's four people kayaking away.

They had the Wild West days of Airbnb. They're definitely gone. The weirdest place hands down that I ever stayed was in Vancouver. And it was like a massage therapy place where since he has this massage clinic and at night I mean it's just sitting there. It's just an empty massage clinic. Well that's not generating revenue. So at night he converted it quote-unquote into an Airbnb where you just slept on the massage tables. Like they were those tables with the face hole in them so you can lay down with your head. You know your face through the hole and people can massage your shoulders and stuff. You just put an extra mat over top of that so there's no longer a hole and you just slept on that. And there was a weird little portable shower that I did not use because I was only there for like I think it was two days, maybe three days. And it was just so weird that I'm like I don't know. I don't know what's going on here. I'm not taking off my clothes while I'm here. That's for sure. I'll just get a little sweaty. I'll just be a little gross till I get to the next place that is way more normal than this. And that was another case of. I had to get up in the morning, get the hell out, could come back in the evening after the business was closed. But I think even then it's like I had to come back at a specific time. So that the people who worked there could let me and the other people doing this cock and made me plan in. 30:00 So it certainly wasn't expensive. But that was definitely a case of the Airbnb not being completely forthright about how this shit's going to work. Because I would never book that. That's insane. Think I was only there for two or three days or whatever. So I guess there's a happy middle where yeah I said I don't want to be catered to. And I say I want to just be nice just to have those old school Airbnb's where you just squeeze in somewhere. But there is a limit. That was too much. That was fucking weird and silly and strange. I wonder how much that was. I wonder if I'd dig back through my Airbnb history if I could figure that out. Because I don't know. I mean it wasn't expensive, but I don't know that it was, I mean it's very rare for anything to be less than 20 bucks a day. I got to assume it was somewhere in that vicinity. So I mean when you think of it that way. This place I met now is pretty wonderful. I got a code. You can just go in whenever I want. Tuck away my little fucking bunk in the corner upstairs. Since I don't have to get up in the morning when I get up nearer to noon. It's like you know the place is just to me. No one else is around. No one's hanging out there. They just get up in the morning and take off. Really the only problem is the snoring guy and that's just an active god.

So yeah I guess for the price like I really can't complain. You know I almost like it. It's almost cool.

But yeah I guess we'll see. Daniel from Vancouver. He said he was there for three days. Three days isn't so bad that seems alright. But I think this is the point where I was getting kind of worn out just booking Airbnb's. I ended up going through on this trip like nine different Airbnb's. And this is number seven you know. So that's why I'm here for maybe a little too long. Oh there's the sky tree. There's the sky tree in the distance.

Man, I'm standing in front of two different drink machines in this park. I unfortunately got it in my head that I don't like Georgia coffee, the Coca-Cola brand. So it's like, well, this whole machine now, that's out. You know, maybe it's really not that bad, but this other one. Okay, it had a mystery bottle from Dito, this orange bottle I've never seen before. It's some kind of hot tea, but I did just have hot tea earlier. So I'm going to try this. Dito blend premium Demetase Cafe Mocha. That sounds pretty fucking good. Oh yeah, the Tully's thing. The Tully's black coffee with soda water. It's called Gassata with two S's and I looked that up and it's a fairly rare combination. There's different ways to make it. You can either do it with cold brew coffee or just with espresso or just whatever kind of black coffee. It is basically just one-to-one black coffee and soda water. But that specific name, Gassata, is definitely Tully's name for it. It doesn't seem like that's what they call it in Italy because if you search that, all that comes up is only the Tully's coffee. But there are some blogs and stuff about it. Like, hey, here's our new favorite way to drink coffee this summer and it only goes back to like 2021 or so. It seems like a pretty new discovery. Although, again, maybe they've been doing this in Italy since time immemorial. Who the fuck knows? But yeah, no information on how I can actually get this drink again. Yeah, I can order it, but others in that I don't know. But it is a thing that sort of kind of exists. All right, let's fucking try this cafe mocha.

Cool, and I successfully paid for it with my, with my sweet kick card. And this is basically the same type of machine that I failed at. I really was so weird that one park where I was trying to buy a soup that I couldn't in. It was giving me a weird error. I still wonder what that error was because it hasn't been a problem ever since. Whew, this is very hot. And it's actually kind of a nice warm day out. This is a little excessive. I mean, let this cool a bit. Then I'm going to give it a taste test. I can't turn off the recorder till I give the taste test to the dito premium dimi test. I feel like dito is a pretty decent brand, but I only think that because they make the crab soup that you can get in these machines sometimes. And that's just such an unusual thing that, again, yeah, I'm just building associations that I don't know if they're actually true or not. I'm like, ah, Georgia, no, not that good. What's the other one that kind of sucks? Boss, but dito, dito is kind of good. Tully is really good. Tully shit just tastes good. And Starbucks, as lame as that is, Starbucks stuff is not bad in Japan. 35:00 Oops, dropped my can. All right, let's try this.

It's pretty good. They don't do a ton of mocha stuff in Japan. It's certainly around, but it's not super common. But it tastes like a dark chocolate. That's very nice.

All right, well, I'm going to go walk across this bridge and see what this other park is, but it's one thing, I guess, because I've been walking along that river this whole time. There's been no convenience stores. And from here, I really don't see any, especially this guy tree in the distance, but just a lot of apartment buildings where I am now. However, I couldn't help but notice that that dito machine did sell potato chips. Chip star, I think they're called. They're just like Japanese pringles. That'll do. Get some chip star in me just so I guess something in my in my belly. Man, yeah, I can only see the top half of the sky tree. Again, it's probably I wonder. I mean, because you know, it's always further than I think it is. But let's see. I mean, I can again, the magic of Google Maps, I can find out. And yeah, again, not like it's some big deal to see the sky tree. But I will eventually, okay, it looks like Ojima Komatsu Gawa Park is where I'm heading. Oh, and there is a 7-11, right there. There he got Shiojima Station. Oh well, fucking, I guess I'll just go there. Oh, and none by the Ara Kawa River, speaking of, is that what that river is?

Speaking of bigger rivers. Yeah, it's like the Ara Kawa and the Naka River. Go right next to each other. Isn't the Ara Kawa River the one that I walked to from Itabashi?

Yeah, it is. Where I just like hung out on the on the shore or by the river side. Yeah, I mean, I guess that makes sense because I was saying like even though it was a fairly epic walk to walk from Ikebu Karate here, I still, you know, I still did it. It's not like it took days or something. All these neighborhoods are weirdly close together. There's Shinjuku, there's Shibuya. Like I wouldn't say Tokyo is a walkable city necessarily. You definitely want to take the train between neighborhoods, but you can do it. It's not insane. It's just it does take a while. Six kilometers to the sky tree. Yeah, I mean, that's for sure further than it. It seems just that weirdness of a tower. It looks like I could walk there in no time, but that's a fair little hike. All right, what am I doing? Am I buying chipstar or am I going to 7-11? No, I will go to 7-11. Let's do this up-proper. I haven't eaten at all today. If I do this up-proper, I just mean let's just buy some Onigiri, but that's a big step up from fucking chipstar. All right, I'm going to keep wandering red. See what I see. Well, rather than go to 7-11, I guess I got near the border of the Arakawa River, and I was like, why I shouldn't cross that right now. The UJS River. There's really no good reason to cross over that today. But instead of going to 7-11, I just sat at this nice little park and it's just again mid-December, but for some reason it's so insanely warm. Pulled at my computer, edited a podcast, which takes for fucking ever because I won't stop talking. They're so long, but I was pushing through. It's like, no, let's get this done. So then the sun started going down and it started getting cold and it went for a lot to cold so fast. I made it though. I made it through the whole editing thing. The sun still up a little bit. Still dusky, but yeah, I had to put on a fucking thermal shirt and my jacket and my little stretchy gloves. Hopefully, sometimes it warms up after the sun goes down for some weird reason. Hopefully that happens. I could use another layer. I can't believe I called it gut, but anyway, I pushed through, but yeah, it's like past 4 PM, I hadn't eaten yet. So I was like, let me just go over to the 7-11. And this magical little 7-11, like I still love how you can just find stuff at certain convenience stores that just isn't at the other ones. So they had this thing. It was like about $4, which is a little more than most items are in the Onigiri section, but this one was mackerel with soy sauce and ginger. And it was like barbecued mackerel with the barbecue skin on top of rice. And it was like four pieces of it. And it was so fucking good. And I'm just like, what the fuck? I'm just eating like barbecued mackerel from the 7-11 that was just like, I all they did was walk across the park. And it was just right 40:00 there. It was just like, fuck, that's so good. And then I got like a little sweet potato thing for a dessert deal, just because it was small. And it's like, I don't know, a big sweet potato in a weird way. It's kind of similar to cheesecake, but it's got to be better for you and it's definitely less elaborate. I don't know. Just eating some barbecued mackerel and some sweet potato.

God damn delicious. So fucking good. As for now, I don't know. I can still see the tip of the sky tree. So I'm like, you know what? That's a neat little guidance thing or whatever. I don't know that I'm exactly going to go to the sky tree for sure, maybe. But just as a guide post, I'll just walk in that general direction and see what happens. It's a great way to calibrate yourself without having to pull out your phone. Yep, there it is again. Yeah, it's not poking out very much. Definitely got to get like a view between the buildings to see it. But I'm just going to mosey in that general direction and see what happens. Yeah, this is very much just like I've said before, I guess. Right now, I'm just walking through like a little sports field. Nice little residential zone, but not so bad. Not a bad little spot. And yeah, it's so weird to find these little things like the the Tully's coffee the other day. And now this barbecue mackerel. And they're going to get caught in my brain. They're going to be like, oh no, how come the other seven, elevens don't have them? I'm getting caught up in my own brain. I mean, this is probably like a weird little psychological experiment, too, right? The human desire for scarcity. I mean, these things are better than the average thing. For sure, that coffee was really cool and interesting. Barbecue mackerel, I think is pretty clearly a step above just your average kind of random onigiri from seven, eleven. That was really fucking good. But you know, it was not that big a deal if I don't find them anymore. But it's a little thing in your brain where it's like, oh, I found the treasure before. I got to find it again. All right, well, clearly it's five o'clock. Let's end with the five o'clock song. Thank you for listening. I'll talk to you next time.