#58 Being won over by Akihabara

Transcript

Well, to start off the day, I found a new drink I have never had from one of the machines. It's not a fancy pants gassada, which I guess I didn't get out of a machine I got from the best convenience system, aka best convenience store ever, Fukuoka. So that one is the fancy pants drink. This is kind of the opposite. It was one of the machines that's like only a hundred yen with a crazy cartoon character on the side going, one coin, what the fuck? Things don't cost that cheaply anymore, nothing. And most of the things in it were, in fact, a hundred yen. There were a couple of things that were 120, but most of them were 100. So this is the other end of the spectrum. These are, like, such cheap items that they're unusual that you don't see them that often. So this one, the brand is Star Vending. Oh, I get it, like Star Vending, you know, like a Vending machine, Star Brand Vending. But yeah, that's a Star of Ending. That's creepy. That sounds like a, that sounds like a straight to streaming horror movie. Star Vending. But it's a brown sugar latte. And I mean, that just sounds pretty fucking delightful. It looks like root beer, but I've heard they don't like root beer in Japan. And that's one of those things like I never, it never occurred to me because I like root beer. I think it might be my favorite soda, a soda pop flavor of choice. But then I heard it, or it's like YouTube videos were floating around where they would get people from Asian countries to try root beer. And they were grossed out. They're like, you know, when I not tell or something, they're like, ah, it tastes like medicine. What the hell is this? And then with that perspective, then next time I tried root beer, I was like, oh, it does taste a little weird. What's up with that? I never noticed. So anyway, this is not going to be root beer flavor is the point. Let's try it. Brown Sugar Latte by Star Vending.

Oh, yes, so I bought this on the way back to the Airbnb yesterday, but I was trying to not have to go to the bathroom a bunch, so I didn't want to drink it. So yeah, this has been in my pockets in yesterday. So it was warm when I got it. Now it is not.

I mean, that's good, but man, that is sweet. But I mean, I don't hate that because you know, I'm always complaining about the sweet coffees, but when you get brown sugar latte, that's the point. You know, it's what you're here for. So yeah, it's a little sweeter even than normal. And there's a nice aftertaste. It's almost like a very light fudge kind of taste.

That's not bad. It was a coin well-spent Star Vending. Thank you. Thank you very much. Oh, there's a lot of beer vending machines in this neighborhood, by the way, since that was one of these like very rare things. I've been seeing them all over the place here. There's like two. One of them has cans, and one of them has bottles, and they do seem to have the thing that checks your ID. This one does not. This one is like really old, but whatever. Certainly don't need to start my day with booze, but yeah, there's a lot in this neighborhood. And yeah, I say this is to start my day, the brown sugar latte, but it's like 1230. I was trying to experiment a bit with this air B&B. Try to game the system. But I'm afraid there's no gaming to be done. So so the person underneath me is the prime snorer, but the person across from me at the top, he also snores quite a bit too. Old Daniel from Vancouver is the only one who doesn't snore. It would be a weird irony if it turns out I've developed a big snoring problem, and I didn't realize because my dad did snore a lot.

But I discovered that there's something double weird going on in the bunk beneath me because it's two people. And they came in really late, like 1230. I got in late as heck, and they got in even later than me. And then by 4 a.m. and alarm went off, and one of the people, this was definitely a skinny dude. The snorer, I caught a glimpse of the super snorer. I don't know if it's a dude or a woman, but they're definitely, they're the bigger of the two. But the skinny guy, he snores too. Like, they both snore, but his is like normal snoring. It'd be fine. Anyway, at 4 a.m. this guy got up, and I'd been putting off peeing all night, and it's like, okay, I got a pee before I go to bed. So I ended up crossing past with this guy at 4 4 30 in the morning, whatever, and he was like getting dressed in like business casual clothes. So it's just really strange. I can't quite figure 5:00 what's going on there. Did they come in really late at night? So nobody would notice that there's two people in the bunk? I mean, I certainly wouldn't tattle on them. I don't give an F, but I don't know, maybe somebody would. It is a seriously cheap way to live. It's like $11 a person if you can do that.

But then, yeah, this guy got up and out both days. I think it was 6 a.m. the first day, but it was like 4 a.m. he got up yesterday. So how did he even have time to sleep? He slept for like four hours last night. It's fucking weird. And the clothes seem to suggest that he has a job, or he's looking for a job at least. And the other person who's with him, who knows? Who knows what's going on? Another alcohol vending machine. But wait, I think this one does have some kind of scanner. I don't know. I've been fusing. This one though was in front of an alcohol store. Maybe they all are. Maybe this is an alcohol neighborhood. My Airbnb is above, oh, Sake place. Sake and fancy mushrooms. But anyway, I haven't really gone on a proper bender of just staying up all night since I've been in Japan. So I figured why not? A man's got to destroy his sleep schedule, at least once, right? So that's what I was doing. Like, I was just like, can I just stay up through the snoring? And like, if that guy did take off early, like, he did the first day, then theoretically, I guess I could go to sleep after that. But then that's when I realized there were two people, and one of them left, and the prime snorer did not. Oh, here's the family mart I went to when it was raining. That nice. And yesterday getting up late really kind of just left the whole Airbnb to me. I just sort of headed to myself, could just take a shower and chill out and whatever. Just not the case today. I don't know why. Old Daniel from Vancouver is up in Adam, like a responsible tourist guy or whatever the fuck he's doing here. But many snorer across from me, he was just hanging out snoring away at like, you know, 11 o'clock in the morning. Prime snorer was underneath me, but at least awake, so not actively snoring, but yeah, I don't know. He's just like, oh, and the other thing is I just woke up at like 10 in the morning anyway, even though I went to bed at like 5 a.m. And it's like, I hope this doesn't happen, but I do always seem to wake up at about the same time no matter what. And I was like, no, no, you can't do this. Go back to sleep. But then I woke up again at 10 30. So it's like, okay, okay, I just like got to get up. But I feel pretty good right now, and I got a few hours of sun. That'll really be the main difference, I guess. Instead of stretching on into the night, I mean, who knows what'll happen. I guess that's what I'm learning is that it doesn't matter. There's no way I can maneuver around this or like figure out the schedule of what other people are doing and, you know, find a time without the snores. There's literally snores happening as I left. There's snores from somebody all the time at any potential time of day, so it just really doesn't matter. It's like, whatever. Just try to catch your Z's when you can. I don't know, I'm surprised I don't feel that bad now. I assume it's gonna hit me later because I really only slept for like four hours. But I guess that's what that other guy did, and he's out there in his business casual, hitting the streets. So anyway, my plan is, because yesterday, I kind of finished off the day by heading across the bridge, across the Samitra River to the Asakusa side, and I really liked that view. That's the classic view of the sky tree that I always remembered. I like it a lot better than from this side where it's just a landlocked giant tower. It didn't feel the same. And standing under it made me legitimately queasy. It just was like, well, but being on the other side of the river, it's just gorgeous. The lights reflecting off the river. There's all these lights on the bridges, lights on the boats, lights all over. It's just just amazing. And then I went to Sensoji, which is like a really big beautiful temple that's got its own symbol on Google Maps. One of those deal is pretty famous. And back in 2019, when I did my epic pilgrimage where I just saw the sky tree on the horizon, and didn't know what it was, and just walked for hours and hours until I got there, I walked through Sensoji by accident. It was just like, well, this adds to the adventure. How beautiful is this? So I went to check it out last night, and it is goddamn beautiful. Just all lit up, and just amazing looking. All these old-school temples. But there's also a big row of, there's like a shopping street there that was half open, or like a crisscross of shopping streets. But specifically, there's a row of stalls right by the temple that I think I guess I've seen YouTubers go by. I think they just sell food and stuff, but they were all shuttered at night. So I think I might not just do the reverse trip. Instead of walking from Sensoji, south down 10:00 Samita across the bridge into my Airbnb, which is just south of this sky tree. Now I'm going the other way. I'm walking west from the Airbnb. I'm going to cross over the Samita, and then just walk up the Samita River in the daytime, and go check out Sensoji Temple when stuff's open, and check that out, because it's relatively close. It's guaranteed beautiful. Not the world's biggest adventure, but given that I stayed up till five in the morning for no fucking good reason, seems like a good plan. When I'm walking past the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, which I'm not going to go in, I did briefly consider my last day in Fukuoka when it was raining. There was the Big Kyushu National Museum there, and even though I'm just not a museum guy, it sort of washes over me a bit. My mind glazes over a little. It is this big enormous crazy building that you can see from everywhere, and it's kind of cool. So I did look into it, but it's like man, it's like complicated. It's like three different sections, and each one, this one cost $3. This one cost $2. You can get a ticket for all three for $10. Again, my basic ignorant brain, where I'm like I'm not going to spend $10 for somewhere I don't even really want to go, just because the outside of the building is cool and it's raining. But that's where I double appreciate that museum in Chiba. Not only was it really cool, very small and digestible, and just interesting because it was about the ancient people of the Chiba clan, but it was god damn free. I would have paid $2 for that bitch. It would have been worth it. If you had this museum of contemporary art, this is no fool, and this thing is fucking huge, and I can't imagine there's anything in there I give a shit about. I don't know why I keep bringing up museums, just so I don't like museums. Who cares? There's nothing wrong with that. I don't have to keep the fucking carpet on it. I did look up Disney though, just in case. What about the idea of just walking around Disney for no fucking reason? And it's like $100. It's actually not that bad, but I don't know that you can actually just roll up to the door and buy a ticket like that. I think it's like you got to buy a ticket like a year in advance, type of shit. All right, I'm not exactly sure where I can cross the Samita on foot. So that's the next step, as well as probably a backup coffee to wash down this coffee. But I think I'm going to try to find a 7-Eleven because I did find another one later in the day that had that barbecue mackerel that I found last episode. But I couldn't eat two of them. It was not ready to eat again yet. But maybe that's a thing. Maybe it's a timey year thing. Maybe it's a region thing. I don't know.

Man, though, I am glad that my body wouldn't let me sleep in because it is fucking perfect out. Yet another perfect day. Clear skies. Perfectly beautiful blue skies with little teeny bits of clouds. I brought an extra layer today because yesterday it got so cold when the sun went down. But right now, it's got to be like 15 degrees or 16 degrees. It's nice and warm and just beautiful and perfect.

I kind of thought, you know, this was the thing. I was amazed when I first got to Japan. How good the weather was for fall. And then I went down to Fukuoka and if anything, it just got better because I was going south. But I thought this could be the snapback. What about coming back up north to Tokyo? You know, not up north, really. Back to middle to Tokyo. Is this where the weather is going to suddenly be bad? And hell no, it isn't fucking perfect.

Holy Mac Girl, they had one of the Mac Girls, they only had one. I didn't record myself eating it. I spared you that, but let me just scribe it to you, because I mentioned this a bit last episode, but it is just so good. It's barbecue Mac Girl. It's like this little square thing, costs about four bucks, a little over four bucks, premium item by 7-Eleven standards. It's like a little square, just a little plastic, like a bread pan, imagine that. Imagine that, and it's Mac Girl, Soy, and Ginger. So it turns out the ginger, it's actually in, there's like a bed of rice, and then they've put ginger in the middle of the rice, because I noticed a nice little ginger taste, I didn't know where the ginger was though, but that's where it is. Then it's this barbecue Mac Girl on top with the skin on it, which I used to get Alaska rolls in Vancouver, which was salmon, barbecue salmon skin. And I forgot how good barbecue fish skin is 15:00 until that Yizekaya, I was in in Chiba, that was a tuna, a whole tuna head, and it had some barbecue skin, and it was very delicious. And then I guess the soy sauce is whatever the sauce was on top of this barbecue Mac Girl, you know, nothing too fancy pants, maybe literally just soy sauce. And then it's cut into four pieces and you eat it with chopsticks and fucking fuck it was good. And yeah, they only had one, it's fucking so, so awesome. I don't know if it is like, you know, they've obviously hit all of a sudden. I assume it's not a neighborhood thing, it must be a time of year thing or something. But that's kind of interesting because Japan was always famous to me through the internet before I'd ever come here. One of the things about it was that supposedly the products change all the time, you know, the chocolate bars and candies and stuff, and if you have something you like, don't get used to it because it goes away. And that is true more so than North America, but it's not as true as I thought it was. Crunky still here, you know, most of the same stuff that I had four years ago is still here. There's just little things missing here and there. But it's interesting that this is that similar phenomenon, but it's not with candy, it's fucking barbecue fish, but it's so good. And they also had another thing I'd never seen before. It was just a salmon onigiri, but it was coated on one side in sesame seeds. And I thought, oh, this will be delightful because I love me a bagel. I like sesame seeds, but it was kind of a weird mix and it was just kind of dry, and I didn't love it. So, so that was a less successful experiment. It was okay, but I'm not going to be Jones in for anymore sesame onigiri. And then I just got a nice green tea to go with it because it seems like this type of food. It's like real food. You shouldn't eat sugar with that. It should just be bitter and healthy, yesh. However, that being said, I noticed there's a daily amazaki up here and I haven't been to one of those in ages since Chiba. I remember about daily amazakis that had tons of bread stuff, so I'm going to go see. Let's go see what they got in there, and maybe I can get a bread dessert. Bread-based dessert. I certainly don't need a dessert, but just when I saw daily amazaki, it's like, yeah, they're not as common as I thought they were. I should get on in there while I can.

All right, well, that worked out pretty well, although this is a pig-ish level of stuff, because the macaron by itself is enough. It's quite a large thing. It's more than enough to fill me up, and I had an onigiri on top of it, but they had honest to God bakery going on in this daily amazaki. The other one I was at was part of an office building or something, so it had a lot of bread stuff, but it didn't have a bakery, but yeah, I guess that was right. Daily amazaki is in fact a bread place, and it was a lot of savory stuff like curry bread. I don't know if curry bread is really a thing outside of Japan, but it's just like, it's just bread with, like, breaded crumb stuff on the outside, and just like light curry, curry paste type stuff inside. So it's just kind of a curry-ish bread, a not-overpoweringly curry-tasting bread thing, and it's pretty good, and they had ham and cheese, and they had all kinds of stuff that if I hadn't already eaten, I would have got. So they didn't have a ton of dessert breads right now, but they had this one that it's like just butter. They said it was new, new to them, but it's like a sugar-coated bun with salted butter taste inside, and they sell these at Lawson's, and they're very fucking delicious, but this one is actually made right there, so it's going to be even more delicious, and then I got some kind of a sugar loaf thing, I don't know what that is. Now that I've started looking for Tully's stuff, there's actually a lot of Tully's products pretty much everywhere, they're not hard to find, it's just that Cassada is somehow just not in the rotation, it's just a little two, two boutique-y, but there's so many other Tully things, there's like a mountain of them, so I got Tully's less sweet, smooth latte, and I'm like, well, that sounds up my alley, that should be pretty dang good. But I'm going to give up on the Cassada, because it's just too hard to find, it's just way evident now that it's, it's not going to turn up, if I do see one somewhere, it'll be a nice surprise, but I do not expect it to. However, now that I know it's a thing, because it's just, you know, black coffee mixed with carbonated soda water, and it's shockingly good, rather than try to find the actual Tully's Cassada cans, I'm just going to tuck away the, just that I know this is a drink now, because like my friend Mike in Toronto, he's got a cool fancy coffee machine, and I've been out drinking with him enough to know that he prefers soda to tonic, gin and soda, rather than a gin and tonic, so next time I go visit him, 20:00 de-likelihood that he will have the ingredients required to make high-quality coffee, and mix it with soda is extremely high, so fuck it, that's my Cassada futures, that I'll just make it someday in the future, now that I know it's a thing. But yeah, I was like, I don't know, I could, like if you google it, you can find pictures of this fucking thing, you can order it from Tully's if I had an address, but I was like, I guess I could post the pictures to that Japan Reddit, they are very helpful, but just be like, I only found this in one store in Fukuoka, there's anyone known Tokyo where you can buy this stuff, but do I care that much to go get involved with Reddit? No, no I don't, I'll ask Reddit about like how does 90-day visas work, I'm not gonna ask him where can I find Cassada, no one's gonna know anyways, too fucking obscure and stupid, but from the sounds of it, the recipe ain't no thing, it's just 50-50, chill your coffee, mix it with the soda water, profit. But all right, I'm walking toward a nice little park that's then theoretically will lead me to a bridge to cross to the other side of the Simita River, so I'm gonna eat this fucking stuff. Yeah, geez, even here, I'm just like walking past a machine, it's got Tully's Barista's Black Cafe Olay, Barista's Blend, and Black Premium Beans, and Barista's espresso, and Barista's Capuchino, Jesus, you know, there's like a lot of Tully's stuff, I gotta assume the Cassada's a little awkward because I gotta assume that drink is only meant to be cold, I don't think you want to heat up your soda water, so maybe that's part of it, this also just an awkward time of year, but yeah, Tully's is actually a lot more available than I thought, just not just not the one thing, but you know, I've said before on this this here podcast that like it's good to have easy goals, easily attainable goals, and then you feel excited and happy about your day when you attain them, but I'm sadly moving Tully's Cassada to unattainable goal, that is that's the one that's probably not gonna happen, even that though, how stupid, I can't find this one drink that I want, I'm not exactly talking about like, I just don't know if I will be able to hike to both poles by myself, but you know, I don't know if I will be able to swim to the Mariana Trench with a fucking knife in my mouth, it's like yeah no, like just this one fucking kind of coffee that it's a little bit hard to find.

What the heck?

All right, first off, I ate all that dessert stuff and it was delicious, absurdly gluttonous, it's too much, I should have got one thing and not two things, but yeah, man, these salted butter buns be they freshly baked or even just the ones in the package from from Lawson's, it's just really good, I recommend them highly.

Yeah, this is a weird little like what the fuck moment I just had, though now that I think about it, I had all the information to have been able to know this, but I didn't know this, is my plan was to walk up the Samita, I've walked across it and I'm like okay, I'll walk up to Sensoji, it's not exactly close though, it's a little bit of a hike, so I was just glancing at the map and like, yeah, so what else is around here? And it's like wait a minute, Akihabra, which is the big famous anime, video game, pop culture, super duper neighborhood, but I was like yeah, maybe I'll go there, maybe I won't, you know, because it was cool to see once, but I'm not gonna buy anything or whatever, and it doesn't seem like the kind of thing you would just wander to by accident, but I'm looking at the map and I'm like it's right there, what the heck? Like Sensoji is actually kind of a hike, a little bit of a ways to get up there. Akihabra's way closer, and then I was piecing things together in my mind, and I was like all right, when I did walk to the Skytree in 2019 from Akihabra, the end of the journey was, I passed by Oeno, and I was like okay, Oeno station, I've been here before, and then I passed by Sensoji, and then I got to the Samita River and got the view of the Skytree. Now if I take separate information, where from another little thing I did, where I was just exploring around Oeno, and there wasn't a ton going on in Oeno necessarily, but as I moseed, I was like wait a second, I recognized this family mart, I was at this family mart when I visited Akihabra, 25:00 this family mart is in between Akihabra and Oeno, Oeno's next door to Akihabra, like just stuff that I didn't really know. I just went to each place individually, got off its own specific train, so I didn't realize how close they were to each other, how easily they pieced together, but if I had put these two desperate bits of information together, I know Oeno is relatively close to Sensoji, I know Oeno is close to Akihabra, but it makes a square, basically, from Sensoji to Oeno to Akihabra to where I'm standing right now. And it's like holy crap, well new plan, new plan, you know, instead of just going back to the temple I was just at yesterday to now see it in the daytime, fuck it, let's go to Akihabra, I mean I don't think I'll do much there, but walk around, but it is kind of one of those premium neighborhoods, it's one of those neighborhoods, electric town, it stands for, it's so famous that I knew it before, I mean I wonder which neighborhoods, I guess I'd heard of Shibuya and Shinjuku, but I had no sense of what was different about them, and I heard of Akihabra, probably is the first neighborhood I ever heard of in Tokyo, because all the video game magazines and stuff back in the day, they'd fly to Japan for the Tokyo game show, and they'd always talk about like, oh did you go to Akihabra, oh yeah I did, and I got this, this and this, it's kind of the original famous to North American nerds neighborhood, so it was very cool to go initially, but it was in 2019, really crowded, really, really crowded, and I already had seen like the Sega building in Ikibukuro, basically Ikibukuro is like the smaller version of Akihabra, and the smaller version of many places, and I kind of prefer that, so yeah Akihabra is in this middle zone, that it is, it is sweet, you definitely gotta go there if you visit Japan, you don't necessarily have to go twice, in this case this will probably be my third or fourth time, but it's right there, when it comes down to walk to the temple you went to yesterday, or Akihabra, Akihabra, baby, so that's where I'm going.

Man, it just happened to be walking past a map. So it looks like I'm reading this right. I'm leaving Chuo City, passing past Chiyota City, over to Taito City. Man, there are a lot of cities within Tokyo. Man, that's a lot. Wait, Chuo, there's Chuo and Taito on my little Google Maps. What the hell was that other one? Chiyota? What the hell is that? Oh, there it is. So that's where the Emperor's Palace is. Okay, all right. Yeah, technically I am cutting through all these different places. Yeah, I'm like halfway there and I just wanted to mention that it feels really good to walk through Tokyo. Tokyo is a good city to walk through. This side of the Samita is way different feeling. The other side was very residential feeling where this is definitely big-time Tokyo. You know, tons of big buildings and stuff everywhere. But it's very nice. It's just a comfortable place to walk through and I think it could be because it's so big. Because Tokyo is this mega city, it's weirdly relaxed too. I mean, there's certain neighborhoods you can go to that get really slammed and really crazy. I mean Shibuya Shinjuku, basically. I guess we'll see. We'll see how Akihabara is. But just this average neighborhood that I'm walking through, it's still like Tokyo. You're definitely in Tokyo. It's all the Tokyo stuff. But it doesn't feel aggressive. You know, it doesn't feel packed in. It's like, yeah, we got lots of city. We got more city where this came from so we can just kind of in a weirdly relaxed way just spread the city out in front of you. Because I was thinking just compared to Fukuoka. I really like the outskirt parts of Fukuoka. How easy it is to get to the mountains and like there's so many hikes and so many parks and so much access to nature. But the center part of Fukuoka is not my favorite because I mean it's it's a big time city. It's got all the stuff like you you pop your head out there. You jump out of the train and you're like, whoa, there's all the lights. There's all the buildings. There's all the crazy stuff. I'm in Japan. But it's a very small area that really quickly gives way to quietness again. So that one specific part is just too much. It's just it insists upon itself. You know, it's just like, here it is. Here's the big city part. Hey, we got all the big city stuff. Where's just good as all the cities? Here's all the stuff. It's like Jesus fucking calm down Fukuoka. Relax a little 30:00 bit maybe. You know, where yeah, Tokyo ironically feels relaxed. It's got its high pressure points, but just these little normal parts like this. It's like this is fucking great. I could walk through this all day and in fact I will. Then of course, if you do want to get to the nature stuff, it's a lot harder. You got to go way, way farther. So I mean, on balance. If I had to pick one city or the other to live in forever, I would probably pick Fukuoka because I like the mountains and the hiking more than the city. But if I had to pick just the city part, either you can live in the city part of Tokyo or the city part of Fukuoka, I would pick Tokyo ironically because it's calmer. Because being bigger makes it more relaxed, which is just such a strange thing, but that's definitely how it feels.

Well, lucky Habra. I mean, it's not really necessarily all that big. The parts that are like the anime video game parts, but definitely confusing. I definitely got lost here before and I got turned around here again. It's not the worst thing though because there is this part where you walk across a little bridge across a canal and there's a washroom. And I went there by accident. I'm like, oh good, that's fine though. Anytime you find a washroom is not a bad time. And I guess now that I'm here, I'm not, you know, I'm not really sure why I'm here. Like I was saying the first time, it's kind of a spectacle. It's kind of a right of passage for nerds. You got to go. Then after that, it's like, hmm, I guess I don't know for sure. I remember thinking in 2019 that I kind of wish I was into some more current anime. I just had been bouncing off of anime for a long time. So it was like, yeah, it's too bad there's not actually something relatively recent that I could at least keep my eye peeled for. And then in the meantime, I got interested in Yashike anime. But unfortunately that genre is not popular. So besides some Eurocamp figures from a Gacha machine in Fukuoka, that's about all I've actually found. And I don't know again, it's like I guess the search is kind of fun for the sake of searching. But if I found, I don't know, non-non-Biori toys or something, I'm not gonna buy them. I mean, what am I gonna do with them?

Just put them in my book bag and add weight for no reason. I guess in some ways I'm just not the target audience for Akihabra. When I go into like the manga shops and stuff, it seems really cool in the theory. It's like, oh man, look at all these comics. It'd be cool if I could read these. But I mean I had that thought when I was 17 when there legitimately wasn't that much translated manga. And that's the one time I tried to learn some Japanese. Now a day is there's plenty of English manga available. And it's cool in theory to read them. But I need a I just need a pill I can eat and then I will have had read them. Because I can get time. I mean I started reading an initial D in paper, you know, 20 years ago. Then I switched over to digital and I'm still not done. So I think I'll try to find super potato, the video game store, just to have a target. Just have something to do. It's only a little after three. So this place might be cool to see at night. I don't think I've ever been here at night. So weird that there's just the classic like people hanging their laundry up on their on their balcony just like everywhere. But it's just weird that that's an Akihabra right across from a train too. I don't think I would love that location. But I guess if you want to see foreigners every day your life as you walk around. It's perfect for that. There's a lot of them here. Is this the actual holy shit I think it is. That's the Indian restaurant that I went to with my friend Brad because yeah it's not too busy which is nice. It's a Thursday afternoon for whatever that's worth in December. Where I remember I met up with my friend Brad here in the middle of the summer. And it was so busy like I had to just like get to the side off the side of the sidewalk just to get out of the flow of traffic because you couldn't like you could not stand. You couldn't stop moving. It was just a flow of people. So it's definitely not like that. This is a pretty comfortable level of crowd. So that's nice because yeah then we immediately we didn't even really hang out in Akihabra. We just immediately went around the corner to an Indian restaurant and I was it. I just walked by it. Cool. I guess I could shout it out as it was good.

Sidik it's called. S-I-D-D-I-Q-U-E. Yeah so that makes sense because that is the Indian restaurant because I'm on the other side of the canal. What is it called? 35:00 presumably it's a river. Oh it's the Kanda. The good old Kanda River I've met you before Kanda. So yeah I'm going to cross back over the Kanda. I'll be back in Akihabra proper.

Where the heck is that coming from? I think that was just from a steakhouse I was walking by. It's super potato is cool to see all of the old video games but there's the other super potato in Ikebuqiro which is also pretty good and even just the hard-offs. Just those hard-off stores that I found sprinkled all around in every city ever in Japan. They have a really good section for retro video games. So even just that you know you just want to see crates and tubs full of cool old you know in 64 games and whatever just all games of all eras just kicking around. Super potato is again the famous one the first one I heard of but but you can find that stuff all over the place. So I'm still going to go. It's kind of cool just to walk through it. Gander at the past but it's mainly just just a good target. There's the Gigo the Akihabra Gigo used to be a Sega building but yeah this one I don't have a you know it didn't hit me like the other one. I saw the Ikebuqiro one first. This was just the backup Sega building. So I also only have backup disappointment that it's a Gigo now. It's like oh well whatever time change. At least it's still essentially the same kind of store. And the other thing I noticed that she's big apple slots in Pachinko. Look at that shit. It's really big. The other thing I noticed that I think I'm understanding correctly is you've got the DVD stores that sell normal type DVDs and then they have the porn section somewhere you know or the book off does that of course. And you got just the full on porn stores there was one I walked by. It was right by the book off actually. After I went up to the book off I'm like oh downstairs porn store let me go check that out. They're big into those tango things. They're like like a masturbation device for dudes or it's like you just put this thing on your dick and I don't know I guess you masturbate with it. I don't know. I've never tried one. I guess it's got like gel in it or something or it's like I don't know. Maybe it's cool. It seems like more extra maintenance than I would want to do to jerk off but hey to each throw. But then there's these stores that are like DVD stores and it's of course in the Akihabra style. It's like six floors of DVDs but I noticed on the sign outside. I didn't actually go in so I can't say for sure but I think this is what's going on. There's like private viewing rooms and showers and I'm just like oh this must be if you're just trapped in your little house and yet I don't know. You're a student or something and your family's always around. The way they have love hotels or if you want to go spend some time with your significant other. What if you don't have a significant other? What if you just want to get away from your family so you can beat your dick? I think that's what that is. I think it's like hey get a private room. Take advantage of our zillions of DVDs and then after you've masturbated yourself into oblivion take a shower because you probably gross. You don't need to be going home like that. But yeah, I've walked by at least two of those places.

And this song is it's a fucking truck going by. A truck blasting pop music. GZ I'm just looking at like I'm waiting for a light. So there's the Geego building. Millions of floors. Next to it. New World Akiba. Media World Akiba.

DVD games books but it's again like five or six floors. What's this other place? I don't know. Everything though is like seven floors so I already went up all seven floors at the book off and I mean not going up like I got a climb stairs. It's fucking an escalator but then I went in the Yodabashi camera for a second because that's where I found Yuru Camp Gacha's before. But I just was immediately tired out as soon as I saw the sign. That's like here's what's on all six floors and I'm like ah that's fine. I don't care. I'm not going up six floors of anything anymore. I did one. I'm done. And it was just a book off. I wasted my my energy. But yeah this is maybe not the best place to come when you've only had four hours of sleep because every store is the tallest store in the world. And even though there are escalators I don't know. Maybe it's just 40:00 mentally taxing but I was like I don't want to do that anymore.

Well that was pretty easy. I had a much easier time finding it this time than before. One thing too I guess it's important to know about super potato because even once you get there and you see the weird logo of the weird little potato and it's like okay that's the place. But super potato is floors three four and five in Akihabra. The first floor it looks like it's changed now. It now it's selling I don't know phones I guess. It was like just electrical equipment when I went in like literally just like I don't know cables and transistors and stuff. And I just kind of wandered in and I was like hmm this is truly not what I thought. Super potato would be what's happening here. You know I figured out like oh this is this is old school electric town. This is what this neighborhood was. It was just where you come to buy fucking diodes and whatever. Okay I know I got to say actually that store is pretty good. I guess I was being a little like yeah you know whatever I'll just go there because I got to go somewhere. I think I maybe I am just a little a little bit tireder than I think I am. It's got me a little dowry, dowry, dowry. Because I was even thinking as I was walking. You know, it's just like there's so many of these giant seven-floor stores, but they're all kind of the same. You know, it's all just a bunch of anime shit. And I was just kind of thinking like, is this neighborhood not that good? Is that my hot take that Akihabara's actually not that good? Geego's doing a fucking bang-up job, though. There's those Geego stores fucking everywhere. So I mean, hey, if Sega's gonna drop the ball, at least Geego, whatever that conglomerate is, wherever it came from, there's a shit ton of them. But yeah, I feel like if you just arrived in Japan and you came straight here, it would be fucking awesome. But once you've been around a bit, and you've seen some gacha machines, and you've seen some anime stores, and you've been to some manga shops, and you've been to some video game stores. Like, you've seen all this stuff. Here is just more. There's just more of it. I do think EK Booker O, as an neighborhood. I like EK Booker O a lot better. But, all that being said, super potato. Man, it's worth going to. It's so good in there. It's so cool. Where the third floor is retro games. And again, yeah, I mean, you just, you can't have the experience twice, but I do, it brought back the memory of the first time I went in there. And just seeing not only the old Nintendo games and stuff, but since I had a Sega Master System, seeing old Sega games and stuff in the Japanese boxes, and it's like, fucking shit, that is awesome. That is just so cool. It's really packed in there, but, yeah, it's really cool. Experience to see all the old players' guides and just all kinds of shit. And then, the fourth floor is slightly more modern stuff, but then the fifth floor. Make sure you go all the way to the top. Because man, that's good. That's where the arcade machines are. And yeah, they've got arcade machines up there, but it's also set up like an old school candy shop that kids would go to after school. Where they just sell a bunch of weird little candies and stuff for like 45 yen each and just all kinds of weird shit. And I guess it's just so you can be nostalgic about your Japanese childhood. Like, ah, that's what I used to do. I used to go to the little candy shop and buy the weird miscellaneous candies, play video games and like, ah, so obviously it's not quite the same for North America, even though a lot of the video games are the same. But I got kind of like an extra taste of what that was like with that, um, that manga high score girl. And there's an anime too, which of course I never finished. Manga's just better. Manga's a lot better than anime, so I read the manga I didn't finish the anime. But it's about a kid in the early 90s. And he becomes rivals with this girl in his class for who's the best fighting game. You know, Street Fighter 2 just came out who's the best at fighting games basically. And as they go through school, it like charts the evolution of video games at the same time. And if anything, I kind of wish somebody would do more of a slice of life version of that story. Because high score girl is pretty wacky. The guy was like a bizarre horror comic sky before that. I read one of his old comics and it's just like a depressing tale of all these kids getting killed. I'm like, what the fuck is this? But you can feel that high score girl. It's got that style still, even though it's just about video games. But even with all the wackiness, you still get a nice dose of just that basic thing. You just go into the store with the Oba-san, with the old lady who runs it or whatever, and you spend your pocket money on fucking candy and you play video games. 45:00 And it's just like really cool that the fifth floor of Super Potato is set up that way. I mean, I guess it was always set up that way, but I didn't appreciate it really before reading high score girl. Now I'm like, oh, that's what this is. Now I get what this is, and this is fucking cool. Also, it's that no smoking now, where it was technically no smoking in 2019, but they had the window open and people were smoking with the window open. Which I mean, it was kind of cool because that also was nostalgic. My old school memories of arcades from the 1980s were that people weren't smoking in the arcades, but certainly the Jean Jacketed teenager that was managing the arcade or running the place, not managing. Who had the quarter dispenser, certainly smelled like cigarettes. So it's like, ah, cigarettes, nostalgia.