#60 Walking to Tokyo Bay (is not a great idea)

Transcript

Alright, walking out of the wine bar again, ASMR. Why am I doing this again?

Out we go into the city. Oh man, it is beautiful today. I mean yesterday, when it was overcast, it was also beautiful because of the mist and everything. Now it's beautiful, clear skies is beautiful. And I think that's going to be good because heading down south to Tokyo Bay, even though I didn't quite make it all the way, just going on one of the little islands, the weird little island neighborhoods and going to it tullies. It's just so cool. I was like, you know what? I was looking at the map a little bit. If I don't follow the Samida, if I go straight south from here, it looks like there's a series of pretty serious parks, pretty hardcore parks that go out into the water, further and further and further. That's how it appears. Farther technically, F-A-R, if it's a distance, F-U-R, if it's further to the statements by the gentleman, priest. I'm a little tired today, but that's why I'm recording in real time. If I remember right, the machine, the hundred-yenne drinker machine with the brown sugar latte is just down this way. And I wished so bad. I wished so bad that I had one tucked away in my Airbnb today. I wanted some caffeine, so bad. But no, I had to wake up and take a shower and change my clothes and go downstairs and out a door and down the street and put a coin in, like some common criminal who anyway, things are going very well at the Airbnb. The new people, one of them only stayed for just last night and is already gone. But none of them, it was like four of us again, the room was full again. None of them made a peep. I heard one guy lightly snore for like two minutes. And that was it. And I was like, what the fucking fuck? That is amazing compared to just a chorus of snores everywhere. Snoring people of the world, I don't know what you did. I don't know what you did to make God upset. You know what? This thing's a little further than I thought it was. I just walked by like a little mom and pop convenience store. It sounds a lot of cigarettes. Let me go in there and get something. Let's see what they got. Maybe they got something weird. Maybe they got a sada. Probably not likely, but... All right, no gassada. They had a lot of energy drinks or like vitamin C drinks and you know that type of stuff. So when in Rome, so I got one of the little pokas of poro vitamin C's because they're my favorite. But then I saw it for the sake of science. I'm still going to head down to see if I can find the brown sugar machine. But I liked that gassada so much which was to recap just black coffee and carbonated soda water apparently in a 50-50 mix. It's a Tully's product. So they did have Tully's barista's black. There's a bunch of different kinds of black coffee from Tully's. This is their premium one. And I'm like, you know, I mean, I feel like the soda water part is important. It's a big part of what made that good.

But what if Tully's black coffee is just so good that I don't hate it? So let's try it. And then if it doesn't work out, here we go. Hundred yen, one coin, star-vending. Yeah, I guess not all these drinks are from the star-vending brand. But most of them. So yeah, that's why there's weird stuff here that I've never seen anywhere else. But yeah, this really doesn't work out. I got the brown sugar latte. Do some alchemy. Mix these together. It'll be delightful. And yeah, all this caffeine is going to do me good because no snoring, beautiful, quiet, amazing night. It was like unbelievable how quiet it was. How the world can be so quiet when you just start to get used to the idea that you just live in a world where people snore all the time and at all weird hours of the day.

So not only was it, oh no, I forgot about that. The brown sugar latte is warm. I don't want that today. It's beautiful out. It's like 15, 16 degrees. You need you to cool down brown sugar latte. 5:00 You need to cool your jets, my buddy. Let's, uh, forget. I forgot about that part of it. I've never tried it hot though. Maybe it's really fucking good.

But not only that, everybody else though, because it's a Saturday today, everybody else woke up early at a nice responsible time to go experience Tokyo. So once I woke up, I just had the place to myself, shower, nice and casually. The shower makes a beep after only like five minutes. And I don't know if it is anything because the hot water doesn't turn off. I think maybe it's just a kind of like, hey, hey, don't take too long in here. Other people might need it, but not today because there's no one there but me.

So everything is kind of perfect. It's as good as it can be for this situation because I do kind of like the building, the place is kind of cool. The location is fucking excellent. Apparently I'm between fucking every cool tower in Tokyo. And when people aren't snoring and then people aren't even there when I wake up, amazing. However, I stayed up all night anyway. And I just don't have any excuse. It's not because of snoring or anything. I just stayed up. So I slept in a little more today. I slept until like 1130. Time isn't now. Yeah, it's already quarter to one, but that's fine. You know? Heading off on my adventure turns out everything is close to here. Maybe I'll get to the water as it's turn in dark and I'll get, again, both days. Or that's one thing that's amazing about visiting Japan and especially this time of year with the darkness. I just feel like I've packed like, I mean, after these 90 days are done, it's going to be like I had 90 different adventures, 90 different vacations. It's just insane. Every day something cool happens. But it even feels more than that because the nighttime feels different. Like yesterday, walking through the mist and going to the little island and hanging out at Tully's does not feel like the same day as walking through the dark and going to see Tokyo Tower. That's like two different things. I don't know, it's just fucking sweet. But anyway, the point is I need a lot of caffeine today. I feel pretty good, but I really didn't sleep much, though. Holy shit, it's warm today. Although I just realized I forgot to bring a thermal shirt, but I think that'll be fine because I got two layers, but that's too many. You need to take these off. You need to take these off and then experiment with my drinks. I need to rearrange my stuff, tie some of these coats around my waist, but let me just try this black coffee. Barista's black. Tully's is definitely my favorite mainstream coffee brand in Japan. Starbucks is pretty decent, actually, if we're just buying stuff out of machines, but Tully's is my fave. So if anyone's going to have black coffee that I like, this is the one. So let's see what we got.

No, I'm afraid not. It is decent, it's not bad, but that bite at the end of black coffee. The taste it leaves in your mouth, I find unpleasant. So let's try, let's see what hot brown sugar latte tastes like, and then I'm just going to mix these together.

Oh, that is good hot. Oh, geez, that's good.

Do I really want to ruin that by adding it to black coffee? Should've bought two.

Anyway, whatever, I'll do some alchemy and some experiments as I walk. Yeah, I got to take these layers off as weather. It's fucking insane. It is so good. Again, if you just drop me here right now, man, I can see not a lot, but there are some leaves. I can see some leaves that have changed color, but that would throw me off so bad. Like, you know, I was geogassing, you just dropped me here and told me to guess what time of year it is. I guess geogassing with a full body temperature control. I just wouldn't believe it. I'm like, well, that looks like fall, but that is not possible. This weather is not, that can't be happening, that can't be true, but it is. That's what's happening.

Man, this weather is absolutely out of control. It's got to be 18, 19, might even be 20 degrees. It's so hot out. I'm already like sweating and I'm just like, fuck. That's one thing I've realized from the little wee bunk in the hostel. I'm just standing outside a 7-11, by the way. My favorite pastime. I've just got a trio of three older guys in the parking lot. That's all that's going on in the world today. Airplane going by. 10:00 Kind of inner city-ish. Can't see much, but other buildings, but again, I just love it. I just love just watching things go by for a minute while I eat stuff. But yeah, being in the little bunk has made me realize, like, I really don't mind not having the space. The only thing is it's a little hard to keep track of how many clean clothes I've still got because they're just in a book bag. And then I toss them in a laundry bag when I'm done. Yeah, just half of the bed is where I hang out. Half of it is where I put my stuff. The end. I really didn't need all that space. It's nice to have an apartment to yourself, but I don't fucking need it. It's actually kind of cozy in there. Once we're all tucked in.

Oh, oh. In fact, it's so warm. Maybe I got to move over into the shade. This is death. Ooh, yeah, just sweating. Brutal.

But I'm happy to say that that the mackerel ginger soy sauce is just what it says on the package at 7-11. It's so easy to find. It's at tons of them. I've had two in a day sometimes. Have I ever had three? I don't think so. But I got one right now, so I'm just going to do some eating real time. Even I think eating sounds are gross, but I mean, it's just so good.

Oh, man. It's like parvo.

It's got like the oily fish taste of the mackerel skin, but then it's got a nice, you know, it's like mostly still rice. It's more rice than fish, but it's a pretty good ratio. These pieces of fish are big. And a little bit of ginger. And yeah, if that's all that is cooked into the fish, it's just soy sauce. I mean, it's so simple. I presume there's more ingredients than that. I saw a thing once. The YouTuber, Dogan, DOGN. He did a thing about how Japanese food is actually really unhealthy for you. There's a lot of trans fat rules and stuff that we have that they just don't care about. So maybe I'm killing myself. I don't know, but it's so fucking good.

That siren going by made me realize like, hey, hey, what am I doing? Why not turn off the recorder and just eat your food? What the fuck are you doing? So I did. It was very fucking delicious. But yeah, the thing about trans fats and cooking and stuff, I think that's more like if you get those weird, like the fried chicken. At family mart and stuff, which I never really get just because it's, it's even just like the steamed buns and stuff. You know, it's just, it's a difficult process sometimes. More difficult than you'd expect to like point at stuff and be like, can I get this thing? Apparently, the fried chicken is extremely delicious. So I guess I'm glad I haven't tried it. I feel, I feel pretty good about the the mackerel on rice. I feel like that's got to be relatively healthy. How bad could it be? I guess maybe there's mercury in the fish or something, but it whatever. I gotta die someday. Oh, and mixing the brown sugar latte with the black coffee was so good. Because you get that blast, the pure brown sugar latte. It is like mega sweet. So it's like, oh, I don't want to diffuse the sweetness. It's so sweet. It's so sweet on my tongue. But then once you do mix it, you realize like, oh, actually, it's much nicer. To my adult palate to, you know, have it be just a gentle sweetness, not a mega blast. So it was really fucking good.

Well, yeah, and I realized that I didn't really describe the little mom and pop shop I was in. It was extremely scant, just an older couple in there watching TV. They had a little bit of stuff in the coolers, but not a lot. Like, you know, it was very, again, sparse. It's like 10, 20% of it had stuff in it. And then around the store was candies, but not, I don't know. I guess I was kind of hoping it would be like that top floor of super potato where they set it up like an old school convenience store.

Like, maybe there'd just be something weird or cool in there, but it was really just kind of rice crackers and chip star, which is like the Japanese Pringles. Nothing really stood out, so I just got the drinks. But there was a large section of cigarettes, and it's like, ah, yeah, okay. I know what this kind of place is. We have these in Canada, too. Where it's a store that really is just there to sell cigarettes and a lot of cards. And usually in Canada, it'll be a stationary store. That's what I noticed. If you go to a mall and you find a weird little stationary store that has hardly any stationary and plus who needs stationary anyway. You know, and you're like, oh, why this really exists is in case you need to buy a lighter.

So that's what that was, but it was kind of neat just for a change, just to go into a place I normally wouldn't go into.

So not only did I get my Mac or a lawn, but I got a banana, a little banana crape with whipped cream. 15:00 I feel like that's practically health food. It's got a banana in it. So fuel me on on my journey to keep heading south to the magical islands leading into the bay.

So this walk's definitely not as nice as walking down the Samita River on the bank, and then just taking one of the bridges over onto a little island like I did yesterday. That was all pretty calm and pretty nice. We're now in walking down a pretty major street to Koto City, and it's like a big highway and then a big overpass. So there's a highway on top of a highway. But even this is kind of nice in its own weird way. Just this, the great big overpass is just kind of cool. And even within all this crazy, super developed stuff, I walked by one of the little canals that I went over. I just saw like a dad with his daughter and his son just, just fishing, just hanging out there having a little fish. I'm like, that's fucking nice. And it looks like there was another route I could have taken that would be a little less intense. Yuma no Shima part. Maybe I'll try to go back that way. I guess depending. I'm not totally sure how this all works. What connects to what? Yeah, I really do feel like I'm at kind of a weird point. I think also because I stayed up all night. Being tired. It does kind of, I don't know, it's weird.

That's pretty loud.

But yeah, this is way too loud. Oh, now there's construction on the other side of the highway. Yeah, let's wait till I get out of this zone, this fucking area.

Well, this is definitely a one-time journey, where I was thinking yesterday, going over to the river and across to the little island and into the Tullies. I was like, you know, I could do that exact thing again. I could just go do that adventure again. That was such a nice walk. I could go to the same Tullies. I could do the whole deal. And then I thought, well, I mean, this is sort of the same. It's pretty similar. It's just a different set of little islands. A different little route. But yeah, this one is not calm and cool and pretty. Like the, I mean, just the, even the apartment buildings and stuff on the other side of the Simita, just looking across as it splits into multiple places and you get these kind of big, wide parts of the river. Really beautiful, like excellent, excellent looking. Where this is really just overpassed city. And it is like cool in a way of just like the size of it. Holy shit, look at this thing. It's just like fucking nuts. Where does it even go to? I mean, I guess it just goes along the edges of the bay.

Kind of cool to do once, but I certainly wouldn't be like, you know, I should go there again. I should go do that again. And I finally made it to this park in Cotto City. And it's just a park. It's not the craziest.

I'm going to try to get down to the actual shore. Shin Kiba Park. Looks like it's down here. Maybe there's a wharf. Hopefully I get a cool view of the bay. But yeah, there's really not a ton going on down here. It's definitely less crazy industrial than Chiba. But still doesn't seem remarkable. So then I started looking like, well, what is down here? If I go to the west, there's that Team Lab planets place. But I mean, I'll probably not bother to get around to that. And even if I did, I think I'd want to do it. I'm a little more with it. I'm not so tired. And then the other way to the east is Tokyo Disneyland. And then I saw like, oh, there's a subway by Disneyland. And then when I zoomed in more, it's like, oh, good, there's subways all over the place. There's a bunch of little subways. So I think, I mean, I'm going to get to the bay first and see how that looks. But maybe because that's the other great thing about Japan is if one plan doesn't entirely work out, it's so easy to shake up the edge of sketch. Just re-roll the dice. Just do something else. What if I just get on one of these random subways and just just get on it? Just whatever. Just get on it and go wherever it wants to take me. You know, just see what happens with that. And yeah, I'm definitely of the energy level where the idea of a subway seems less bad today. In the ebb and the flow. I mean, it's never a proper ebb and flow with me is the problem. I just push and push and push and push till my poor little body breaks down. Because even today, even without the laptop, my shoulders do still just kind of hurt. Definitely all the exercise I did in Fukuoka, I cannot mountains. Definitely did good on the legs and on the core in general and on the stamina, but not the upper body. I just didn't do shit with my upper body. 20:00 My upper body and my shoulders and my arms, it has always been my Achilles heel, my Achilles shoulders. Man, though, just had a curiosity. I noticed in the Airbnb, they had a scale, a digital scale, which would be handy. It would have been nice for trying to fucking weigh my luggage before. But just had a curiosity, I hopped on that bad boy and I'm almost exactly 150 pounds, just like I've always been in my entire life. So I mean, that's kind of good. That's the case you're wondering what you're dealing with here. 6 to 150 pounds. That's the kind of toothpick I am. But I was kind of glad because I've really been eating like a fucking pig. Well, I've been here in Japan. Just the gluttony. Every 7-Eleven I've walked past on the way here. I bet they got them mackerel, but they get that ginger mackerel in there. And I don't just get the ginger mackerel, then I always get like the crepe with cream cheese and strawberry sauce as well. Or something along those lines. But I think due to my metabolism mainly, I'm sure. But also because of all this walking and hiking and all this shit, yeah, I've completely maintained my normal weight. It's like, wow. Look at that. That's nice.

Yeah, this is just, you know, this park. It's okay. It's a park. But yeah, I guess where I was yesterday, down by the Samita and hopping, doing the island hopping over there. You're just constantly in the view of water, of bridges and stuff. I guess the trouble with this one is this route. Is it just city stuff? I mean, I know I'm right by the bay, but I can't see it at all. All I can see is buildings and overpass and a park behind me.

You really got to get right to the water before you get any benefit of being near the water.

So yeah, in the past fail, I'd give this route a fail. But again, subways everywhere. And I'm glad to. There are the additional subways because I was like, do I really have to walk to the Disneyland for a subway? Because it's not that close. But I just wasn't zoomed in far enough. It looks like there's, I think, three different subway stations pretty much in three different directions. Okay, here's the sign. Shiyomi station is a kilometer and a half behind me, but Tetsumi station is only 400 meters ahead of me. Maybe you're the winner. Tetsumi station. I think we're just going to do total blindness. I'll go in the station. I'll take a general gander at what the two directions are called. Maybe I'll recognize something. Maybe I won't. And we'll just see what happens. Well, here's another sign, row of cherry blossom trees.

Again, with the cherry blossom. So I'm missing out. I'm missing out so much. Yeah, I was thinking as I was walking. Being tired, I think, you know, it does... Yeah, you break down your emotional defenses a little or whatever. It's a combination of... I guess it's good to be a little more in touch with how you're feeling. You can't really defend against it as much. But it also makes my brain confused. So the two things don't mix, especially well. Where I was just thinking about, like, what is the plan? What is the plan?

Am I going to try to come back to Japan for another visit while I'm out here? It is just such a strange, uncomfortable thing because there's no official rules for when you can come back into the country. I kind of wish it was a little more said in stone. But also just the timing. Like, I don't know about this cherry blossom thing. Even if I did that, I think I would want to just catch the cherry blossoms right at the end of my visit just so I'm not here in the summer. Even just today has reminded me. I mean, it's the fucking middle of December and I'm sweating and I don't like it. It's too fucking hot. I wish I was up north right now. So that's what I was thinking. It's like, I think next time I kind of just want to come here in the winter. Again, I mean, I'm in the winter now, but I mean the proper winter. Maybe get one of those JR rail passes and just go up north. That could be cool if I just made my way through a bunch of different places. Just stayed a little bit at each place and just kept going further and further north. I have to do some research. I don't totally know how JR passes and stuff work.

And I'm thinking back to when I was here before. And I mean, obviously just the excitement of being in Japan for the first time. Easily counterbalance the weather. But I was sweating like this every day. When I was doing those hikes in Fukuoka, I had to take my shirt off because I was going to die. So I just was like walking around without a shirt on. It was so hot. I just don't ever want to do that. I never want to come to Japan in the summer ever. 25:00 That's not in the cards at all. I don't like it. I don't want to do it. So how am I going to time stuff out to get here in the winter? And it's like, damn it. I'm here in the winter right now. I'm just in the wrong spot. It should be up north. But I didn't know that at the time. Oh, man. Yeah, this kind of blows way in the distance. I can see the water. But Jesus, this overpass system has become insane. This would be such a good toy set if I was a kid. Because yeah, the one big overpass I've been following now splits to the left and right to follow along the bay. And there's the pre-existing East West one that goes along the bay. And this highway's only gotten bigger. It's like a double highway now.

Oh, man. I just can't exaggerate how much traffic there is here. This is some of the craziest tangle of vehicles I've ever seen. It's going through the sky. This is shit. This sucks. Let's go see the water and get the fuck out of here. Pass failed. I failed. I failed on today's journey. This one's not good.

All right, Tatsumi Wharf. At least it's a little windy here now that I'm by the bay. It's cooling me down. It's actually extremely windy. Tatsumi Wharf is a completely industrial wharf. Just big cranes, big shipping containers. There's a cruise ship in the distance. But this is what I expected. I mean, based on what the bay was like in Chiba, this is what I thought was going to be in the bay in general. And I guess yesterday it got me a little excited that like, oh, maybe not. Maybe Tokyo Bay is actually beautiful parks and cool shit. But it's not. It's not. It's just industrial stuff. But that's the purpose of experimenting. It's not always too succeed, but sometimes to fail. It's just in Japan, you don't often fail. Usually, usually, these kaka-mami planes succeed. So I got a circle back.

Some people in go carts just went by. I saw that in Akihabra once where they were doing like real life Mario Kart. But I don't know what's going on around here. Where did they come from? Why are they on the same road as the giant trucks? But yeah, I got a circle back to Tatsumi Park. Tatsumi Namori, real Kudo Park, and Tatsumi Station. And yeah, hop in. Hop in that station. Just see where it wants to take me. However, while I'm down here, there's a daily Yamazaki. So let's stop in the daily Yamazaki that no doubt is only ever patroned by guys in coveralls and like mechanic jumpsuits and stuff who work in this neighborhood. But yeah, I'm walking past four different cranes parked down the other side of the street or a bunch of trucks. Cranes only shit. What is this place? A giant hangar that's like got a huge flatbed truck in it. It's a work in man's neighborhood.

Let's see if daily Yamazaki in this neighborhood has got delicious bakery for me. You never know. Maybe it does.

Alright, not really fresh bakery in that one. A little bit of stuff, but mainly just the packaged bread. So I'm like, I'll just wait until I get out of the other end of whatever my subway adventure is because I'm really not hungry after that macro thing, dude. Alright, hopefully, hopefully this little street and the line goes up to the giant overpass and disappears.

But it does touch. It does touch the overpass where the other one stop ahead of time. Can I get to the park from here without going back to that insane fucking intersection from hell? I guess I was going to say I don't think I quite finished that point, but I was thinking about being tired.

The emotional defenses thing is yeah, I feel like man, just swimming through weird feelings walking down that street under the overpass where I've still got like a month to go in Japan. So I was like, man, on the one hand a month is a lot. But on the other hand, it goes by so fast. Really, I'm on the down slide now. I'm on the way down. I'm on the back end of the adventure. So I was like, oh, that's a bummer. That's a shame. I don't want to end my Japan adventure. But then I was also thinking like, yeah, on the other hand, though I had been here a long time. And it's better not to get attached to stuff too much. You know, life's a process. Just let the process go. 30:00 The process will continue. I'll just go somewhere else and then somewhere else and eventually I'll loop back around to here. And if anything, it'll be better that I don't spend too much time in Japan. And then something about the sunny day would hit me just right and I was like, yeah, I just feel good today. This feels good. And then the tiredness would hit me and I'm like, oh, wait, actually, I'm exhausted. What am I doing out here?

So that's all really just that it's a lot of unstableness just in the, in how I'm feeling about today. I'm feeling constantly all the different ways you can feel in a cycle.

Because I'm tired. Okay, I do have to walk back to crazy town.

Let me just turn off this dang recorder until I can get on the subway and get the hell out of here. Because this neighborhood is this place is fucked. This is not the place to be on foot.

Do not head to Tokyo Bay on foot. This is not what you do. This is not how you get here. This is not how it works.

Take the train to team labs. Take the train to Disney. Don't walk. Don't do not walk.

Alright, well that was a pretty easy choice because in that subway station, I could either go one more stop to nowhere. I mean, I guess toward Disney. So obviously that was not the plan. And then in the other direction, it's like, hey, tomorrow to Ghibukuro. It's like, hey, I know Ghibukuro. And if I had more Vim and Vinegar today, I'd probably just be like, alright, that's adventure number two. Just go to Ghibukuro, maybe I'll go to fucking OG station or whatever. Do all that shit. But yeah, my body is very much telling me to fuck off for a bit because beyond just being tired and my shoulders hurting. I'm developing a blister. And it's like, stop right away, put a band-aid on that bad boy before it gets worse. And I did, but I think I missed the spot. I think I need to put a second band-aid on. I think it's not quite the right place. But hey, that doesn't mean I'm not going to walk around excessively today. Just not super excessively, not all the way to Ghibukuro excessively. Instead, if I just go a couple stops, I get to Sukushima station. And I was like, isn't that the, that's where I was yesterday. That is the, that is the little island neighborhood with the Tullies that I was at last episode. That's the exact one. So that plan, that original plan of like, oh, maybe I should just do that again. Maybe I should just take yesterday's adventure, run it back. And inadvertently, that's what I'm doing. I'm walking down to the shoreline. There's these buildings across, now I know they're across the water from here. I didn't know that initially. There are these two buildings with a walkway in between. I remember noticing them yesterday and thinking like, just like, why? Why is there a walkway between the two buildings? Like during earthquakes or during typhoons and stuff must be so scary. I mean, I'm sure it's designed to survive all these things, but that looks fucking terrifying to me. I wonder if I can figure out, let me go up the stairs. See if I can figure out what floor this fucking passageway is between these buildings.

Because we definitely have those once in a while in Canada, Toronto and stuff, but not high up like that. Let's see.

28 floors up. Fuck me. Fuck me in the dick. In the buildings, both one of them is taller than the other, but they keep going up from there. Jesus, that's scary. I don't like being like more than like four floors up to 28 floors. I mean, I guess that's why there's the walkway. It's a lot of floors to go down an elevator and go over up the other side.

But yeah, this all kind of worked out because now I get to do the walk. Yesterday's little walk across this little island over the bridge, up the simulator and back home. Because if I had done this initially, the problem becomes that it's a cool walk, but then what? How do I get back? You know, then I've got the second adventure to get back. So this is kind of perfect. I can still do this little walk I wanted to do. And now this is the adventure. This is the walk. After I'm done, since I'm doing it in reverse, I'll be back at the Airbnb. Then it's like quarter to four. It's getting dark. It's all going to time out pretty fucking good. Pretty good. 35:00 However, I thought what I would try to do for my grand finale is this is the spot along this waterfront where it is more busy today now that it's not all misty. For some reason, there's construction across the water from here and a single man hammering. It's not terribly loud, but there's always some construction somewhere making noise. I mean, of course, I never noticed this stuff until I'm trying to record a podcast even walking under that overpass. I was like, yeah, this is fine. I don't give a shit. Just listen to a wrestling podcast or something. It's only when you pull out the recorder and it's a nightmare. But this is where I could see the sky tree on one side and the Tokyo Tower on the other. But I didn't quite align myself perfectly to see them both because the Tokyo Tower, there's only this one little area where you can see it peaking between these tall buildings. So I thought I'd give it another go since I'm right here before I start walking back. But I don't see either of them in this weather. It's fucking weird.

I assumed it would be easier because it's a clearer day today. But maybe, I mean, I guess I don't really understand at all how seeing things at great distances work. Like that view of Fuji that I managed to find in Chiba when I went down to the dock side turns that was extremely lucky because not only did Anna and her brother from Columbia try to do it and it didn't work for them. But Norahiko, the guy who lives there, says he's never seen Fuji from there either. So that particular day with just the clouds behind Fuji.

Yeah, this is very strange. Where I guess the misty day yesterday and the darkness and spoke the towers are lit up.

Apparently, that really helped. Because it just doesn't make sense, though. I should still be able to see them. I mean, they're towers. Dude, they're fucking huge. Maybe I'm just not aligned right? I don't know. I'm just going to keep walking and see. See if I can see either of them.

Because maybe they're just both hidden by buildings right now. That is possible.

Okay, in the direction of the Tokyo Tower, I see an antenna looking thing poking up behind one of the buildings as I keep walking. It's like parallax scrolling is what they call this an old video game. So you'd have different layers in the background moving at different speeds to give the illusion of depth. The parallax, there it is. The building is moving faster than the tower because the tower is much further away. Though they both look similar heights from here. Okay, so there's Tokyo Tower. So I can see Tokyo Tower from here. Geez, though. I'm glad I caught it lit up yesterday. Because when it's not lit up, I don't know if I would even have recognized that that's Tokyo Tower. It doesn't look good. At 10-4 in December, the sun's still going down, but it's still up, so the lights are not on on the tower. Yeah, I guess once it really comes fully into view, I think maybe I would have been like, what is that? But when it's lit up, it's like, oh fuck, that's definitely it. Where now it's like, that could be a crane. There's actually cranes in front of it.

There we go. I did it. I did it. So I walked until there's just this one little spot where the Tokyo Tower is really clearly visible between these buildings. And that's really it because there's a bridge over there that I crossed yesterday. And you can't get a good view of it from there. As for the sky tree behind me, let me walk back a bit to see its particular parallax. Yeah, it was just hidden behind a building as well. Alright, let's see. Let's see if I can find something on Google Maps because this is a pretty specific spot you have to be in. But there it is, man, unquestionably. There is the Tokyo Tower to my left, and there's the sky tree to my right. They're both a little bit hazy. They're both in the distance. Sky tree's extra hazy because it's much further. Alright, so I'm on the island where Tsukushima Station is, TSU-KIS-HIMA Station. And I'm at the Northwest Shore, the Samita River. Watashi-Jido Park, W-A-T-A-S-H-I-J-I-D-O Park. And the little marker for Watashi-Jido Park on Google Maps, it's a little green tree. I'm just, just a touch. West of that.

I had a missing place. I kind of want to add a spot here. I don't know, I can give you, I'll just, this is dumb. This is meaningful to no one. But let me just give you the coordinates that it's got here. Because I just think this is cool. I really think this is a neat discovery. I think this one is worth it. So if you care for some reason, if you care about coming to this exact spot, get ready to type this out. I'm going to just ramble off this number. And this number is the exact location of where I'm standing right now. Okay, you're ready? Here we go. Three, five, dot, six, six, three, six, three, six. That's the first number, comma. Then, one, three, nine, dot, seven, seven, eight, nine, one, five.

That's the exact spot to stand. Again, there's maybe others. Maybe that's like a cool thing. You could try to figure out. But I just found it by accident. I don't know how you'd ever even begin to fucking triangulate such a thing without just stumbling upon it. But Tokyo Tower, Skytree, Tokyo Tower, Skytree, camera one, camera two, camera one, camera two. I just think that's so fucking cool. It's just cool as goddamn fuck, man.

So yeah, from here, I got options. I can go across one of these bridges back to the main island that my Airbnb's on. Or I could take a little detour over to Chuo City or to this other part of Chuo City, then back across the Samita. Who knows? It is kind of a shame it's not a little bit later, four o'clock. So it's going to be, you know, 80 or 90 minutes before it really gets dark and these towers light up. That's just a bit too long. I'm afraid.

But yeah, as a backup adventure goes, doing a slight rerun of yesterday's adventure works just fine for me. I think this is pretty goddamn delightful.

So yeah, I'm walking back and pretty nice. Now I'm walking up the Samita toward the Skytree, which is kind of cool. I haven't really done that. I keep walking away from the Skytree whenever I'm at this river. So this was kind of neat to take the train and then walk back.

Although it's not as pretty, like it's getting prettier and prettier as the sun goes down. It's getting darker and darker. The mist really made this place look amazing yesterday. And then at night it just looks incredible as well.

In the daytime it is much more of like, yeah, there's a barge, you know, a little more dock-like.

It's certainly not bad, but nighttime is the right time for the Samita River for sure. But I just thought of one last little thing I wanted to mention. So I was saying how Daniel from Vancouver, who was staying at my Airbnb. Before he left, we exchanged emails, but I was like, yeah, I don't know when this will ever come up. I don't know in what context we would ever speak again, really. But he got one last message in. He did my fucking email me and he's like, hey, you should go say hi to the girls from Sweden who are staying upstairs on the fourth floor. They went to Shibuya today. And some other anecdote, something about their heavy luggage, whatever, which I guess is something that all travelers can commiserate on. Oh, geez, the lights just lit up on the bridge. Now that I turn around, the bridge, two bridges back also did. So the blue one and the white one. Let's see if there's a specific time. Is this the local version of the five o'clock song?

It is not 443, no particular significance to that time, but I was kind of neat just to watch the lights on the bridge. Just bing, bing, bing, it literally just like flipping on a light switch, and suddenly an enormous bridge is all lit up. It's kind of cool to see.

That's fine, you know, just natural. That's just kind of what I told them. It's like, yeah, my sleep schedule is kind of whacked out. 45:00 I've been waking up late, so it's easier to take showers when everybody else is gone, so I haven't bumped into them. But I was thinking how weird it would be anyway. I mean, I think this Daniel Fellow, a very well-meaning, he's very mild-mannered, very nice person. I think this was just his last Hail Mary Pass of like, hey, let's just help the other people that are still at the Airbnb be friends. Let's all be friends. I'll help these friends and that friend become friends. But I was thinking how weird it would be anyway. If I were to bump into the random woman from Sweden, that would be one thing. But how uncomfortable would it be for any traveler? But especially I feel like if you're a woman traveling, it's just different. As a guy, there's just so much stuff you don't have to think about or worry about. It's just so the world doesn't pay attention to you. Whereas a woman, unfortunately, the world pays too much attention to you. So if some dude just was like, oh, hey, girls, I know you already. I already know you're from Sweden, and I know you went to fucking Shibuya today, and I know you have heavy luggage. How fucking weird would that be? Be like, what? What the fuck is going on? Why is there a stalker in our Airbnb? And then even if I explain like, ah, you know, Daniel, you know, Daniel, you're old friend Daniel. He told me all about you. Like, that's no better. Like, what? You mean that one random fucking guy from Canada that we talked to once? And now he's sending emails about us? What is this? Like, if anything, it kind of made it worse. Where now if I do bump into them, now I got to pretend I don't know that they're from Sweden. And that is honestly, that's all I know about them. It's already the next day. So the fact that they went to Shibuya is not relevant information anymore.