#63 Exploring East Tokyo

Transcript

All right, here's a bit of a different day just because I actually woke up early today. All of my not sleeping has finally, quote unquote, paid off. I finally went to bed early and woke up early. I woke up at like 7.30 and just felt that feeling in my gut of just like, I mean, I'm a lady, I tried. I tried to go back to sleep. It's like, I don't want to do this, do I? I don't want to live this life, but then I had that other feeling or just like, it's not going to happen, bro, just get up. Just get up. This is what's going on today. But it's kind of nice to actually be up early for a change, especially with how quickly it gets dark in the winter in Japan. This is probably, I mean, this would probably have been the best plan all along, but I'm just generally not wired this way and I presume everything will slip back into sloth. Very quickly after this, but for today, fuck it. This is what we got.

And the main downside is because I'm in a communal Airbnb deal right now, is that when I roll out of bed much later in the morning and don't really get out of the house till around noon or so or a little before then, everybody's already gone. So it's just like, ah, this place is nice and empty. It's almost like I'm here all by myself. I can just chill out buzz my hair, shave and take a shower. And it's like, ah, no problem. Whoops, this little park I'm walking along. I'm just walking along a ravine.

And unexpectedly, split. Yeah, I don't want to go that way. That's the wrong way.

Yeah, I found this nice little nice little bit of water.

Hmm, which I was going to say is probably a river, but maybe this one actually isn't small enough that I can't see a name for it. But a nice little way to walk through the city without, well, there's still traffic on either side, but it's not too bad. Yeah, I woke up around 7.30, but pulled up the old laptop, downloaded some podcasts, and Crapples to do today just dicked around on the internet. Watch the guy play a game of magic, the gathering on YouTube. A nice, cultured morning.

But just to kind of slightly get the lay of the land also. And yeah, all around me was people getting not people buzzing around because there's only three other people in my little bunk room. But then there's, I don't know if there's two rooms on my floor, maybe just one. But then upstairs is all private rooms as well. It's enough people that, you know, I'm sure I could have squeezed in myself in for a nice quick shower, but it's just so uncomfortable. I just don't like that feeling at all of like other people that are waiting and I'm getting in their way, and they might have something to actually do today. Some important thing happening where I sure don't. Plus, it's kind of the Japanese way anyway, right? You take a shower the day before, not in the morning. I actually take kind of more showers in Japan. I'm like, you know, I mean, I'm not that I'm like the filthiest man in the world, but I think I'm extra clean in Japan, just because Japanese showers are so convenient and kind of fun, but walking through a tunnel. But you just set the temperature for the water and you just turn it on and just step in and it's like, ah, just, it's a little thing, but it's delightful. I definitely go out of my way a little to take showers in Japan. So I was like, fuck it, I'm not that filthy. And it's also not like I'm going to work today. It's not like I got to be around people all day. I'm just walking around by myself. So I figured two the hells with it. No shower for me today, but my big plan today is just to go walk across town and then walk through a park just like every day. Just go walk around. But then I got all like, I got all set to go, got all, it really is, man, routine is so important, and just like getting my clothes on and my little bunk, it's a little tricky, hit my head once.

With a tree, are you a Yuzu tree? I bet you are. I know what you are now. But I've got my little sling that I wear under my shirt that has my passport in it and my spare bank card. And I always have it, I just put it in the pocket of my jeans each night. So the next day, I'll realize, oh, there's that thing poking out of my pocket. But today I just changed T-shirts, go to put my pants on and I'm like, oh yeah, right, that thing. It's like I got to take the shirt back off, put the sling back on, then the shirt. And it's like, yeah, I would absolutely not have remembered. You know, if I didn't put my little passport slings, I don't think about it during the day. It's just hidden under my shirt. There's zero percent chance I would have remembered. Maybe hours later, but probably not even, you know, unless I see that thing poking out of my 5:00 jeans pocket. So man, yeah, that routine is incredibly important for not losing stuff, not misplacing things. Because that's how I lost it in 2019. I just, I just wasn't being constantly mindful of where my passport was. And then I just misplaced it and then it was just gone forever. So yeah, man, a little routine sure does help. Keep the wallet in this pocket, keep the passport in this pocket. Tuck everything away in its right place to avert calamity. Even when everything you own fits in a book bag, it's amazing how wrong it can go. I remember one time in Montreal. I can't remember what I was looking for, but something or other that I needed. And I was like, this is so insane. I got everything I own fits in this one bag. What's going on? I had everything laid out on the floor of that particular Airbnb. And I'm just like, it's, it doesn't make any sense. It has to be here. What's going on? And then I realized it was underneath my hat. You know, I had to lift up everything that I owned and it's like, oh, there it is. Like even with the tiniest amount of stuff, it's shocking how easy it is to lose things.

Well, I guess I should say too, just this little path I'm on just happens to have quite a few cyclists. This is something I've been meaning to bring up. When I first got to Japan and I was in Sengenjaya, it was a real problem how many cyclists there were everywhere. It was like, man, this is like difficult. They're constantly weaving around and it's just like uncomfortably packed in with cyclists under another tunnel.

And definitely in my time in Japan since I've definitely realized like there's, there are no cycling rules for sure. I get super regimented in the Netherlands because it needs to be in Amsterdam at least. But it's pretty, pretty securely defined in North America too.

Japan, as with many things like smoking rooms and cigarette machines and just a lot of throwback stuff, Japan feels like how North America felt to me in the 1980s. You just do whatever. You just ride around on the sidewalk, you ride on the road, you ride on the left, you ride on the right, you just ride wherever you can ride. And it's not that bad because for whatever reason, Sengenjaya is the only neighborhood where the amount of bicycles was a problem. Everywhere else, it's like not too shabby. It's pretty manageable. Everything seems to work pretty well. But it's a little strange. I don't know. For such a organized society, I do kind of wish there was a little more, you know, which side am I supposed to walk on? Who's supposed to go where? The all over the placidness definitely favors the cyclists. I'm sure it's nice for them to just weave all over the place. But as a pedestrian, you got to be like, well, who's coming from where? What's going on? You need to be a little vigilant. But it's not a big problem. It's just something I've definitely confirmed. It's the Wild West for bicycles. They can just do whatever they want. But anyway, I got all packed up and all set. But then as I was leaving the Airbnb, you know, there's a guy below dry in his hair. I think he might be the guy who sleeps under me with his amazing cologne. But anyway, I was just like, you know, have at it. Carry on. I'm also to leave. I'm just leaving. But then I realized as I was walking down the stairs and put on my shoes and went out through the restaurant, it's like, man, I left so directly. I didn't pee. I always need to pee in the morning. There's a good chance the reason I woke up at 7.30 was because I needed to pee. And then I didn't for the next hour and a half. So I really needed to pee at that point. But I was like, oh darn, well, I'm not going to go all the way back up there. Whatever, it's Japan. There's washrooms everywhere. But it's kind of weird to start the day with a mission. Immediate mission. Find a washroom. And within 10 minutes, I find a washroom is all good. And today's probably the coldest day. But maybe again, just because I'm up in the morning. I think the weather website said it was like five degrees, but it's supposed to become nine degrees. So it's somewhere in the middle right now. But just to be on the safe side, I did break out my heaviest coat that I haven't used at all yet. The one that I probably shouldn't have bothered bringing. But I guess I'm glad I've got it because apparently South Korea is a lot colder than Japan. Which I guess makes sense because even though it's only a little further north, even just Japan itself is got a bunch of snow right now if you go north. 10:00 There's a good chance the thing will come in handy. I'm glad I've got it. But today I probably didn't need it. It's probably going to be too much. But just when I saw that five degrees thing, I'm like, you know, just let's not risk it. Because I think that's the main sort of trick to Canadianness. And from what I understand, it's very similar in like Sweden and Finland and the Nordic European countries is that it's not like we have some magical superpower where we can withstand the cold. We definitely do have a different mindset like what I consider cold is definitely different, you know. It can be, I mean like right now, whatever it is, somewhere between five and nine. I'm just like, whatever, this is fine. It's cold enough. I put on my little stretchy gloves. But until you start seeing puddles of water turning into ice, it's not really that cold. And even then, you know, it's just like our idea of what's cold is different. So we're just not willing to complain about it until it gets really bad. But the actual coldness, there's, I don't think any particular resistance there. I mean, I'm a skinny 150 pound person. I get crazy cold immediately and will be the first to die if like really bad weather hits. But I think the main difference with Canadians and other Nordic peoples as opposed to people who live in the South is just preparedness. Like when people from Florida or whatever complain about it being cold, it's because they're wearing shorts and flip flops and tank tops and shit. Of course it's fucking cold, you know. Where in Canada, you know, you're wearing long sleeves and long pants and you got layers. You're always prepared with layers. You got different stuff at the ready. You don't go outside with inappropriate clothing on. And that's what makes all the difference. It's just never, you know, as long as you're dressed for the weather, then the weather's not bad.

Like there were days during my COVID lockdown in New Brunswick where it's like cold out of a nightmare, like out of a story where it would be like minus 30 degrees Celsius. And you're just walking through this insane winter wonderland. Like it's beautiful. It's amazing. It's like you're in a dream. It's like you're in a story. It's just as like this is how is this real? But what makes it fun is that I had all my layers on. I had my thermal underwear. I had my giant supercoat that I didn't bring with me because it's just like an insane parka. And I just said it's like you're in a space suit. Like an underwater diving suit going out into this weather and you got your face covered and everything is covered. And that's when weather like that is fun. That's when you can spend all day outside and you can just trudge around through the woods and you can just walk across town and you can just have a cool time. And it's like fun and exciting. And it's like this is this is cool. But if you were underdressed on a day like that, you know, all you can do is go from the malt to your car. And even that's probably a pretty unpleasant experience. Like you can't be out in it. You can't enjoy it. You can't like it at all. It's terrifying. So I really do think that's the main difference. Is people who aren't used to the cold? I mean they're right when they're always complaining that it's cold. It is right now it'll be cold if I didn't have the right coat and the right layers and all the stuff. But I do. And I'm like hyper-trained. That's why I brought all this stuff. That's why I brought too many layers with me to Japan. That's why I'm wearing a layer more than I probably need right now. Because what if? You know, it's probably going to warm up later. But what if it doesn't? What if it goes the other way? I would rather be ready.

But I suspect I probably have, you know, Ty and one of these jackets. I'm wearing two of them. Ty and one of them around my waist later today and just went into death and complaining about it. But better than the alternative. So yeah, then I went to a 7-Eleven that is a known procurer of the barbecue mackerel, soy, ginger, delicious dish. And they didn't have any but that's like a good thing. Like the other day when I found one by Ginza and I got to eat my mackerel and fancy surroundings. Even that store only had one. And the fact that this store didn't have any is a good thing because that's evidence that throughout the day, you know, they just make them and deliver them. All throughout the day, you see the little little convenient delivery trucks showing up, bringing stuff. Because if one of those mackerel things had been there, that would suggest that it had been there all night. You know, that it was just sitting there waiting for someone to buy it. And that would be a bad thing, you know.

So I wasn't disappointed that there wasn't one there. I didn't really expect it. But I still 15:00 got a smaller one that was also kind of good because for like $2, that big one is $4. They sell these little $2 ones that are just little squares, a little square of rice like the size of a brownie, except it's rice and vinegared fish of some kind so you can get salmon and stuff. But I found a little mackerel and ginger one, except vinegared instead of barbecue. Not as good, but hey, it'll do. And I just felt like I wanted that for breakfast. I just wanted a nice, nice fish and rice. Get the day started well.

And then I bought just because it was a, I wanted to just get a little coffee to start off with. So I got the little Starbucks Winter Collection, Cinnamon Caramel Latte. And it's a little gross. So I think I'm going to do the little trick like with the brown sugar latte of buying a black coffee and mixing it with this. Then it'll be delicious. But this little walkway, this is actually pretty amazing. It really does just cut I'm heading east from my Airbnb. And yeah, this walkway is pretty great. It just goes and goes and goes and it keeps going under all the streets. So there's no drink machines here. Small price to pay though. This is pretty good. And where I'm heading today is very much like this. I didn't expect this journey there to be similar to the place I'm heading to. But basically I was trying to figure out what to do with myself today. And I wasn't sure. I definitely got a little lazy booking Airbnb's toward the end of this trip. Like I'm just at this one for too long. And then I'm going to one in West Tokyo. So that'll be awesome. I get to go back to Akigawa and check out Ome. That will be cool. I think with like these communal places like the one I met now, it is one of those things where I should really look at the listing more closely and try to figure out a little better what it is I'm actually getting and what's going on. Because I was thinking how I thought this one was a capsule. But when I looked at the listing again, it's like no, this definitely isn't a capsule. I could not make that mistake in good faith. I think what happened is I was looking at capsules. And you know, since this was months ago, I forgot that I hadn't booked the capsule one. But the lack of space definitely doesn't bother me. Being so close to people I don't like. That's where I want to try a capsule and see if it insulates me a little more. The communal bathroom I don't really mind because usually my schedule is off kilter with everyone else's. And that it's so cheap. Like I'm excited to go back to West Tokyo but this next place is like double the price again. It's like the same as Fukuoka prices. But anyway, I'm definitely here for a little too long. And then after West Tokyo, I'm going to Yokohama and also I'm there for too long. I just kind of got bored of trying to find places in booking places. It was like, you know, my 7th, 8th, 9th, there B and B. But I should have split them up more. I should have done just a week here and then a week somewhere else. Because this was really cool when I first got here. And I'm like, man, everything is so close. It's so cool to be in central Tokyo. There's the Samitra River. There's the Sky Tree. Oh, geez, look at that. There's Akihabara. There's Tokyo Tower. There's the Giant Gundam. Like everything is right here. But after I used up that initial burst of stuff, then it's like, now what? Because it's great if you want to get to the central Tokyo stuff. But you can't really escape. If I wanted to get away from here and go say to West Tokyo, go to somewhere more naturific, it's a really long ride. Going there and back is an expensive round trip. And with how early it gets dark, it's not a very realistic plan.

So I was like, I don't know. I don't quite know what to do. I was like, well, just follow your feelings. What do you feel that you want to do? And I was like, well, I could really go for a Hori Park. Or I could go for heading up to the northern coastline. Or I could go for just getting on the train and going south and see what happens. Or going to Aburiyama or going to Desaifu and just hiking up some mountains. All of that sounds good. But all of that is fucking Fukuoka stuff. Shit. You want to get to nature in an easy convenient way. Fukuoka is the place for you. Not fucking Tokyo. I don't know how to escape from here. Definitely a week in any given place feels good in Japan. There's a lot to do for a week. And then for the second week, it's like, hmm, now I'm dreaming about leaving this neighborhood. But then that just is a lot of trains and travel and extra, you know, I mean, I'm still here for a while. So I think that's what's going to have to happen. And I really hope in Yokohama, I can find a way to get to the coastline easily. 20:00 Because that's just what I want. I want to see some nature. I want to see some trees. Tokyo Bay fucking sucks millions of balls for that. It's terrible. Forget about it. It doesn't count this water if you can't get through it and you can't see it.

So anyway, just Google Day. What's the stuff I can do? What do you got for me? Central Tokyo. Give me your top 20. And basically I've done it. I've done it all. It's like, hey, there's that cool street by Sensoji Temple with all the shops and Sensoji itself. I mean, literally just by wandering around, I pretty much did all this stuff. I'm like, okay, I've seen all this stuff. I've been to all the places. There's nothing obvious that I'm missing. I don't believe.

So a little further down the list. This thing showed up that it's, you know, it just seems like kind of an average park. You know, the reviews are like, oh, a nice family park. Bring your kids and stuff. So it's like, nothing's going to really be there. But that's fine. You know, like, as usual, I don't really go to see a thing or to soak in a thing. I want to just travel through a thing, just an excuse to travel to a place and then travel through it. And it seems perfect for that. It's called Higashi Komatsugawa Park, H-I-G-A-S-H-I-K-O-M-A-T-S-U-G-A-W-A Park. And it's basically this river to the east that I walked to on the first day and then did not cross, which is in fact the Arakawa River, that big river that I went to. It was running east-west up in Itabashi. At this point, it is curved. So now it's going north-south. And I didn't cross it because it's just a great big giant river. Today, I am going to cross it. Though there's a little mall here I just saw. I'm getting near the, near the bridge. So I'm just going to, I got all day now. I left early for once. I'm going to go in the mall and walk around and check it out. But if I cross this bridge and then head north a little, basically the deal with this park is, as I understand it, it's like four kilometers long and it just snakes. Sort of like this path has been, except presumably somewhat wider and bigger and more of a real park. I'm more on just a glorified path, a big super path. But yeah, this park is just this four kilometer snake that winds through the city. And I'm like, that sounds great. Perfect. Just an excuse to go walk over there. I haven't really gone to that side of the Arakawa River yet. Yeah, I guess that's true. I haven't at all because it was, it would have taken me to Saitama, the other place where I was at it. And in a way, it's kind of like the perfect thing for me to go see because yeah, like there isn't a thing. It's not like I'm going to a temple or a statue or a natural fucking wonder or whatever. Because those things like they are nice to see, but as I always say, it feels a little weird. I'm just standing there. You know, that's just not how I appreciate stuff. It's not how I soak stuff in. I just get antsy and bored if I'm just standing there trying to feel the importance. I just don't ever, it doesn't. I feel it for a second and then it goes away. I want to just keep walking. So this will be perfect. There is no thing to stop at. There is no thing to see. It's just a park to move through. Which I guess is why I like hiking in the mountains so much. It's the movement. It's just moving through the environment. That's what I like. So that's the plan for today. And now I'm going to go move through the environment of this a on mall that's across the street. Get me a black coffee to mix with my cinnamon sugar psycho latte.

Oh, and just for a second, I just saw my breath there just for a moment. But I think it is warming up. It's not too bad, but yeah, this is fine with me. I don't mind it being a little on the colder side at all. It's a little overcast today. Maybe that's what's making it cold. Because yeah, some of these days we're just all of a sudden it's 20 degrees in December. That's the more ridiculous thing. It's like, Jesus, will you calm down? What the hell? My clothes are melting right now. The fuck? All right. Time for the mall.

All right, I'm crossing the Ara Kawa for the first time. And man, this is a mighty river. You know, I'm always saying like, I grew up on the St. John River in New Brunswick. These little tiny rivers. Come on. It's supposed to be a big river.

Ara Kawa was a big fucking river, dude. It's very equivalent to the St. John River. It's that feeling of, hey, if you fall in this river, congratulations on dying. You know, it's like you could swim across it. But if you get caught by a secret undertow or something, you're fucking dead. Don't, don't fall in. Of course, the main difference is when I look across the river here, 25:00 there's a giant overpass with trucks sailing through the sky. Where in Frederickton, it's just a hill and trees everywhere. There's also a Ferris wheel in the distance. And I was like, I wonder what that is. And then zooming around on the map, it's like, oh, Tokyo Disneyland. That checks out. So that's where that is right over there.

Man, one thing that's weird about the Ara Kawa is there's a second river, a smaller river that is right next to it. The Nakah River connects up at this point. So yeah, for this particular stretch, it makes the Ara Kawa extra big, super sized. But I just had a little drink machine experience that's not extremely common in Japan where I just don't know what's going on at all. I saw this can I'd never seen before and the label is just a very faint image of an old school Japanese village. And it was under the hot drinks in one of these little cans. And it was like a hundred and ten yen. I was just staring at it and I'm like, what the hell is that? I just have no idea. So I got to try it. But then I opened it, popped the top of the can and there's like a milky white stuff inside with some little flakes of something floating in it. So I still didn't know what was going on. And then I drank some of it and it was sweet but kind of weird tasting. I don't really know how to describe it. It wasn't good but it wasn't bad. It's just a strange sort of Swedish tasting white liquid. Because at first I thought maybe it was a super something but it's not. It's not really salty at all. So I mean it's just weird to buy something to look at it, to taste it and you just...

What the fuck is that? Some fucking dickhead on their bike, shut the fuck up bitch.

You need to fucking fix that bike to taste it and to still not know what's going on. Not even to really have a guess. What the fuck's going on? That's a bit extreme. That's a bit of a weird situation. So I pulled up the Google Translate and tried but again with cans it's like nothing on the front could really be translated because it's just a font that can't be recognized and it's written. It's also tough when stuff's written vertically is a lot harder to translate but also when it's against an image I was getting nothing. And the back, I mean I guess it's some kind of non-alcoholic sake. Sijou Higashi Hiroshima City is one of the three major brewing areas that are different from Nada and Fushimi. Please enjoy the Hambo Amazake made from the Sake, from the Sake Brewery in Sijou. Yeah this is actually translating a lot better this time. I tried to translate it as I was walking across the bridge and that one didn't work so good. So yeah I guess this isn't as confusing as I thought. Name, soft drink, Amazake, alcohol content less than 1%. So yeah this is a Sake. Amazake? Sake? I've never heard of Amazake before. I don't really know what that is. Hopefully I'll remember to look it up later but presumably just a type of Sake. So this is basically non-alcoholic sake less than 1% because that was the thing as I saw somewhere on here. The warning of you know don't drive vehicles and stuff. And I'm like well it can't be an alcoholic drink because they can't just sell those without all the Fufaro where you got to put in your ID and stuff in the machine. So yeah rice sake but super sugary.

I have not drunk a lot of Sake at my time and what I've had it's all clear and it's I've had it cold and warm. I don't remember it being sweet though. I also remember it being kind of more that classic wine paint thinner sort of taste. I'm not a big wine fan. I like red wine mixed with fruit juice you know like ghetto sangria or sangria. Yeah white wine and Sake. Not so much my thing. So that seemed weird that it was milky and sweet but I guess maybe if you're drinking non-alcoholic sake I don't know maybe they're just like I don't know. Better put some sugar in there because otherwise I don't know what the heck anyone's drinking this for.

But yeah that was kind of neat because that doesn't happen too often. I mean I'm always vaguely confused about what's going on around me. You know that's kind of the fun of floating around Japan but that was a strange one where it's like okay I'm looking at it, I'm tasting it, I'm swallowing it. I don't even have a guess. I don't even know what category of product this is. But apparently non-alcoholic sake and apparently not popular because I've never seen it before and maybe I'll never see it again. 30:00 I certainly won't buy it again it was not great.

Well, this is pretty nice. Coma Tagawa, Sakagawa, Shinsui Park. It's a little tough though to find the entrance because there's really nothing listed on the map specifically. The only thing I could find was Healing Village, Nishi Komatsu Gawa. So I guess you search for the Healing Village of Nishi Komatsu Gawa, and that's close to the beginning. But it's similar to the little trail I was on before on the other side of the Arakawa. But this one's way nicer. It's still just like a little strip, just a little strip of path through the middle of a neighborhood. But this one doesn't have as much traffic, very little traffic, and there's a nice stream, the whole way. It's ducks in it. Lots of ducks. Hey there ducks. So it's just a nice calm little waterway that you can walk along. Maybe not necessarily worth coming to in and of itself, but if you happen to be nearby, definitely a nice stroll. Much nicer than the journey here, because I was thinking as I walked up the Arakawa River, it's kind of cool to walk along it, and it's this great big river, and it's got the big overpass, and it's people and jet skis in the river and stuff. But it's also very ugly. It's just concrete. Just concrete, Japan stuff. It was still kind of overcast too. The sky is cleared up, so I guess that didn't help. But I was just kind of thinking like, a concrete revolver. Of course it is. Of course it is. The length posts are the oak trees and the street tops are the streams. It's just city. No feeling of nature was permeating. Push and pass to the cityness, even though I was next to this gigantic river. It was just kind of like, hmm. But now that I'm here, this little thing, this thing's nice. This is pretty. This ain't ogle. This is peritti. I think though, I'm almost at the end already. Higashi come to Gawa Park. But if I keep going, it does push a little further to Chuo Forest Park that was also on the list. But again, it's just a teeny little park. I think for these two have made the list of stuff to do in central Tokyo. I think it's just that Edagawa City is where I am now. Well, it looks like there's a lot more green space next to the Edo River. I'm going to keep pushing past then. I'll get up to the Chuo Park. I'm going to go over to the Edo River, Shinasaki Park. I mean, it's always a little hard to tell with the banks of rivers. Because the bank of the Arakawa, you can't really walk along. It's not so good. But maybe this one's not as big of a river. Maybe it will be nice. It looks like if I go up from there, Mizamoto Park. That seems like a pretty good ultimate goal today. But I think it's safe to say there's kind of not much going on over here. That'll take me up to Katsushika City. And then from there, I'll probably try to find a train to bail out because that'll leave me relatively far away. Although, who knows? Again, I did still start the day pretty early. It's only 130. But yeah, I think I've definitely hit the point where I am just kind of, you know, I've randomly explored in all the major directions and I found some okay stuff. But I do think I might have to start training it up or just, you know, to get out of this particular hood. Because yeah, at first, I was like, this is amazing. I'm close to everything. But I've seen everything. Because I was thinking like Christmas Day is coming up. And I was like, you know, what am I going to do on Christmas? What's going to be my Christmas gift to myself? And I mean, it's probably just, you know, I think I'll just go to Ikabukuro and walk to Oji Station and then walk to Naka Itabashi. Like that just that loop is just my favorite. It's the first place I stayed in Tokyo. It's just my fave. My real fave, my true fave is, uh, you know, to go out into the woods. If I could make it to West Tokyo to go to a hiking trail, that would be the best. But that's just too far away. I can't realistically do that. It's like $13 each way, you know, and it takes hours. It would take half the day and it would take like 30 bucks to make that round trip. I'm just going to have to wait till my next Airbnb when I'm closer to that type of stuff. I'm heading underneath. This is kind of 35:00 nice. Like this is the one big crappy street in the middle of this nice walk. But they got a nice underpass. So I can avoid all that. I barely even hear it. But yeah, I was thinking if I do, uh, hey, if all I want at a life is to go walk the rivers near Ikabukuro, I don't have to wait till Christmas. Can do that anytime. That should be pretty easy because I've been having trouble with the trains. But I am getting a little finicky with them. Like, you know, I'm starting at slightly odd stations, trying to get back to slightly odd stations. But if I just need to get to a major station and then take it to Ikabukuro, which is another major station, that should be pretty simple. That's pretty doable. Not that expensive, not that long on the train. You know, there's no need to keep flogging this neighborhood if there's really not much else to see around here. I mean, I guess I kind of said that the first day I was here just walking around and like wondering like, hey, I wonder before the sky tree. Did anybody come out here? Like, maybe not. There's probably not much going on around here. And I think that is just kind of true. It's just nice in general. It's nice in a general, nice Tokyo neighborhood type of way. But beyond that, unless you're going to Disney, I don't know that there's a ton going on out here. And since I failed to shake up my Airbnb's appropriately to reset the Etruscatch and set me up somewhere else, I'll just have to do it manually. I just have to start taking the train places. But I mean, that's not bad, you know. I'm on my last month now. I'm two-thirds of the way through my visit. And I've pretty much been on foot this whole time. I've barely ever taken trains anywhere. So I think that's, I think I done good. I think I did all right. As far as work in the shoe leather and just seeing what there is to see in an on foot capacity. I think now it's train time. Time to learn the trains. Time to not be so afraid of the trains. I mean, I'm not afraid of the trains, but I guess I'm I guess I am though avoidant of the trains. Because I mean, the best time you're ever going to have on a subway is not going to be that good. And then if you do get lost and you have to transfer a bunch or you get turned around or you go the wrong way, there's a lot of potential for it to actually be kind of a pain in the butt. On the other hand, it is a lot better for like getting just, you know, if you want to do some writing on your phone or whatever, stuff like that, even just read comics on your phone or just any super crap like that. It is kind of better for that. Enforced downtime where you're just stuck in a train. That's one sort of trouble with walking is there's no enforced downtime. I have to enforce the downtime. I have to make myself stop somewhere. And I'm not good at that. I just keep walking. So there's upsides. There's upsides to the train life.

Man, this is actually pretty great. The further I go on this thing, the more I like it, like right now I'm on these big flat stones that you can use to step across the stream. And there's a bunch of those all over the place. At first they were kind of optional, but then there's parts where it's required to get across. It's like, hey, you're supposed to do this. And you know, this thing, it's very shallow if you did fall in. You know, it's only going to go up to your shins. But it still feels a little weird to be on these because they're really high up to these really tall flat stones and you're stepping across them. And it's just like, geez, this would be a bad time to just suddenly, I don't know, have all your muscles spasm at once and fall into the water. I don't know what would ever happen realistically. But it's just kind of cool. It's fun. And there's like bridges too. You kind of are constantly having to go back and forth across the stream. And then there's some times where I lost track of it. And I just had to walk on the normal street for a bit. But then I'll look behind me when I get back on the stream and see other was away. How strange. But I guess it just kind of dips underground sometimes. And if you don't quite know where you're going, you get a little turned around. But it's generally pretty easy to follow. And yes, just this is pretty as heck. This is really good. Also the weather's getting progressively better and warmer. So I found a ice cream cone machine. Got a blueberry cheesecake ice cream. You can't beat that on a sunny, warm, beautiful December day because Tokyo is a magical wonderland. Oh, there's a Yuzu tree. Also, how from the starvending machine, I found a 40:00 lemon slash Yuzu drink. The Dai Do company, the guy who made that canned crab soup, they had a Yuzu drink too, like a hot Yuzu drink. And it was kind of good because it does seem to be just Yuzu, not lemon. So it's got a little bit of that, that tardy, tangy, bittery Yuzu taste. But not very much because the top ingredient is still sugar. It hasn't rocketed to the top of my new favorite drink list or anything. But it's kind of good because the other one really just tastes like lemon. So at least this one, they get a little Yuzu in there. I love how I had no idea what Yuzu even was. I had no inkling that there was a lemon adjacent fruit that even existed. And now my life revolves around Yuzu. Oh, that reminds me. Yuzu made me think of, I did buy one time a little bag of sugared lemon rinds from a 7-Eleven that was surprisingly good. And I used it to counterbalance the plums because I found that I like sour plums and I like the semi sour plums. And then any of the sweet range of plums, it's kind of like a pickle, I guess. I don't really like bread and butter pickles, but I like dill pickles. It's kind of like that with plums. I like the the strong flavored ones. And the weak flavored ones just taste weird and I don't like them. But that reminds me, I was at a Lawson's and I found sweet and sour seedless dried plum and it's been in my pocket. Let me try these because if it's got the word sour in it, it's probably good enough because yeah, the the sour ones from 7-Eleven, they're fucking crazy. It's like a stunt just to eat them. They're so fucking sour. So even the normal ones are pretty sour and they're sour enough. So I figure if these are sweet and sour, suggesting a mid-level sourness, that might be good. Let's see. What the hell is this symbol on here? Supa man, S-U-P-P-A-I-M-A-N, Supa man. He's like some kind of weird superhero. Just Lawson's have a superhero fucking guy and that's a weird. I'd never seen that before. Man, this stream just keeps going on and on and on too. I mean, I guess I knew at the outset it said it was four kilometers. Four kilometers ain't short. And yeah, I mean, it just keeps going and keeps going. This thing is pretty rad. You know, maybe it is worth walking to this actually. I'm turning around on this bad boy. This is really cool. This was worthy of the list, the list that it was on of stuff to do in this general area. And sometimes too, there's it's not often, but once in a while there's like rocks piled up so you get a little mini waterfall and stuff. But okay, let's see what we got here. Sweet and sour seedless dried plum, Supa man, Lawson's. Yeah, pretty sour, pretty good. All wrong. Oh, it's a sour.