#64 Visiting the staircase from Your Name - Kimi no Na wa

Transcript

Alright, I'm on an extremely simple adventure today. I think this is my simplest adventure yet in my time in Japan. There's this really famous anime called Your Name that is the highest grossing anime film of all time. And there's this set of steps that's very famous in the movie. I'll blab about the movie a bit more later. But it's this very distinctive set of steps. There's just these steps up to a shrine where the two main characters of the movie are like the final scene where they meet. And I do really love that movie, but it's mainly an excuse to go somewhere, you know, just a target of somewhere to go. So I did the little searching this morning and it's like, wow, that's easy. All I did do was walk north for my Airbnb, just a few blocks up to Sarawai Park, that park I went to the first night I was in that neighborhood, jump on the Shinjuku line, go like, I don't know, eight stops or something, and get off. And now I'm walking in that general direction. I don't need to go there right away. I'm just going to wander around the neighborhood a bit because, you know, once I get there, it's just steps, right? So no big hurry. But the one thing that's kind of sort of near here is the big shrine next to Yoyogi Park. So I don't think I've ever been to this particular neighborhood. But from here I could walk to a place I do know because it turns out everything in central Tokyo is very close. And yeah, I decided to do this nice little easy adventure because, yeah, my sleep schedule still all whacked out. There's really no point, I guess, in chronicling it in an exhaustive detail as I have been. Just I haven't been sleeping that much. And then yesterday it kind of flipped. So because I was so tired, I went to bed early and woke up early and got to have an early morning. Today was the opposite, but there's, you know, upsides to that of, again, having the Airbnb just be empty. Just empty. I could just shave and buzz my hair and take a shower. And it's just like, ah, no rushing, no hurry, not in anyone's way. Nice and calm.

What time is it anyway? It's got to be pretty late already. Yes, almost two o'clock. So I got a couple hours of sun, just enough for this mini adventure. I haven't had anything to eat yet either. And I think the, ah, the soy ginger mackerel fucking party might be over. I'm just walking up some other steps right now. And I'm like, you know, these are nice steps too. The only reason these steps aren't notable is because they weren't in a famous anime. Otherwise they'd be cool.

But yeah, the soy ginger mackerel, a delicious dish only available at 7.11. And most stores would only have one. Very rarely they had two.

But I was just finding them a lot for about a week. And today I've been to 3.7.11's and they don't have them. And it's like, ah, you know, I should just give up on that. I should just eat food. Because else needs food badly. And, ah, it's hitting that point where I'm waiting for the train that ain't never going to come.

It is really easy to string yourself along though of just, ah, you know, ah, well, there's another 7.11, like just around the block. Oh, there's another one just over here. Oh, there's another one just over here. But I mean, at what point do you just admit this is not working? This is not a good plan. And it's 2pm and you haven't eaten yet. And yeah, my next Airbnb is, ah, going to be back in Western Tokyo. Hopefully I'll get back to just hiking and going into the woods. Because I never had any sleeping problems when I was doing that stuff. So maybe everything will just whip back into shape. But I don't really have a clear reason why this keeps happening. Why I can't seem to get my shit together. Though it's definitely very much attributed to the internet. Just that the internet is there and available and it's just an endless source of, ah, of something to focus on. Because I remember in 2019 when I was here, now I've got good internet at all my Airbnb's. None of them have had bad internet. But public internet is almost not, I think. Starbucks and Tully's tends to have internet. But that's about it. Where in 2019, I think all, yeah, all my Airbnb's had internet problems of one kind or another. The one in Akigawa, the internet just didn't work at all. The one in Fukuoka was, ah, definitely dipped in dives. Disappeared for days at a time. And the one in Akigatabashi mostly works, but again had a few stretches of a few days where there was no internet. But that was kind of a nice thing because that's such a difficult experience to have nowadays to just not have the internet in your house. 5:00 So at night, I just remember it really made me feel like I was in the 90s again. At night I would just kind of, I guess I would read some comics or whatever was already loaded on my phone, watch a little movie. But I would just kind of get tired of it and go to bed. There just wasn't anything to compel me forward all night. And then in the morning, you just wake up and you can't check your social media. You can't see who uploaded shit to YouTube. You can't see what today's new podcasts are. You just get up. And I was like, you know, this does feel better. I do prefer this feeling. And then in 2019, because all the convenience back then had Wi-Fi, then I would just go stand outside the 7-11 and download the podcast for the day or whatever I needed while I was walking around. And I think there was like a 20-minute limit. So if I did run out, then I'd just go around the corner to the Lawsons and there's also a family mark. And I really kind of preferred that system. That was kind of cool. Like it's severely hard to not have internet. It's just a very hard thing to arrange for yourself. And it's just one of those deals where, yeah, you can train yourself not to spend all day on the internet. You can work on it, but it's just so much harder to be disciplined than it is if it's just not there. If it's just not available, you don't do it. The end. Addiction over. And it's like, what a nice feeling. But it's an extremely rare feeling that I mostly only felt when visiting Japan and not anymore. Now that scenario is gone. Now the convenience don't have Wi-Fi and the Airbnb's evolved up to their game. I think it's just already, even just in the last four years, just not acceptable to have bad internet anymore. The place I'm at now has three different internet. Internet for the ground floor, the third floor I'm on, and the fourth floor. I don't know what the second floor is. I guess there isn't one. I guess the restaurant just has high ceilings. But yeah, I notice like my internet's going great. Then people will come into the Airbnb, my internet goes to shit. So I just log on to one of the other internet. It's like, yeah, no worries on the internet front around here. But unfortunately, also, it's certainly contributing to my weird sleeping. But there's a very weird upside to these bender days where I just stay up all night till the sun's rising. This might just be for me. I don't know that this applies to anyone else. But let me tell you the weird thing that came of it that was good, except I see a 7-Eleven across this busy street. So I'm going to go check that out. But if they don't have the thing, I'm just going to get something else. I gotta eat something.

Man, these stairs are way too close. It's like they're just way too close. I gotta go somewhere else. What's this thing? Shinjuku, Gyo and National Garden. That's right by Yoyogi and stuff. And it's like, I don't know what that is. It's never been there. And it turns out it's like, I'm sure it's very beautiful, but it's like five bucks to go see this park. You can just pay for it with your IC card, which is cool with your Suiko, whatever. You can just tap your transit card. But, but now I'm good. Besides, I mean the parking lots full. There's a tour bus outside. Everybody else is keeping these things going. I don't need to go. I can just go see a staircase, please. That's what I'm here to do. Man, though, that big building. I don't know what this building is, but it's this enormous building that you can see from all over the place in this neighborhood. And there it is, looming over. It's like, oh, yeah, that place. I just remember in 2019 being on one side of that building. And then later when I was just sticking around experimenting with train stations and stuff, I ended up on the other side. And I was like, yeah, I'm just gonna go walk. I'm gonna go walk past it. You know, just use it as the navigation point. It really does feel like, you know, I've heard the the YouTuber TKO Sam say that if you go to Shinjuku, that's lost in translation. Japan, you know, all the ambient imagery in that movie is mainly of that kind of neighborhood where this area around Shibuya and around those steps and specific, but just this whole sort of place in that building and whatever. This definitely is the your name neighborhood because there's all these other like, oh, you could also go to this spot or that spot. None of them are nearly as memorable as that staircase. But part of what I like about that movie and just about Japanese storytelling in general are the downtime moments. They really do spend a lot of time just showing the neighborhoods that the two characters are from. And it is cool because yeah, you just like, you just soak it in, you know, you can just feel it. Like, yeah, this is that place. This is where that guy lived or where he worked. 10:00 At least, I don't know. You can go find his apartment. I don't know. It's just, it's just a green door apartment building. It's nothing. But presumably it's around here too. See, I'm just gonna circle around, take the long way to get to these stairs. But it's kind of nice going on a mega small adventure. Like, man, all I got to do is backtrack a little bit back to that station, hop back on, or even just one of the other stations on that line. Sit on that train for a little bit. I'll be right back home. It's like, man, that's different.

All my other stuff, even if I'm not going anywhere particular, it always takes a long time to get back. It's like, oh, it's getting dark. I should start heading back and then by the time I get back, it's like I'm in the land of... Halloween, evil death ghosts. It's just so dark, you know. But I think the joyful time of the Soy Ginger Macarol, the joyful couple weeks at 7-11 is over. It was a very unusual product. It really just seemed a lot better than most of the stuff at a convenience store. But on the way to check that 7-11, I saw another 7-11 around the corner, so I checked them both. And I think the new thing that's taking up that spot is in the same form factor. It's just vinegar rice wrapped in tofu skin. And I really don't like that stuff. The tofu skin is so weird. It's like kind of moist and spongy and just sort of creepy feeling and tasting. I don't know. It's a lot cheaper because it's just rice and tofu. But that doesn't feel like a fun thing to eat to me. That's not a treat. That's like, yeah, I guess I'll eat that if I have to. But I don't know. It's a rare food that I would describe as clammy and not that it tastes like clams. I mean, clammy like your hands get clammy. It's just like weird. I just don't like it.

But I saw that at all the stores and it's in the same little package and stuff and it's like, yeah, I think... Whatever happened with the mackerel supply, I think it's over. So I definitely don't regret all the times I gorgeed on those things or when I ate two in a day. I did the right thing. I did what I had to do.

They were really good.

And then for dessert, I found those plums that are still on my pocket from yesterday. It's like, oh yeah. Shit. Still a sour as ever. I ate two of them and I'm like, good enough. We're good.

We're gonna last me for days. Tokyo Kabuchiko Tower. Is that what it's called? It's a little hard to find a building. I'm just like pointed myself at the building and then just draw a line on the map. And it's like, I guess maybe that's it. Buildings are a bit of a weird landmark to try to find on Google maps, even if they're freaking enormous and mega famous. Because from a map perspective, they're very small. So yeah, I just got some Onigiri, which I would describe as delightful. And yeah, if I want to get all fancy pants and get fancy pants barbecued fish and stuff, I'm just gonna have to branch out. I'm just gonna have to go buy things from places that aren't convenient stores. And I mean, hey, you know, maybe next time. Maybe next visit. This visit, I've made my piece that this is what I do and this is who I am. And damn it, I like me. My wife likes me. My kids like me. That's a movie quote. I don't have a wife in kids. So yeah, speaking of my irresponsible life, the upside, sometimes to these weird benders where I just stay up all night for no good reason, is then it's like a sort of balancing act in my stupid brain of like these things I don't really want to do in life. These things that I just find minor stresses, but like I've described recently, a minor stress is more than enough. Because all I need to do is put it off. If it's just enough of a stress that I put it off.

If it's just enough of a stress that I put it off, then it becomes a problem. You know, it builds into a problem. And that to be a big issue to become a problem.

But then there's the counterbalance of if I stay up all night and I just didn't really get anything useful done that particular day. There's the shame of like geez I can't just let this day slip away where I didn't do anything. So for whatever reason that'll be a lot of times I'll just like well before I go to bed just so this day isn't a total right off. Let's do something productive right now. Let's get something done, something I've been putting off. So that's what happened I was gonna say yesterday. I went to bed at 4 in the morning or whatever sun coming up is I booked an Airbnb and a flight to Seoul. Bigity Bam Boom, next step of the trip, all set, all at once, one fell swoop. Man, you would not believe the number of tiny noises that you just never notice in your day-to-day because you just move along. But when you're recording a podcast, especially listening back to my earlier ones where I was not being mindful enough of sound, 15:00 I really let the sound get out of control in some of the episodes of this podcast. But I'm just walking along this little fairly quiet little stretch that it's like oh this might not last I am. In Shibuya, we'll see. But even here there was a guy singing from his balcony. Only what the heck was that? And then just someone pruning a tree but it's like with a loud buzz saw sounding thing. Not loud if you walk by but yes just man it really makes you aware that the world is filled with noise. Holy Lord, there's a lot of noise everywhere. You hear those brakes? Someone needs to get their fucking brakes fixed. Man, I'm just walking toward the big tower, this big building. It doesn't feel very windy today. The weather's really nice but the clouds are really moving behind that thing. It looks fucking cool. It's a lot warmer than it was yesterday. It's back up to be in like 13 degrees. But yeah, this ties into what I was saying in a recent episode about baby steps, you know. Breaking your problems into small, digestible problems. Because there's no way I would have just booked an Airbnb and booked a flight. Like that's too big. That's too much to digest. I wouldn't have just done all that all of a sudden. It's because I did a little research a couple days ago and set the table for myself. I looked up, you know, the stuff that's obvious but like, getting into South Korea as a Canadian, of course, no problem but good to have it confirmed. How long can you stay on a visitor visa? Six months, which is very nice, longer than I expected. I did some basic searching about like they have two different airports and it seems like it's mostly not up to you. You're generally going to go to the further away airport unless it's a domestic flight or from Japan. So I, in fact, did get a flight to the closer, small central airport.

But yeah, basically I'll tell you what I got set up. But I think in like this actually is the same way that I booked some of this stuff in Japan. Because there's a very similar situation. It's like, yeah, I do want to go to Japan. I want to do all this stuff. But just all this stuff, setting things in stone and sorting out all the details and sifting through all this stuff is just stressful and I just rather not do it. So I definitely had some days back in Canada where I do remember it being like five in the morning, the sun's coming up and I'm like, oh god, I did it. I wasted the whole day. Let's just go book an Airbnb. Let's get something productive done. And that might help explain why I have such a bad memory for some of these places. Like, I thought this one place was a capsule hotel. But no, I didn't book the capsule hotel or I thought this other place had a laundry machine. No, no, this one doesn't. Because I was probably on the verge of passing out sometimes when I fucking booked this shit. But maybe that's a benefit also, you know, just being so tired. It's like the worst possible way to make yourself feel drunk or whatever, just feel a little fucked up. It's just to not go to sleep.

But maybe that helps too. Maybe that does break down the self defenses and the anxiety about stuff. It's like, I don't know whatever. Who cares? Just pick a thing, do a thing. It'll be, it'll be fine.

So I did the Airbnb first and it went so easy. It was exactly how Airbnb used to feel. How it used to feel in Canada and even in Japan the one time I came here before and which it does not feel this way anymore now with COVID and with just everything being fancy pants. It's just a lot more of a to-do to book Airbnb's. Where I basically just pulled up Seoul South Korea, which I don't know at all. I don't know how it's laid out. I don't know where anything is. I don't know shit. Just sorted by cheap. What you got this cheap? Found a place that was real cheap. It was like $17 a day. But also with like a weekly discount, which is something that used to exist very much so and just doesn't anymore, which brought it down to $15 a day. And it's a totally fine looking little private room for $15. I'm like, fuck yeah. Maybe that's the benefit of just not being like I think South Korea is just not a big ticket item. Like Japan is, Japan is just so famous. I mean like this shit I've been doing on this podcast where I'm chronicling literally every goddamn day that I'm here. 20:00 That ain't happened in once I leave Japan. You know in Canada I did a podcast every few days or something if something happened. That's my plan going forward is you know I'll sort of keep tabs on what I'm up to. But this granularity of thinking every little neighborhood is important and worth checking out and worth knowing the name of and worth exploring. That's a Japan thing. That's just a being fascinated with Japan. It's nothing against South Korea. There's no other country like that. You know there's just none.

So maybe that is part of why. Why things were so nice and cheap and easy. Although the reviews did say this place is a little cheaper than normal. Like this is still unusual. But the reviews weren't bad. They were like it's a big complex. It's like 32 rooms. There's some old people that seem to be retired that just live there. It's self-check in with a code. I don't have to meet up with anybody. Thank God. It's on one of the lines that leaves from the airport. It's just on a subway. It's three minute walk from one of the subways. I don't know how to work the subway in South Korea. I don't know how I need it. I think I heard somewhere you can use a debit card. You don't have to get a commuter pass, but I don't know. I'll look all this stuff up later. I have no idea. They did mention if you want a towel, 3,000 won for one towel, 5,000 for two. I didn't even know your money was called that to be honest. I don't know what that means. I have no idea. But conveniently I looked it up. It's weird. 3,000 won is about $3. Canadian. It's just really convenient that the way 3,000 yen is probably like 25 to $27. Canadian. It's sort of close. 3,000 won was like $3.21. It's not quite the same decimal point placement. The conversion is a little better against the end than it is against the one. But Canadian money just conveniently lines up so close to both currencies that I can just kind of do a rough one-to-one translation in my head and it'll be close enough to get a general sense of what stuff costs. However, I did not arrange because I'm like, how do I even pay for that? What are you even talking about? Whatever dude. I don't need a towel. I hate when people try to sell me a towel. I'm good. I'll figure it out. I realize now as I'm walking along the edge of this national park. I have done this before. Maybe not on this side. Maybe I walked along the other side. Maybe it was this side because I think maybe that very thing I was talking about walking along across next to that big building. I feel like I maybe did do this. I don't know. It seems kind of familiar but not the kind of familiar that really sticks in my head. I'm just like this. I think I just came at it from a different direction. Well obviously I came at it from like Yogi.

This is nice though to be able to walk not in the mega traffic. I'll take it. I don't need to go in the park. I'll just walk next to the park. Dude, that's fine with me. So yeah, I mean all the reviews were, I mean everything was rated out of the five stars. Everything was above four. The only thing that anyone mentioned is that I guess it is next to a busy street. This guy claimed there was a lot of traffic and some honking and stuff that he did not enjoy. So we'll see if that's a problem. I mean, can't be worse than the trains going by. And if I got to put in my headphones with my rain noises, I mean I think I'll be fine. I'm not too worried.

But because everything just seemed good, it's like it's a private room. A lot of people live there which I like. I like not being catered to and observed and paid attention to. I want to be just one of the 32. I want to just be in a unit full of people where no one pays any attention to me and I'm just a cog in the machine. I want a code to get in so I don't have to fuck it. Talk to anybody. It's got everything. It's nice and cheap. It's just a little room with a bed and a fucking desk. So I in fact just went from it's January 24th when I'm leaving. It's just like how long can I go here? How long is it even available for? It's like February 19th or something? 26 days or something? 24? I don't know. Not quite a month. But I was just like yeah fuck it. Whatever. Give it to me. I don't know anything about South Korea. I don't know where I'm supposed to be. I don't care about neighborhoods. I don't fucking care at all. I don't even know if I'm going to be exploring like I do in Japan. Maybe I'll just fucking spend the time there. I don't know. It's going to be cold in the wintery. Maybe I'll just edit stuff. Maybe I'll just edit this podcast and think back to Japan. I don't know. I don't know what I'm going to do. So I was like yeah fuck it. It's like $400. A little over $400 for the whole dang fucking almost a month. It's like dude, there you go. That's what Airbnb used to be like. Man that feels good. Maybe that's the benefit to just going to a place that's not a big ticket item. I mean I think Seoul South Korea is pretty famous. People seem to like it. 25:00 But man, I just went to other places that are even cheaper. Maybe that's the plan for traveling. I don't know.

Oh yeah, and I'd also like to just add an addendum to something I said just last episode where I was saying how I should have maybe should have done a little more due diligence to keep my Airbnb's more varied to stay at places only for a week and move around to different neighborhoods more. But I take it back because now I realize why I did this not only because I was just getting tired of booking places. It was a money thing. So actually I think I did the right thing. Because a lot of these places I got were very expensive. Going out to West Tokyo for whatever weird reason by the fucking by the train tracks. I mean it was a brand new apartment but a room under the stairs, whatever the fuck it was. Boutique Shed. That was expensive. The places in Fukuoka were both expensive. So those were the ones where I was just brute forcing it. I was just staying as long as I could justify hanging on. But I really did have to pay for it. So places like the place I met now, even though I'm packed in with everybody, it was to counterbalance. The place is a lot cheaper. It's like $27 a day, whatever it is. And I forgot till I booked this place that part of it is that Airbnb charges just weird random fees depending on where you stay. I don't know. I don't ever know how to really figure out what it's going to be or what it means or what the deal is. But it's one of these things that if you do stay for a short period of time or a long period of time, you seem to get a similar bite-taking idea. You know, staying for short periods of time adds up all these extra fees, these phantom Airbnb fees. That can be kind of a lot. So I was like, oh yeah, that's why. That's another reason. Another big reason why I booked these places this one and the one in Yokohama for like two whole weeks each is because I was getting tired of paying all these extra fees. So now that I remember that, it's like, oh yeah, I think I actually did the right thing. That is what I meant to do and what I would do in the future. If you got to pay extra to go to West Tokyo, that's worth it because the travel is insane. It costs like $13 to get out there. It takes forever. It's worth it to just go plant yourself there. And if you want to go to Fukuoka, your options are limited. It's not as big of a city. So you take what you can get, you pay what you got to pay. But once you're in Tokyo, actually, yeah, I think maybe this is the best thing to do. Just find a cheap place that you don't hate and that's just your home base. And yeah, stuff like this today, I mean, yeah, just hopped on the train for like, I don't know, not very long, not long enough. I was trying to do some writing and it's like, I'll crap, I'm already there. And it costs like $2, so you know, like within Tokyo, it's so easy to travel unless you want to go somewhere crazy like way out West. But yeah, I rescind my previous opinion. I don't think it's a great idea to just hop around and hop around all these different places because you just get eaten alive by weird fees that are not necessary. If you can just find a place to plant down that is okay, that is good enough, then that's okay and it's good enough. And you can just travel from there because yeah, I mean, I've been doing a bit of a bad job of transit so far while I'm out here. But really, if I just spent a little more time being a little more careful researching the route before I left the house, it's really not that bad. In fact, it's amazing. The transit system in Tokyo is fucking crazy, it's got to be the best in the world, it's crazy, it's so good.

Tokyo Christmas Market, 2023-A. That's probably the kind of place I should be going at night time, but it's on the way as I'm looping back to the old steps. So let's check it out. Yeah, I'm curious, too. I'm really curious how Yokohama is going to go, because I do suspect a lot of staying in Yokohama is going to involve leaving Yokohama. But this little ride I did on the train today, it would only be three times this long to make the same trip from Yokohama. And again, like I said, I got in there. I did a little, but wrote like one little fucking paragraph. And then I was like, oh, actually, let me, then I realized, maybe I should just organize my MP3s a little bit. What music do I want to listen to today? Just sort that out. Because I just, generally, part of why I'm such a slow writer is the shit like that. I'll write a little bit, get distracted, go back, do more writing.

But I got distracted, sorted out my MP3s for a day. And then I didn't have time to go back to the writing. I'm like, oh crap, we're already there. So a triple length ride. That's actually a good thing. That's no problem. That's fine. What time is it? The sun's going down already at three o'clock. I guess also there's a lot of big buildings around here, so that doesn't help with the daytime. But yeah, as far as flights go, I didn't at all know what to expect. But part of why books in Yokohama is, I've never been there. And I just presumed I always leave out of Nareda. Nareda is so far away. It's such a pain to get to. I never leave from Haneda. I've never flown anywhere from there. But I just assumed because Seoul is so close. It's less than a three hour flight. Like, yeah, those flights must leave from Haneda. So that was one thing I was a little surprised by is when I started searching flights. It's like an extra 100 bucks to leave from Haneda. You know? I was like, jeez, it's actually a fairly decent savings to leave from Nareda. I guess maybe. Maybe I shouldn't have aimed for Haneda. I just as I go, well, live and learn. But 100 bucks isn't that bad. You know? It's like the difference between, well, maybe more than 100. The flight I got was like 320 dollars. And there were some for like 181. However, I say that, but there's a lot of little things that add up. So the 181, 1. It goes to the airport that's farther away. So, I mean, again, not knowing the city, never having been there. If I can go to the closer airport, I don't think that is a bad plan. That's where it's a few Buccarus. And only Haneda goes to that closer airport. As far as I can tell. And there's not as many flights as I expected either. There's not that many. And they leave it some seriously weird times. Like, for that really cheap one, I'd have to leave it like 1 a.m. And get to Seoul at like 4 a.m. It's like, what the hell? The fuck is this? So when you reduce it down to flights that leave at a reasonable time, sometime in the, you know, middle of the day, there were actually way less choices than it became more like from my 320. I could maybe drop it down to like 260. And that is just not worth it to travel all the way to Nareda and end up at the further airport on the other end. Just for basically, you know, 50, 60 bucks. So once it all shook out, I'm like, okay, that's actually not as bad. But it's not what I expected. I expected Haneda to be, I don't know why I thought this. And just thought Haneda would be the one. I really don't know why I thought that. I don't know anything about Haneda. But I thought there'd be more flights. I thought they'd be a little cheaper. Maybe that's why. Oh yeah, that's right. The flight back in 2019, I pre-bought a flight. I wasn't sure if I needed proof that I was going to leave Japan. Turns out I didn't, it was fine. So I did buy a flight and it was from Haneda to Seoul. And it was about 200 bucks. And it was non-refundable and I had to just let it go when I lost my passport and had to go back to Canada. So that's why, that's why I think these things because I did in fact, but that was also maybe because I booked that one months in advance. With a month of advance time, $300 some dollars, carry on included, a checked bag included. It's like a paradise. Ah, no problem. And really, that's not a bad deal. That's fine. But then the last thing that I learned that this all just kind of hit me all of a sudden, I don't know why this had never occurred to me.

But I just thought of it yesterday and it turned out to be true. It's because I booked this flight to Fukuoka through Peach airline, a Japanese airline. And I learned from TripAdvisor not to use third-party booking sites, particularly for something as massive and epic as flying all the way to Japan. It's just not worth it. Not worth the risk. What if something goes wrong? Some of them are very weird fly-by-night operations. But trying to book Peach made my credit card, which is just like, it's really just a bank debit card. I don't have a proper credit card. I don't have any. I don't have good history, but I don't have bad credit history. I have no credit history, which some people have told me is worse, but hey, whatever. That's a problem for future me. But basically my debit card that I use at ATMs can be used as a credit card through websites and stuff. But it got rejected when I tried to order flights through Peach. So I had to call my bank and that turned out to be not as bad as I thought, because I didn't realize you could do 1-800 numbers for free through Skype. So I was like, okay, that's what's going to happen this time. I'm going to try to book this flight 35:00 to Seoul. It's going to get rejected. I'm going to have to sit on hold and call the bank. So I'll have to do this one of these afternoons when nobody's at the Airbnb. So they're not bothering everyone. There's the big building. It's further away now. The thing is a great landmark. You can see it from all over the place here. It's so cool. So yeah, just yet another little to-do that I wasn't looking forward to. But then it occurred to me. There's an Expedia. I always use Expedia.ca, but it turns out it is not Canadian. It is just a company of American origin. But that company is really big and famous and stuff. It's not Fly Kiwi or I can never remember the other one. Dream flight. Something. You know, these ones that have a bad reputation for fake low prices and then they try to rope you into paying more and fucking shenanigans. I was like, yeah, that's fine. I'm pretty sure I've used it before. That one's really famous and big and like I've never heard anything bad about it. Just in case I did a quick trip advisor, search because trip advisors like the best website, like any problems with this. Nothing that I could find in my quick gander. So I realized, yeah, if I just, this is just also a simple little flight. This is not like, like with the weird Fly Kiwi's and shit. It was like, I was potentially plotting out some weird stuff, like leave Montreal. Go to Las Vegas. Transfer to a different airline. Fly to Japan from there. All this weird crap that, you know, several different legs of a journey through several different airlines and if anything went wrong, because I would be buying through a flight reseller, it'd be a lot harder to sort out. But this is just one little quick flight from Japan to Korea. No big deal. And if something did go wrong, like who cares? Whatever. I don't care if I got to sleep at the airport. I like sleeping at the airport. Turns out. But for little things like that, it seems no problem. It's only one flight and it's Expedia. And I was like, wait a second, too. I mean, Expedia, big famous American company that everybody knows, that's probably not even going to trigger the bank. Like the bank's not going to care about that. The bank's not going to mind if I order from there. And they didn't. It just went through. It was only because I was ordering from Peach. So I'm sure I don't remember the airline. But, you know, there's various Korean and Japanese airlines. So I just got a flight through one of them. I don't remember which one. But perhaps if I had gone straight to their website and ordered perhaps I would run into the problems again and have to call my bank and blah, blah, blah. So that's yet another addendum to previous stuff. Luckily to get the full information, all you got to do with this podcast is listen to dozens and dozens and dozens of episodes and you finally get the whole picture. Is that yeah, for like I was saying, these big long multi leg trips through various vendors, those weird to third party websites can be okay for making a plan, figuring out what's available. And then you should book each leg from the actual sellers, from the actual airlines by yourself. But for little shit like this, and through a site like Expedia, not only is it no biggie, but your bank won't get mad at you. So it's like cool, okay. That is an okay thing to do. That's not bad to do. That's good. So my previous findings were not entirely correct. All right, this Christmas market, I do remember this place. I did stop in here once before. Meiji Jingu Gaian. Meiji Memorial Museum is in here. Because yeah, I just remember I stopped in here one time while I was wandering around and it was the summertime and there was a machine that sold hot dogs. And I think maybe hamburgers and I didn't get one, but it always stuck in my mind because I'm like, why, but that's gross. They don't have them here though this time of year. What they do have is the Tokyo Christmas market, 2023. It's 320, still daytime. Maybe what I should do is go see those steps. I want to see the steps when the lights still out. And then come back here. However, I am right here. Should I do a quick pass? No, I mean, in the fact that's actually kind of, I mean, no, I'm going to come back here when it's dark because in the daytime, this place just looks like a bunch of stalls. Not exactly magical. It's going to look a lot better at night. Whereas the steps from your name in the movie, they meet on the steps in the dang daytime. So fuck it. Let's go there because the mind daytime is running out. I don't have a ton.

So yeah, those are my travel updates. And it's just like, ah, and it just makes it really does change it from this just amorphous stress of like the future where I'm just like, I don't know. I just don't even know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing after Japan. I wish I didn't even need to figure it out. I wish I could just stay here, but I can't get to do something blah, blah, blah. Where now it's so much smaller of a situation in my brain. It's almost mundane in a good way. Now it's just the standard. Yep. So my flight, I think that day leaves at 11.30 or something. My Airbnb is really close to Haneda. So I just got to go to Haneda, stand in a line and sit on a plane. Then, you know, walk to a subway or something, sit on that, walk to a door, put in a code, go in, pass out on a bed. You know, it all seems kind of like mundane. Nice and in a good way. Nice and easy. None of this is causing me particular stress. Pretty much all there is to figure out now is just the specifics of how to get from the airport to the place and just how stuff is going to work in general. How does it work in general in Korea? Cash-based, credit-based. What kind of cards and shit do I need? How is this going to work? But luckily in the YouTube age, all that stuff is not hard to find. I remember the first time I went to Amsterdam, like 2017, I'm going to say that was. I found a YouTube video of a guy literally doing like a first person walk through of the airport there. It's like here's how you get from the airport and you take this little shuttle train to central station and here's how you get through central station and here's how you get on to the subway trains. Here's all the cards you need. Here's how to charge them up. Here's how to buy tickets, whatever. Actually, they didn't even have the chip card thing yet. I don't think it was just buying a ticket. Where nowadays, it's even easier because they just have transit cards. The essence I don't have data on my phone, I literally just downloaded that video. So if I had to, I could just watch it on my phone and walk with him in real time through the airport. And at little points, I did do that. I got a little confused and a little like I'm not quite sure where to go next. So I just watched the guy's video and I followed his paces like I'm fucking following some guy's pilgrimage. And then once you do it once, it's the easiest thing in the world. We live in such an easy time. It's fucking great. I was thinking about my friend Ken in Toronto. He moved to Africa in the 70s and then Japan in the 80s. And it's like, dude, I can't even imagine. I just can't imagine. That is a different, he's a different level of traveler than me. He is a brave man. And I just sort of imagine that sometimes of like the level of English right now in Japan. You know, I'm always feeling like there's not enough, but there's enough. There's plenty. Back then, there was just none. Just nothing. Good luck for a guy. Enjoy cracking this nut. But he did. He met a lady. She moved back to Canada with him. They got married. They're kids. Biggie Bang Boom. And his Japan stories are awesome. He's really tall. He's like six, six, four. He said when he first got here, he kind of got hired by a company, mostly just to be the foreigner, just to have like this guy from this company just wanted to have a big tall white guy on his arm, that he could take out drinking and impress his friends kind of. And Ken was like, yeah, dude, all right. I'm your man. I'll do that job. The guy hooked him up with an apartment. She's just like, wow, one of those cases where I think of it like a trapeze in some ways. The world is like a trapeze act. You just got to fling yourself out there and put out your arms and just trust that the people on the other end are going to grab you.