#69 Christmas Day in Tokyo

Transcript

A beautiful, warm, sunny Christmas day in Tokyo. Luckily, since it's Christmas day and not Christmas Eve, all semblance of Christmas is gone. It's fucking outta here. Don't worry though, I got one more downbeat Christmas story to match with last episode's downbeat Christmas tone. I'll get to that later. No big hurry. Right now, I'm actually walking through a cemetery, certainly an appropriate place to be laughing to myself while I record a fucking podcast. This is nice. What is this called?

Somay Cemetery, S-O-M-E-I Cemetery. So today's plan since I was like, what do I want to give myself for Christmas? If I could give myself a Christmas present in Japan, what would it be? And my true Christmas present that I would like is to go to the mountains and hike around, but I'll be doing that soon enough. I'm going to an Airbnb in West Tokyo tomorrow. So today I'm in the city and pretty much if I had to pick, if I had to pick, probably my favorite part of Tokyo. I mean, you know, it's all good. There's really no bad parts. I guess like if you get, when you get out West, but you don't go far enough out West to get to the mountains, then it's kind of a lot of trucking routes and stuff. If I had to pick up part of Tokyo, this not so great, that might be it. The stretch kind of between Tachikawa and Hajima say, but even that is actually not bad. I haven't really walked around that neighborhood. There's still parts of it I really like. So I might do a bit of that too when I'm out West. So yeah, even the bad parts good. But I think my favorite is the walk from Oji station to Nakayitabashi or vice versa on the Shikouji River. Not only because it's just a really nice walk down a really nice river, the Nakayitabashi side is a little bit, uh, that's maybe a little bit plain. It's like a neat little neighborhood where, uh, where I like it just because my first Airbnb in Japan was there. But the Oji side is actually pretty pretty pretty. It's pretty nice.

But anyway, there's that and you can kind of triangulate from there and go to Ikubukuro too, optionally. And Ikubukuro, it's like the the mini version of everything, but kind of the better version. It's like a mini anime town. It's a mini video game place. It's a mini just hub of stuff. And even going to Kabukicho the other day, it was really cool to go there. But it was the video game connection to the Yakuza games that really made it kind of pop for me. As far as kind of a CD red light district, I actually like Ikubukuro better as well, the west side of Ikubukuro, because it's just smaller and it's just calmer and like you still get the vibe. You still get the stuff that you would get in Akihabura. You still get the stuff you'd get in Kabukicho. You still get all this stuff, but it's just less intense and less packed full of people. Ikubukuro is the shit, but it's still, it's the optional part of this journey. It's really the walk on the Shikouji River. That's my favorite. So it's a Monday today and, uh, the trains were a lot less busy. You know, it's around, uh, this is a bit past noon now. Yeah, it's 1 p.m. now. So I was on the trains a little before noon. Way less crowded than, uh, the weekends, the weekends are so insane. This was like pretty nice. Not bad. Took a little journey to, uh, Shinjuku. Shinjuku Station. Man, it's confusing. Just getting to the JR lines. Whew. Because I guess it's like the individual train carriers all have, oh, there's a little cat, cemetery cat. But there's arrows pointing to all the individual train carriers, but the JR line, the Yamanoate, it's just kind of a general. This way for the JR and if you lose track of those arrows, man, you know, it took me, it's complicated. Man, what a confusing station. That was a weird thing too, where again, just the stuff that is like the most general knowledge. The stuff you can't imagine, somebody not knowing, but until you know it, you don't know it. Where the Yamanoate line, it's the major line in Tokyo. It's just a circle. It's a circle that goes around to all the big neighborhoods. You can book a road being one of them. And it's fantastically convenient and it's also nice because you technically can't go the wrong way. If you do go the wrong way, you're going to be on the loop a little longer, but you'll get to where you're going eventually. But in 2019, there was something weird going on 5:00 with Google Maps. You couldn't download a pre-downloaded map. My connection to the internet is always spotty at all times. So I downloaded this Tokyo subway app and I didn't realize at the time that for whatever reason this app did not take into account the JR lines. It was everything but JR. So I was using it to navigate and it was like, okay, if you want to get from this neighborhood to that neighborhood, go on this line and go here and connect here and go here. And it all worked and I could get places. But I was like, man, this is really complicated. This seems strangely difficult to get to places. And I don't remember how I figured out about the JR line. I think just from literally seeing it because it's above ground. And I was like, now what the hell is this? How can I have never been on this train? This was only a few days in to being in Japan. It didn't take too long. Probably maybe a week at most. It's like, I've never been on that train. What the hell is that train? And that's when I learned that there's this big loop that is mostly what you need to get places in Tokyo. And I was like, what the heck is this app? How come this app didn't tell me about that? But just funny to think that a person would not know about that. But I mean, hey, till you know, you don't know. And it's like that with every city. Like there's just such obvious stuff about, you know, Granville Street in Vancouver. Or I think I've always Bloor Street in Toronto. Because Toronto's famous enough that I knew Young Street. But I never heard a Bloor Street ever. And it turns out it's extremely important. You're on it all the time. Turns into the Danforth or then Bathurst or whatever. But Tokyo, the Yamano Te Line. How do you not know that? Well, because I didn't know that. Because I'm not from here.

But anyway, I was taking the Yamano Te today and I was like, I guess I'll, you know, get off at Yuki Bukuro. But my plan was pretty much to walk right to OG. Then I was looking at the other stations. And I'm like, well, where else does this thing stop? And I realized if I went one or two stations farther than Yuki Bukuro, I could get a little closer to OG. And just as a change of pace, you know, start from somewhere else. I can go to OG, walk to Naka Yitabashi. And then if I want to go to Yuki Bukuro, it's very easy. It's like four or five stops from Naka Yitabashi on a very unbusy train. And whether I do that or not, we'll see.

But I went with Sugamo. And when I got off here, I realized, oh, wait a second. It took a sec for it to sink in. But I'm like, oh, I have been here before. But I never really knew where it was or how it related to anything because my level of map having was so low in 2019. But because I just walked around these neighborhoods so much because my Airbnb was here for like 40 days near here. It's like, oh, yeah, I have walked by here before. I do recognize this place, but I never came often enough for it to sink in or for me to ever really know where it was or to commit the name to memory or it was never a target. Like, oh, I should go to Sugamo and then whatever. So that's kind of cool. Just to come back to one of these places that I just randomly drifted through like some kind of ghost back in 2019. And then forgot about it. It's like, oh, here we go. Here I am. And then on the way is this cemetery. And there's one more park too. Nishigahara Minano Park. I'll go swing by there as well. And then I'm very close to Asuka Yamapark, which is just the cool park that's next to Oji.

Walk from Oji up to fucking Nakaitabashi. Just again, this random little stretch that's just not particularly notable for anything really. It's just my favorite. If I'm going to pick one thing to do while I'm still in central Tokyo, that's the thing. Merry Christmas to me.

Oh, I finally met the Germans who were staying at my Airbnb. They were outside the Airbnb as I left.

Smoking. And yeah, they're like in the early 20s. I don't know. It's one of these things that made me think like I don't necessarily regret not coming to Japan earlier. I feel like I kind of came when it was time to come. In my late 30s, when it's like a little bit of the sparkle was going away from traveling in North America. And now it's time to go kick things up a notch. Where if I came here in my early 20s, I wouldn't be a surly smoking German guy, obviously. But yeah, I don't know. It just would have been a different experience. I'm sure it would have been good in its own right. But I'm kind of happy with how things all worked out in that sense. But yeah, I don't know. It's just funny. The just on the very surface level. It just says like, hey, yo, Merry Christmas or whatever. But just the difference between 10:00 meeting Daniel from Vancouver who did send me one more email just to tell me what he was up to. Ask me what I was up to. I suspect that's probably it now. But we'll see. But just like so comfortable and so nice and so approachable and like send me emails and shit. You know, you're just immediately friends if you meet another Canadian. Where are these German guys? I'm sure they're nice if you get to know them. But there's just that initial vibe is not open. It's probably just a cultural thing. You know, it's just like, hey, if you're not my friends, then you're not my friend yet. So so I'm just going to sort of be a surly smoking guy who peers at you. And begrudgingly says Merry Christmas. It's just like, I don't know. The vibe is just like, okay, enjoy your smoking gentlemen. Let's let's never hang out. You're so you're so not fun. Oh, I just remembered. Why can't do this cemetery? I just remembered.

There's one more thing I meant to do while I was in this hood that I totally forgot about. Because this is quite a big cemetery is that there's a really big cemetery. Just a little past, this and soji shrine, probably quite a bit past it actually. And there's one of those places I just randomly wandered through back in 2019. And I wanted to go back there. My plan was to just just walk. And it's like, if I found it the first time, I'll probably find it again. But looking at the map, I'm not entirely sure where it is. I might have to do a little research on that one. Yeah, maybe I'll do that tonight to see it at night. And then if I want to go walk through it in the daytime, I could do that tomorrow on my way out. Although seeing it at night is probably fine.

It's cooler at night anyway. Yeah, these big cemeteries in Japan, they do kind of, you know, I feel like it's probably semi disrespectful that I'm just walking around doing a podcast. But but people are just walking their dogs and stuff and hanging out. And the one that I'm thinking of has like a playground in it and stuff. Like it's almost more like a park than a full-on cemetery. I don't know. Anyway, I'm exiting the cemetery now. Yeah, geez, I forgot all about that.

Anyway, the downside so far to Christmas, this is just kind of weird because I don't quite know what's going on. Is yesterday I bought to one of the brown sugar lattes from the vending machine so I'd have it ready to go. I wouldn't have to detour to the vending machine. I could just drink it, go straight to the fucking train, get out of the neighborhood. And it was weird. As soon as I cracked this thing open and took a drink, I noticed like a pretty distinct pain in my throat from swallowing. And I did another little test. Yep, it hurts every time I swallow. But I didn't notice that at all till that moment. And it's like surely I took a few swigs of water or something and back at the Airbnb. What the heck is going on here? Is this the sign of a cold or did I sleep on my throat weird? It literally felt like somebody had karate chop me in the throat. I don't know what was going on. And that's just persisted. Every time I swallow, it hurts.

It kind of a lot. But everything else feels fine. And I don't know. I've cried wolf so many times about thinking that I was getting sick and I still have not. So I guess I won't belabor it. Now though that I'm talking about it, I feel like it's maybe progressed a little in the last two or three hours. That it doesn't just hurt when I swallow. I'm starting to just feel it in general. So I guess, I guess it's like something. But I don't know. There's been, again, many, I've got to be at least four times on this trip that I was really sure I was getting sick. And then I don't. So this one feels the most like that. But who knows, maybe not. I mean, if I've had four miracles, why not five? Or I guess I have had sometimes where I do have some kind of soreness in my throat, but it doesn't progress to a full cold. It literally is just my throat. It's not really that bad. And I can just ride it out with some cough drops and then in two or three days, it's gone. So whatever, I guess we'll see. I'm thinking even worse case scenario, even if I am actually getting sick. I feel like this is kind of good timing because I'm out of here tomorrow. And you know, then I do have to meet up with the Airbnb guy. This isn't a self-checking. I have to actually meet the guy. But then once I'm done that, that's the last time I necessarily even really need to interface with anybody. I'm just going to be straight on to back to the Western Tokyo, hiking up the mountains and stuff. And I'm going to do that whether I'm sick or not. 15:00 Fuck it. I can't be stopped. If I got to hike through the mountains while I'm sick, hey, whatever dude, no problem. I'll just drink a shit ton of coffee and I'll power through. And it's just me and mother nature together. But yeah, like I said, I've already done this several times on this podcast where I'm like, pretty sure I'm getting sick finally and then I just don't. So, hey, who knows? Maybe it's nothing. Sure does hurt though for nothing. Sure does hurt. It's a good excuse though to guzzle ridiculous amounts of coffee. See, I'm just on the last little stretch right to that park by OG station. I'm going to get a fucking coffee out of this machine and get a mosean. Is this another almond thing? Because I just saw an almond coffee the other day. And I was like, oh, what is that? Then it's like once you see something once, sometimes it's like you realize it was all over the place. Four shadowing. Four shadowing. I'm going to talk about homeless guys a bit more later. I just realized how many homeless people I've actually seen and didn't really fucking internalize it. Now, I guess not. These little symbols on it look kind of like almonds but maybe they're cocoa beans. I don't know. Whatever.

Coffee time. All right. Let's mosey to OG.

Yeah, it's a cocoa bean thing. Actually, this might not be coffee at all. Maybe it's just chocolate milk. In that case, this could be a perfect opportunity to get a black coffee at the next coffee machine I passed and mix them together. And yeah, even though a lot of neighborhoods in Japan sort of feel the same, just the mix of them is unique. You know, like there's just a specific balance of different types of buildings and stuff.

And yeah, like this one in particular, I just really, just again, because I just spent 40 days and 40 nights walking around in this general area. Man, it really just feels right. Like, it's the really old houses in specific. I'm walking by this house that is like really old, really weathered very old time house. There's not really a ton of really old houses in Japan. It seems like the older buildings are usually temples and stuff like that. Just as far as residents go from what I've heard, they kind of rebuild every 30 years or so. You don't really want an old house. You want a newer house. So this house is really old. I mean, it looks like 80 years old or something. And it hasn't been repainted in a long time. It's just kind of weathered. But there's bicycles outside and there's like little meters being with readings on them and cables going in and like, it's a house. People live there.

And just that, I guess, that mix of the really old houses, it just feels very comfortable. Because I guess I even noticed this when I first came from Senganjaya back up to Itabashi. And I was like, yeah, geez, you can just feel that it's much less economically well off in this neighborhood. But it's like comfortable. And this just, this is the feeling of Tokyo that I like the best. Again, probably just because it's where, where I first landed. And it just, uh, yeah, just remember seeing some of these houses. And I'm like, man, like, you could only get away with this in a temperate climate. If this was a Canadian house, it would be like, uh, I don't know, somewhere where you could use it as a meat locker to store fucking animals that you've hunted in. Or something, you know, it would be an ice box you couldn't live here. But in Tokyo, as evidenced by the fact that it's a bright, sunny, beautiful, warm day on Christmas, you can. It's probably a little unpleasant in there, but you can get away with it. And yeah, just really like this feeling, this feeling of old-style Japan. And yet there's a 7-11 up ahead of me. Like, it's still got all the stuff. There's still all kinds of modern places. And I mean, I'm only a stone's throw from Ikebukuro from here. But yeah, I don't know. It's just nice. It's my favorite place to walk through in the city, for sure. Man, I'm filling myself up with way too much liquid. So if I do get a black coffee now to mix with this, uh, cocoa, I might do that. But this thing is like, I definitely don't want this much liquid in me, but I feel like I have no choice when I see something I've never seen before. I have to try it. So this one, it's like one of the machines that they could sell beer in. It looks like one of the beer machines. And it has a little weird extra slot, presumably that's the, you know, thing to scan your ID or whatever the hell. But that's taped over, so it just has normal drinks in it. And then there's just a little red can with no indication at all of what it is. 20:00 It's just a red can with, uh, little white sort of flower-looking symbols kind of.

Morinaga. I don't even know what that brand is. And if it is, uh, if it's like a non-alcoholic sake, like the last mystery can that I found, I don't even want that. I didn't really like it. But all I can translate off this is the translator says something about how it contains rice noodles. And it's hot. Maybe it's like a soup. I don't know, but I got to find out.

It is my duty, because what if I never see this again? What the heck? All right, so it is very hot. Uh, darn it. I knew I knew that's what this was. Amazake. It's a traditional Japanese drink made from rice. This is exactly what this is going to be, just the weird non-alcoholic sake. Well, it's hot now, but that doesn't mean I need to drink it hot. I'm just going to save this. I'm just going to tuck this away in a pocket. And I'm going to drink it later when it's cold. And we'll see how it holds up cold, because, uh, because yeah, I don't want it. I'm already getting a little bloated from all the coffees I've drank today. I don't need more liquid in me. But at least that kind of, I think that, that definitely, uh, nails that down. That if I see a weird can with no indication at all of what type of liquid it is, two out of two have been non-alcoholic sake, so I think it's safe to say that's, that's what it's going to be.

Alright, I'm walking up the Shikouji River from Oji Station. And it's about three o'clock. You know, I think I'm just going to walk up here to approximately Naki Itabashi. That's my old hood, but you know, somewhere there about, but since it's going to be pitch black by 530, I might just walk back down this river after when it's dark. Because I just, uh, I just like it. I like this stretch. Why not do both.

But yeah, I don't, uh, I mean, I don't quite know what to say about all this, because this is obviously an extremely vapid about nothing podcast, but that's kind of by design. You know, that's what it should be. I'm just some guy walking around a country where I can't speak the language. You know, there's no point to this. This is, uh, it's the Roman holiday. It's the pointlessness podcast.

But it's certainly worth remarking on just the phenomenon of kind of willful ignorance or just thinking you don't see stuff when you do. Where yesterday at my downbeat Christmas Eve episode, I was saying how I saw a homeless guy in a subway station. And in my mind, that was like, oh, it's my first homeless guy. It seems weird that after it took two months. And just since then, I've just been realizing more and more. Like, it is absolutely not the first homeless guy that I saw. I just, it's just not sticking in my mind. I'm just, I'm just ignoring it. Which is the classic, just homelessness thing, right? Is it people just ignore it?

Because yeah, just now, just now, going through that park by OG station, there were two guys sleeping in that park. And it's not like coincidence. It's not like, oh, gee, it's just all of a sudden now. There's homeless people around. It's just that I'm paying attention now. It just took quite a while to do that.

Because I guess it is just stuff like that kind of things a little bit on the fringes.

I mean, that one's pretty direct. But the guy in the subway was so direct. But even because I released these episodes far, far back from when they're actually being recorded. So I was just editing the episode where I went to Shibuya and Jiyogi Park, one of my first days back in Japan. And in that podcast, I say like, oh, there's a homeless guy I'm walking by. That's my first homeless guy that I've seen. And I guess that one didn't really stick in my mind because that neighborhood is kind of known for having homeless people in it. And the public washroom at the bottom of Jiyogi, like just at the southern end. I was saying like there's always like liquor bottles in there. And I guess I didn't say it directly, but it's assumed that those are from homeless people.

So I guess just because that's the homeless neighborhood kind of, you know, or that that's kind of how it's known. It's known for being such a mix of trendy high-end fashion stores and stuff and drunk homeless guys. You know, it's all just like that's quote unquote supposed to be how it is. So I just did just didn't stick in my mind.

But last night, my plan was to go to Sukushima and find the spot where you can see the sky tree and the Tokyo Tower. But man, in those episodes, I added the specific coordinates and you really do need them because I couldn't find the spot again. I couldn't find the exact spot without the actual coordinates, but anyway, whatever. And then I was just going to walk along the shore and maybe go up to Sonsouji Temple. But Sonsouji is not close. It's actually really far. So as I walked up the river, I eventually just kind of gave up and was like, okay, I'm just going to go home.

But as I was walking along one of those shores, there was a homeless guy who I realized I've seen before. I've seen that specific guy before. I passed by him in that same area. And still, it just like didn't stick in my mind until now. It's just such a weird phenomenon.

But in this case, he had like quite a large cart filled with stuff.

And he was just sitting on one of the rocks and he had like a bag of chips and one of the little cartons of wine that looks like a little juice box. But it's got wine in it. And it was dark at this point. And just the other people were passing him and not paying attention, of course. And it was just like if you wanted to be poetic about this, you know, like some kind of fucking dickhead, it really was just like man, the scene of like that view is so beautiful. The view across the river, right around where the Simitra River splits at the head of Sukashima on either side of it. It's just beautiful. From this side, it's beautiful. The other day when I was walking along there from the other side, I kept turning around to look at it, just looking at the buildings lit up at night. They just look gorgeous. They look so, so pretty.

But in this case, it was just this guy sitting there. He had like a little cushion to sit on the rock and just staring across at all these apartment buildings.

Yeah, it's one of those things where I don't know what to say because it's just like it's so easy to just have this like bullshit artsy poetic view of like, oh, what a what an image of homelessness, what a moving image, the tragic beauty of this.

Because it's just like, how do you really understand what it's really like? It's not fucking poetic to this guy. He doesn't give a sweet fuck. Even just I did this idea of him like staring for lonely at the apartments across the water. Like, I'm sure if that ever happened, he's well beyond giving a fuck about thinking about anything in that capacity. That's just some fancy pants and bullshit. You know, that's just some stuff that a person like me would think of.

So anyway, the same as the guy in the subway the other day, I gave this guy $100 also and just gave him a Merry Christmas. And it certainly doesn't make me feel better like, oh, I helped this guy. Like if anything, it feels worse. It feels awful just to, I guess I mean, I think this is why people tend to just ignore these situations. Because if you just ignore it, then you just ignore it and you just move on and you walk by. When you quote unquote help, it just brings into such sharp relief like how little you're doing now little this matters and what an empty dumb gesture it is. But at least again, I don't know, all I can figure is at least maybe for that day and like the next morning doesn't take long to go through $100. But at least, you know, maybe his next morning would be a little less bad. I don't know. That's what I mean. That's what else can you.

I don't know. It's just again, there's nothing to say about it. It's just...

I guess it's that I just kind of, I guess I'm approaching at the same as everything else in this trip of just just walking around.

Just absorbing this, the environment. I'm not going that in my way obviously to look for homeless people or try to help them or anything because I've just been very much missed that they even exist mostly.

But I'm trying not to deliberately ignore them either. It's just like those were the guys that I happen to cross paths with. Those were the guys that just circumstances lined up that it's like, well, I do have a lot of these bills in my wallet right now.

At least I can help them, I guess. I don't know. Again, I don't know what to say about it. Let's just go back to being a vapid podcast about nothing, but I just thought I'd bring it up.

The first hand evidence of just, yeah, missing out completely on. Like how can you say, oh, there's my first homeless guy that I've seen. How can you say that more than once, weeks apart? And the answer is, because you're just not paying fucking attention. I have not been paying attention. But anyway, there's really no good way to transition from that back to what this podcast is usually about, which is fucking absolutely nothing. So I guess we'll just awkwardly shift back to absolutely nothing as I keep walking up the river.

Alright, back to Wapitland, so that non-alcoholic sake stuff. I should really look that up, because this can had some stuff about how it's an ancient drink and health properties, and it's yadda-yadda.

I don't really know. I don't quite know exactly what it is. But I think it's actually better cold. When it's warm, I don't know. There's something just a little bit eerie. It's like a creepy drink. It tastes weird. We're cold. I still don't know that I'd go out of my way to buy it. But it just seemed... it just felt more natural. I don't know. It just seemed easier to drink. But anyway, I'm in walking up this particular stretch. It really does make me realize that there's like layers. There's definitely layers to being back in Japan where being in new places... I mean, it's cool because they're new. I like just exploring a new place. But going back to these specific places that I know so well from last time I was in Japan, it really feels like a different kind of being in Japan, being back in Japan. I guess it's just because... because these are like... like I guess... why not? Let's just be pretentious, right? Let's just go all the way. All the way back to like just pretentious, fucking idiot guy traveling the world on his dead, dads, dimes. I think he's got something important to say. Let's go all the way. Because these places that I spent so much time in, the first time I visited Japan, because I would just think about them so much during COVID times. And when I was like... I mean, this specific stretch on this river from Nakai to Bashita Oji, I just walked it so many times in my mind while I was trying to fall asleep at night or whatever, that it's like if you have like a pathway in your brain, if your brain is just grass and as you walk, you know, you walk the same place enough times you, you wear a trail into the grass. Like there's a trail morn into my brain of this place. So when I'm back here, it's like instead of just that general, how cool it feels to be back in Japan. This feels double cool because it's like I'm back in Japan and I'm back in my own memory at the same time. I wonder what stuff next time I come to Japan. Like will there be stuff from this journey that will now be added to the docket? Like when I first got here and I was just so excited to be back in Japan and I was like, hey, Seng and Jaya with the fucking big gorilla on the building and everything. This seems so great. Surely I'll add this to the docket. But I don't know, I mean in hindsight, it's like it was great to be back in Japan, but that particular neighborhood, I just realized more and more that that central, crowded, sort of up and coming neighborhood is not, not where I necessarily feel especially comfortable. Like if I was to go back to Seng and Jaya, where would I go? I mean besides walking by the gorilla building, which is like whatever, just the gorilla building. You know, I might not. Fukuoka, there's a bunch of stuff. Oh man, I'm going back to Dazai Fum, I'm going back on that mountain, I'm going back up north to the weird peninsula and the fucking observation deck on that one fishing island like absolutely. I'm doing all that stuff. That's all added to the docket. This is me to River, I mean for sure. For sure. I don't know if I'll get another Airbnb right by there. Maybe I mean, I guess price is a factor. But I got to walk up and down the Samida a couple times for sure. But as far as central Tokyo goes, it's pretty tough to fucking top this one. Part of it is just the role of the dice, just that this is where my first Airbnb was. But man, it was like, what a good spot to first be in Tokyo at. Like it's just, it's just really nice. Man, I like this fucking walk. It's even weird too. I mean, you can kind of hear in the distance, some creaking and stuff. 35:00 Like as you go by different parts of this river, there's, you know, trains going by and there's traffic gets slightly louder. In this case, it's construction. It borders on a bunch of much busier, much more developed areas. I'm always surprised if you like leave the river at random times. I'm not always surprised where I end up. I'm like, oh, this place, this major street or this big intersection was right next to the river the whole time. Whoa. But if you just stay on the river, you can avoid all that stuff. So here's the thing. I don't know if y'all recall my episode where I was talking about the Maguro River down in Sengenjaya walking along that. And there's these areas that are like lower down. There's these steps that go down, midway down the river bank. And then there's just these flat areas that are always cordoned off. I noticed earlier today that one of them was open and there was like a little pond down there.

And now I'm walking by another one and this one doesn't have any water. It's just flat grounds like some grass and dirt. But there's a lady down there walking her dog like they're open now. What the heck are those things? Why are they always closed and now why are they open? I still have no idea. And that's just a weird thing like I tried to Google that but what do you even search for? It's such an abstract thing I'm trying to describe. And I don't know. I mean maybe it's nothing. Maybe it's not even worth remarking upon. It's just it's just a feature of the river. Maybe it's just how the natural there was like a natural shelf. Oh wait, this is getting really loud. The heck. Oh this particular noise of work is because it looks like they're tearing down an old building. But yeah maybe it's not even something worth remarking on. Maybe it's just a natural feature of what the river was like before. It became you know like the way these rivers and Tokyo kind of have concrete banks and stuff. Maybe they're just were little shelves of land originally so they're just they're just still there. Maybe it's nothing but I don't know. But then why aren't they just open all the time? Like why maybe they're closed off at certain times of year because I don't know like different water levels or something could make it like less safe to walk down there. Maybe it's like I don't fucking know. Anyway some mysteries remain a mystery. Oh there's that 7-11 where the sign outside is black. The 7-11 with no color. I didn't go in there last time. Let's go in this time. Let's get some cursed food. I think I said this last time but it feels like in an RPG like this is where you would go to buy this is like the black market. This is the the dark underbelly where the food you buy here has like weird curse effects and poison and stuff. And instead of eating this stuff you'd throw these items at your enemies and hope that they're dumb enough to eat them. It's just such a small thing but it's so creepy. It's the colorless black and white 7-11. It's so weird.

Man there's little parts of this neighborhood I forgot about somehow. I was like I must be getting close to Nakaitabashi now because the sun is pretty much down at this point and then I saw the big overpass overhead and I'm like oh yeah how do I forget about that? That's the one I was walking down when I came here from Sangajaya and that I passed all the time. It's like oh yeah the little fishing spot. How did I forget that? And right uh well passed that normally but before that for me now coming from the OG direction there's this nice little shopping street that I'm like oh yeah shit I forgot about this I love this little street and it's all lit up and pretty I'm like I'm gonna walk up this and then walk over to the busy highway and just loop around walk down that back to the river because that's another one of these places that just kind of got emblazoned in my mind I would just think of there was a just a little family mart over there under the overpass I think I only went there one time and bought some noodles and just sat there and ate them but for some reason I was just remembered it very clearly or I mean I say that even though I just forgot about it but I don't know I'm a little wiped today I think my my sore throat is 40:00 definitely a thing hopefully it's one of these two or three day dealies that'll just go away I drank two with a vitamin C drinks and then I bought some of these vitamin C lozenges I hope you can't oh D on vitamin C because I'm fucking going nuts with this shit but anyway walking up this little street there's a little bookstore that I went to with my friend Brad back 2019 and I'm like let me just stop in there and it seemed to be new stuff not not use magazines like the store I found in East Tokyo with the Fiona Apple magazine but then I wasn't sure because as I looked around I saw a magazine with ghost world on the front the old Thora Birch Scarlett Johansson based on the comic book by Dan Close and I was like what in the hell is this I had to like seek around for the publication date but yeah it was from 2023 some kind of magazine about youth movies and that's the kind of thing like if I wasn't just a one book bag minimalist guy if I just had an apartment to fill with stuff mainly it would be old video games but I would buy shit like that in a second I would buy the magazine with ghost world on the cover I mean what better a coffee table book than a Japanese magazine you know that's about stuff that you think is cool but sure maybe you can't read it but who cares it's just a flip through on your coffee table it's just something to look cool on your shelf I'd buy that in a second however because I live the life of the one book bag I I'm not allowed to buy anything that I do not ingest and pretty much so I did not buy it but what a cool weird thing I mean I don't know it's like I feel like that's like a stereotype about Japan but it's so true like just a magazine about ghost world 23 years after I mean there's no magazines in North America about ghost world you know no one's thought about ghost world in a long time even just that there is a store full of magazines and books and anthologies and comics it's just a very nice feeling because that's rapidly disappearing around where I'm from around my part man I also just passed a pachinko parlor that if I remember right I think that's the first pachinko parlor and almost the only pachinko parlor I've ever gone in yeah I'm pretty sure that's the one I went in just to just to scope it out just to see how it felt and it felt loud and awful and even the difference between 2019 and now there's already in just the last four years way less smoking you weren't allowed to smoke in the place in 2019 but it smelled of smoking people had been smoking in those environments I didn't go in today so I don't know but the one that I went into in Kabukicho did not smell like cigarettes at all man this is nice though I fucking love this neighborhood it's so good I was thinking though one of the things I think that makes a nostalgia feel especially nice the rose colored glasses is I was even just thinking of on this trip when I went to try to get to that waterfall in Fukuoka and then there had been a landslide so I could only get to the small first waterfall and I didn't make it to the second one saga even though that was pretty recent I was thinking about that how at the end of that day I got caught in like farmer fields in these squares of of street with fields inside the squares and no literally no lights pitch black almost no traffic thankfully and I was walking around trapped in there and then I found a bridge finally my after I failed attempt to get to a bridge and then I crossed over to some other weird neighborhood and I walked to a station and just whatever and I was thinking like even that that only happened I don't know what was that two weeks ago already thinking back to that I'm like that was so cool what a weird night what a strange strange little adventure but I think the trick is already in my memory even after this little bit of time what you don't remember is being tired whenever I think back to places I've been just weird places I've explored I don't ever remember that I was exhausted at the time that's one of the first things to go because at the time it was like geez what have I gotten myself into what in the god's name is this because I had been out all day hiking around on creepy zombie movie feeling mountains and stuff and I knew I had a long way to go till I got back and I wasn't totally sure how to get there I was very exhausted and just like 45:00 this is kind of miserable what the heck is this but in my memory I just remember the visuals I just remember the visual of walking through that place and visually what a weird cool experience pitch black at night in some weird neighborhood and yeah it's just something to realize that like oh yeah that is totally a big part of what puts the rose colored lens on your little nostalgic memories is that in your memory you're well rested you're not exhausted and you're not tired if I think back to today I'm not going to remember that I had a sore throat I'm not going to remember that I was pounding coffees just to try to battle back against this encroaching feeling of being worn down and worn out that's all going to disappear I'm only going to remember this visual of walking down this street and these lights and how pretty this is which I guess is a good reason not to accentuate the negative in the first place because you're probably not going to remember it anyway so why bother you know just power through also to look at the upside since I do have to get up and out of the Airbnb by 10 a.m. tomorrow even though I've been staying up late a lot of times at this Airbnb and throwing off my sleep schedule I really don't have that option today I just can't but the upside just starting to feel sick even if it doesn't last even if it goes away is that in this little bit while it's here this is like the one time when I can successfully fall asleep it's the one time my body is like yeah we're worn out dude go to bed I usually never feel like that so that's a bonus maybe I'll feel like that tonight however today's adventure is far from over gonna go walk around not get you to bashy neighborhood possibly walk back down to OG station again then go to that I'm trying to figure out because I don't have an internet connection what the big cemetery is that I wanted to go walk through again at night because I know it's connected to a station and it's not too far somewhere between Oeno and and since OG temple and I think the only thing I can see on here this seems like it fits is Napoli station where I got trapped on my way into Tokyo from the airport and I literally couldn't get out of the station so I guess I can go there again and see if I can exit this time I still don't know what happened there that was very weird Although, you know, from OG, it doesn't look like it's that far. I say that, but I mean, it's fucking very far. But on a map, it doesn't look that far. So I don't know, we'll see, but that's the plan. Those are my final plans for this hood. By this hood, I mean all of Central Tokyo. And that was actually kind of cool. It's amazing how easy it is to get turned around in Japan, where all I had to do was go to the overpass at the end of that shopping street and follow it back down to the river. And I don't know how, how that didn't work. But I mean, I guess the overpass, it is like a whole second street system in the sky. It does split off at some points and go different places and stuff, so I don't know. I was following the wrong thing. I'm not sure. But anyway, I ended up a little off course, but it was kind of cool because without a map, that would have, I don't know what would have happened. That would have completely been thrown off. I don't know how I got anywhere at all in 2019. But in this case, I just kind of got to walk around a little neighborhood that somehow even though I walked around this area like crazy, I just was never there before. I'd never been there. And I'm like, oh, this is cool. Put a neat little place. And then I figured out how to make it connect back up to this river. And it's such a weird feeling because when you follow the river, you're just walking in a straight line along the edge of the river, which is running a lot harder up here. You can hear it. But yeah, it's weird when you approach it from just a random side where you're just walking down the street and you just come to a little bridge where normally you just cross the bridge and keep going and whatever. But if you turn, it's like, boom, suddenly now you're connected in to this river walk.