#70 Crankyboy gets lost on the Tokyo subway

Transcript

Exiting the Airbnb restaurant for the last time. Walking past the smoking German-kunk guy.

In other place wasn't the worst. The place itself was kind of cool, but definitely I'm ready to go. Man, it's annoying to just, when your co-exist with people, just the little stuff that they do. Where it's just like, I don't know, man, it's just like, I know it's like a communal space, and you're really not accountable for anything. You can just fucking, I don't know. This was annoying me days ago, and I was like, don't bring all this up. This is such a pointless whining about nothing. But now it's early in the morning. I'm a little cranky. It's the fuck it. Turn off the lights. Turn off the lights when you leave. Don't leave the lights on in the washroom especially, because I'd suggest that someone's in the washroom. Turn off the lights. Turn off the heat. You know, just come on. Who fucking raised you? And the temperature thing. I don't get it. I mean, I know I come from the frigid north, and I kind of like it to be cold. But it's fucking like it's proven that you sleep better when it's cold. That's a thing, because the world gets colder at night. Your body's designed to hibernate it up at night. So the Japanese little heater air conditioner unit where you can set the temperature. If there was a bit of a chill going on, I would put it usually to the lowest, 16 degrees is the lowest, just so it would be on, you know, just so the house wouldn't turn into an actual ice box. But just the lowest that you can. And that was fine, because you got blankets and shit. You're tucked into a bed. These fucking fucks and they always had it on it. 26 degrees. The maximum is 29. Like that's what I was doing in Fukuoka to turn it into a human sized full body hair dryer. You know, I would turn it on to 29 and just stand under it for a few minutes and it would just dry my whole body. It was amazing. But that's, you know, they were nearly at that level just all the time. It's like my skin was getting dried out. My throat was dry all the time and just like, what is wrong with you? And like last night after I thought they were all fucking asleep, I snuck down and I mean, I know it's a bit severe to go from 16 to 26. I know maybe that's a little much that I keep at that low. But I put it to 22. 22 degrees is fine for going to sleep. It's fucking fine. But at some point one of these sneaky fucks went and turned it back onto 26 when I woke up today. I'm sweating. Like I took a shower last night so I could just get out of the Airbnb this morning because I still barely made it before my 10 a.m. exit time.

I woke up. I'm sitting in my little stupid bunk getting my stuff together with no shirt on and I'm sweating. That's not normal. You're not supposed to just sweat for no reason that all points during the day. You're supposed to not sweat. Not sweating means it's the right temperature. If you're sweating, it's too hot. Like fuck you. So annoying to just like co-exist with people that just they're just shitty suck people. But let's just turn all the temperature up to crazy amounts. Let's leave all the lights on. Let's just fucking let's just suck. How about that? Look.

So I'm going to a place now in West Tokyo where I'll be basically by myself. I think I got to share a washroom and that's it. But even that, just off on the wrong foot, where the fucking Google map will link the guy put in the Airbnb listing doesn't actually work. But on actual Google maps, his place is listed as a little hotel. So it's like, okay, this should be all fine. But just in case, I asked him like, hey, what's the Wi-Fi? You know, just so I can message you, you know, I'm there. Or if something goes wrong, you know, I don't have data on my phone. So what's the Wi-Fi? Because otherwise I got to go backtrack and find a coffee shop or something. And he just sent me this fucking auto-translated message of, I think this guy's actually Chinese, he said. And he also knows Japanese 5:00 and I think Spanish English is pretty far down the list. But anyway, he's like, yes, this property does have Wi-Fi. But just ring the doorbell when you get here. Don't worry, I'll be here. It's like, that's not the fucking point, Dick. What if I can't fucking find it? What if something goes wrong? Put yourself in my shoes. Pretend you're me. Just think through the process from the perspective of the person coming to your place. If there's Wi-Fi and you're going to give me the fucking password when I get there, why the fuck can't you give it to me now? What the hell's wrong with you? So fucking annoying. But I'm not going to fucking argue with the guy through goddamn fucking translators and shit. Whatever, I'm sure it'll all work, but not off on the right foot, my friend. All right, I'm at the star-vending machine. Last day at the star-vending machine, although these pop up here and there. So we got the classic brown sugar latte.

Ooh, close one. I don't have any coins left. But luckily, I do have 1,000 yen note left. Because not only do they have the brown sugar latte, they now have a cafe O.A. with a bearded moustache-yode. It's probably about 2013 era hipster man on the front that I've never seen before. So I'm going to try that as well, double coffee. On the plus side, my sore throat that I was like, it was quite bad yesterday. It really did hurt. Today, I barely feel it, just a little bit. And I usually find when you're getting sick like that, that the morning is the worst time that it feels worst in the morning. So I think I'm going to be all right. Oh, you know what I just realized, though. My plan is to go to this sweet laundromat with the American flag because I accidentally ran out of clothes. I also didn't realize just the way things cascade out. It was my last pair of socks. Of course, I have one extra pair of underwear because I always have extra for some reason. But no shirts left. So I figured out that's exactly where things lie for me is I've got whatever amount of shirts I've got. I've got one pair extra of socks and two pairs extra of underwear. It doesn't all quite line up. So anyway, I've got my thermal shirt that I'm just wearing as a shirt. But I'm like, fuck, I do actually definitely need to do laundry. Can't put this off. Well, I guess what this means is I got to go break a larger bill. So I guess it's also my last day to go swing by fucking Daily Yamazaki. I was going to do that after I get the laundry started. But I guess I'll do that first, whatever, whatever. All right, sorry for starting off this episode so cranky. Let's have some coffee now. Owners select star-vending cafe ole craft coffee.

Totally unexceptional. It's that exact kind of a Japanese coffee that tastes like sugar crisp.

But whatever. Yeah, I think that's the weird thing. This is what I like about the brown sugar latte. Is it kind of kicks it up a notch? It's actually more sweet. But I guess I kind of like that because it's like that's what you get it for. You get it for the sweet. I kind of like when you just sort of be excessive in either direction. Be what you are. Don't just be in the middle.

The middle is not the place to be. But anyway, yeah, the rest of this day is just traveling. Traveling to West. West Tokyo. Laundry and traveling. Kind of like these days. It's not so bad.

But yeah, man, it feels like a lifetime. I was in that place because it was like two weeks. So, I mean, obviously, at the rate that I put these podcasts that it really was a long time. But even in real life terms, just thinking to when I got in from Fukuoka and I was in Sarawai Park and I was looking at this guy tree and I'm just like, here I am. Let's see what's going to happen. Whoa, cool. I thought I had a capsule, but I booked the wrong place because I'm an idiot. But yeah, it's like a whole tiny little mini life when you stay at an Airbnb for that long for like two weeks. Where it's like, yeah, this is my little mini adventure in central Tokyo. But yeah, I was surprised that I was really running out of stuff to explore. I was really hitting that point where now it's like, well, I guess I'll just settle in if I lived here. Just find some local coffee shops and just go to them and sit there with the laptop. Like as far as just going out and exploring, I was definitely running out of steam. So, I'm very excited to head out west because I'm going to be there for like two weeks also. I was looking at the bill and I'm like, this is a big bill. This is 10:00 like my biggest bill. It's like $520. I was like, shit, that's a lot. But the place isn't that bad. It's like $35 a day. It's just that I'm there for a long time. And then various other associated fees in the idea at us. But yeah, in this case, I'm proud of my past self for booking the two weeks. It's like you did it. Good job. Two weeks of mountains, two weeks of countryside, two weeks of two weeks of mountains. Jesus. Why is there always construction? Whatever, dude, fuck it. Fuck it. This is what a shit podcast are just complaining. I'm going to turn this guy down and record her up. Ah, now I feel better. I went to Daily Amazaki and since I had to break 100, I got a whole bunch of stuff. The strawberry boss latte that I saw the other day, boss coffee tends to not be super great. Boss in Georgia, I've kind of nailed down. I was like, I don't think I like them all that much. But strawberry coffee is really cool because in 2019, there was this UCC strawberry latte that I used to always look for in the machines. It was very rare. But it was very tasty. And then they had a banana latte, which I did find one of those. Just one, though. So that's pretty rare as well. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know what it is with strawberry. It's hard to find because this boss latte is not the best, but you know, it's got like little strawberry taste to it. It's like, that's kind of good. So it's like, next time I go, I'll get another one. But they were all gone because everybody else thought the same thing. Like, oh shit, strawberry latte hooked me up. But then this time they restocked because they had two rows of them. They were like, yeah, people love this fucking strawberry latte, shit. So I bought two fucking bottles. So I got strawberry latte to last me all goddamn day.

Yeah, I just do like these little down times. Just waiting for laundry. It's very warm today. Very nice out. Just standing in the sun waiting for my laundry. It's actually a little busy at the laundromat today, but luckily, I guess, I guess luckily, because I don't want to deal with all the different machines and all the different functions that they have and washer and dryer and blah, blah, blah and soap and I don't know. So they just got the one super machine where it cost $10, which is excessive. $10 is a lot for laundry, but it does everything. You just put all your stuff in. I threw in all my coats and jackets too, because there's tons of room. And you just come back in an hour and it's all washed and all dried all at once. But yeah, since that's the super duper expensive ridiculous machine, even though it was busy in there, no one was using that one. They're not stupid enough. If you're doing laundry on a regular basis, not dumb enough to use that machine, but I am, hook me up. And yes, since I basically, I really was out of a laundry now that I think of it because I did have the one extra pair of underwear, but because I was sweating so much because of those charming Germans who apparently, I don't know, I feel like Germany is a fairly cold country, right? She'd be used to being cold anyway. Maybe it's not. I mean, I was in the Netherlands in like November once. It was fairly temperate still. But I don't know, I get this image of like German fairy tales and stuff and like, how's this covered in snow and whatever, who cares? But yeah, I was like, God, I'm just so sweaty. This is so gross, but I just don't have time to take a shower this morning. I'm going to get the fuck out of here. So I was like, what have I got at hand? I've got my one last pair of underpants that I didn't use clean underwear. And I got a bottle of water. So I just dampened the fucking underpants and used them to wipe my fucking pits. So yeah, it's literally out of laundry. So 10 bucks well spent to get everything all squared away before I travel. I don't know what the deal is with this new Airbnb. I'm pretty sure it doesn't have laundry. Guess we'll see. But yeah, this timing, I'm very pleased with my past self. In this case, I think I did good to book a whole two weeks out west because yeah, like I was trying to say before inevitable construction started. I was kind of running out of stuff to do around here. I mean, I kept thinking of stuff. I was like, oh wait, right, there's your name steps. And all right, there's Kabukicho. And all right, there's that cemetery. But being in the city, it is kind of tricky as far as like having a plan for the day because there are only so many landmarks. I mean, I guess you could go see Shrine. You could see Shrine every day for the rest of your life. And you wouldn't see them all. You'd die. But beyond that, it's just walking through the city, which is nice in its way. But it's not nice in the way that walking through the woods is 15:00 nice. So that's why I'm like excited for this next two weeks is if I had just stayed in the city, it would probably be like, okay, time to wind this podcast down a little. I don't need to talk about this over and over and over. Whereas whether anybody cares or anybody wants to listen to it or not, I could talk about walking through the woods in the mountains forever. And I'm gonna, that's just like easy mode for like a plan for the day and for stuff to chronicle on this fucking podcast is like, fuck yeah, I only went to Ome the one time. Can definitely go back there.

Okutama's out there. There's another train line that goes to the mountains where the Ome one is the northern one. There's one down in the south where my Airbnb is gonna be near.

So there's various mountainy shit down there to do, and of course I got to go back to Akiruno, go back to the Congo Falls, redeem that trip. All kinds of stuff. Ah, it's gonna be so good. Definitely that's my favorite. I've really, I mean I kind of knew that already, but it's really been confirmed on this trip, is that the city part of Japan is cool, but it's not the, it's not like the picture, the full picture of what I like. I've never been fully rural, I don't know what that would be like, especially with my illiteracy, that would probably be pretty weird, but when you have access to the rural type stuff and the nature type stuff and the mountains and the mountain trails and things, and you also have city stuff, that's like, that's the, the full pie, the full awesomeness, where Fukuoka really is pretty fucking good as far as that's concerned. But yeah, Fukuoka, West Tokyo, that's definitely the stuff that I like, and that's where I'm going. But for now, my job is to just stand around in this nice sunny day and wait for laundry before a long-ass train ride, but again, even this, it's like, it wasn't so bad last night actually. The trains never got as busy as I was afraid they might, but it's still pretty busy and just yet transferring through all the city stuff and getting lost and confused and having to ask twice for the fucking attendant to let me out, just an unpleasant, unpleasant transit. This is gonna be the nice, like, ah, all I'm doing is going west in the middle of the day. The first line, the two-hole line, is gonna be a little bit busy at first, but overall, it should be all good. It should be a pretty relaxing day.

All right, I made it to Shinjuku station, so I finished doing my laundry and I was trying to piece all my stuff together. Like, okay, how is this supposed to work? How do I make all this stuff fit in one bag? Because I just had it as two bags or as my normal bag and my dirty laundry bag on the way. It's like, all right, I know this can all fit together because pretty much all I've bought are like three pairs of socks and a yoru camp, tiny little plush toy. All this stuff definitely still fits somehow. And then I remembered, oh yeah, I got to wear two pairs of pants at once. So luckily, it's not like I'm taking off my pants in the laundromat. That'd be weird, but when there was nobody there, I just slipped my shoes off and just put on my second pair of pants. Just slip them on there, get them out of here, get them out of the way. No room for you, pants. And I'm glad it's Shinjuku station to see, to see some locals also looking at the maps and trying to figure out what the fuck's going on. Makes me feel a little better.

Because yeah, even just I'm just trying to get to the Chuo line. And it's just not listed. It's all these other lines. It's this, this, this, and this. And then it's just like, I don't know, this way to Shinjuku station. It's like, what do you mean? Well, then where am I now? They're like multiple names to this one complex. Maybe it's big enough. Anyway, I assume if I go this way, eventually information about the Chuo line will come up. I mean, I've done this ride before. I did it like last week, but I don't know. It's not nearly enough for it to sink in. These big stations, man, they are my bane. They're brutal. It's kind of cool though, riding on the subway, just noticing stuff like one of the big things you'd hear back in the day, back in like the 90s when, you know, we were first reading Japanese comics and stuff. You'd hear like, man, you know in Japan, everybody reads comics, like businessmen and stuff, read comics. And then later on, you'd hear like, nah, that's not really true. It's just 20:00 one of those exaggerations. But it's a little bit true because like, there was a kid reading a comic on his phone, but also the lady standing next to me. She was reading a comic on her phone and then sitting down near me was like a businessman guy, an older businessman reading a physical comic book. So I mean, that was it. Just three people. But that wasn't like the whole car. That's just who was in my immediate vicinity, who I could see. It's like, yeah, dude, that's fucking, that's pretty cool. I mean, maybe it's not like, you know, people used to say about like everybody reads comics, but that's a lot more people of extremely very demographics reading comics than ever did or ever would in North America. Maybe this two-wheeled line counts. It must count as one of the JR lines. So I guess they just are like, nah, we don't need to specify. Everybody should know. Well, I don't goddamn know.

I don't fucking know at all. It is so tempting just to go walk to the next station because then it's just so easy. Doing that same trick I did in Fukuoka. Like, once you just get one station away from the main station cluster, fuck. However, from here, I might be able to catch an express. If I go one station from here, I'm stuck on the locals. Anyway, I'm sure I'll figure it out. But the other thing I thought was interesting on the train is just watching just the way people are super, I never mind. I'll get into that later. It's too loud. I'm just like concerned, though, because like, there's the JR gate. If that's wrong, then I'm fucked. Then I got to go have to fucking weird conversation where the guy scolds me for trying to get the hell out of the system because I went to the wrong mouse trap. Just at that last night didn't feel good. Don't want to do that. So annoying. Just tell me whether I fucking go. You bitch ass station. Fuck off. I went too tired and cranky for this fucking shit. Fuck you. Where's the stupid fucking tool line? You can't beg fucks. Where the fuck is it? God damn it. Man, this is like cartoonish levels of me not being able to navigate Shinjuku station. It is truly the worst. Akada, not nearly as bad as this. I mean, I guess I haven't been to Shibuya station much this trip. But I just don't see how it could be worse than this. It's these little interlocking how it's like three different stations in one station because it somehow happened again that I'm just in the wrong section. But I'm just like whatever. I mean yesterday I had to get to a specific, quite specific place. Now I don't. It's like I don't give a fuck, dude. I'm just going west. I'm just going fucking five will go in west. Who gives a sweet shit? Just take me west. I don't care. I'll take a different train. Who gives a fuck? So we'll see. But I think I got one figured out because once you get west early, I mean there's only so many trains. They line up at the major stations. So yeah, I think this is going to work. But just that again, so annoying. However, that being said, man, this is a this is a Grumpsville episode. But I mean, I guess that's kind of appropriate to know that I've been in Japan a couple months, one month ago. It's like it's not just just yay, everything's awesome now. Now it's like, well, I kind of need it to be a good day for everything to be awesome. Just purely the fact of being here. This would be a lot more exciting two months ago. It's like, I don't know what's happening. And I'm lost on the subway. But hey, whatever, man, I'm on the subway in Japan. Oh, there's a fucking ice cream machine over there, you know. Now I'm just like, oh, for God's sake, why is this? This does not need to be this complicated. I found one teeny tiny little reference to the Chuo line on one little board deep underground. Once I was already in the like had already checked into the wrong zone. So I think I'm quite sure if I tried to go up there because I had to exit again, like I would have just got the red beef, have to talk to the guy and I'm like, no, I'm not doing that. I'll just find different train, whatever. But like, why? Why is that one train the fucking abandoned child of this station? It seems like all the other fucking lines have quite good references to how to get there, but not the Chuo line. The Chuo line apparently can suck a dead dog's dick. They don't give a fuck about it. Anyway, I did see a sign in the washroom. I've never seen this before. It's like a little fairy, a little fairy who, I don't know, it looks like she's standing on, on a diving board, but I assume she's standing on something to do with a toilet. I don't know, but anyway, it says, always thank the spirit of toilets. And it's like, yeah, all right. Okay, that's my what would Jesus do? That did center me a little. I'm like, you know, I do think the spirit of toilets. Toilets everywhere. I do love that. 25:00 At least if you're going to get lost on the subway, it's not like getting lost in the New York subway or something. Here, at least there's toilets. Okay, I'm going to get on this train. Wish me luck. I'm praying to you, spirit of the toilets. Get me, get me where I'm going please. Thank you. Or just get me west. I don't even care. Don't get me where I'm going. Just west. That's all.

I met Hagashi Nakano station and in man, it's a beautiful day out. Not a cloud in the sky. Fucking delightful. This seems like a nice little neighborhood. But I don't really have time to explore around. Plus, I got my big book bag. And I figured the day I'll probably get eaten up faster than I think. I'll probably just take longer than I think to get to the Airbnb. So yeah, I won't take a round, but I got here. I'm outside the JR line on the tour line. So fuck you Shinjuku station. Yes, stupid fuck. You can't stop me. Even though you did stop me on multiple occasions and you will again in the future, you piece a shit station. I did it. I made it out. And I had the brown sugar latte that I bought this morning stashed away in my pocket of one of my coats. So I drank it. It's goddamn delicious. And thanks to the spirits of the toilet, there's no problem about me drinking a bunch of coffees while I'm in the subway system. Even though I got a headway out west, it's okay. It's okay. It's just pee and bro. It's easy to do in these environments. And even this little ride down south I got to take. And then it's a bit of a long walk from there. But if I do a little doubling back, I did this the other day because I made a mistake when I was going to Ome. I did this the way that I need to do it today. However, I mean, I think it's pretty clear that that means nothing. It means nothing that I've done this before. But I have done this before. It's absolutely possible. This route that I'm trying to do is possible. Will I be able to do it? Who knows? But I escaped. I escaped from fucking Shinjuku station. God, that station is fucking Jesus, what a pain in the ass.

All right, once I escaped the horrible pit of fucking Shinjuku station, it wasn't too tricky. I'd get off one train, get on another, but no big deal on the Chuo line. It's nice too, just it's not that busy of a train and it's all above ground and just watching the city go by. It's very pleasant. I like that train a lot. So I made it to Hachioji station pretty easy. And if I then backtracked from there, I could have got a little closer to the Airbnb. But it's like an hour until I can check in anyway.

And conveniently, walking from Hachioji is about an hour. So where am I now? I met Komiya Park, which unfortunately, Jesus, it's like the road is a tunnel that goes down under this park and then you got to go way up to get here. I did not expect to climb so many stairs. But if I can pass through a park, then why not? And yeah, this particular neighborhood is pretty developed. It reminds me a lot of Tachikawa, which I guess isn't that far from here. But man, one thing I noticed on that train is once I was sitting, you know, it stood at first and then it kept clearing out so eventually I'm like, all right, I guess I'll just sit down. And I just was like immediately like falling asleep. It's like, Jesus, I am exhausted today, which I think is probably blatantly obvious to anyone who heard this episode, right? I mean, I am just in the worst mood today. I'm obviously just exhausted. You know, I went to bed, I mean, I tried to go to bed as early as I could yesterday, but it was still past midnight. And then I just woke up at like, I don't know, 6 a.m. and sort of awkwardly tried to go back to sleep a few times. I'm just real tired, but it's interesting that I didn't really notice. I mean, I knew I was in a bad mood, but I didn't feel tired while I'm walking around and doing stuff and in the subways and whatever. You know, you got to spend energy to make energy. As long as I'm doing stuff, I feel fine. So that's another reason why I thought I would walk. This park itself, I'm not too sure about, but of a sparse park, a bit of a weird park on a mountain with weird sparse trees everywhere. But I mean, it would ever, just for passing through, it's nice. And yeah, it just was like, yeah, just go take the walk. I mean, even though it's an hour or so or whatever, I don't feel bad when I'm moving. I feel fine. I don't even feel tired. It's just that it just comes through in my shitty attitude. But yeah, sitting, once you stop moving, whoa, I could not believe it. I was just dying. I was like, oh god, I can't even keep my eyes open 30:00 with the fuck. Energy begets energy, man, really does. But anyway, yeah, I basically made it from here. Should be no big problem. I actually came near here by accident, inadvertently. My little trip from Akigawa Station up the hill where I saw signs about bore traps and stuff. And then I looped around to go to Hajimama. I'm like, oh, that's not that far. You had another classic like, oh, that's not that far. And it's actually hours away. It was way too long of a walk. But if I just went a little further east from there, I'd be where I'm going now. So I kind of sort of know the general lay of the land. That's handy. But anyway, thank you for joining me on today's travel episode where I just fucking complained about shit. I hope it was at least slightly funny to hear a guy just completely unable to navigate the subway system. Definitely not getting much better at it. That's for fucking sure. But I won't really need to do it for a while. Now that I'm out west, I am staying out west. And this subway system out here is not a problem. Everything seems pretty logical and pretty easy. So join me next episode where I'm gonna hike up a mountain or fucking go to a waterfall or do something cool. Until then, adios. Thank you again for listening to this fucking nonsense. Goodbye.