#79 Exploring Nishitama Cemetery, Tokyo

Transcript

So today is one of my strangely favorite days for doing these podcasts. Let's start over.

So today is one of the strangely pleasant days I find doing these podcasts, which is Laundry Day. Good old boring-ass laundry day. Yesterday, walking on the Ome Hills hiking course, it was amazing. It was truly great. But, man, it got really tough at the end. Although I was looking up some reviews and things and people do say, like, yeah, it said last bit, right? Geez, that's tough on the knees, or like, that it's kind of cool how as you progress, things do get harsher and harsher, so you can kind of bail out where you want. Though realistically, I think one person said that, you know, this is the most accurate way, because it's not actually hard. It just goes from easy to moderate. And it's like, yeah, I think that's fair. But it was such a long hike. That it got moderately hard at the end. Yeah, geez, when I got back to my Airbnb, I just like, didn't properly fall asleep, because God forbid, is if I'd be able to just fall asleep. But I did conk out for like an hour. I was like, oh, geez, I can't move. What the heck? And then, unfortunately, that gave me the one-two punch of taking a little nap, sort of sprung my brain back into action. Like, oh, what is this? Is this a new day now? Let's be awake again. And snorey guy next to me. Oh, geez. It was terrible. Then it was okay. Then it was back to terrible. I mean, I definitely have a touch of the mesophonia. Like, I don't react well to sounds. But that is just the worst sound, just the sound of snoring. These little thin walls of a Japanese house, just like a buzzsaw, just cutting through, just rumbling the whole fucking place. I mean, obviously, it's not actually doing that. But yikes, yeah. It's just what we're doing. So, trying to, I never actually saw this person. We never actually cross paths. But just picking up the little, whatever details you can from just being in the room next to someone. There's the snoring, obviously, which was weirdly not bad two days ago, but then was terrible again. And like, when I went outside to go to the washroom, I heard them in there. They're just like, like, the sounds. It's like you are being strangled by a demon in your sleep. And I know these people don't know this is happening. They don't know what's going on. But this person had to have had like sleep apnea because it was just nuts. It's just like, It's like, what is happening to you? What is happening to you? Sort yourself out, mate. What is this? It's like you are being possessed. You were dying in there. What the hell is happening?

And yeah, I don't know, just the secret world of snorers. There's so many, just wild, like wild, out of control snorers in the world. And I mean, I guess my dad, actually, my dad is quite a bad snorer. But I just haven't been in the same house as him since the early 2000s. I just kind of like, oh yeah, I guess I sort of forgot about that. But it is true. I went to visit my grandmother with someone so we had to share a hotel room and it was a nightmare. It's not that I've never been aware of snoring, but it's just has not been a part of my life lately. And yeah, it's just this whole other underworld of terror. And that's the irony is that the people who seem to be snoring, they don't seem to be having a ton of trouble falling asleep. But there's all these people around them, whatever. Again, who cares? Why bother? There's nothing that can be done about it. It's just luck of the draw. But I was up till like really last night, like six in the morning. I just could not properly fall asleep. And I was like, get an angry. Just like, like I said physically at one point, like, shut up. Because when you're like, almost asleep and you get woken up and it's just like, yeah, it's a level of frustration that I just couldn't, I can't stop myself anymore. I can't hold my tongue. I want to just kick the door down and stomp that person into oblivion.

So I mean, you can't sleep through anger. So I was like, I guess I'm just staying up, whatever.

But then mercy of all mercies. Today, their fucking room is the doors open. Everything's empty. They seem to be gone. Like, thank you. Thank fucking Christ. Fuck me. I mean, I knew snoring was bad at a bunk bed. It's just nuts that it's still in the next room. It's like still a problem. Fuck brutal.

So anyway, having stayed up all night and then I did manage to sleep in all the way to 11. Amazing. But still not that much sleep. And my laundry, it's like in perfect equilibrium now where my shirts and my underwear and my socks all actually lined up. So I have one backup pair of socks and it's the little ankle socks that I bought by accident in Itabashi.

So no choice but to do laundry today. Everything has been used up to its fullest degree and I have that one dumb pair of socks, I guess, as like an emergency. But the laundry place is right across the street from a Airbnb. Seems to be another case where I can just throw $10 in the machine, which is kind of a lot to do laundry, but it'll just do everything. It'll feed in the soap, it'll dry them. Amazing. So I'll do that to this evening when I get back. But for today for a nice easy journey, I'm just going to go to Akiruno, go to the Ayan Mall and bring my laptop and hang out at the Starbucks. Because I haven't been back to that neighborhood. I passed beyond it to go to Musashi Itzukishi once.

But I haven't been back to Akiruno proper by Akigawa Station. And as I'm unraveling more of the surrounding areas, it does seem like going beyond there to like Kamine Park. That's one option. Going up to Ome is fucking amazing.

Going beyond Ome to Okutama is the hardcore, serious mountaineering place. Akiruno is a bit of a just a normal, pretty neighborhood with, you know, not a lot of nature-hucky type stuff, actually, directly there. It was just a neighborhood I always liked walking around in. So today, that's all. Just a nice little easy walk around the neighborhood.

I'll go get in, maybe swing by the hard off, go to the mall, dick around at the Starbucks or the afternoon, come back home and do laundry. Amazing. What a day. Maybe it'll develop into a random adventure.

I'm still really surprised. I didn't know when I started this podcast how it would go. And I think it's safe to say it's been a little 50-50. I think about half of this crap that happens to me, I think it's kind of interesting. But I do think a big chunk of it is quite plain, just average walking around Japan doing nothing stuff. But overall, I'm like, I think this is kind of interesting. It's kind of a neat little chronicle of Japan. But I expected to run out of stuff to say a lot more easily. I'm amazed that to whatever degree of value and usefulness any of this is, that something does still happen every day that I think is like neat enough to make a podcast about. There's been so many days when I'm like, today surely is the day nothing really is going to happen. And then I still make a podcast about it. It's like, oh, something's still happened. And even today, today I'm like, now surely this is the one. Surely today, this is it. Now we'll just segue the next segment. We'll be tomorrow because nothing else is going to happen to me today.

And maybe that is the case. We'll see. But even just today, it's still just nice. Like I still think it's a little bit worse chronically. That it's finally kind of overcast today. That is one thing. I mean, this weather has just been so nuts that, you know, I usually kind of look forward a little bit to an occasional rainy day. Even just back home. Like just even though I was hiking the same stuff all the time during COVID, it was like getting pretty monotonous. But I still went out and hiked pretty much every day. And it still does eat up your day. It's hard to get stuff done at home when you're outside hiking around all the time.

So sometimes a rainy day would be kind of a nice excuse to just stay inside and not to go out and not to do anything. And I kind of thought the same here is like, yeah, you know, eventually there'll be some rainy days. Maybe I'll just stay in the freaking Airbnb all day or whatever. And it just hasn't happened. It's just too nice. It's like ludicrously nice. And as I've discovered talking to my friends and other parts of the world, it's like an El Niño year. So it literally is kind of overly nice everywhere. So this is definitely not quite normal. But today, while still not rainy, it is overcast. Gray clouds everywhere. Which is much more how I expected things to be in general. But even still, it's just pretty. It's just nice. This little walk from my Airbnb to Kita Hachioji station that I've... 10:00 I finally, I really love this little walk. This nice little quiet walk through this neighborhood. And I finally learned how to navigate it without Google Maps. I mean, it's a 15 minute walk if even. But I got lost several times. Like, turned all the way around, like, back to the station. Like, what the heck? I managed to figure out a couple of very distinct landmarks that I can actually navigate it now without the phone. But it's just so nice. And even just this. It's looking out over this neighborhood. And just the power lines in this guy against the clouds. It's fucking gorgeous. It just looks so beautiful.

I mean, I wonder if this had been a more conventional winter. If it had been this way every day for the last nine weeks or whatever. I wonder how I would have felt about it. You know, it's probably, probably wouldn't seem as pretty. But I don't know. I really wonder because the summer, it is just so oppressively hot. I still think maybe this is better. Maybe this would still be better. But I've been so lucky. I don't even have to find out. I've just been getting summertime weather in the winter. It's been fucking amazing.

That was the whole reason, too, that I finally got myself into gear and got myself to Japan is because WestJet in Canada stopped their flights at the end of October. So, I mean, I just expected it to be pretty rough. You know, if you're giving up on the flights and you're like, yeah, no need. No need. There's no tourism. Nobody's going to want to go there. We're just going to stop the flights. And then I get here and it's perfect, just perfect weather for like 70 straight days or whatever. It's just like, wow. Not what I expected.

But yeah, I mean, I guess this is how these podcasts keep filling up because I just keep thinking of something else to ramble about. I did do a little quick research. I haven't done my proper research for South Korea yet. But I did just look up like, where is my Airbnb in relation to the airport? And I'm going to the closer, more central airport. And it's nice to have just little things laid out ahead of you. That little feeling of preparation instead of just the wild unknown. That I just pulled up the airport and my Airbnb and it's like, I don't quite know the scale of Seoul. But it's like, that doesn't look that bad. That looks like one of those three hour walks, you know? Like if I had to since I have a self-checking code for that place. It's just one of those things that like worst case scenario if I had to walk from the airport, which again I've learned several times already. Don't do that. That's silly. But it seems very doable. If for some crazy reason I just can't figure out transit. I mean, I don't know why that would ever happen.

But it's still just a little comforting to know if you had to take it into your own hands, it'd be alright. Although it couldn't give me walking directions and there is a bridge involved. And I don't know if that means you can't walk across the bridge or maybe Google Maps for Korea. It's just not developed yet to know all the routes. I have no idea. I mean, hopefully I won't have to learn that one. You know, walking from the airport. What am I even talking about? But it's just nice to have that little thing laid out ahead of me. If like, oh yeah, this thing is really not that far. Because who knows? Who knows, man? I just got the cheapest Airbnb. It could have been anywhere. But I do think, I mean, obviously, I'm a little attached to Japan that even these overcast days. I'm like, look how beautiful the overcastness is. Look at the beautiful gray clouds against, you know, against a sea of power lines. What a beautiful view. Like this is clearly a person who's got rose-colored glasses for Japan.

But it's nice to start ramping up my knowledge of what is to come in South Korea. Because it's obviously the best thing is to not try to hang onto this. I don't have that much time left. It's going to go by pretty fast. And what's the point? What's the point in being like down about it? Like, oh, I got to leave Japan, darn it. You know? It's like whatever. I've been here for ages. Everything is gone amazingly. There's nothing to complain about.

And nothing to be gained by trying to hold on. The best thing to do is to just focus on the next step. Focus on the next leg of the journey. Get excited about that. Get excited about exploring a new place. And just let Japan naturally fade away in its natural course as it is meant to do as the life of any traveler is. You got to keep traveling. You got to move on. And even just that, I don't know, I always paint these mental images or get these ideas of what something is going to be like. 15:00 What an experience is going to be like. And it's never accurate. Like, I still have a version in my mind of what? Just what I expected to like the Airbnb and Chiba to be like for an example. And it was nothing like that. It was actually way cooler and everything went way better. And it was just neat and interesting. But that other version is still in my brain. This expectation of how a trip was going to go that just didn't even happen. So anyway, I'm building this expectation of South Korea. I've got an image in my mind of what that journey is like from the airport to the place. Base purely on Google Maps. It's completely wrong. I don't even know what that river looks like in real life. But at least I have an idea in my head that's not just purely vague. I got something that I can kind of focus on and look forward to. And it's like, oh yeah, that's going to come up. That's going to be exciting. That's an adventure. All right, I'm going to hop in 7-11 and see if they have any barbecue mackerel. And if they don't, I think I'm still just going to go back to my plan of having a little lunch time meal to start the day at freaking new days in Hyjima Station.

Yesterday I got an egg tart. It was delicious.

Man, one thing that's really nice about the hot drinks out of the machines is last night when I finally got to the train station, and that's like a really little train station. Almost all the stations past Ome are very tiny, little self-check-in type places, and it had a coffee machine of a brand I'd never heard of before, and now I don't remember what it was called, it started with a Y. But anyway, it's like, I got to try that. You know, it's pretty much the same as all the other ones, but it's one I never had before. And my shoulder was hurting a little because my shoulder, due to my scoliosis, it's the first part of my body to wear out. For whatever weird reason, it's not not even my bad knee, it's always my shoulder. So I got this hot coffee that was like hot enough that it's kind of hard to hold. That's one thing I like about getting them out of the machine. If you go to the hot drink part of the convenience stores, it's not really all that hot. Out of the machine, these things are really hot, and I just held it against my sore muscle, and it's like, oh, that feels really good. And to give myself a little heat massage. And today, my shoulder doesn't especially hurt, but you know, it's still, as always, it's the first to go. And I mean, it's probably not fully recovered from yesterday, because I didn't really sleep that much, but I just did it again. I just got a little Wanda brand, little steamed milk and coffee. It's just one of the tiny cans, but I'm just holding it, holding it against my muscle, and it's like, haha, yeah, that feels so good. I don't know that I would ever bother to have like a heat pack or anything. It's not really worse traveling around with, but if I can just get this as a bonus before I drink the coffee from the machine, it's like, shit, why not? Very nice. And I think I think I might have a plan for tomorrow. I was just standing at the station, and I was looking through the pictures on my phone. And I saw one that I was like, what is this? I didn't remember that I'd taken this picture. Where one of the reasons why I didn't go on a normal straight up and down mountain hike yesterday, and instead went to the Ome Hills hiking course, which actually was super amazing, and turned that way better. It does turn out, I think, going lengthwise across a bunch of mountains nearer their base is much more my style than going straight up and straight back. It was the straight back thing. It's like, I don't necessarily want to hike 90 minutes or two hours up and then come exactly back the same way. There's so many mountains and stuff around the Ome area. Surely there's other options than that, where you could have a different route, more of a loop. Of course, the only loop I found was starting at Okutama, the triple crown, three peak loop, and that takes like seven or eight hours. So it's like, I bet somewhere in here there's some kind of happy middle. And I forgot about this because that other 90 minute up and back one was by Matake station. This one is by Hina Towada station, a couple of stations west of Ome. I took this picture of, you know, they have their stuff in the local area, you are here, type map. And it's got Mount Memoriyama, M-I-M-U-R-O-Y-A-M-A. And I'll have to do a little research, look this up a bit, but this is on the other side of the river from the Ome Hills hiking course. And it appears that 20:00 from that station, you can take a path up to a shrine and then up to the peak of that mountain, but then you can come back down a different route and be another two stations west, basically. Similar terrain is the hiking course except up a mountain. And I also learned on that hiking course that it seems that, as the good excuse to do a little experimenting, it seems that the point when I start to feel a little uncomfortable, that I'm a little too high up in the sky is about 500 meters. Apparently, Mount Memoriyama is 646 meters. So it is higher than that. But depending on the terrain, I don't know, I'd be curious to see. Does that bother me? Is it the literal height? I mean, I'm sure it's not the literal height, if I am just surrounded by trees and I can't really tell where I am. I'm sure I won't be aware of the height at all. You know, obviously needed to be like an open clear area with a view. Then I'll start getting freaked out probably. But that seems pretty cool because not only is that a accessible mountain, I don't have to go up and come straight back down the same way. There's another route down or routes continuing along if you want to just do all the peaks in the world. That seems really doable. So I'm going to look up a bit more about it, but maybe that's what I'm going to do. And when I saw this picture on my phone, I'm like, oh yeah, cool. Like I can see why I forgot about that, because it was just something that crossed my mind. When I was there the other day, I didn't really dig into it. And I, in fact, forgot that I took this picture. I just remembered the phenomenon, I guess. It's like, oh yeah, at each station, they kind of direct you toward their local mountains. But I'm glad I took this picture to spark my memory about this one. And then I was thinking like, I know I stayed up all night and I know I'm exhausted and I know it's already late in the day. It's like nearly 2 p.m. It's not that much light left. But man, that would be cool. Should I go do that? Why don't I go do that? It's like, no, you stupid idiot. You definitely can't do that. You don't have nearly enough time and you are tired. You're only excited in this moment because it's a plan and it's a thing to do. By the time you even get to the base of that trail, you'll probably already be feeling that you're a little exhausted. By the time you're halfway up, you'll realize you've made a horrible mistake. And yeah, there's just not enough time. There's no physical way to do that today. But I wanted to. It seems so exciting. But then I got to Akigawa Station and definitely part of this is because I'm so tired that I feel this way. I'm definitely a little soft in the feelings right now because I'm tired. But man, these places that I went in 2019 when I first came to Japan, which were basically not at Itabashi Station and that neighborhood. Umabayashi Station and that neighborhood in Fukuoka and this one, Akigawa in Akiruno. I guess just because it was the first time I came to Japan. You know, Japan was always just so like on my back burner seemed cool. There's a lot of Japanese stuff. I'm a fan of video games and anime and whatnot. But I really didn't expect that I would necessarily ever come to Japan. And then when it lined up that my friend was here and I came and then it was just so much more interesting and so much more valuable and experience than I expected. And I guess also given that, you know, I'd only been to America before and a little bit of the Netherlands besides that just traveling within Canada. But I can't say I ever especially loved traveling. Me and America did not get along and me and the Netherlands did not really get along. You know, I was like, geez, culture shock really is a thing. I just only feel comfortable when I'm in Canada, you know, and you can give me these different slants on Canada. Like, oh, it's a little different in Montreal than it is in Vancouver than it is in Toronto than it is on the East Coast in Halifax or something. And that's interesting enough. I'm good. I started to realize that I don't know if I want to travel the world. And then I got to Japan and I was like, this is so fucking exciting. This is so cool. This is such a valuable experience. I just feel like I'm soaking in so much ambient information, you know, am I interpreting it properly? Who can say what actual use is it in my life? Maybe nothing. I don't know. It's just cool. It's just really fucking cool. The big bad city is cool. The fucking nature outskirts are cool. It's all just 25:00 really fucking cool. And I've obviously felt that way the second time as well. But these places, I guess I kind of forgot like how much. But these are these are always going to be those three neighborhoods. They're just always going to feel different from everywhere else. They're just going to feel better. Like, you know, I was kind of like, I should just kind of come back here one time while I'm in West Tokyo almost per functorally. Like, I should really come back to this neighborhood even though not quite sure why. No specific hiking stuff around here. Kind of just going to go to the mall. But as soon as I got here and I started walking around, it's like, oh yeah, fuck. It's that feeling, that feeling of walking through my memories from 2019. And then even though I'd been back out here on this trip, you know, whereas at the place right by the train line. But even that still that just kind of added to the legend of the place. This is the place. Man, it's just it's just the weird feeling of walking through your own nostalgia. It's so fucking cool. It's just amazing. I love it here. I don't need to do anything here. It doesn't matter. I just want to walk around. So yeah, this is making me realize that I'm going to have to make one more trip up to Nakaitebashi as well, specifically probably the walk from OG up the Shikouji River. It's going to be a little bit of a distance from my final Airbnb in Yokohama, but maybe not. Yokohama doesn't really seem all that far from the JR loop. And then I can just take the JR loop up to its northern part of the loop. And I mean, and there you go. I'm basically there. It should be no problem. But yeah, just man, these are the these places are just I mean, it'll be interesting on trip number three to see if any of these places from trip number two have the same legendary feeling in my brain. But I don't know that they can't. I don't know if that's possible. I think just because these were the places, the first places that I went, like just looking around it. I'm like, man, it's weird because it's just it's just another neighborhood. It's just another part of Japan. But it feels amazing that I'm here. It's like at the old Airbnb's over there. There's the old fucking 7-11. I always go to around the corner. There's the family mart. There's a park ahead of me where on this trip is where I got I got ice cream out of the machine in the little bag. A little too chilly for that today. I don't think I'm going to do that. In fact, I think I'm just going to loop up around and go to the mall. But man, I don't know. Glad I came out here. I'm glad I didn't let this one slip by because yeah, really just if you had asked me two hours ago, would be like, yeah, yeah, sure, whatever. You know, I'll go there. I like that neighborhood. Why not? Got nothing else to do today. It's just laundry day. And yeah, now that I'm here, I'm like, this place is fucking magical, man. This is my Disneyland, you know? It's just it's just fields and kind of like the one sort of major highway street that runs through town. I guess there's the second one a little further down. I mean, right now I'm just walking through fields. Just fields with like cabbage looking stuff in them.

I mean, it's safe to say. It's safe to say there's nothing here. There's that Tokyo summer land place in the summer. I guess I've never been there. Every once in a while, I catch a view of the the Ferris wheel. I think that's kind of the thing that's here. Besides that, it's very fair to say there's nothing here. But I just love it. Man, I love it. It's so good.

Feels so good. I also, I stopped in the hard off and they did have a little tiny euro camp toy, just like a little hangy $3 like, you know, thing you'd hang on your off the end of your book bag or something. Hang on the mirror in your car. But it was, isn't a dishgo again, who I already got her toy out of a gotcha machine in Fukuoka. It was a different toy, but I've got a dishgo. I took it out of my bag and I've just got it just sitting on the desk in my Airbnb. If it had been a different character, I probably would have bought it, but I don't want to just start hoarding the dishgo toys. That'd be weird. The whole idea was just to be cool if I could find something from an anime that I watch, but my problem is I don't watch enough modern anime. I kind of only watched Euro Camp, Non-Non Biari, and Super Cub. And I found a Super Cub toy, but it was more based on the motorcycle than the show, but that's good enough. I'll take it.

And then I found some Euro Camp stuff in Fukuoka, finally. But if I had not found that Euro Camp gotcha, this would have been it. This would have been it. Like this actually would have been kind of cool, whereas my trip is starting to wind down, where I just was like giving up hope that I was really going to find any stuff for shows that I like, then I would have saw it here and been like, oh, I didn't, I found it. Whoa! But since I already got, I got one already. I got an a dishgo toy. I kind of want to run a rune figure or little hanger thing would be cool. I don't actually want a toy like a whole figure. What would I do with that? These little things that you just hang off your book bag are perfect. But Nidisco apparently she's the one. She's the popular character. Or maybe she's not. Maybe that's the problem. Maybe Rin really is the popular character. So everybody just wants to get rid of their Nidisco shit.

It's all right. I guess I'm just going to head to the mall now.

Head through this park on the way. Not that this park is at all on the way. It's actually, might not even make it to the mall. Who knows? As I just start walking around, maybe I'll just mosey around this neighborhood all afternoon. It's possible. Actually, I think I might do that. I don't know. Anyway, I think it's happened once again. Miraculously, when I thought like, oh, here's a day where I'll have nothing to say. Then I got slapped in the face with a big, big nostalgia slap. And that's good enough. By the standards of this podcast, I consider this a perfectly cramulent episode. That's kind of the point. It's just, that's kind of the point. It's just to chronicle stuff like this. How it feels to travel to places. And man, yeah, these little, these little, your little personal Disneyland, your little personal places that just to you are the magical land. It's a pretty interesting phenomenon. Because yeah, I couldn't, if I was trying to pitch to somebody to come to Akigawa station and walk around, what would I even say? What could I possibly, especially the more I learn about these environs that I'm like, yeah, you could just go a little further and go to Misashi, it's Akishi, and do actual stuff. Go to an actual hike. You could go up to Ome, and then there's no end to all the stuff you could do. It's a wild, how much stuff there is up there. You could go down to Mount Takau, if you're some kind of fucking idiot. But what would I ever, how would I ever pitch this neighborhood? I just couldn't. There's nothing here. But it's so beautiful. I love it so much.

It feels so good. Just because of the time I spent around here, that was like a weird little investment, and now it's paying off. Sweet, all right, well, I'm going to walk around to the magical neighborhood of Akiburuna.

Well, I just had a first-time experience of an old classic where I just smacked my head on a doorway, but it was in a public washroom. That's the first time that's happened. In Fukuoka, it was a bit of a problem because I was in these older houses, so a lot of the doorways were too small, and I really had to watch out to not bang my head on stuff. But it's never happened to me at a public washroom before, so it's so shocking because you just don't expect it. It's been several weeks since I've hit my head on something, and I was just leaving this little washroom and bam! I just did not expect the opening to be so small. So that rattled my brain a little bit, so I was wandering around and I ended up at the Nishitama Cemetery, N-I-S-H-I-T-A-M-A and this is kind of cool because I have been here before in 2019 just wandering around the neighborhood. I ended up here and it's this enormous really beautiful cemetery because it's all set on a hill, and you can just look up and see tons and tons of curated bushes and graves.

And up at the top there's a tree line with some paths that run along it, and you can just see out over a bunch of mountains. And it's kind of neat because it's neat just to be back here because it's quite beautiful, but I have such a better understanding of the terrain now. In 2019 I was like, I don't know what's out there, it just looks like an endless sea of mountains, I can definitely not go walk out there because I don't know what's going to happen.

But now I know that area, not the Ome Hills hiking course I was on yesterday, but the earlier one that I was on on the other side of the river, it's that, so it's not small. I probably would have 35:00 been okay because it was summertime then and I would have had a lot of time before it got dark, but when you just don't know what's on the other side, it would just be extremely ridiculous to sally forth, but yeah, it's kind of cool now that I mean it's four o'clock, so I only have an hour of sun. I can't go in there today either, but now I know sort of, I mean I can't say I know what's in there, I've only been there once and not even at this part of it, but basically I know what it is, you know, it's a series of paths in some woods, but I do know what's around it. Like I know how if you push past and get to the other side, I know you get through the time of river and then across from there is Ome Station, and then even just nearby to here, over to the east is Spider Mountain. It's like I know fucking Spider Mountain, all right. I'm well fucking acquainted with Spider Mountain. See yeah, this is just kind of cool because I spent a lot more time walking around this neighborhood in 2019, but this time with the additional power of Google Maps, and I mean before I kind of just deliberately, maybe that's partially what made this neighborhood really grind its way into my mind, is that I wasn't really trying to explore, per se, I was just walking around, and I'd add little teeny bits to my knowledge, but I was happy to just walk around the neighborhood, not to like push at the edges, where this whole trip I've been pushing at the edges, it's like what's this hill, what's this fucking path, what's over here, what's over there, and it's really neat how all of these things connect up, none of the distances, like even though the totality of Tokyo is very large, to get from one specific neighborhood to the other is not that big of a deal, you know, to get from here over to Fusa, not that big a deal, or to go up to Ome, not that big a deal, even to go the other way, now that I've kind of connected in Hachioji, that's a much less pretty direction to go, but I kind of know how that all connects up to, and I guess it's just that, you know, when you connect all these things together, it becomes enormous because I'm looking at the map, and it's like yeah, from here if I went over to Ome and I went over over this, and there's actually not that far to those reservoir lakes, I was at the other day, and this connects to that, and this connects to that, and if you did them all together, then it's insane, then it's an epic day's long journey, it would take you to hike across Tokyo, but if you just take one specific neighborhood, and the three or four that are around that neighborhood, you can go in neighborhood or two, or maybe three if you're especially enterprising in a day, and they all connect up, and it's just fucking neat, yeah, here we go, so I'm getting towards the top of this cemetery, and there's a tree line up there, wait did I say, man this place is really big, I'm actually not even close, wow this thing is really big, although maybe I am at the top of the cemetery part, the big green splotch on the map, those real big Akiruno base campground, yeah and I guess, I mean I guess it's actually, it is a ways the Ome side, I'm looking at like Ozaku station, I'm like one third of the way, basically, between Akigawa and Ozaku, maybe a bit further than that, yeah I had these vague ideas of like what if I did just push through, and I mean I could, this all city stuff basically, even if it gets dark I could do it, but I know, I think I think circling back around Akigawa is the best plan for today, but yeah it's very neat to come back here with my new info, and if you happen to be in this neighborhood, I guess I was saying how like there's nothing in this neighborhood, there's nothing here, but if you do happen to be in these environments, Nishitama cemetery, it is really gorgeous, it is so big, it's not the largest cemetery I've seen in Japan, I mean I guess that one by Nippori station is larger for example, but that this one is all set on mountains, different layers that go up the side of the hill, makes it extremely picturesque, so yeah maybe not necessarily worth making a journey for, but if you're in the environment of it, definitely worth coming to.

Man this cemetery, it's bigger than I remember, it goes up and up and up and up, as like alright I think that must be the end of the official cemetery, a pretty distinct fence line here, and then there's one more set of stairs, and go up and I'm like whoa okay here's a little extra layer, but that's got to be it right, and then there's one more set of stairs up to some super premium exclusive graves, it's like geez man there's some really high up, it's eerie, so many times that's happened in this podcast where music just starts playing, 428, so I mean I guess this is the 5 o'clock song, but a funeral edition, it is a bit organ-y sounding, but yeah up at the very very top grave, there was a fence and behind that fence was a little pathway, it's not the one I was on before, I think where I went, I can see it from here, but I had to kind of scramble up a hillside a little, which is kind of not exactly dignified behavior in a cemetery, but I do remember that's what I did in 2019 to get to the path, and yeah, so there's paths, there's paths behind the cemetery that go off into the wild blue yonder, and it would be a little interesting now that I know not to fear them, because for all I knew, I mean my sense of geography was so vague in 2019 that I'm like I don't know, like is this the edge of Tokyo? Maybe these mountains just go on for 80 miles, I don't know, and it turns out they do not, it'd be no real biggie, but I only got half an hour of light, so none of that today, or probably ever, I doubt I'll ever really bother, but it's a I don't know, it's a thing, and man there are so many drinks just left as offerings, and I just noticed here a smirnov ice, I didn't know they sold smirnov ice in Japan, I've never seen one before, but there is a lot of mixtures of different, just all kinds of different drinks, some alcoholic, some not, and it was making me think of, I only did this one time when I first moved to Vancouver, and I was in my early 20s and I was an idiot, I was at some dance club, these girls I met through, well I guess it's a long story, and we lived in the same building, and they took me to a dance club, one of these things that I normally wouldn't have done on my own, I don't pause the story, this grave has little figures next to it, there's a care bear, and a Mickey Mouse, and another care bear in a Minnie Mouse, and besides that there, I think just sort of generic little figures, but I've never seen that at a grave before, little toys, yeah I remember when I went to this, my first club in a big city, it was a pretty interesting experience, it's gotten a cool, and I'm glad they dragged me along, because I never would have had the gumption on my own, but I remember as we were going in, there was a girl wearing a t-shirt that said, I'm easy, which I've never seen before, or since, you know what the hell was that, but I was like, well big city, man holy crap, just what is going on here?

But I remember as that night dragged on, there were a lot of abandoned drinks, just drinks that were a third full just sitting around that clearly nobody cared about, and this was hours later, so I was fucking wasted already, my problem solving and basic human etiquette sensors who were all fucked up, and I started hooking drinks, I just started nabbing drinks and drinking them, and I don't think it mattered so much that I was stealing drinks, because they really were just like, this drink is done, it has been put down, and it is never being touched again, still though, I mean ridiculous to like steal people's drinks, but I definitely paid for it, it was just an insane amount to drink, I just kept hooking drinks, I must have drank like the equivalent of 10 drinks, it's fucking so insane, I remember thinking at the time, like I wonder if one of those was like drugged, but I doubt it, I think I just drank that much, you know, that I was traveling through time, I mean it was a little bit like when I got way too drunk in Chiba, where I wouldn't really realize the extent of it until I closed my eyes, and then when I closed my eyes it was like I was pulsing through time, like I felt like I was moving, like moving two feet forward and returning, two feet forward returning in a strobe, and I couldn't stop that feeling that I was moving until I opened my eyes again, I did feel that in Chiba, but it was way worse in this time in Vancouver, and yeah I mean the whole thing was just a shit show, I was just 45:00 in over my head, I didn't know what I was doing, a complete social fool on all levels, but again those girls that lived in the same building as me, they got me home, they looked after me, God bless them, so the way in Chiba I learned that I really got a not drink to excess anymore, I didn't learn that lesson in Vancouver, but I did learn don't hook drinks, you fucking maniac, that's insane behavior, so I'm glad to say I never did that again, anyway the reason I tell that story is all of these drinks everywhere, you could get fucked up man, you could get fucked up in this cemetery easily, and I mean if you were a older homeless guy say you probably don't want to bother coming all the way here, and like there's a lot of hills, this is a huge cemetery, you don't want to go up these steps, it's not worth it, it's probably not that tough, because booze is so cheap in this country to cobble together a fucking 150 yen, and you can buy a cup of wine or something, like everything is so cheap here, but I was thinking what if you were a kid, what if you were like a teenager who just wanted to get booze, this would be an amazing place to do that, and I got to assume that just is not something that happens in Japan, commonly, but that would happen in North America for God damn sure.