#82 Walking to nowhere in Saitama, Japan

Transcript

Alright, another beautiful, clear January day on, again, just this miracle, this miracle trip that I've had to Japan where the weather is just amazing, even though it's supposed to be winter. I actually got when I went up Mt. Takau last week. There was a pair of gloves that just was dropped by somebody. So I picked them up as a double, like, hey, first off, I guess I can clear off these myths from the mountain, because maybe somebody would come back for them, or maybe they would just stay there forever and become litter. And I kind of had a couple of cold days where I'm like, you know, I could kind of use a second pair of gloves would not hurt. So I tossed them in with my laundry. I actually kind of forgot I had them until I did laundry the other day. And I'm like, oh, yeah, look at this. Got these little myths. But I certainly don't need them. Maybe in Korea, you know, everyone says that Korea is colder. But yeah, I suppose the other alternative would have been, I could have hung the fucking the gloves from a branch or something. So if the person noticed that they've dropped them, they could get them on their way back down. But that never, I mean, you always see those, their people like put a mitten or a sock or whatever, like, put it on a fence post. So the person can find it when they come back. Apparently, these people never come back, because those things just stay there forever. So I became steward of the gloves. You can buy some new gloves, person. Pay more attention to your gloves, fuckface. They're my gloves now. Anyway, a quick recap of my time in West Tokyo recently. So I came back and went to Congo Falls near Musashi, it's a Kaishi station, because I somehow missed the falls the first time. But then I realized that a lot of the other hikes around there are quite serious kind of real hikes into actual woods that I'm not really prepared for. Then I went to Mount Takau and it was a total tourist trap. Though from there, you could continue on to other peaks and do sort of a moral legit hike. But again, that's a little more serious. I'm not quite sure where that whole thing leads to, where it ends up. I'm not really equipped for that level of hiking. Then Ome station, that one was fucking cool, where there's all kinds of stuff between Ome and Okutama. But I just kind of finally figured out yesterday that there's the Ome Hills hiking course, which is just perfect. And beyond that, there's a bunch of mountains that are really high and real serious, and like you need actual equipment is real hiking, and I'm not really equipped for that. So overall, the general thing I learned is I was kind of lulled into a sense of security by Fukuoka, because Fukuoka has a lot of very gradual mountains. They're all over the place, and they're really easy to get to, and they're really beautiful, and they're great hikes. But they're all quite gentle. They're not that steep.

And they're just like wide, but relatively flat by mountain standards. So I could pretty much just pick a mountain and go hike on it and just have a nice day, and it was no problem. Where in Tokyo, it does seem that the mountains are much spikier. They're much smaller and much taller.

To the point that my fear of heights started kicking in. I'm like these views are fucking crazy. This is all kind of nuts. This is maybe a little too much. And the nice thing about all of that is I was kind of overwhelmed by that Ome to Okutama stretch in particular, because there's so many mountains. There's so many options at every single station. There's like three mountains you can go to.

Pretty amazing, you know, if you're a hiking type person, it's fucking awesome that that's all on the Tokyo train system. Like that's pretty nuts. But it turns out it was like a little more than what I was really looking for. Fukuoka is what I'm looking for. Not Okutama.

But the nice thing about that is it took a lot of the stress off, because I only have a few days left. And I'm like, how do I even approach this? There's so many mountains, there's so much stuff like I'd have to come live near Okutama for six months to fucking sort all this out. And it was nice yesterday to just kind of put the little bow on it of like, yeah, I can just kind of relax now. Because I've just realized this is not what I am looking to do.

Ah, you know, there's something to be said for just randomly roaming around the Tokyo area rather than 5:00 then stacking up more stuff ahead of you than you're actually able to do.

All right, I met this nice little, this one drink machine that's especially cheap. And I usually get the boss caffeine. It's like this little mocha with extra caffeine in it. And it is pretty good. But they also have world journey Indonesia. And I've tried a couple of these. I've had the Brazil one. I don't know, it's supposedly world coffee flavors.

And I've never had one that's good, but I have fuck it. Wait, though, wait a sec.

I stopped myself at the last moment. These are hot coffees. And today is very hot out. Is this really what I want to do? However, if I get cold coffee, it's all boss brand and boss branding, that great. But this one is still also only a hundred yen, legend of coffee's origin. Oh, is this a tears of the kingdom fucking branded coffee? Well, all right, then, fuck it. I'll get that. I got to give, I know a lot of Zelda people who are not big fans of breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom because they're so kind of open and meandering and they're not a tight, concise experience. But I kind of come at it from the opposite way. I had Zelda one when I was a kid, which was a open meandering experience. And once Zelda got 3D, I liked it less and less and less. To me, Ocarina of Time, which is a lot of people's very favoriteist game ever. Clunk. To me, that was a misstep. That was Zelda going in the wrong direction. So I just haven't really been a fan of Zelda in like 20 goddamn years. So getting back to the meandering, that's what I like. I like just walking around and doing nothing. That's what I do in real life. That's what I want to do in a video game too. But I can understand, conceptually, theoretically, why people feel that way. Deep in my soul, I don't understand it at all. Breath of the wild and tears of the kingdom are fucking excellent. You goddamn morons. Fuck you.

Is this a sign? Uh-oh, is this a sign that I'm cranky? Is this a sign I didn't sleep enough? Why am I, I'm inventing arguments with no one about nothing because of a coffee? Shit. Okay, well anyway, keep tabs on that. This really does happen to me a lot where I just don't realize that I haven't slept that well until stuff like this starts to happen. All right, anyway, let me try this coffee. It is indeed Zelda. There's Zelda on the back.

It's actually that's not too bad because I'm not even sure what it is about boss that I don't like. I guess a lot of it comes down to there's like a sugar taste that's a little overwhelming and unpleasant and this doesn't have that. This is actually pretty good. Hmm, what a nice surprise. I'm glad the Zelda coffee is not bad. That would be a shame, you know. How weird too stuff like that. I mean, Zelda, you know, with the fucking golden cartridge and it seemed extra mysterious because I didn't even have an Nintendo initially. I had a Sega and I played Zelda 2 first which is the black sheep of the franchise. It's gained some respect for its weird RPG elements but not the way Super Mario 2 gained respect. I think Zelda 2 is still somewhat disliked and Zelda 1 that did prefer but anyway, the fact that just, I mean, you got to stretch way back way back the mid to late 80s. I was a tiny child. That's a whole different world and it's so interesting to still see kids that like Halloween dress like Super Mario and Zelda fucking shit on a can of coffee. I mean, it's a little more prevalent in Japan than it is back in Canada but still pretty prevalent in Canada. This stuff's still all over the place and I don't know, it's just pretty cool. It's just cool that something from when I was a kid has been holding on all this time but not in the same way as just like bringing back the ninja turtles again or what they've warped to the Transformers into just all these things that are just like whatever. Zelda and Mario are extremely excellent still and it's like, wow, what the fuck? That's crazy. And it's not like something like Mickey Mouse. Like sure, Mickey Mouse I guess is still around but not really. You know, it's only around as a logo. They don't make Mickey Mouse movies or anything anymore. Nobody cares about that. What is the point of this rambling? No, there is no point just that just wow. Zelda and Mario have been around a long time, huh? Whoa, pretty cool. 10:00 But I'm glad the Zelda coffee is good because it's like it's not too acidic like black coffee is but it doesn't have the gross sugar crisp flavor of just piling a bunch of cheap sugar in it. It's just a very moderate coffee and I like that. So anyway, as for today's adventure, I've been rescued from yeah, from this need to go fucking climb every mountain that I possibly can near Ome. Oh man, here's this one really big power tower that I always walk by on the way back. It's like an excellent landmark when I first leave this station at night to get me back to this intersection. If I don't follow the big power line tower, I tend to get turned around but it sure looks different in the daytime. I mean it's still really big but at night it's like epic. It's like whoa big scary weird tower somewhat like the big weird towers in in Breath of the Wild. Looks a lot like that in the daytime though. I mean everything looks different in the daytime. I've said that many times I guess but again Zelda right the dark world the light world.

It is just so cool to see all the different ways not just in the countryside but even just city stuff. There's so many things that are just so easily applied to Japanese video game design. It's just based on the based on their country. I mean you know the grass is always greener but I really do think Japan is just fundamentally a lot more interesting than Canada. Geographically just the way things work here. The mountains and the the weather and even just the way it gets dark. Although I don't know how much of that is fundamental to the place. I've just been realizing lately how bad street lights are in Japan. They fucking suck but it really does give it this amazing scary darkness at night. So yeah much more free to roam now. No more plan. No more mountain climbing plans necessarily. Do another run on the Ome Hills. Maybe one more pass through the area between Ome and Akiruno but that's optional. We'll see. It's nice to just sort of relax. Okay whatever happens happens. You don't have to squeeze every little drop out of your remaining time in Japan. I've squosened many a drop already. You know I've already done way more on this trip than I ever did the first time. So let's just chill but that being said since I am in West Tokyo I can't just go walking. That's one big difference is when I was in the city center parts it's just easy to just go walking from Senganjaya or from the area by the Skytree. Just walk around because everything's in walking distance anyway and you can just walk through the city. Where I think walking around here wouldn't serve me much purpose near Hachioji because there's just nothing here. There's the big city center of Hachioji and then outside of that is all just suburbs. I think I could walk all day and kind of not get anywhere in a boring way. You know it just you kind of need the train around here. So even that being said I'm like what can I do here? I already went toward Mount Fuji as far as Lake Sagami and I thought that was pretty cool but I don't know how much further I want to go unless I'm really making a push to go to Fuji in that. Not really I don't think so not on this trip. There are some like parks and stuff around there that apparently have amazing views of my Fuji but they're still not exactly close. It still would take several hours to get there.

But then I thought what about lakes? I mean lakes in general that's a pretty good target but there's not really a ton of lakes around here. There's kind of a smallish one heading down toward the coast but then at that point I was like jeez you know if I just went another half an hour from there I could get to the coast and that was drawn me a bit but that's still a ways from here and I think that's best saved until my final Airbnb in Yokohama. I suspect getting to the coast is going to be mainly what I'm going to do when I'm down there. I don't know we'll see but I don't know what else there is to do down there but the coast. But hey if I just go to the coast every day I think I'll be a happy claim so we'll save that.

Then I thought maybe just instead of kind of forcing a goal at all, what if I just sort of take a more organic approach? So the big station near here is Hachioji. The station I met now that I'm just approaching is Kita Hachioji. So this is stop number two on the Hachio Line. The Hachio Line starts at Hachioji. And this is number two and it just goes way up north for like 15:00 70 kilometers or something or maybe it was 90. It just goes and goes and goes way up into Saitama and then pass Saitama into Gunma, which is where initial detakes place. So I thought why don't I just get on that train and probably not go the whole way? Because a lot of times if you get to the final station on a line, it's surprisingly happening. It's surprisingly bustling because that's where there's all the connections to other stuff. But I think that's not the case here. I looked at the final line on the station and it's very much to be just a tiny little station way up in the middle of nowhere. So I think what I'm going to do is I'm just going to get on this line because I always just take it to Hajima and from Hajima, just switch over to wherever I'm going, generally Ome or Akiruno. What if I just stay on this train? Since it's above ground, I can just look at the window. Just stare out the window and head up north and just if I see anything that looks interesting, I'll just get out. And if I see nothing that looks interesting, hey, whatever. I just got to look at the countryside, you know? The only time I've been up north at all is that I accidentally passed into Saitama that one time when I was searching for the reservoir, the man made Lake Sayama. So I've been to Saitama in name only because I walked 20 minutes into it or whatever. So yeah, even if I don't do much up there, I don't know. I mean, who knows? Maybe it'll be a fantastic wonderland, but maybe I'll just be staring at Saitama through the window. But that's the beauty of, yeah, being able to shed my, got to do stuff, got to go achieve stuff. It's like, yeah, how about not? How about just fucking do nothing? How about just soak it in? Because that's a usually nice part of being in Japan also that if anything, I've been kind of underserving on this trip, partially because I just want to soak it in after all the years of COVID. It's almost in a weird way. I just felt like I'd never get to come back to Japan. So I'm like, I gotta go do something. You know, I'm just, my brain won't let me sleep in. It's like, get up, go somewhere, go do something. And also just because I'm doing this podcast, it's like, well, I guess I should do something. You know, and it's fun to do stuff, but it's also fun to do nothing. So that's today's plan. Hop on this train and just see where it goes. But first I'm going to stop in the 7-Eleven and get something to eat.

All right, well, this whole podcast, I mean, the whole point is pointless adventures, just to go wander around and see what happens. But I get the feeling this is going to be truly a pointless adventure. I don't know about this one. I mean, it's worth a try, right? It's like, hey, go up north. Saitama, I've never been there. Let's just see what happens. You know, you gotta see what happens at least once or you won't know what happens. But I definitely have, I mean, I just have obvious sleep problems. It's just, man, I don't know, I just always stay up too late and I just can't sleep in bad combination. But it's not that bad when you're expending energy, you know, even if you're a bit tuckered to start walking and then it'll, you know, you don't notice. Or last episode, I mean, I was very fucking out of it yesterday. But you just start hiking up a giant fucking mountain and next thing, you know, you're hiking up a giant mountain and it's all good. Where today, I mean, that I was just noticing when I was ranting about Zelda, like, oh, my tired. I had to kind of think about it and I'm like, oh yeah, this morning when I was drifting around on Google Maps trying to figure out what I was going to do with myself today. I did have the distinct thought of like, man, you know what I really want to do. I'm looking at looking over at Mount Fuji, looking down at the coast to looking at all this stuff. It's like, what I would really want to do is just go back to sleep actually. That'd be great. But there's just no point in those thoughts. I'll just awkwardly close my eyes for another 20 minutes and nothing will really happen. And I'll just end up getting up anyway, so I was like, hey, whatever, fuck it. Just put it out of your mind. And then there's that nice moment when you first get up and I made a coffee with the little coffee machine in the Airbnb.

In the Airbnb had a little shower. It's like, oh, you just forget all about it. Forget being tired. It's irrelevant. And then if you go off and start doing physical activity shit, then it kind of is irrelevant.

Never seems to help me fall asleep earlier. I don't know what the fuck that's all about, but today's plan has involved an unusual amount of sitting. I try not to sit in general because I still have, it's definitely getting better, but I have this cyst that fills with fluid if I sit for too long. And at this point, I mean, I can sit for quite a while before it becomes a problem because I'm like, you know, it's definitely healing, but I don't think it will ever fully heal. 20:00 I think it is just a thing that I got that I can't just sit for hours and hours and hours. That's not in the cards anymore for my poor old man body.

A man I'm walking by these drink machines. I sure could go for a coffee, but I only have $100, you know, the equivalent of $100 bills. And they don't take soyca cards so far out here, and I haven't seen any convenience stores. Something will show up eventually, but things are definitely a little less convenient out here. I mean, it's fine. The reason I don't have any coins is because I put 500 yen of coins into the lock box yesterday to get marmalade, Yuzu marmalade. So certainly worth it. I actually ended up eating the entire jar at the train station. Man, what airport is that coming from? How's there a plane out here? I am nowhere near any airports that's unexpected. Hopefully that's not a thing. They ate the whole jar. After I ate all of my little strawberry biscuits that I had, then I still had some of the traditional Japanese sweets, and I just coated them in fucking marmalade. And then to get the last bit of marmalade out of the jar, I just put poured some coffee in there, shook it up, and had delicious Yuzu marmalade-rined coffee.

Because, you know, I just didn't want to. It would have made more sense to eat it slower, but I just didn't want to deal with carrying around an open jar of marmalade. So I just gorge the whole fucking thing. And it was very delicious, and I'm glad I bought it. So yeah, that's why I don't have any coins. That's fine. It was worth it. But anyway, you had the 7-Eleven by the station where I grabbed some food today. It has a little seating area. Usually I just stand outside of the 7-Elevens and watch people walk by. But I got to sit down today, and just sitting there. I'm like, oh, oh, no. God, I'm tired. It feels like it's like effort to sit here. I mean, I got like a delicious Onigiri and a little dessert thing, but I bought chips. I don't know why I keep trying chips. I just don't like chips in Japan. It felt like a job to eat the chips. But yeah, sitting there, I'm like, fuck, I am tired today. Oh, no. Then I went and got on the train. And for the first big batch of heading north, it is just suburbs. Just suburbs and houses and suburbs, suburbs, suburbs, houses. I'm on the nice train. It's all just the gentle clickity clack. The guy across from me was asleep, and I just was like, yeah, that looks pretty good. Let me just close my eyes. Whereas, like, literally right now while I'm walking, I just don't feel like that. I'm still the same tiredness level. If anything, I should be more tired. It's a little later in the day, but I don't feel it when I'm moving. But dude, just sitting. Sitting is death. Sitting is brutal. It just really makes me so aware of how tired I am. I don't like it. It feels bad. So anyway, I just kept going along on the train until eventually the suburbs gave way a bit to some fields and some mountains a little bit in the distance. And it's like, okay, I'm getting somewhere. But also getting nowhere. So let's just pull the plug on going north. I'm going nowhere for no reason. So this seems fine. Let's just see what I can find around here. And unfortunately, everything park looking, park-ish, seemed to be the dreaded golf courses, just golf courses everywhere.

So I finally stopped because I saw Moomin Valley Park, M-O-O-M-I-N Valley Park, all one word, Moomin Valley. Of course, it's next to Musashi-Gaoka Golf Course. But along with all this, there's a lake, Miyazawa Lake, M-I-Y-A-Z-A-W-A Lake. So fuck it, that's something. That's potentially a park that's not entirely a golf course. Some kind of lake. Another fucking golf course on the other side. What station did I get off at? It is Higashi-Hano, H-I-G-A-S-H-A-N-O.

So yeah, just not too deep into Saitama, actually. Not even close to Gunma. So yeah, I'm just going to try and get to this lake, see what happens. That seems like enough of an adventure. Again, just an excuse. Just an excuse to come to a new part of Tokyo, just to explore something or outside of Tokyo now. Does Saitama count? I'm never quite sure, like Saitama and Chiba. I don't think those are part of Tokyo, but they basically are. 25:00 And then I thought maybe I would try to just keep walking until I get to the next station. But the distances between stations are pretty fucking far at this point. So whatever, I'll try to get to the lake and we'll just go from there. Obviously today, I just don't have the energy level for a huge adventure, so this seems like a pretty appropriate level of adventure. Wee little adventure.

She's another airplane, yeah, that sucks. You don't even get to be near the airport and you still get blasted by airplanes all day? Bad deal. Bad deal, Saitama.

But yeah, now that I'm out walking around, it does just feel good. It's a relatively calm neighborhood here.

There is a lot of traffic, that was a little weird. We caught at a point just outside the station where there was just traffic coming from all directions, and sort of caught in a little intersection with no pedestrian crossing lines on the street and no stoplights for anybody, for any reason. And it took a really long time. I had to stand there for like fucking five minutes before enough of a break happen that I could cross the street without forcing my way in front of cars. That's a very unusual. I don't know that that's ever happened to me in Japan, but that's probably somewhat representative of the, you know, the level of, should you be on foot or should you be in a car? Very clearly in a car.

But whatever, you know, it's just again sort of nice to just have a day to do nothing. It's a beautiful day out. I'll probably never be here again, so let's so get in. And I found a Coca-Cola machine that takes soyca cards. It's just full of Georgia coffee, but hey, whatever dude. I guess the good thing about not having any preference about any of this particular coffee is that who cares? Just get it, just get a shitty coffee and enjoy it.

Look at what an expert I am now.

It was only that one time that one time that I tried to get bean soup out of a machine. And I think I just, I don't know, I think I just didn't hold my card in front of the machine long enough or something. I still don't know what happened that day. I've never had a problem ever since. I've always been able to use my fucking soyca card to buy shit.

All right, Moomin Valley. I'm a comment. I'm a comment. GZA, even this next, okay, good. There's a crossing light.

It's like, what is going on here? At least this one has a pedestrian crossing lines on the street, but there was still no light, but there is going the other way. East West, you're on your own. North South, there is actually a little crossing sign. Yeah, I mean, it's just that is very unusual in Japan and it's sure not comfortable forcing your way through the traffic.

Just give me a walk sign, bro. Tell me what to do so that I don't get struck by a vehicle and I will happily do it.

Man, once I settle into this plan a bit, I actually do really like this. You know, I just really like doing nothing. So there was a temple with a little cemetery. Oh, there's more Zelda coffee in this machine, but it's 130 yen instead of just 100. That one, near my place, that's 100 yen. That's a good deal.

The prices have definitely crept up since 2019. 100 yen used to be pretty common 100 yen machines. Now I almost feel bad when I see the 100 yen machines because I know that the profit margin must be so tiny, they're really taking it on the chin. Just to try to stick with that old school feeling of a nice 100 yen one coin machine, but it's clear that the prices just, you just can't pull that off anymore, really. But yeah, this feeling of really doing nothing now that I'm just letting it settle in on me. It's nice because it's quite a small cemetery. But I got a very long walk if I want to make it to the next station. I might not make it at all. Probably I'll just end up looping back to the previous station. So that's like a bit of motivation not to go too far for no reason, not to push too fast. Just to really take it slow. So I just strolled through, just strolled through the cemetery.

And that's one thing I've started to notice. I noticed it a couple episodes ago at the big cemetery in Akiruno is little toys that are left at some of the graves along with the more traditional drinks. And this one had that as well. It had one tombstone that had a couple of alcoholic drinks and a pretty large Pikachu toy. Because at first the toys and the little figures, they're kind of eerie in a way where it makes me think like, I hope it's not like a kid who's buried there. But I don't think so. I think it is just kind of continuing with the idea of just leaving random offerings because this one had the Pikachu figure and two alcoholic drinks.

So I highly doubt that it's a kid unless that kid knew how to party. But anyway, that was the cytagy temple. S-E-I-T-A-I-J-I temple. And I'm still on my way up to the lake. Pretty much continuous traffic, very few pedestrians. In fact, I guess none. I guess the only guy I saw was on a bicycle. So he's still basically driving.

Oh, and here's an unusual example of litter in Japan. But even this, it's a little bit organized. It's one of those bottles of sake from a convenience store. I don't know where that came from because I still haven't seen a convenience store.

And an empty can of Sapporo beer, but they're both stuck on the tops of sticks. They at least weren't just tossed on the ground. Somebody stuck them on a stick. So I'm starting to get the vibe and it's pretty much the same as almost any. Outskirts of a city getting a bit into a more rural feeling part. It's always the same. It's just one of those. A lot of cars, little bit of booze litter, booze-related littering, but kind of quiet and nice in its own way to come to one time. Nice place to visit once.

Someone finally walked by me and it was a super trendy girl. Didn't expect that. Wearing a cool bag had a cool jacket. It's like, huh, all right.

And man, the opposite of trendy being an old-ass man. Man, I haven't even drank that coffee yet that I bought because it's probably kind of cooled down now. But I just wedged it under my coat next to my chronically sore shoulder. And it just feels so good. It feels so good to have the nice warm coffee against the muscle. Although the other day I got a drink out of a machine that was so hot I couldn't press it against my skin. I had to put it above my t-shirt. But I mean, this is just a distinct bonus that I had never thought of until just recently using these drinks as a little heating pad. It's fucking delightful.

So it appears that Mumin or Mumin Valley, it's a cartoon or comic strip or something. It's characters I was not familiar with. I don't think I've ever seen them before. But it looks like it's some kind of a seam park for like families. A lot of families and kids and stuff had none in there. I don't know if you can just go in freely or if you did have to pay but I was only going to go in to look at the lake and just take off. And it just seemed like this is a kid's theme park. This is not for me. And it is a really long way until the next subway station. It's like nine kilometers. It's a very weirdly long amount of time because then once you get up there there's a whole bunch of different stations. But I was like, yeah, fuck it. I just kind of forgot that this is fun. Like it doesn't matter what the target is. Just going from point A to point B in Japan is just fun. It's just neat. Right now I'm at, I think it's another, I'm not quite sure. I mean, there is a cemetery here. And then just sort of a neighborhood with a bunch of houses kind of rolling up into the hills.

But there's a big public toilet, which I just stopped in and peed out some of my coffee. But I'm not quite sure why because besides the little cemetery doesn't really seem like an actual temple. There isn't really seem to be anything here, but there is a washroom. So hey, I'm not complaining. 35:00 But yeah, the only downside to this quarter-unquote adventure is I do think I'm going to have to just kind of walk along this fairly busy street pretty much the whole way. You can still hear the traffic from down here, but it's a little less loud down here. But this is just like this little oasis. I think this path through the middle of these, it's very shallow mountain, but that's probably also why there's no subway stations, no train stations is this mountains in the way. So I think I'm just going to be walking next to traffic, which is fine as long as I just got headphones in and I'm just doing my own thing catching up on some podcasts or whatever while I walk. But it'll be bad for podcasting, so I probably won't until I'll report when I get to the other end. But yeah, I mean, it is kind of just this is just the definition of going nowhere for no reason, just doing nothing today, but it's kind of cool, still fun. And it is kind of neat to just to see this stuff that you normally wouldn't see, especially as a tourist, because why would you, like just why God's name would you ever be here? I just came here totally randomly for no reason, and usually when I'm walking around, everybody just kind of ignores me. But I did walk by a guy as I was heading here who clearly just some local dude who lives here, a younger guy, just gave me a real hard look of just like, you know, what is this? Why are you here? So, you know, I can't say why, I don't know, I'm not here, I mean, I'm here for no reason.

This place here, by the way, it's called Miyazawa Gishi Hall, M-I-Y-A-Z-A-W-A-J-I-C-H-I, so I don't actually know what that is, but whatever that particular hall is, cheers for having a bathroom, I appreciate it. So yeah, I just got to keep walking up this road, it doesn't really appear that there's much going on on this road besides more road. But you never know, and I just keep thinking of that tunnel I walked through near Musashi-Itsukishi, that was 1.2 kilometers through the tunnel. That is like my perfect way to mentally determine how far a walk is, because it really wasn't that bad, and it's like, oh what, 9 of those? Yeah, that's quite a few, it'll probably eat up pretty much the daytime that I got, but that should all turn out pretty good.

And yeah, so far it's actually kind of nice, it's sort of like it out here. It's a bit loud, it's the shame about all the traffic, but hey, you can't just have no traffic all the time. And it seems like inside Tama, you especially can't, it's car culture.

But I put in my little headphones, listen to a little podcast or something, and that will all fade away.

I guess the test will be, surely there'll be a convenience store somewhere on this route. I don't really need one, I don't plan on buying anything, I got a blueberry cheesecake ice cream at the station when I first got here, I'm good. It's just weird that I haven't seen one yet, so that's my version of bird watching. See if I can find any convenience stores, this far out, on this particularly weird route, next to Moomin Valley.

Well, good news, I mean, first off, I'm definitely on a quieter street, that's good news. But I got past that first mountain, there's some more mountains around me, but that major mountain.

I spoke too soon, it is a quieter street, but it's not a quiet street.

Yeah, I saw a family mark, so I'm like, okay, so the convenience stores do exist around here, that's cool. And I pulled out my phone and I seemed to be weirdly close to the subway station. It's like, what's going on there? That doesn't seem like what I had previously charted. And it looks like whatever that nine kilometers was, I'm actually not sure where those directions speaking of trains.

I'm not sure where those directions started from, I guess, because it is a little weird, because with the pre-downloaded map, I've got to use car directions as the best I can get out of that. So I'm not quite sure actually where the start point it was setting me at was. But when I specifically hand chose a start point next to where I actually was, I'm way closer, I'm 1.6 kilometers. That's fucking nothing, that's one of those nightmare tunnels, roughly, rather than eight or nine. 40:00 And that's a good thing because I started noticing as I was walking. One of my hips is kind of sore, or like the lower hip, where it connects to my leg. But it's not one of the, like, dangerous zones, you know, I've got my bad knee and my bad shoulder, my toes that I always have to wear fucking spacers between. Because my big toes are hell bent on fucking developing bunions for some goddamn reason. Those are the parts where I, like, really got to be mindful, where whatever this is with my hip is nothing. It'll be fine tomorrow, it's not ever a place that's ever given me problems before. It's probably just that yesterday I climbed up a fucking mountain. I went 650 meters up into the sky, I got to suspect that's probably the culprit there.

And it doesn't really hurt, it just, I mean, hurts a little, it's just uncomfortable. Nine kilometers would have been a hell of a walk. So then to see, like, oh, jeez, fuck all that, I'm just confused about things, it's actually really close. So perfect, you know, this is still kind of cool, this is still kind of neat. Walking by some bonsai trees right now, some old school fucking buildings. It's still kind of a neat little walk, a really old, downright dilapidated fucking bridge I just went over. There's like yikes. There's so much constant reinforcement that they, they don't care about pedestrians around here. This is not the place to be walking around on foot. So still kind of like a fun adventure to nowhere, but I'm very glad to be able to cut it short. So whatever this hip thing is, you know, obviously I need to go rest it. I don't need to be walking for nine fucking kilometers to nowhere. So yeah, I'm going to get to that station, hop on the train, go the fuck home. But yeah, this was still kind of cool because I guess what I like about not, not anything to do with this specific route, but just this act in general is, you know, it's really cool how much footage there is of the world. You can just go on YouTube and find walking videos. And those things are really, really cool, you know? Like when I was stuck home during COVID, I watched them all the fucking time. Unlike a second monitor, I had a little Chromebook for a little while that eventually broke, but that's mostly what I used it for. I just set it up next to my proper computer and I just played walking videos on it all day. Or if it's a place I've been before, I can watch the video and be like, yeah, that is that place. But what's different about it is that because it's, you know, within the box of a computer screen of a camera lens, it's not the full view of when you're really at a place. And even just now, like, I turn around, look behind me, I can look over there, look over on this side. You know, you can just, the way you can soak a place in when you're really there is so awesome, you know?

Like if you can't make it to Japan and the walking videos are what you got, it's a great facsimile. I definitely don't want to downplay the walking videos on YouTube because they are extremely excellent, they're great. And I know not everybody can just come to Japan and dick around.

But if you are able to come to Japan and dick around or whatever country, like I definitely noticed this in 2019, when I first came here, is, you know, I picked up a fair amount of info about Japan just from manga and anime and video and YouTube and whatever, just all over. But it is like a series of disconnected images, like little tabloes, little dioramas. And it's just so cool to learn how it all flows together. You know, like how a neighborhood can just become a cemetery or how there can just be a weird little road off to the side that just has a temple at it. Or just the density of things or like the frequency of convenience stores. Like I'm still shocked that I found that one convenience store and I'm like, surely there'll be another one at the station. But that's been it on this whole run. This is so unusual.

Just the feeling of being able to move through a place at your own pace and just being able to ambiently absorb all the little things, even if you don't know what they are. Like what is this? Why is there a beeping?

Maybe I'm passing a garage? I don't even know, but there's always like more stuff than you could ever describe. It's just all of this information that's flooding into you. And I find Japan particularly interesting, but it's the same anywhere. It's just the same as going to Montreal or Amsterdam or even just a little town somewhere, just wherever. I mean, as I keep bringing up, I really think it's less about getting to any specific place 45:00 or seeing a specific thing. And for me, I definitely prefer just moving through a space, moving through an area, letting it flow around you. That's what I like the best. And I mean, this is really that kind of push all the way. There's pretty literally nothing here. I didn't do anything today. I just picked one station to walk to the next station. There's a Lawson's, speaking of, I bet the station's close because there's a Lawson's.

Yeah, there it is. Komagawa Station, K-O-M-A-G-A-W-A. I'm almost there. That was not nearly as far as I thought it was. It was longer than the average break between stations, but it was certainly no 9K. And through an underpass now. But yeah, that's, it's double good because I'm pretty distinctly limping at this.