#87 I can't get over how cool Yokohama is

Transcript

I was going to start the day with a little walk out of the apartment. I was like, hey, yeah, I'm here all alone. I got my place to myself again, the mystical place to yourself in Japan. I figured I could start in my silly little teeny room and walk down the hall and walk down the stairs and walk past. For some reason there's a really cool, it's like a little teeny museum exhibit in the entryway of this place. It's really awesome looking. It's just like the, uh, I went to in Chiba with all of the samurai stuff of the Chiba clan. It was one of those, but smaller, but it looks very similar. Like it has the, uh, it's a little samurai armor, so it's obviously not a real one. It's too small for anyone to use, but it's got the, uh, the brush mustache, and it's all lit, and it just looks really cool, and it's like, man, what the heck is this doing here? You're just a neat thing by the Gengkon, where you leave your shoes.

And then step out into the alleyway. But even though I am there by myself, it's not, uh, it's not as amazingly alone as I was at Naka Itabashi in 2019, because that one, nobody even showed up, where here a lady did come in and she was, you know, refilling shampoo and cleaning up and stuff. So it's like, ah, who's this in my house? Basically though, I'm there all by myself, which is just cool.

I'm not even sure what, still I don't know what, what is on the first floor. I kind of peered in, and I'm like, what even is this? And there's this weird place on the corner.

I meant to look it up, but maybe, hold on, let me just backtrack around the corner. If I can get Wi-Fi from outside, maybe I can use Google Maps.

To figure out what this place is, it's called extension specialty shop, section.exe, and it looks like, oh, it's nails, section extensions salon. I don't even need the internet. I figured it out. It looks like a pinball machine. It is a coolest looking building. What the fuck is this? As for the building, I'm in though. I don't know, uh, I don't know what the bottom floor is supposed to be. Whatever it is, it's not being used right now. Oh, I guess I do know. There's a sign right here. Kotomo no, cafe and space. But I don't know if it's currently open, because yeah, the other place I had to go to sign in was a cafe as well.

So clearly, these people, they run cafes with Airbnb is attached. So that's pretty cool. Yeah, so far so good, man. That place is really cool. And the, uh, the heater system is a little different. The other ones, 16 degrees was the lowest it could go. This one can go down to 14, because I like it to be on, you know, just so you don't get the chill of death. But then I want it to be as low as possible, because I'm a creepy Canadian and I like to sleep in the cold. So that's cool, but it is a little different where you got to press each button one time more than I expect. So it took me a sec to figure out how to turn the thing off today when I left. But last night, I also had not turned it on without realizing. So it just slowly got colder and colder and colder. And I was like, man, it's really getting fucking cold in here. And I realized I never turned the thing on. But generally, man, pretty fucking cozy.

And yeah, that place is really cheap. I don't remember exactly how much, 21, $22 a day, something really good location, really nice place.

Oh, am I going to go through a tunnel? All right, fuck it. Let's do it.

I got to get some coins, too. I am dying for... Oh, I guess I can just put in a 1,000 yen bill. I'm dying for a coffee, but I don't have enough coins in these. The vibrant here in Yokohama is a lot more, don't leave your trash here signs, a lot more no smoking signs than in central Tokyo. Definitely the vibe is a bit more rough and tumble, you know, of like a... A little more smoking, a little more booze cans laying around. Kind of like Chiba, actually, which makes sense because it's on the other side of the bay.

But yeah, I thought I tried to get to this park near here. There's like a great big way up in this sky park. But I can't get there from here. You really have to approach these things from the right angle, otherwise it's an impassable cliff. And maybe I'll wander over to that sweet view I saw yesterday of the Yokohama Bay Bridge from the Yokohama Bay Viewpoint Park, 5:00 whatever the hell it was called. It's basically a park called the Sweet View Park. And it's really close to here, so why don't I just swing by there and see what it's like in the daytime. But there's a tunnel in my way, and it's not that big. So fuck it, I'm gonna walk through the tunnel, but first some coffee. All I got is a Coca-Cola Georgia machine, but that'll do. One of these costs 140, one of them costs 160. I'm a big spender, fuck it.

Georgia coffee's kind of rough, so let's just possibly counter-intuitive. Let's buy the most expensive one, so it'll have the best chance of being good. Because that does kind of seem to be a thing. If you buy the super fancy version of whatever around here, you know, it's not actually fancy, it's still really cheap, but it usually is a bit better.

Man, yeah, what are you saying, too? Just about the rough entumbleness.

This machine has fallen apart, man. This thing is a mess. There's like a sticker on the front that's coming off. It's like filthy.

But yeah, I don't mind this kind of vibe. I kind of like it in some ways. I kind of like it. And also, I mean, the super fancy neighborhood with the fucking outdoor chandeliers and shit, like chandeliers. It's also right by here. So I mean, who can say I guess it's all just a big mix. This is an extreme mixture of stuff in this neighborhood. Every little place you go feels different.

But even the kind of rough rundown parts, I kind of like that a bit. I like that vibe a little.

If everything is fancy all the time, like Ginza or something, that sucks. Okay, let's not talk in the tunnel.

I passed through the tunnel and then up some stairs at the backside of the tunnel. And now I'm heading across the top of the tunnel. And there appears to be a park over here. So now I'm walking toward it and up the stairs into the park. There's a series of parks around here. I figured that's a good way to start. My Yokohama Exploring. It's a nice thing about just getting to a place. Like eventually I'll get on some trains and go farther around and stuff. But for now, I mean, it's brand new. Everywhere I go is cool and new. And this neighborhood is extremely hilly. I think that's one of the things I like so much about it is the other bay areas I've been at by the Skytree. And over in Chiba are quite flat. But here, man, the mountains, the little foothills just start immediately. Like the water is not far from here. And I'm just looking at like a cascade of buildings in front of me.

Like I can't see very far in the distance from where I am. I can see maybe, I don't know, 300 meters away. And I can see five distinct elevations of buildings. It's like one, two, three, four rows where buildings can be and five different elevations that they're on. It's like, what the fuck? But it's just so cool. I'll try to this old chestnut again. It's like a video game. It just feels like a weird video game level in Japan. It's fucking cool. This Georgia coffee is fucking shit, by the way. Speaking of elevated smoking levels around here, it fucking tastes like there are cigarette ashes in this fucking coffee. I'm coming around on boss a little. Maybe boss isn't that bad. I mean, boss makes the Zelda coffee if nothing else. They got some stuff in them. They try weird stuff. You know, like here's the weird coffee from Brazil or whatever. Where Georgia coffee that I believe is the Coca-Cola brand is just shit. It's fucking terrible. So this is it. Officially no more Georgia coffee. I don't care how desperate I am. I could have waited till I got through that tunnel and got to another drink machine. It's fucking terrible. Anyway, when I did get through the tunnel to another drink machine, I got this like almond thing that I found one time. Wait, I guess I got the can in my back pocket. Blue diamond almond breeze.

So yeah, that's a, it's gonna say North American brand. I don't know if it is, but it's a brand known to North America. But yeah, I only found this once before and it was really tasty. So I got one of those. Did some alchemy. So now this tastes like blue diamond almond tasty milk with cigarette ashes in it. Which is a lot more acceptable. It's a lot more subtle. It's not so bad. So yeah, I guess this particular park, Yamate Park. This must be what I was seeing from the other side. Because it's a pretty small park. I'm just passing through here on the way to the big view. And then I'll circle around to go to some kind of forest that's near here, forest park. 10:00 But yeah, this thing, it's fucking bananas. It's like so much elevation. I mean, I guess it's just, it's just how Japan is naturally, right? So they have no choice but to build based on how things are. Like you wouldn't develop a place to look like this because it's insane. I walked upstairs to get to the initial part and it's got a children's playground. Then there's a second level that I'm on right now, which goes up to a third and then a fourth level. And up there is the top where there's some houses. But the third level has like a little fountain and it stretches across to like another little weird little plateau type open area. And then in the distance, I don't know if that's at the end of the park. I don't know if it's steps or just a fence. But it's basically, it is just a park on the edge of a mountain. So it's split into four different levels. So not only is it like a video game, but it's like a video game from the 90s. It's like an old PC game when games first became 3D and they were just wire frame in the fuck out of shit and just making some weird crap. Or it's like a level that a fan made for quake or something. It would be an insane level of creativity except it's obviously just nature. It's just how things were. I just love the terrain in Japan. I love it so fucking much. Oh, by the way, speaking of me just in a public place, the amering to myself. I am the only one here. It's a little overcast today. But it's daytime so I can easily determine that there's no one else in this park. Yesterday, at the end of the last episode, where I was at the amazing view of the Okahama Bridge, and some people came to take a selfie. So I skidadled over to the next view. And then next to that, there's yet another view. There's views all along the park. But I finished my amering. It was only a few minutes of talking about how awesome the view was and how it was blown my mind. But I didn't realize until I was wrapping up the last few words of the last episode of this podcast, just where I was saying, you know, okay, see you next time. I glanced over and realized there was some guys sitting on a park bench in the dark. The only reason I even knew he was there is I could see the glowing ember, the butt of his cigarette. So some fucking dopey ass foreigner stumbles over. And I was talking like I'm talking now. Pretty loud. And I was just proclaiming into the air about the bridge, but he probably didn't know what the fuck I was talking about. I don't know. Maybe he just thought I was on the phone. That's probably the most likely explanation. Because otherwise, it'd be like, what is this guy doing? What the fuck? But it is kind of funny that the guy, he just was sitting there just having a smoke, just watching me being a little whirling dervish doing a podcast. Just watching, like, huh, all right, you do you, my man, whatever. But then that I only realized he was there right at the end just as I was finishing up the podcast. So I just no sold it. It's like, whatever, whatever. I'm all done. I just embarrassed myself. That's okay. Just some random Japanese guy. I'll never see him again. He doesn't. He never saw my face. He doesn't know.

Oh, wait, maybe this park's a little bigger than I thought.

God, damn, yeah, just as I walk along this ridge of this park, just looking out over this city. This is, like, it is so neat how every neighborhood in Japan is just a little different, but this one is quite significantly different. I've never seen this level of elevation changes with this density. Because I think Yokohama, it's like the second biggest city, right? It's the second biggest after Tokyo, and it's right next to Tokyo.

It's kind of just part of the big sprawl, but it's kind of like when you see those buildings that are kind of encroaching on the edge of a mountain in Fukuoka, say, this isn't that steep, but this is full city density. Like, now I'm looking out, I can see, like, I don't know, four or five kilometers now, and it's all just houses. There's not a single little millimeter I can see that's not a house, and they're all just at different elevation levels, not extremely different.

Well, I mean, I guess pretty extremely different. I wish I had an altimeter. I wish I knew how high up I was right now. Because I'm pretty high up on this park, but some of these buildings in the distance are higher up than me. And then all the way down to the ground, which really is low down here, because I also did see out by the bay, they do mention pretty frequently how close to sea level you are, 15:00 because I guess that's just a relevant thing when you're by the water. And it's like two and a half meters, three meters above sea level. It goes all the way down, and then just up. It's so hard to describe this stuff. What a stupid thing I'm doing. A podcast about Japan. What a dumb idea.

It looks fucking cool as shit though. You can take that to the fucking bank. Okay, so that more or less is the end of the park. There is just a tennis. Tennis up here. Nice. All right, I'm going to walk over to the bay view park.

This is like real life maze on Akoku where the housewives come to do tennis. Because yeah, I think there is only one guy in there and the rest are all women. Totally is like maze on Akoku. Coach Metaka. That's Smarmy Devil. Although it's always a little weird to try to relate anime to Japan because they really are not that similar. Besides like, oh, that's what a school looks like and there's the chime and you know, cherry blossoms I guess. Actual Japan does not actually feel very much like anime at all. Maybe that's why I got so into the Yashike shows, you know, they fucking non-non-biori and super-cub. They actually do feel like Japan. When you're in the countryside, it feels like non-non-biori. It's funny that I like the super-cub show because in real life, man motorcycles are fucking annoying. They are not that similar to Japan. They are not that similar to Japan.

They are so loud, it is crazy. I've had to stop and let motorcycles pass so many times in this podcast because I mean, I had a bad habit of trying to talk over traffic earlier on, but there is no talking over a motorcycle. I can't believe how loud they are. Just last night when I was looking at the insane panorama of the bridge and the overpass and just the density of stuff, even there. If a motorcycle went by, it cut through everything. Motorcycles are like the next closest thing to a low-flying airplane. They're fucking crazy. So yeah, I mean, I love that anime, but the unfortunate reality is if you're a motorcycle person, even like a small scooter, you're so fucking annoying. You are so annoying.

Alright, I made it to Motamachi Park, MOTO, M-A-C-H-I Park. I've not headed down into it yet because it's in some manner of pit. So on the way here, I got turned around, but that's not a surprise. In an empty fucking room, I would get lost somehow. I realized I was going almost certainly the wrong way because I came upon a set of stairs and then a second set of stairs. They both just were like, man, such long stairs. They just went down and down and down and down. And I was like, dude, and then you could just see infinite city and mountains in the distance. And I was just like, I can't go down there. I'm never getting back up here to this park. That's a whole different world down there. That is insane how far down those steps go. But then I think maybe they know how difficult it is to navigate around here because I came upon a map. A nice detailed map that said, okay, no, I'm definitely going the wrong way. And then on the way here, there was another map and there's a map here at the top of this park. And there's an old guy checking the map. And I noticed somebody checking a map outside of the station when I first got here yesterday too. I always kind of, I don't know, in some ways I like it a bit to see locals checking maps. It's like, it's not just me who doesn't know what the fuck's going on. Things are complicated. But this area is really complicated because even now that I'm at this park, it's another steps down. I'm heading down the steps now. Down into this park. This park is like in a pit.

And I did see on the map, there's a coffee shop around here called Under Bluffs Coffee. And it's like, oh, I guess that's what these are, right? This is what happens near water are the bluffs. The only bluffs I'm really aware of are the Scarborough Bluffs in Toronto or Scarborough. But those are more cliffs, which I guess these kind of are too. This isn't so different. I mean, obviously the Scarborough Bluffs are steeper. They legitimately are cliffs. You could not make stairs and stuff in those bluffs. But I guess that is what this terrain is. It's not that steep, but it's pretty fucking steep and they just, they just would not yield around here. There's too much population density in Japan. Especially right here near Tokyo by Tokyo Bay. So they're just like, fuck it. We're building, dude. We're building all of this.

Now I'm walking past archery and it's a little eerie. There's an archery field down below me. But it really looks like this guy's pointing his bow at me. Okay, now I'm moving away. I'm not. Just imagine if for whatever reason. And then he just loosed his bow, but I can't see the targets. I guess he was kind of pointing at me because you got a, you know, they're doing this and they're dressed traditionally and they're doing everything very deliberately. So he is slowly pointing his bow in the proper direction. If I suddenly got an arrow through the head right there, I got to say if I had to go, that would be memorable at least. But yet another example of how just so much wild stuff happens in Japan. I didn't expect there to be archery down here. It looks like there's a pool. Like it could be anything. It's like it's like a random event generator. It's like you just roll a dice and a thing appears and not like a small dice, like a hundred-sided dice and see what you get. I've never seen archery before in Japan. If I had to guess like again, you could have given me a hundred guesses. What's down here? Archery would not be one of my guesses.

But just cool, cool as fuck. It's so cool. Just walking around and letting stuff occur around you is so fucking cool.

Nobody in the pool, but too cold this time of year. Still full though.

Man, yeah, I feel like it's just so... I feel like my descriptions fail me so often with this podcast because I don't know what to say besides there's archery down here, like traditional archery. That is just the neatest fucking thing ever. But how do I describe... How do I get that across? I just don't even know how. There's so much stuff happens in Japan that is so neat all the time that all I can say is like, oh, look at that. Well, there's that amazing thing happening.

This probably ties in too to how I don't really go out of my way to do too much stuff around here.

You know, I went to the museum in Chiba, but that's about the only one. I saw the one robot by the mall, but I don't know if I'll make it to the other robot. Maybe I'll walk by though in the daytime just to try to get an idea of what's going on over there. Because it just, it sort of doesn't matter. It's like, do you really need to go to a museum when cool stuff is happening all around you? I just saw some traditional archers just as I was walking by. What the fuck? And yeah, maybe I didn't see this one particular robot. I saw the other one because there's just like multiple robots and even beyond even anything like that. I really did not expect this neighborhood to be like this because like I was saying, all the other bay areas I was at were not like this. But this density is like nothing I've ever seen, even here in Japan. Now I'm at another point where I can't see as far into the distance. I can't see the mountains and stuff. I can just see skyscrapers about a kilometer ahead of me. Maybe a little less than that, 800 meters, whatever. Like I could tell distances. So they're covering the skyline and then all the way from there to here. Let's see, I can still count. So if those are, if the skyscrapers are just the end of, they're like the wall. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, approximately ten rows of houses. I mean, it's all a jumble and they're all different shapes and they're all different sizes. And they're all just like, they've all just tumbled there and then nestled in amongst them is an overpass. And it just looks so fucking cool. What the fuck? I love this neighborhood. This shit is fucking cool as hell. If you're into the visual side of Japan, which I very much am. I just, I love the elevations. I love the ups and downs. I love the non-flatness. It just sparks my brain. This place is insane for that. It's fucking insane. There's definitely no other neighborhood I've been to in Japan that is this.

I mean, I don't even know what the heck. How do you describe this? Oh geez, and even now, like I'm getting to the bottom of these steps, at the bottom of this park, to the quote-unquote grounds level. And there's another alleyway that goes down even farther and disappears into a little alley. 25:00 And in that alley, there's just like a house for someone's hanging up their clothes. There's a little, one of those tiny little vans that's hidden around the corner. I'm gonna go walk down there and see if I can snake my way through the alleyway. I don't know where I am now. Of course, I got turned around again. I think I'm gonna try to either head to that bluff park or maybe over to the Gundam robot. But I don't quite know where to go. Thank God for Google Maps. Holy fucking fuck.

Motomachi Park. Yeah, there's the little sign. Fuck me, man. It's so cool. Yeah, this is just weird as heck. How is this even possible? I'm on the main street and it goes down to an intersection and that street. It's like a tea intersection, so it goes left and right. How is it possible that even a little further right from there? How am I heading down further into an alleyway? How does this work? Like, the streets must connect up behind these buildings that I can't see. I just, I don't even know. It's so fucking cool. Man, if you dropped a bouncy ball at the highest point of Yokohama and just let it bounce down some steps, it would keep bouncing for like fucking three hours. I would just keep going down and down and down and down.

On in this alleyway, there's a little shop. I wonder if I can determine what they sell.

Oh, I think this might be a relaxation salon.

60, 90, 120. Is this like, I mean, yeah, because like the images look like a little hotel type thing, but it appears to be laying out prices based on time, which is traditionally a love hotel thing. But this is not at all a love hotel looking place. It's just a nice little quaint house with a nice flowers outside and little flower pots. But maybe that's what it is. Maybe it's a sneaky love hotel. Maybe it's like a bed and breakfast, but why would you rent a bed and breakfast place for like 90 minutes? Weird, man. What is the nature of the relaxation? I mean, I just naturally presume it's something saucy adjacent, but I don't know, with the fuck nose. Yeah, and then this little alley, I guess, is just that that tea junction that I saw just immediately goes straight to fuck down. So these things connect, and now someone's walking by me with an artery get up. And man, these traditional bows, they're enormous. Like imagine like a little Robin Hood bow, and then imagine it being three times bigger.

And then just walking down the street with it, because this is the coolest place in the fucking world.

Oh, and there's the fancy outdoor chandelier daily. I've noticed at least two of these, so I'm not sure how many there are. Maybe this is one of the ones I saw, or maybe just every entrance to the fancy neighborhood has one. Oh, and there's someone taking like a fashion photography picture of some lady with really cool sunglasses. And Burger Joe's hamburger and cheesecake. It makes sense, I guess, to that I'm right by still the fancy neighborhood, because it feels like I just went on the twistiest adventure of all time. But I guess because of the very twistiness of it, I probably didn't go very far at all. Oh, there's another archer. God damn, I'm just like my fucking brain, holy fuck, it's too much. It's too much to absorb. I cannot believe how great Yokohama it is. It is so much better than I thought it was going to be holy crap.

Oh, actually, I must be near Chinatown, so let's go do that. Let's go walk through Chinatown.

Who might be windy down by the bay, down on a pier, having two different hoods, wearing my little winter hat and two different hoods, and I still kind of wish I could cover my face more. But I think having two hoods is not crazy. Having no hoods is super crazy. Some of these people don't have any, and it's like, guys, it's real windy. You should have it. This guy in front of me has got a hood and he doesn't even have it up on a maniac.

Anyway, you can wander over to the Gundam. It appears, the Gundam factory. So it's like 30:00 there's like a cafe in there, I guess. You can sit at the cafe and gaze outside at the big robot, and then you can spend 15 bucks to go up on the platform and see the robot. I don't know. I mean, I just checked a couple of quick reviews yesterday, and they were like, ah, it's way better than that one in Odaiba. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, they also said it was better at night, and I did see the other one at night. I think it'll be YouTube to the rescue for this one, because I ain't paying the $50 to go in and see it closer, because you can get pretty close from here. It's just that this thing, it's not free standing. It is bigger, but there's scaffolding all around it. And I don't know, apparently it moves. Sometimes, I don't know. Again, yeah, I'll just watch it on YouTube. It'll be fine. But from here, just looking at it, just with all the scaffolding, I don't know, man. It's like, like, I know I'm the generation that we'd ever grew up. You know, they're still making all the movies and stuff of all the stuff that we liked in the 80s and we were kids. I know it's, you know, we're still going to superhero movies all the time, and I read comic books, and I watch people play Magic the Gathering on YouTube. I'm not saying I'm not an arrested development man, child. I definitely am. But when you see a big giant robot, I don't know, man, it really just brings that into Sharper Leaf of like, it's a big robot. It's like, that's fucking dumb, man. Like, who the fuck is this shit about a big robot? It's so stupid. That's the feeling that I get. Like, who the fuck built that? You know, like, just because you had, like, cool little, like, robot action figures in your kid and maybe as a teenager, you graduated to making model kits. And now, look at this. There's a life-size one. There's a great big one. It's like, fucking, whoa, it's like, fuck off. That's fucking, that's lame, dude. That's not cool. Again, I mean, pot column, the kettle black, but I feel like giant robots. I'm afraid that that bypasses my nostalgia circuits and just goes straight to, like, grow the fuck up.

What is this shit? Anyway. Also, when the continuing travails of me never quite realizing when I'm, when I'm hungry and tired, which makes me grumpy, it'll be stuff like this. Why am I taking shots at the giant robot? There's no need for that. It doesn't even make sense. It's extremely hypocritical. And what do I care if they make a giant robot? I mean, I'd rather there be a giant robot than there not be a giant robot. What's really going on here is that I have not eaten yet today. Somehow, in that twisty walk up through all those parks, I managed to find the only route that has ever existed in Japan where you can walk for that long and not find a single, convenient store. Yeah, it's like, 120 in the afternoon. And all I've had is a gross coffee. I gotta get some food. That's all that's going on here. I apologize, Gundam statue. You didn't do anything wrong. You're all right.

I just need to put food in my belly well. That's all that's happening right now. Man, though in this park by the Gundam statue, there's some lady doing hula hoop stuff. And someone's filming her with like a cool fancy pants camera. Who knows what they're doing, like YouTube video or something maybe? But even this, which is, you know, fitness thirst trap type thing, I presume. There's still so much more, just the way this lady's dressed, it's still like exercise clothes. It's fairly form fitting, but it still just feels like normal clothes, you know, like she's still dressed like pretty normally. It's not like, hey, I'm functionally nude, which is absolutely how it would be in North America, which again, hey, whatever, I'm not here to judge, or at least I shouldn't be. If I was a slightly more mature person, it's just interesting to notice. They're just really not into that painted on clothing, super hero outfit, functionally nude look that is all the rage elsewhere. All right, I'm up at the

bay observation fucking park now in the daytime. Still pretty good. I mean, definitely night time is where it like shocks you. It's just like the layers and the levels of what you're seeing. We're in the daytime. It's, I mean, it's just easier to tell what's happening, which is makes it less magical. It's like, oh yeah, there's a, there's a bunch of apartment buildings, there's the overpass, there's all the cars on the overpass and the trucks and stuff. And there's a bridge with cars on it. It's better at night, but it's still, it's not bad in the day. 35:00 It's still pretty cool. And I did grab something to eat to fill my little belly, get my cranks away. And I got a Zelda coffee. This time it had the, the little bird guy who won't listen to his elders and his little fucking dickhead, comfortably the worst character in tears of the kingdom. So that's the one I'm a coffee that I got today. But one thing I did not notice at all at night, maybe it wasn't lit up or whatever, but what's very extremely evident in the day is the robot, the big robot. You have a perfect view of it from here. You can see it's still like standing in its scaffolding, but if you go see it on the ground without paying to get straight up next to it, you're seeing it through the scaffolding.

You can just see it directly. And I don't know, at first when I first saw it, I'm like, oh, cool. But that was just my little initial impression. I'm afraid even now that I got food in my belly, I can't just blame being, being cranky because I'm hungry. I just don't think the robot's cool. I think it looks very silly. It's like, like here's this big, like the majesty of this is that it's functional. It's all like apartment buildings people live in and an overpass with trucks going by. The lifeblood of a country like Japan where they're just trucking everything back and forth. The giant bridge, a marvel of human engineering, just insane. In the distance, more and more, endless city. It's just beautiful. It's fucking amazing. And then you see this fucking robot from this distance. Doesn't even look big anymore. It looks like a normal toy. It just looks like there's a toy standing there. And I don't know, man, I just don't think it's cool. It would have to be so much bigger. I mean, if this thing was like 10 times bigger, then maybe. But yeah, it just feels like somebody took the concept of making a toy and just took it way too far. It's like this could, this could stay as a toy. This could just be something you buy in one of the millions of aisles of Don Kiyote. That'd be fine. Don't. A robot is fucking dumb, man. Like I even think it just kind of fucks up the view. It's just scanning across and marveling and then there's a goddamn robot standing there. It's fucking stupid. Fuck that robot. Fuck waterfalls and fucking robots. It's fucking dumb.

Man, one weird little thing I noticed in one of the washrooms near here. There was a sign that said not to sit on the counter of the washroom because it is impolite in Japan to do so. And that is a truly weird sign because who the fuck sits on the counter next to the sinks in a public washroom. I've never seen that in my life. So it makes me wonder like, did that happen so often here that they felt they needed to make a sign? And I just can't imagine it because no one does that. I've never heard of that. I've never seen it ever. I gotta assume probably, maybe it was like one drunk foreigner, one time who sat on the counter and the management was immediately like, all right, that's enough of that. No more that. Put up some signs. Fuck that. Because there's no fucking way that happens often enough for that to be a problem. Nobody does that. Who sits on the counter in a public washroom or any washroom ever? Oh, look at this. Now that I'm here in the daytime and I can see things, there's a bunch of neat stuff up in this park. Well, like one thing is the the garden bear apparently placed here in 2017, who's like a little bear statue who has a hat or possibly a bouffant haircut made out of flowers. You know, not the coolest thing in the world, but at least it's tiny. It's not some ostentatious 50 foot tall thing that's a blot on the fucking horizon. Gundam, but here's another sign for the city of from Up On Poppy Hill, Yokohama, 2011 Studio Ghibli movie apparently. Or is it Ghibli? It's Ghibli, right? I don't know. Yokohama set in 1963 is the stage of the Studio Ghibli film from Up On Poppy Hill, which was released in 2011. The film shows the Yokohama Harbor, Yamashita Park, Yokohama Marine Tower and many other sites highly regarded by the Yokohama citizens from that time till the present. Yokohama is a city which treasures its good old times. Cool. I'm going to have to watch that because that's why I don't know how to pronounce Studio Ghibli's because it's one of those things 40:00 I haven't seen. I've only seen a handful of their movies, but it's one of those weird cases like I was talking about when I talked about your name. Super duper famous. Everyone considers them the Karem de la Krem of Japanese animation when I just have then none of them ever hit me. I'm just like I guess that was all right. I don't really see what the big deal is, you know, nicely animated in all, but I've never been touched in my little soul by a Studio Ghibli film. But I never even heard of this one. And if it just has shit that I've seen in real life in it, that's going to go a long way. I'm going to watch that fucking movie. Maybe that's the one. Maybe this is my my fucking entry point. Maybe this is where I finally start to understand the fucking majesty of Studio Ghibli. Why is it Studio Ghibli by the way? Because isn't it always a hard G in Japanese? Isn't that why Evangelion? Because clearly Evangelion is referencing angels, but it's a hard G. Why the fuck doesn't Studio Ghibli have a hard G? Why are you being difficult? I don't know. There's probably tons of examples. I don't know what the fuck I'm talking about. Anyway, yeah, night time, if you had to pick one or the other, night time is the right time, but this daytime view is still really good. This is very much a premium, primo spot to come. This park is fucking really good. Here's a sundial. There's all kinds of weird shit in this park.

That, of course, was not useful last night, nor is it useful today in this overcast day.

Longitude, latitude, various stuff, and there's a fountain in a little like enclosed grove.

This place is fucking great, man. The only thing that I make this park better is if there was a big fucking robot in the middle of it. That'd be pretty cool. Yeah, this is fucking beautiful, and I mean it's January right now. In the springtime, this must be insane. It's like a little like flower garden. The four corridors of fragrance. I guess you can go down these different corridors of flowers and smell their fragrance. And yeah, tons of benches here. Jesus Christ, Yo-Kanham is cool.

Man, there is so much cool stuff in this park. There's a fountain here, and I pass to get here, a smaller little fountain that then funnels down, and there's just like little, little stream paths that go pretty much all the way down. You can just follow the water. Is it, it goes down the fucking side of the park? It's just a really cool place. Even in this January day, I mean, there's still, I guess it's been a warm winter, but there's a surprising amount of flowers and stuff still here. In the summertime, this place must be fucking crazy. Speaking of though, it really is quite windy, and the overcastness is making it very cold today, and I'm looking at the map, and it's kind of cool because I'm sort of on this little nub, Naka Ward, I think this is called, where I can't really go too far because there's just bay all around here. But then there's a park over here, and a park over here, and a park over here, and a park over here, and it's a deceptive number of things like to make the rounds and continue to see everything that's in this neighborhood, even just from a park perspective. It's just a lot. I think I'm going to start moseying more, or less back toward the Airbnb, and save it for tomorrow. Because yeah, this whole thing, where I was like, wow, why did I book two weeks in Yokohama? Surely that's too much, but now that I'm in Yokohama, I'm very glad I did that. I'm glad I got a lot of time to soak this in, because once I soak in the local stuff, then it's still hop on a train, see where I can get from here, because there's a train station like right next to my Airbnb. I can't believe how good the location of that Airbnb is. It's insane. It turns out, because the first time I came up to this park, I came from the front side, the really steep side, which is quite tricky. But if you enter from the back, it's actually not a problem. You can just kind of mosey your way in. And if I mosey my way out that way, and mosey on down the hill, I'll be at Fancy Pads Town across from Chinatown and just not far from home. So I mean, I don't think I'm going to go straight home. I'm going to meander a little, mosey a little. But I got more than enough left in this neighborhood, even just hitting the highlights, like one of the other parks. What was it called? I don't know, I lost track of it. 45:00 I'm not sure where it is on the map, but it was another lookout point type of name. So I mean, sign me up, anything where I can see a view. I mean, who knows what I'll see from there? There's water all around here. Maybe it's a whole different view, looking the other way. Anyway, plenty of Yokohama stuff left to see, even just in my immediate neighborhood. Hopefully the sun will come out tomorrow, and it'll be a little warmer, but hey, even if it doesn't, I mean, I've been very spoiled this trip. If I finally, in my last couple of weeks, finally, have to contend with some chilly weather. I certainly can't say I don't deserve it. It's about time really, that it starts to get a little wintry. I've been insanely spoiled. Damn, even now I'm across the street from that park, from Yamashita Park, and even from across the street, it's just this one building in front of me. I think it's like a cafe or something, they have a sign for ice cream, and there's a little gate in front of it that's covered in flowers, and these beautiful, curated trees behind that, and then there's that fucking, the fountain from before, just insane. Everything around here is so fucking nice and so cool.