#88 Exploring Naka Ward, Yokohama

Transcript

Alright, I'm in the little Gengcon, time to step outside into the world.

Ah, man, that's a nice day out. I do have windows in my room, but they're kind of, they're like glazed or whatever you call it. You can't really see through them. You can just see that it's daytime. Yeah, this is a lot less cloudy than yesterday. Still windy, even in this little alleyway where I'm just surrounded by buildings on all sides. Definitely Yokohama is a windy place. Wanda. I guess I have no particular feelings about Wanda one way or the other. So that'll do for a morning coffee. Steamed milk and coffee, I mean, it sounds good.

A gentle siren in the distance. If you're going to have a siren, which you are in Japan.

In the deep distance, it's kind of like a bird chirping or something. It's just appropriate.

It's appropriate to the setting.

Hmm, too sweet. Way too sweet, Wanda. Way too sweet. But I guess that sugar does put a little pep in your step. Man, there is a lot more salons around here than I realized. This neighborhood is full of them. Hair salons, nail salons, all-purpose beauty salons. So last episode, I tried to make my way up to the bluffs right behind my Airbnb and now that it's daytime. It's like, oh yeah, there's the little shrine that I was by. So that means there's a hidden stairway around to your somewhere because I saw some guys sitting at the bottom of the stairway smoking. So is it in this little driveway, this little alleyway? Oh yeah, look at that. Secret shortcut.

Man. So it turns out the specific thing, bluffs number 18, that I was trying to get to. There's a gate that's locked at night. So I basically was there. But these numbered bluffs, I don't quite know what it's all about. Used and vintage clothing. The store is called re-stairs, like stairs with RE in front of it. I don't quite know what they're getting at there. A lot of times in Japan, they've got these words that are like kind of kind of neat and just like almost a clever word combination. It's just that it doesn't quite make sense. But re-stairs, I don't quite know what they're getting at with that. I just saw myself in the reflection of the window. I do have my little winter hat on because it was so cold yesterday. But I certainly don't need that today. However, take this off. Do have my little flat cap in my pocket. There we go. Transform, transform the outfit. But yeah, I'm not quite sure what the whole deal is, but the bluffs 18. Apparently it's a series of western style houses. That seems to be a bit of a thing around here. There's a bunch of historical western style houses. And eventually I look this all up. I mean, I guess vaguely speaking. I know there's a lot of ports and stuff around here. When the US set up shop, after World War II, I mean, it was around here. Maybe that's all there is to it. Maybe that's where these western style houses came from. I don't know. But anyway, apparently this one, it's like a bit of a historical site. This one in particular. No one knows who built it. No one knows what the lineage of it is. But I will swing by just to take a gander at the view.

It's a good way to start the day. Because my plan now is to head to the east part of Naka Ward.

And just go to some other parks and some other views and see what's over there.

Fill in some blanks on the map. Yes, it's kind of neat too because this avoids the tunnel I went through last episode. This just goes up and over.

Yeah, I had a really nice little walk around last night. Just walking around at night through these random neighborhoods. And the thought that I had was because I'm up on these bluffs, which yeah, I'm up on now. It takes a little idea. It's pretty much straight up.

Is I was just wandering around randomly through all these weird twisty streets. 5:00 And I went down some steps like quite a ways down. Enough that I figured I was back on ground floor, you know, back at approximately sea level. And then I saw through a gap between some houses that it goes even farther down. Like I wasn't at the bottom yet. And I had to walk down this little narrow alley between houses and twist my way around. And it's just so cool and so layered and so narrow and so packed in and so confusing. What this made me think of is that the Kaolun wild city is like this pretty famous no longer existing area where it was like this little tiny area the size of like a I don't know a couple football fields or something that was owned by Hong Kong in the middle of China. So politically you had to stay in that area if you didn't have proper citizenship to China. So just a bunch of people all were packed into this one mega complex. And the reality of it seemed miserable because it was all piled in on top of each other and just insane density of people. Bad ventilation. Not a healthy place. A lot of illegal stuff went on in there. You could sell drugs and do whatever because it was just this weird lawless place. But the cool thing about it, what made it so fascinating, what little documentation there is of it is the way it all was like an ant hill. It's like you can go down this hallway up these stairs around through here, up to the roof like all through. And it was just so complex and so like it just naturally forming in a way. You know nobody really intended for any one to ever live in those conditions but once they were there they made it work in a weird way and it was just so layered and so dense and so confusing. And that's the thought I had last night. Especially at night I feel like when it feels like there's a roof over your head because even now I met that same view that I saw yesterday where I can see the tower and see out to the bridge. Doesn't look the same in the day. It's all just less, less amazing, less striking, you know, a little still good but but at night it does feel like you're just enclosed in this place.

And that's what it made me think of.

And there's a helicopter going by. That ruins the illusion of being enclosed.

But that's what this neighborhood in specific made me think of. These bluffs by bluff number 18 because it's so steep and so packed and so layered. It's like man this is like the Cowloon Walled City or the way people describe it. I never went there. Except you know bigger and wider and more open but but that makes it way better. This is the open air not insane. The reasonable version of the Cowloon Walled City but it's that same feeling. Like that thing that I think is so fascinating about Cowloon is what this is like.

And some guys doing some kind of work with a buzzer or something down there. It's such a quiet neighborhood that man that guy cuts through the fucking air like a demon.

So I'm by this house. The gates open. I've seen several people go in and out. I'm gonna turn off this recorder while buzz saw man buzzes away. I'm gonna go check this out.

All right I'm at through the gates of bluffs number 18. And I wouldn't say the view from up here is amazing. It's all right though. I mean you get the big crazy expressway and a subway that cuts through here which is just kind of cool for pure density of city. It's got that but I mean you can see that from literally everywhere around here. Not bad but probably better at night and at night you can't get in here but you can see from near here. You know the view I saw yesterday was about the same. But then on these grounds there's a few of these big old western style houses and there's there's like a a little hedge maze rose garden. Not not amazing. I mean it's so high you can see over it but there's a little flower garden and there's fountains and it's just charming as crap. And there's a bunch of people here doing painting. A whole group of people all sitting around painting different stuff in the area. And just as I was thinking like man this is just charming as shit. This is just delightful. And I mean why wouldn't it be? Everything in Japan you do just wander around and everything's the best.

And then I saw oh that's the miniature houses. I forgot that I saw that on the map when I was looking stuff up last night. There's a little a little setting of tiny little houses. So I'm like God's 10:00 illicitized walking by the houses. It's like recreations of these these western style houses. Just there's just so many ones. I mean the real ones are right here. I'm looking right at them. But why not some little ones too? Here's some little miniatures. Just fucking so cool.

Man I see a domed house from here too. Not on these grounds but across. I wonder what the heck that is. It's like a blue dome. I was gonna kind of go the other way.

But I got all day. I wonder if I could make it to the dome from here. I doubt it. I probably can't navigate. I mean I'm looking. Okay there's the stairs that came up.

There's an alleyway. I sneak down to the rear over across the street. Oh okay I was gonna say the street disappears but I can see a car go by so there's where that street is. I just don't like my chances of getting over there. But maybe I'll try. Just with the fuck of it just to see if I can spoil a roller. I cannot. There's no fucking way. I mean it's only it's not that far from here but there's no way I'm gonna do that without getting lost but I'm gonna try. Not the getting there will explain it all why there's a blue domed house but yeah this is also just just that this is just here and you can just wander in and wander around. I was watching Amy from cakes with faces. I like the cakes with faces channel a lot. It's this lady from England who when she takes trips to Japan she makes videos about it and it's like a combination of just sort of travel vlog type stuff but also very informative stuff you know she really does lay down the nuts and bolts of here's specifically how shinkansen works. Here's how this works. Here's how that works. Here's how you get tickets for this. She wrote a whole book actually about Japan but it was interesting because last night she just posted a video about stuff that has changed recently and you know new things that are happening attractions yadayada and when she's going through the process I guess I was thinking of this too because of the Gundam yesterday with like turns out it's a lot more expensive than I thought. I thought it was like 15 bucks it's like $30 to see the super fucking Gundam and she's going through the just different stuff. Oh here's the the jibbly this and the Disney that and the team labs this and here's all the stuff and I was just like thinking like man what a different type of vacation that would be like to have to because yet to buy tickets to a lot of these things early. I'm just imagining like you come to Japan for a much briefer time that I've been here and you pre-buy a bunch of tickets for a bunch of these events and that's all you do is you go see the attractions and then you leave that just seems so weird because you just don't need to do that you literally just walk around the whole fucking place is an attraction the whole place is a theme park the whole place is amazing like this is just where I am right now there's gardens there's miniature houses there's big cool ancient houses there's views all around there's just like this is just a place I walked by you know this is something I just saw in a map because it said bluff 18 I didn't expect all this I thought it was just like maybe a specifically high hill with a specifically good view you know I mean if you're the biggest studio jibbly fan in the world or you're just like the craziest Disney head they can get your shit together but you know maybe do one of these things you know get your tickets for the the one thing that you really care about but you just don't need to do that stuff like especially if you have limited time and you're only going to be in Japan once you know you could make the argument that that's the best reason to make sure you do this stuff and get the tickets and see the things but I think it's the opposite I think that this is the best thing you can do is not do that shit just walk around man just walk around anyway this is treading dangerously close to negativity and there's no point in that that's not what I want to yeah we're about today it's a personality flaw of mine I shouldn't try to convince you that wandering around randomly is the best coolest thing by shit not everything else I don't need to do that but I did unfortunately so I'll just stop all right I'm gonna go try to get to that fucking blue domed house you know it's so close surely surely I mean I know this is gonna be twisty and weird but surely I can manage this damn though oh because I'm from here I can see like the route I took to get up here basically going back to square one oh man this is just what are the chances what are the chances this is gonna work anyway apparently you can go in these houses and go in a walk around and there's a whole 15:00 extra layer of stuff but I'm a fucking weirdo so I'm not gonna do that I'm gonna go make my own fun of finding the fucking domed blue house Jesus, I thought I was partially joking about how fast and utterly I would fail that, but I really did. I really did. I don't know. I guess I didn't realize. I don't know. I'm going to try that again in the future. Maybe every day I'll try. Looking at it from above, I just didn't even really clue in what I was looking at where the streets around Miami and B, but of course they were. I'm right there. They just don't look the same. They look different.

So once I got down on the ground, it's like not only does this not look like it looked from up on the bluff, it looks familiar because I've been here. It's like messing me up double because it's like I'm not just going through new streets. It's like I've been on all these streets, but I didn't key in that that's what I was looking at. And then you know I got a little turned around, pointed in the wrong way. I suppose if I really need to, it might come to this and I have to pull out my phone and set a marker on Google Maps and just follow the dot because I'm sure I started going the wrong way. And then you just get swept away. You just get swept away into, you know, I'm walking down some alley and up a little staircase and around something. And it's like, well, okay, now I'm too far away. And I might be going in the wrong direction anyway. There's no point in trying to get back to a place that I don't know where I'm trying to get back to anyway. I'm just going to keep going whatever swept away.

Which, hey, that's fine. But it really happened. I just immediately got lost. It's like, fuck, what the fuck?

Man, there's so many Yuzu trees around that this is one of those things that probably I hear references to Yuzu all the time. And it just never, I never stopped to wonder what that was. So what people were referring to. Because now that I do know what a Yuzu is, it seems like it's coming up all the time. Just last night on YouTube I watched a guy making a mix drink that involved Yuzu juice. And he said the Yuzu juice was very expensive. And I was thinking like, wow, it's so weird because in Japan, they're literally growing on trees, man. They're fucking everywhere.

And I got another Zelda coffee. This one has Link on it. I had one too with Princess Zelda. So I've gotten Link, Zelda, the stupid bird guy, and the Gerudo Desert Princess.

Probably there's two more. If you know the mountain guy, the Gorok dude, and some kind of fish man. Maybe there's the Ganondorf one too. That'd be cool.

Yum, yum, yum. I really do like that Zelda coffee. It's a shame that I mean it's got to be limited time. By the time this podcast is out, it probably doesn't exist anymore, but it was good. And I'm walking next to a park with like a cemetery in it, but I don't know how to get in.

And I have a feeling I've been here before just not to this side of the park. Let's pull out the map. Finally time to pull out the map and figure out where the heck I went.

But yeah, I can't actually figure out how to get into this park. It's like a, there's a fence.

Oh, here on the other side though. Another park with a playground area, but then flower gardens and a fountain. That's definitely the thing around here is flower gardens and fountains man. They're everywhere. This place must fucking rule when all the flowers are properly bloomed. I mean in January it's still pretty nice looking. This place must be nuts. Like they're just all over the place. It's like flower grand central. Motomachi park. Wait a second. 20th century western style houses in here as well. Aquatic center. Is this not the park with the archers? I must be down at the bottom.

My brain is just like like I was here yesterday. But I cannot piece this together in my mind. None of this looks familiar. I don't know. Where the fuck am I? What's going on? I definitely was here, but I was at a different part of here I guess. Although also I'm at the bottom. Oh, okay. I think I see. I think if I go over here and head up the stairs, I believe that will take me to the archery place. Yeah, I guess that's the thing with this neighborhood. It's like two neighborhoods in one or kind of four neighborhoods in one. The way I say like daytime and nighttime are so different in Japan. 20:00 Here you get daytime and nighttime, but also from above and from below may as well be two entirely different places. The perspective is so different. Like yeah, this park. I'm coming in from the bottom and I would not have recognized this not a million years because it looks completely different from this angle.

I'm going to head up through here because I'm still trying to get. Well, I guess I'm just generally trying to see more of because this whole knock award. It's surrounded by water.

So I've seen the north except for west. Westerly it heads out to more Yokohama, but north is the shoreline. I'm using view the bridge, the Gundam. So I've seen that. So I'm just vaguely trying to head east, I guess, is the plan for today.

Oh, it bluff 18. So Yamate Italian Garden. That's where I was. I thought that was a restaurant Italian Garden. I just assumed it's like the Olive Garden. Silly me. So that's that whole whole area I was at in miniature house hill. Cool. So Yamate Italian Garden is probably the more appropriate name for that area than bluff number 18.

As for the blue dome to building, nothing is clear. On the pre-downloaded map, I'll have to do a little more research later. Although probably it's just a, it's probably a nail salon. If I had to guess, if I had to put money on some.

Man, so from the archery park, if you start at the bottom and head on up, first of it's still just the way they do the archery, the way they hold the position that they hold the bows in. It still felt exactly like they were pointing a bow right at me. It's just like such an eerie feeling. If you want to feel what it's like to have someone point an ancient bow in your general direction, that's where you go. But if you start at the bottom and go to the top of that park, it is so close to the amazing super harbor view park.

It's just a few streets away and man, yeah, that place must look so amazing in the summer. But today, because it's so bright and sunny out, pretty damn close man. I got a pretty decent idea. Not as many flowers blooming, but you know, not bad. Yamate Helen Memorial Church. What a strange name. Yeah, a lot more churches than normal around here too. I mean, obviously the Western influence with the old school houses. It also extends to churches. There's a lot of that going on around here.

But yeah, walked along that park. Still beautiful. Ludicrous, amazing.

And I can't really figure out how to get down. The first time I went there, I walked up some steps, but I couldn't find them this time. So I don't know how to escape from the bluffs, but no biggie. I'm just still walking along this neighborhood up at the top. There's like a fishing pier in the northeast corner of this little area with some kind of tower. I'm going to see what that's like to see if I can get over there. The Chiba one, it was pretty industrial and not amazing, but I feel like those types of places are worse going to once. Even if it is kind of an industrial pier, just to see what it's like when you're out in the water. But walking along these bluffs, it's such a steep cliff side straight down, but also with these apartment buildings and stuff around here. It just made me want to pull out a hang glider like Far Cry 3 and just hang glide my ass down from here. It would be so awesome. And then if you went up to the top of one of the apartment buildings and hang glowed from there to be even higher up, this would be such a good environment for a Far Cry game. It's like perfect. I was kind of thinking that it just like random shit that will never be necessary or relevant to my life. But what if, what if I was like, you know, the elevator pitch, what if for some reason I got 30 seconds to pitch a newbie soft executive, where should we set the next Far Cry game? Just be like, Yokohama, Japan, the cliff sides, the ups and downs, all that's fucking so great, it's amazing.

Except it would be even better speaking of Zelda and Zelda coffees.

One thing I love about Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. When I played Breath of the Wild, I didn't play it until after the master mode was out, so you can put it on super hard mode, so I started that way.

Oh, steps, do these steps actually go down? What do we got? What do we got? Oh my god, I think they do, I think I've made it.

But since I started playing on super hard mode, combat was really tough. But what I love about big open world type games like that is the lateral thinking, you know, trying to think her way.

Is lateral. Jesus, shut the fuck up.

Is lateral thinking, trying to think her way around a problem. You don't have to fight guys, instead you can sneak your way around, you can make this barrel fall down the fucking hill and fall into the fire and blow people up and blah, blah, blah. So really, I don't want a Far Cry game, because I don't want to run around with guns and those games really got bad once you're fighting helicopters and airplanes and stuff. So I'd strip it back, strip it way back. It could just be an exploration game said in Yokohama. You'd still have hang gliders and you could repel up and down stuff and do all that, that's shit. But maybe you're just delivering messages or something, that'd be a cool game.

Man, also this is two days in a row, this has happened to me where just the way, oh man, this is taking me down to this is like what I was saying earlier. This is taking me down to a park, but it's not far enough. I need to go down a significant stage farther than this and I don't see any more steps, this is like a children's playground.

But I think it stops here, how do I get from here, there has to be, there has to be an escape from here. But it's like if there's not, then I got to lock all the way back up these steps now, I'm not going to do it. I'm going to keep continuing along the bluffs.

But yeah, because I walked straight up the bluffs to the Yamate Italian Garden and then down the twisty streets of like the kind of fancy pants part of town with all of its neat boutiques and stuff, then up to the park and now along the bluffs. Okay, wait, if I go up this way, I should dead end, okay, I'm going to go down to the park, there has to be, there has to be an escape. This is also, I guess, why I'm fantasizing about hang gliders. How do I get out of here? How do I escape? But yeah, I haven't passed a single convenience store yet, time is in now. Not quite one o'clock, about the same situation though, yeah, it was a bit after one last time. It's just like, man, I still got from yesterday, whatever stuff I ate yesterday on the way home. I just put all my garbage in a little Pringles can and I've just got the Pringles can. So when I get to a convenience store, I can just toss the Pringles can. One little nice capsule of garbage instead of a pocket full of random shit. But I haven't crossed by a single convenience. So I mean, that's just kind of an interesting thing about this neighborhood. Should you want to avoid convenience stores? Maybe you're tired of them.

You actually can around here.

In fact, it's weirdly easy to do. Like it's very evident in the part of town with all the cool fancy boutiques and beauty salons and stuff. It's definitely clear that they made a distinct effort. You have to go right to the edge of that neighborhood, right by the canal, and then there's convenience stores. But anywhere deeper in the net, there's not a single one. It's like they definitely wanted to have this cool European vibe. And a convenience store would mess that up. It's also kind of like that near, here we go, stairs. Sweet. I made it down. I escaped. It's kind of like that near Tokyo station. There's convenience stores, but what there's not there is drink machines. Again, it's like they're going for like a western feel. Like it feels much more like you're in a big North American city in that neighborhood. So my guess is that since it's right by Tokyo station, that must be where business stuff goes on. And I don't know, I guess they just want businessy people to feel like, Hey, we flew into Japan and it's not that weird. It basically feels the same as wherever we just came from. But the sudden lack of drink machines is so noticeable. It's like, man, those things, I mean, there's two of them outside the door of my Airbnb. They're everywhere. And then you get to a hood where there's just none.

All right, I made it to the bottom of the bluffs. On a major street, there's got to be a convenience store now. 30:00 Now for sure.

Alright, it's stopped at a 7-Eleven. Class extending outside to 7-Eleven. Unfortunately here, I'm watching the traffic go by. Not the nicest watching the world go by possible. But man, the inability to communicate. It still shocks me. It's just really amazing. They always have the fried chicken stuff. And the reason why the only fried chicken I've really had is Lawson's. It has a self-serve thing where you can open up the heat thing and take out the chicken yourself. Because if I have to start pointing at things and explaining what I want, it's just it's the worst. It just never works. So even though the fried chicken stuff, it's not my favorite. But I have had it a couple other times. So where it's just like, what the heck I'll try it again. So I was looking at the little chicken thing here and I'm like, no, again, I got a point at things. It's just going to be gross anyway. It's going to make me feel greasy and weird. But then the lady gave me the hard sell. Super rare. It's like the only time this has happened. She asked if I wanted some cheeky, some chicken. And I was like, no, no, I'm fine. And she said two for a hundred. And I'm like, oh, okay, sure. You know, the classic. Would you like some vodka with that? Like, okay, why not? But somehow, okay, sure, didn't translate. She took that also as a note. So even in this exchange where she's like, trying to get me to buy it. And I said, yes, I didn't get it. It's just like, how did that go wrong? How in the fuck did that go wrong? And again, I always feel like I got to reiterate every time I'm not criticizing the people of Japan. It's totally my fault. Why can't I just ask for chicken? How do I know nothing? But it really is a weird experience because I mean, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say everyone else speaks English. Like everyone in the dang world speaks English to some degree. Because when somebody, like, when you can't communicate, you cannot communicate. It's just, it's like, how? How did it, yes, be interpreted as a no? When she's like, trying to sell me the thing? How did that happen? I don't just like, okay, whatever, whatever. I don't know. I didn't really want it anyway. I got a plum onigiri that won't make my belly feel bad. But it really is something, dude. You cannot possibly exaggerate how much there's not English in Japan. There just really isn't. It's wild, man. And again, I like, it sounds like if I was listening to this podcast and somebody said, like, it sounds like an exaggeration. Like if someone said to me, pointing at something in a display case isn't good enough. I would think they were exaggerating. I would think that's not true. But like, let's say there's like a case with nothing in it but steamed buns. And you're pointing at the steamed bun in the case and asking for a steamed bun. You think that's all it's going to take? That's going to take a lot more than that. That's not going to be enough. That's not going to get you a steamed bun. That's why I just gave up. I'm just like, I'm just not doing this anymore. If I can't pick up an item by myself, I'm not going to fucking get it. But anyway, that was just interesting because, yeah, that's the first time somebody's tried to sell me something. And I've said, okay. And then they didn't know I said, okay. It's like, wow, holy balls, man.

Who man? I am definitely not supposed to be here. Are these apartment buildings? I don't see any people. There's no sign of activity here. It must be though, but maybe it's apartments or people who work in this shipping yard sort of area. I can't imagine that you'd want to live here normally because yeah, this is certainly a place where I'm not supposed to be. Very clear. I'm not the only person walking around. But yeah, this is not pedestrian time heading toward this pier. Tons of trucks everywhere. Highways, overpasses. Shipping containers. Not just shipping containers, but they look like they're filled with, they look like big propane tank type shit.

Honmaku container center. But yeah, I think the fast-dark and skirt around this neighborhood try to check out this pier, but then head back toward the center or a little towards the park so it'll clearly be my best interest. But I just wanted to say with the 7-11 fried chicken thing. I really am glad that didn't work out actually because I had two onigiri, a little Mount Rainier coffee and just this thing that was like three little sugar cookie type things. 35:00 All very small. These are all small items, but it was more than enough. Even though I haven't eaten today, that's all it takes from my little belly. Two onigiri, that's a lot of rice. And with the desserts and stuff, like I'm full, I'm good. If I had crammed some fried chicken on top of this, it would just, I'd have that weird greasy taste in my mouth. It would feel worse than my belly. It would be worse later. It would just be worse. Because I'm definitely becoming an old man. Not only do I get a lot of plum onigiri these days, the other day I bought the salted rice ball. It's nothing but just rice with some salt on it. Because I just want things that make my belly feel okay. Even the little sugar cookies, I probably shouldn't have bought, but that's all right. I could take some. It's all part of the mix. Once that mixes in with the rice and my belly, it'll be okay. But yeah, I'm definitely getting to be an old man in the sense that I just want food that's not going to hurt me.

So no offense to you, 7-11 lady. I respect the hustle. I respect that you, I'm really glad people don't do that more often. I'm glad people don't do the hard sell. Because usually in North America, it'll be like, you know, like a Middle Eastern guy or something. Somebody who is not at all shy about pushing his agenda will just be like, Hey, extra, you want this? You want this? And the truth is with me, if you ask me twice, I'm going to say yes. Because that's where it starts to get awkward. Just an extra dollar for the rubber butt. All right, okay, sure. I'll just say yes. I won't say no. So I'm glad people aren't always offering me the fried chicken at convenience stores because I would probably just, you know, just to not make it awkward. I would just say yes. But I respect that moxie, 7-11 lady. I respect, I respect the hustle. But I'm also glad it didn't work. I'm glad we had cross wires. And I didn't get any fried chicken. Because then I'd have fried chicken in my belly right now. And that would not be a good thing. That would not help. Holy fuck. Yeah, what is this shit? Big super highway with a bunch of lanes. Only trucks. Oh, there's a van. No normal vehicles truck driving up behind me. Oh, there's a normal car. And there's like an enclosed highway over top of this. Where the fuck am I? The reason I'm going this way is there is a family mart in this vague direction. So I assume if there's a family mart, maybe that means it's less crazy to be walking near there. But it's probably just a family mart intended for motorists.

Where am I? What am I doing? Why did I decide coming to the pier was a good idea? This is a terrible idea. This is a terrible idea.

Oh yeah, those are definitely for real apartment buildings on the other side of this. God damn. How do you get that bad roll of the dice? I mean, there's so many apartments in Japan.

And if you were, you know, a 40 minute walk from here, you could have an apartment on top of the bluffs where you can see the entire world. How do you end up down here? At least on the other side of these buildings, you can see out into the bay. If you're on this side, you get a nice view of the highway and the industrial site. And you have the noise of traffic going by every day. Who did you fuck over in a past life to get stuck in this apartment building?

And the more I look around, there's a surprising number of apartments around here. And yeah, no thank you, Sunny. I would not... I think if this was all that was available, I'd go sleep in an internet cafe for a few months, till something else opened up. I would not settle down here.

Man, I walked across an overpass thing to get across the highway. And yeah, this sucks so hard, dude. There's a whole bunch of apartment buildings here.

We see a clothes out being dried on the balconies. These are totally for real apartments that people are living in. But not only are you next to the truck filled highway on one side, I'm on the other side now. And it's another truck filled highway. These buildings are literally between two of the most awful truck filled fucking routes I've ever seen in Japan.

This sucks, dude.

Whomsoever lives here, I feel for ya. Frozen bras. This is bad.

Alright, here's something interesting. Part in the noise. Part in the noise, but we're doing science here.

So the reason I came out here is because, actually, let me go down a little bit. I can get behind this barrier, the sound barrier. I'm on some steps at an overpass. I don't know if that helps at all. The reason I came out here is just because in Chiba, there was a pier with people fishing, but it was quite industrially. You have to go past a big shipping yard and kind of sneak your way through some fences and not a very pleasant place exactly. But just seeing everybody fish was cool and seeing the sunset was cool and I got a magical view of Fuji. So you know, it kind of stuck in my mind. Good associations. Fishing pier. So when I saw the fishing pier here, I was like, alright, let's go give that a shot.

And yeah, it doesn't work at all. Maybe you can get out there, but it was really getting dicey. A lot of just huge factory areas with gates and stuff. There wasn't overpass, maybe I could have snuck my way over there, but it's so clear at this point, this neighborhood is miserable. This is not for people at all. So I was like, alright, let me just get out of here. Let me just start getting out of this fucking place. And I was thinking about these buildings and it's like, man, I hope every single person who lives around here at least works in one of these shipping yards. You have a short commute. Because otherwise, it's just really bad. And those buildings I was at before definitely had people. There was laundry out on the balconies and stuff. But I just thought this was interesting. Why I'm going to record one more bit here in the noise is as I'm escaping now.

I'm not quite sure where I'm going to. There's a couple of parks nearish here. Hanmoku Sancho Park, I guess is the closest one.

Or Sankayan Gardens, they're both not too far. Hanmoku Rinkai Park. I'm kind of in the middle of all these. Anyway, I'll just get away from the noise and then we'll see.

But as I crossed this overpass and I could see the back end of this building, I'm just passing via building. And there's fucking nobody here. Now that I can see into the apartments, because I'm right up next to it, fairly big apartments like, well, relatively. But like, three windows of this building counts as one apartment. And there's one, two, three, four, five floors. And how far deep does it go? One, two, three. It's at least four by five, maybe five by five. And then double that because there's the other side of the building. Anyway, I'm just looking into empty rooms. There's nobody living in this building. And of course there isn't, because listen to that shit. Listen to this. Like this is outside of your window.

It's actually, it's not even as terrible right now at this very moment. It's a little bit quieter. There's one, two, three, four, five, six. It's a nine-lane highway. And there's an overpass. So there's another, however many, it's like two separate overpasses that go over top of this. So it's more like a 12-15 lane. It's a fucking insane. It's fucking insane. So I'm not at all shocked to see a building with just nobody fucking in it. Because yeah, if they gave me one of these apartments for free, if they paid me to live there, I wouldn't live there. You know, I'd take the money and go somewhere else. Like, fuck it. Okay, now that I'm at the front of the building, there are some cars in the parking lot, but it's a very small parking lot and it's half full.

Two, three, four, about seven cars.

And I got to imagine living on this side of the building, probably even just that makes a big difference. But yeah, that side next to the highway is totally empty. And I mean, yeah, I don't know what the point of any of this is. I don't have solutions to these modern problems. I don't know. It's a problem is all this time. It's a problem that happens at every harbor front. I mean, to a lesser extent, you know, Toronto is like this too. When I lived near the lake shore in Toronto, it was always a little frustrating because you can't really just walk along the lake shore. You're constantly jockeying and fighting your way through big factories and stuff. 45:00 So yeah, I don't know what it means. I don't know what value this information has. I just thought that was interesting. It's kind of interesting to go to the most industrial corner where everything really is fucked. And it's amazing. There even was a sidewalk because there's no fucking way I was supposed to be there. And to question, how could you possibly live here? And then to see, oh, you don't, you don't. Because yeah, now that I'm right behind there, now I'm just in a normal neighborhood. There's buildings everywhere. There's tons of stuff. Like, yeah, that's what I was thinking. It's like there have to be other options. I know there's a large population in Japan, but there's also shit tons of buildings everywhere. There's no fucking way you have to live there. And it turns out, yeah, you don't. You don't. If those apartments ever get filled up, shit's really serious around here. Things are really getting crazy because, because what the fuck? Who the hell could possibly live there with that noise all the time?