#9 Walking from Setagaya to Suginami, Tokyo

Transcript

Day 2 in Japan, man. I just love, I'm going to say like the architecture of Tokyo, but I don't, I don't know if there's a word, because I don't necessarily mean any specific building. I just mean like the layout of the whole city. The architecture of the city, the city planning, but it's like the lack of city planning. I know I kind of equated it to a video game last time, which is probably not a coincidence, you know. All the cool games in the 80s came from Japan. I probably internalized a lot of sort of Japanese design logic without knowing that I did, but just right now I'm on this extremely quiet side street, except for, I think there's a helicopter up there. There's no real traffic, there's, I guess it's one lane, but there's side lanes for bikes and people. Just paint it under the road and letters and stuff painted under the road that I don't know what they mean. But the way it just, I don't know, slopes downward and curves, it just feels so cool. Or that's a, that little shrine that I found last episode, and then I kind of went away from this people were actively doing, prayer stuff, and I was just talking to myself like a big foreign idiot walking around doing a podcast. But I went back there at night, on the way back to my Airbnb, I went past there again at night when nobody was there. And just the, it's not even a curved street, the street curved around, but in like an angular way. And then at night I went to see the shrine more closely, because nobody was there. But it was still lit up and it was so eerie and beautiful, but there was also an empty children's park right next to it. I mean, I guess the kind of, you know, if you grew up in Japan, it's just normal, it's just a normal little neighborhood, a normal little corner. But to me, with my angular ass, North American upbringing, where everything is so boring, and just so standard, and so perpendicular, parallel.

It feels like in an old Danny Elfman movie, you know, where everything's just kind of off kilter, everything's at a weird angle, and everything is vaguely spooky, you know, didn't seem spooky in the daytime, but it did at night. And that's just a normal, just a normal place here, just as I was walking, and just came across a little stream. This is not the one I was on last episode, which was very clearly man-made. This one's a real stream, this is just like a stream happened to be here, so they developed a little walking path, although probably it probably is part of the one from yesterday, probably lines up to it. Today I'm just wandering, I'm just wandering randomly, I've not looked at my little map at all. I kind of pointed myself in the direction of Yogi Park. But because everything is sort of angular and off kilter, I know that, you know, in my mind, I've got like, okay, I think it's over there, but I'm sure I'm already. I was probably wrong to begin with, my sense of direction is not that good, and I'm probably already off base. So I'm just going to wander until eventually I decide to check my phone and just see where I ended up.

And I've already realized, day two, little lesson for myself, buy less sweets, because my problem is that I love convenience food. I'm not even close to bored of convenience store food.

Now I'm going way off the path. I think I'm just going to sort of deliberately go away from where people are. I'll just take whatever route is most empty. If I'm any Yammer to myself, that's the neighborly thing I could at least do.

But yeah, my problem is I have a tiny little belly. I get full really fast. So my problem is I can't eat as much as I wish I could. I wish I could just go back to the convenience store and try another thing. But it only takes a little bit of food, and I'm good. Also, I guess, I mean, isn't coffee an appetite suppressant? I always drink coffee in general, but I think my consumption goes up when I'm here.

But I realized this morning, like I should go hit the convenience, just get some on a giri for breakfast or something. But I've got candy already building up in my book bag that I haven't eaten. I've got these little strawberry chocolate, maggi bread, strawberry chocolate. And I had some matcha flavored KitKats, and it probably wouldn't matter that I've got these things in my bag. Probably no one was ever, would ever know. But it just seems a little weird to go into a store when you've got products you've already bought from that chain and you haven't even eaten them yet.

And every time I walk by a drink machine, I just check it to see what's in it. 5:00 But I haven't found any white whales yet. Last time, it was a strawberry latte that was a very temporary item that was very rare.

And I would always check to see if I could find one. And I found it like three times. It was always a nice little treat. But so far, I haven't found anything like that yet. I'm thinking though, I bought a tea the other day, kind of by accident. And I don't really like how there's sugar in all the coffee here. It's either black or sugar, where my favorite kind of coffee is just cream or milk, but no sugar. That's quite hard to find here. But the tea was just nice and bitter. Maybe I should switch over. Maybe I should start drinking the tea because I just know that I'm an old-ass man. I like bitter flavors. Which speaking of, they got some Aquarius in here. I just bought a bottle of water. And I just got Evian, naive spelled backwards, super boring. But I was happy to see it because I could be sure it was water. I remember with that Aquarius stuff. I know Pachari sweat, because that's been famous since the 90s. Like I just remember seeing on the internet, like, you know, Japan has a drink called Pachari Sweat, what a weird name.

Oh man, another shrine. It's so cool and another playground. I wonder if they do that a lot if it's like, because you know, the shrines they are very awesome, but I guess they're not extremely functional. So why not? Why not put a playground next to it?

But yeah, Pachari sweat, it's kind of like an energy drink. You know, later on when we got Red Bull and stuff, it's like that, but less, less strong. So it's kind of okay if that's what you're in the mood for. I remember I was walking around. Last time I visited Japan, it was like June. So it was really hot. So it was like two in the morning and I was still just walking around sweat and to death. And I just needed some water. And I saw the Aquarius and I'm like, okay, that's got the word aqua in it.

Let's try it, but it's just more of that Pachari sweat type stuff. And I just remember I was really thirsty, but I was all sweaty and sticky. And it was just like putting more sticky growth in my mouth. It's like, oh, but whatever, it's liquid. Just get it down, get it in you and buy a proper water at the next one. But ever since then, I was like, I gotta be a little careful. Sometimes it looks like water. It might not be water.

And again, I'm just turning into such an old man. Buy less candy. I should drink the bitter barley tea. So it doesn't have sugar. I want plain water, please. But anyway, yeah, just, it just seemed weird to go into a convenience store when I've got a bunch of stuff from the convenience store I haven't eaten yet. So I was like, I should just eat these things. So I just ended up eating strawberry chocolates and matcha Kit Kat for breakfast. It's like, boah. Just that idea that every time I go in, I buy whatever sort of normal food and some candy. Forget the candy. You can do the candy every two or three visits. Don't buy candy. You're not gonna eat, Keith. So now I've ruined my breakfast. I won't be hungry again now for a bit.

And I started the day off with chocolate.

I've also got all these granola bars and stuff like that that I had for the flight. But yeah, the flight, there was certainly no shortage of food. So I was like, I guess I should eat these things. I'm just dragging them around for no reason. But again, it's so boring. I don't want to waste a trip, but I could go get something cool at the convenience store just eating granola bars. But I guess when I get to Fukuoka, I'm gonna do a bunch of mountain hiking. So I'm gonna save them for that.

This is kind of a good wandering technique. And I'm just weird little narrow streets. These ones have really tall buildings. I guess the slope is higher here. Big walls around some of these houses. But I just saw a construction ahead of me. And it's like, okay, just don't go that way. Go a different way. That's a good example for instance. The Mega Man games. Super duper famous Nintendo games from the 80s. There were these bad guys that were essentially just little hard hats with feet. And they had a little cross on the hat. And that's just a totally normal thing that every construction worker has. They just have that hat here. It's a little cross on it. It just signifies that that's what I am. I'm a construction guy. And there's so many examples like that. Stuff in video games that was actually just kind of pedestrian to a Japanese kid. And it was just a cool neat thing to us. But then it comes back around. It's like whiplash.

This memory from when I was 10 years old. It's like, oh, there's that thing. 10:00 There's that symbol. Now I know what it means.

So yeah, it's in a lot of ways.

I'm very guilty of what's the term for it? Just the exotic, exoticness of otherness. You know, just thinking something is cool. Not because you fundamentally understand it in any way. Just because it's different. So it just seems neat. I mean, that's absolutely where I'm coming from. It's very shallow. But I think as long as I'm aware of it, I think that's okay. You know. And it's not like when you get somebody who's like, I'm only going to date XY or Z. Like this specific type of person. Their type is more important to me than who they are. It's pretty weird. That's creepy behavior. But in this case, I mean, it's just literally just the city, you know. I'm sort of, there's things about Japanese culture that I think are cool as well. But I think I'm kind of, you know, I'll try to know my lane. It's like I don't really understand that. It would be really pretentious and dumb if I tried to pretend they did. To me, it's much more the city itself, just the actual place. So I feel like that's pretty neutral. That's not anything that has feelings. That's not even a cultural institution. It's literally just buildings and streets. And just the way things work, the way systems work here. I'm sure I'll get into that as examples pop up. But there's so many little things in Japan that are just intuitive in a way that they're not in other places. Even just, I was at just some public washroom and I used up the end of the toilet paper. And at first, as I got it, Jesus, I hope I'm not the guy now who has ruined this for everyone, where there's no toilet paper left. I don't have any toilet paper on me. But of course, it was stocked. There was a bunch more toilet paper. And the little mechanism just switched to the next role, even though I couldn't read anything, was very obvious and very easy. And it's just kind of like that all over. Things are well maintained. Things work well. Things are intuitive and make sense in a way that they often do not in North America. Yeah, it's just great. Just as a place, it's great.

And like I'm walking by right now, a new modern house next to it is quite an old house. Not one of those really super old houses, but a medium old house, like from the 70s, maybe house.

But even the old house has like a little satellite dish, which even that. I don't think we really have satellite dishes anymore. I'm not sure what the state of that type of thing is around here. But it's all just such a mishmash of all kinds of stuff, just all next to each other. It's the opposite of not to take a shot at the Netherlands in specific. It's just I have very few frames of reference. But when you go to a neighborhood in the Netherlands where everything looks the same, every building looks identical. The whole neighborhood is a little copy paste of itself. So much so that I had a toy when I was a kid that I didn't realize was a Dutch toy until I went to the Netherlands. And everything in this neighborhood I was in was so precisely identical to this toy that I had as a kid that I felt like I was walking through the toy, like the toy had become life size. And that's kind of the opposite philosophy. It's kind of cool in a different way. But here is not like that here. The planning is no planning. I'm sure other people have used similar metaphors, but it's like rocks tumbling down a hill or water finding its way down a mountain. Everything just seems like it flowed just to where it needed to be. It's all fucking so cool.

I guess the tangles of power lines everywhere are the one thing that maybe someday when we invent wireless energy those will all go. They are excessive and they're everywhere, but I never even really noticed them until someone else pointed it out. It just doesn't bug me. I don't know. It's just part of the scenery.

Even this, I love how non-abrasive stuff is. This sound that a train is coming by is not unpleasant. It's like, ah, there it is, there's that sound. What train is that? I have no freaking idea. Shit. Another one. But yeah, I stayed at an Airbnb last time by Akigawa Station. That I'm actually, I'm going back to not that same place. But the same building later in this trip. And it was right next to a train line, like literally just right beside it. So I heard that sound continuously every day. And it never bothered me, which just again blows my mind. Like, the girl I dated in New York City, she lived right by the JMZ. That thing was a bone rattling nightmare. It was horrible. Whereas this time in Japan, that crossing sound would start loud. It would be loud for like the first five pulses. 15:00 And then it would quiet down. Just to be mindful of the people who live nearby. And yeah, it was just kind of nice. It was like a nice little rhythm in the day. This machine has some kind of coffee I've never seen before, but it's black. I don't think so, not right now, but yeah, again, now my eye is drifting to these teas. So there's a green tea. And I guess the barley tea. I don't know what this third tea is. Hmm, am I going to become a tea guy on this trip? Because I really don't like the sugar in the coffee. You know, one of those is okay to kickstart your morning. But after that, hmm, we will see. And I did not end up buying a little bag to put my garbage in. So instead, I just kind of converted around my book bag. So the pouch is where I can just put bottles and garbage until I find somewhere to throw them away. It's not so hard to find somewhere to give it a bottle, because a lot of the vending machines have a bottle thing, but getting rid of trash is super hard. Just inside convenience stores is about the only place.

I do not know what the heck I'd is. I think it's coming from that truck.

Beats me, though.

I guess the last thing to update from last episode for anyone listening chronologically before I get into my flight stuff is I was having trouble plugging in my laptop because all of the outlets in my Airbnb house, like every single one of them is just two prongs. There's no third prong.

And I only stayed at three different Airbnb's last time I was here for longer stays. This time I'm staying at like nine for shorter stays. But it turns out those three I stayed at last time were clearly very accommodating to travelers because they all had three pronged outlets. But it looks like it's not at all unusual that this house does not because I went into this place. I think it was called Sabo S-E-I-B-U. And that was kind of interesting, too, just because I was thinking of New York. I don't know if it's different now, but when I lived there in 2008, they didn't have any big stores because it just isn't a room. There's no Walmart and stuff. So similarly, there's no room here, but here it's just the floors. Each floor of this place was still big-ish, but it had six or seven floors and a basement. And combined all together, it was probably the size of a Walmart. It just had everything in it. It was awesome. But I finally found the electrical adapter sort of plug-in place.

And all they had was for like $20, a big, heavy power bar with the two prong plug-in.

And then you could plug in three pronged plugs to it. And it had built-in to it. It was really heavy because it had all this stuff to ground, you know, because I don't actually know how electricity works, but that third prong is somehow to ground it if there's a power surge. So this thing had that built-in because I was wondering, can you just convert from two to three seems kind of dangerous. So I was going to buy it because I'm like, yeah, this sucks. It's really big and heavy and way more than I need, but I got a plug in my computer. But I just kept staring at the wall of stuff. It's like there has to be some other option here. Because there was a huge wall of different plugs and stuff, and they all were just two plugs, so just by the evidence of front of me, it's like, oh, clearly that's just how it is in Japan. And everything is just two prongs. That's just what they do. But I just kept looking and looking, and I'm like, I just feel like this must be a situation that comes up. And this big, long, expensive, heavy power adapter is so impractical. This doesn't make sense. This is not how things work in Japan. Things are supposed to be sleek and well-thought-out and handy and cool. This thing is the opposite of that. This can't be what I'm supposed to buy. This cannot be the answer. That's another clear day, by the way, even more clear than yesterday, even less clouds.

Probably like 22 degrees. I didn't check, but it's like almost slightly uncomfortably hot. But since I'm going to be here till January, I don't think this weather will less. So I'll take it. Take it while I got it. Just walk by a really cool coffee shop. That actually looked like, because that's one thing, is I always, when it's a really small coffee shop, I feel a little uncomfortable because I'm so illiterate. If it's like a tiny little shop that only two or three people can fit in, I don't know that I want to go take up space there and just be a big, weird, foreign lump. But this one had just like a big patio and a bunch of space. However, I'll never find it again. All these curves and weird places I've gone. 20:00 I suppose I can mark it on my map, but I ain't done it. Goddamn, it is literally no exaggeration like to say that every time I turn a corner, every new little thing is so just like so unpredictable. Here's a really old house with some kind of sign on the front and just a tiny little shrine built into the house. And again, the road just curves. And then there's a little side road that goes up a mountain hill thing that I think is where I'm going to go. I keep finding my way going uphill a lot. I don't know, again, I don't know where I'm trying to get to. I'm not trying to get anywhere. I was going to say I don't know where I'll end up, but I won't end up anywhere. I'll just be more of this just drifting endlessly.

So cool, that's all I want to do.

But yeah, what I finally settled on is, I guess I kind of went the other way looking at these plugs and adapters. It's like, okay, what about, you know, because things in Japan tend to be so well thought out and seem to have such a distinct purpose? What here does not? What's the odd man out? What's the weird thing that they're selling that probably just some weirdo like me needs that is not actually useful to a Japanese person? So by reverse engineering it like that, thinking through it backwards, that's where I found this little thing that was only like 250. And I'm just using Canadian prices because it's almost one to one. It's extremely close, one penny to one yen. So it's really cheap little thing that was just a two prong wall adapter. You plug it into the wall and then you can tilt it up or down. And then there's another two prong on the other end. The whole thing is like two inches long.

That's the other weird thing being Canadian. I'll use Canadian dollars. I'll tell you the temperature and Celsius. But then I'll use like feet and inches because it's just a mess. We're just in the middle. We're in the middle of everything. We're a bit like America. We're a bit like Europe. Luckily we're also in the Europe where Google can tell you anything. So it doesn't really matter I guess what units I use. Who cares? Like anybody cares anyway. This is not a hard-hitting fact-based podcast. This is just random junk.

And the same way I'm just rambling randomly through this city. That's what the podcast is. It's the audio version of that.

So my thinking was this little device. If I plug it into the little plug inside my little Airbnb hostel bunk, it'll basically just extend out the two prong plug just so it's away from the wall. That's really all it does. So if I plugged in my three prong computer, there's no hole for the third prong. But I can plug it in and just leave the third prong abandoned. And I was like, well, let's try it out. Let's see if it works. And it did. And again, I mean probably not the optimal situation. But it solved the issue and I could plug in my computer. Hooray. Hooray. But it's just surprising that I never ran into that last time.

Hey, it's Keith from the future. I just want to record a little update about this because this is a case of where I was kind of rewriting history just to fit in with what, you know, seemed logical but is actually totally wrong. Where I was presuming that when I came to Japan in 2019, the places I stayed had three prong plugs for my laptop. Just because I didn't remember ever having a problem plugging in my computer. So I just presumed that must have been why. But the longer I was in Japan, the more obvious it became that there are not three pulled plugs for things. There just isn't that whole system of grounding electricity or whatever just doesn't exist here. What actually happened is I had an adapter because I had gone to Amsterdam before I went to Japan. So in the Netherlands, you need a real adapter because they have these plugs that are just two prongs. They're completely different, like two round, long prong things. You can't use any electronic equipment without an adapter. 25:00 So what had happened is this thing was like a universal adapter. So I had that thing with me in Japan and I was using it to convert from three prongs to two. So I could plug in my laptop. But in my mind, I didn't think of it as an adapter like it was in the Netherlands. In my mind, I thought like, oh, I don't actually need this thing. This isn't actually necessary in Japan. And then when I got back to Canada, I gave it to somebody I met in Toronto. This girl from Israel, I think, who needed an adapter? And I was like, oh, here you go. Just use mine. This thing was like $15. I won't need it anymore. Here you go. But it turns out I actually did need it for Japan. It just didn't occur to me. You know, it seemed like it was just like a handy thing to have. But in reality, it was necessary. So I just thought I should add that in. Don't expect anywhere to have plugs for your three pronged computer plug. It's not going to happen. They don't have them in Japan. And it's easy enough to go into pretty much any store and get the same little wall adapter thing that I got for like $250. You don't necessarily need to buy one before you get to Japan. But be aware, be prepared. Because it's not a big problem, but it is definitely guaranteed to be something you're going to face. Okay. Back to the proper episode.

One other little difference from last time is there used to be Wi-Fi at all the convenience stores. But so far, I've tried a couple at random and they don't seem to anymore. Which it was kind of a weird thing. Like, maybe it was, maybe I just got none lucky. But maybe it was just like, hey, one of the chains started offering Wi-Fi. So the other ones felt like they had to follow suit till all of them were offering Wi-Fi. And it would usually be like 20 minutes. So you know, just enough to get on and check your email. I always used it for maps back then. But maybe because of COVID or maybe just in general, they realized like, why are we offering this? People just come in to buy some stuff and leave. There's no need for us to give them Wi-Fi and there really isn't. It was kind of weird. So that it's gone now. It makes sense to me. It's like, that's fine. But last time I had a lot of Wi-Fi problems. A lot of my Airbnb's, the Wi-Fi had troubles. So far, that hasn't been a problem this time.

But then also I went to that side of Starbucks and the Starbucks still had Wi-Fi. Not that I did anything useful. Check my Instagram likes. Novel pod on Instagram. See pictures of Japan.

All right, just walked by a construction guy who still had a construction hat, but it did not have the Mega Man symbol on it. So, I guess it's not like they all do. Maybe that's like a government thing? It is, by the way, I guess I'll say this too. I'll just keep rambling. Who cares if this is the longest podcast in the world and it's about nothing? It's just what it is. I just got to remember this is the opposite. I am just doing the opposite of, you know, the prevailing thing you would want to do. This is the opposite. This is totally ramshackle. There are no visuals. There is no point. It's not concisely edited. It's just rambling. And it's going to go on and on and on. At extreme length, and be about nothing. I just got to, I just got to, it's hard to get comfortable with that a little because I like this. I think this is kind of, I mean, I say this is what I would like to listen to, but I guess maybe that's where I'm kind of getting in my own way. Is I would think this is too slow, too long, too pointless, a little too boring. But I think I would still listen to it. I would be like, I wish this guy would tighten it up a little. I wish this was a little more pointed, but it's not going to be so fucking.

Extremely well manicured bushes, too. I've just been noticing as I walk everywhere that has bushes or trees along the edges of their property. Everything is very meticulously kept up with. But anyway, yes, so I'm recording these pretty much every day, but I'm only putting out episodes once a week. So they're not going to align with real time. And today, it's a Saturday at the end of October, so it's Halloween weekend. 30:00 And I noticed that right away as my Airbnb is that my travel method, you know, come get the 90 days, stay the whole time. Don't do anything in particular, just wander around, just try to soak it in. But that's obviously not the way most people travel because they just don't have that kind of time. People show up for a reason, and they do it. See how this Airbnb I met. It had some people. I can kind of tell how many because the walls are so thin and it's so tiny, I could just hear every single person in the whole building pretty much. But today, all of a sudden, with the weekend, last night being Friday, suddenly it was full, totally packed, everything full. And it is near Shibuya.

Shibuya is a bit famous for Halloween celebrations. So I was thinking like, well, I guess I'm right here. I guess I could go check it out, do some reporting. But as far as I understand it, what I've seen, it seems like it's famous for Halloween being shit, like just for being packed, walled a wall with people. And I remember there was a story a few years ago. I think it was South Korea. But it was a similar thing. I believe it was also Halloween, but it was just a bunch of people all packed in in this one neighborhood to the point where there was like a one-way dead end street that sloped downward. And there were so many people that people got crushed. People got killed because they were just crammed into this dead end street and they could not escape. And they got trampled. So that's the extreme part, but Japan is certainly capable of that. Like I don't really like Shibuya and Shinjuku that much in general because they're so busy. So if you distinctly add in people for stuff like it's just going to, I don't know what the point is going to be. It's just going to be super packed. So if I do happen to be around there tonight, maybe I'll swing by, but I think I'll still stay at a distance because even this part where I'm in these little suburbs, you know, like three train stops from Shibuya. I like this. It's generally calm, but it's still a little, you know, there's still like all the bicycles and just enough of a tangle of stuff going on. Even just when you go in a convenience store, I accidentally like skipped in a line yesterday. It did not mean to. Because I saw the one counter and it seemed to be free, but it turns out there was two counters and people were lined up kind of at the other end of the store waiting for the two counters. So it was just one of those guys in card things. The lady just was like, look at this idiot who can't speak Japanese dumb jerk off fine here, whatever, just pay for your stuff. And has a little embarrassed like, oh, Jesus Christ, I didn't mean to do that. I'm sorry, but I mean it was already happening. It's better just to be an idiot and let it happen and just get it over with. Also a handy learning opportunity though. That was the first time I used my subway pass, my suite card to pay for stuff and it worked. But yeah, even just stuff like that. It's all still a little too busy for me. Like I'm crossing a four lane street right now. It's like, calmest four lane street you've ever seen, but it's still four lane street. So yeah, like my next Airbnb is much further out than this. Then the one after that is way further out, way out west again by Akigawa station. Then I'm going to Fukuoka and not even central Fukuoka. I'm going to near the Abreyama mountain in Fukuoka. So I'm just going to keep spiraling further and further from from the community because even here yet it's like a little, it's a little much. You can probably see more and more why I didn't get along with New York when there's just a crush of people I don't like it. So this is all just to say that even though I'm right here in a Halloween weekend and I'm right by Shibuya, I can't imagine that I'll like it at all. Even, I mean, Halloween's a lot of fun in like Toronto or Vancouver. Toronto especially seemed really cool. But in the big Canadian cities, like you go downtown and it's like bustling, stuff's happening, but it's not like crazy crowded. And in that charming North American way, it's literally like the whole city turned into a strip club. You know how every Halloween costume for women is the sexy version of blank and it's like, wow. You know, just walk around and be a fucking creep for, I don't know, half an hour is like, like, wow. In a low brow way, that's kind of cool, but I expect that that's not going to be the case here either. It's just going to be a bunch of people, just a shit ton of people. But okay, let me take a little break, walk around a little more, digest that chocolate, and maybe I'll finally go get my breakfast on a Geary now that it's noon.

Here's something I just noticed that I don't know usually, well, I don't totally know how to walk the line of like, not to be culturally insensitive, but just to notice stuff, you know. If something's a little weird to bring up, but it's, I don't know, something I noticed, I would rather bring it up rather than not. Whereas just walking by, I actually was at like a 7-11 and I was like, okay, I should go in and get some stuff.

But I got all set, got my little sweet-cut card out as already, and it's that same problem I was talking about is just not hungry enough. I can't force it. A chocolate aid for breakfast just does not warn off.

I got to walk further, I got to go further before I can get anything else. And I love them just on one of these like overpasses that goes over one of the big major streets. These things are always really weathered and really worn down, but they're just cool, I really like them.

Oh man, this is a big one, this is a six-lane highway, eight lanes if you count the parking parts, which I don't know if those counts are probably not. Anyway, I was walking past the 7-11, it's like, okay, not time yet, not yet.

And there was a kid in the building, whatever was above the 7-11. This kid was losing her mind, just having a super tantrum breakdown and the foremom was just like trying to calm this kid down. And another shrine, let me just interrupt my own interrupted story. Oh yeah, this one, it's like a very small shrine, but it's got the water and the like the ladle kind of cup. I've seen people do the little maneuver, but I, again, you know, I'm willing to just be ignorant and accept it. I don't know how it works, I don't remember. So I'm not going to pretend, but they're just everywhere, it's so, so interesting where.

Well, whatever, I'll get into religious theory later. I don't need to do that right now.

Because, yeah, the story at hand, so this kid is flipping out for a long time, minutes and minutes, not calming down at all. And what I noticed, because I'm always just sort of interested in how your language center develops for languages, you know, where. I just remember like going to French school as a kid. It's not like my pronunciation is perfect, but there were words that I could say that my mom couldn't. Stuff like the word for leaf is fey. And she just couldn't say it right, but I didn't know how to articulate to her as a kid, like what she's saying wrong. But when I think about it with my tongue fey, yeah, yeah, you know, you're not just saying fey. You got to throw in little acrobatics with your tongue. But then on the other hand, if you get too deep into it, you know, like a native French person can run circles around what I can do. I even noticed it. I did an episode of my writing podcast. It's called How to Write a Novel. I did an episode while I was in Montreal. And a guy stopped me real briefly. All he did was ask me like, hey, is this such and such a thing up here? And even just the way he said that and all I said is, hey, I don't know, I'm not from Montreal. And he just said, like, yeah, I duck all. But even when I listen back, I'm like, man, yeah, he's saying that with a French accent that I can't pull off. You know, I'm in the middle somewhere. But there's benefits to being in the middle. Because I do some stuff I hadn't realized I was doing until my Toronto friends kindly mocked me for it. But I don't pronounce the H in front of words. Human, H-U-N-A-N, I just say human. And I never thought that was weird. And they were like, why don't you say human, human. And even just I was like, what do you mean? What's the difference? But it turns out there is a human. But I have to force it so hard. To me, human, human being, it's so easy to say human. I feel like I'm Hank Hill, hobbobbing. Like I got to force it. I'm like, I'm not fucking doing that. But once I got pointed out to me, sometimes I make a little bit of an effort now that I'm aware of it. But that's something, you know, with obviously the French floating through my brain. They would never pronounce an H to save their fucking lives. So now they're do I?

But on the other hand, if you got too much of it, too big a dose of the French. That is when I low-key that is when you talk like this, you're a French person. That is only so much you can do about it. You can't talk, you know, within a North American English accent anymore. It's gone. So as is a common trope, I don't know much about Japan really. But I do know they have fewer sounds than us. A-U-A-O, and that every word has to end with that sound. And like my friend Brad, when he was here doing language courses, you know, he's saying stuff like, like if you, even if you're in McDonald's and the context clues are very clear, if you ask for a Big Mac combo, forget it, it's not a combo. It's called a set, but you can't say set. It has to end with I-U-A-O. So Big Mac Set-O. Okay, I could probably do that. But then he said like, yeah, but it's not Set-O. It's Set-O. I think I could be wrong. And you'd think like, okay, I'm in McDonald's, I'm basically saying the thing. But again, I guess that's fair. Because when you think of English words, I mean, all it takes is one little sound and it's a whole different word. It really can be easily confusing. But anyway, what I'm trying to ramble about is that there are just fewer sounds in the Japanese language. They've got sounds we don't have. And then for us, you know, I suppose like, I don't know what's an example. Like those African click languages, like they do stuff that we don't do, or rolling your ears in Spanish languages, or clearing your throat in Middle Eastern, or oftentimes French as well. I wonder who's got the most sounds, like who is the most able to do everybody else's language. But in any Japan, that's her damn sure. And I just thought it was funny that this kid who is losing her shit, she is like not in control of herself anymore, having a total tantrum breakdown. And yet, I didn't notice this at first, but because I was putting stuff in my book bag, standing there for a minute, I heard enough of it that you start to hear the sounds of Japanese words in the screams. Like even while she's just expressing noise to make noise, to just be like, I'm pissed, it still doesn't drift into. She's not going to accidentally make the same sounds a North American English-speaking toddler would make.

It's already, like the lines are already drawn in the sand. These are the sounds I have access to, even when I'm freaking out.

And I just think that's interesting, one interesting thing that I never thought about.

And it's probably for the best that it never crossed my mind. Like we should test this. We should make people real upset, or we should set up a horror movie scenario. I always think about that in general. Let's move to adults now. I wonder how people really react when they're in a horror movie scenario.

Does anybody scream like you're doing a horror movie? Or are we just copying old horror movies? You know, is it just a trope that gets copied over and over?

When you really have lost all control of your self-control, what really happens? Do you even scream? Do you just go quiet? Do you become unable to speak? What? What happens? Is it a prolonged movie scream? Or is it short panicked screams? Like what happens? I just, I don't know.

But yeah, I did not go up to be a creepy scientist who let's unexpectedly terrify people, so they think they're going to die. Or let's deliberately make kids upset. Let's just study the sounds that come out of them.

I'm not a person who does these things, but I do find them interesting. Oh man, here's another. This one is a really old house. It almost looks like one of those shrine pagoda things, but it's a house. It's got really cool trees growing up around the outside of the house, bushes all around, super cool looking old house, with a little satellite dish on the top, and they hold in the new.