#90 Exploring north Yokohama

Transcript

Hello, welcome to the Roaming Holiday Podcast. So, this was the, uh, she may be I can get a better sound quality. How do we got here? Let's go stand out, sir.

So, here's part two, again, just a totally normal episode. I'm only mentioning this, I guess, because, you know, the episode's going to start. Assuming that this was all one big podcast. And like, here we go, it's the next day of a blah, blah, blah. I can't for the life of me, remember. What I did on this particular day, hopefully something, but no guarantees, so, uh, let's dive in and find out.

Oh, man, what a nice day. Holy shit, there's like a little, uh, chill in the air, but it's very nice feeling. But it's also very sunny and bright out. This is a rare combination. It seems like usually, if it's, uh, if the sun's not obstructed, then it's deadly hot. Then it's death's own hot. This is nice. I like this little fall chill in the air. It feels good to my Canadian bones. So, it's the next day. I did take a little, take a little resty rest and it turned out perfect timing because I wandered back to my Airbnb and it started raining right as I was coming in. And I realized there actually is a way to open the windows in my room, which is nice. In case I need to escape from, uh, a team of psycho mutants that are attacking me at night. I just slid open the window and I just got to stand in front of the window with the rain coming down in the alley outside and just survey creation. It felt fucking cool. It's like that's a rainy alleyway in Japan. And I'm just standing here.

Also, the, uh, the cleaning lady is at my Airbnb, clean and stuff up. I'm kind of hoping because today is Sunday, the rooms did fill up for the weekend. But I wonder if those people are already gone. Maybe that's why she's been, she's been cleaning for like a long time. It's super deep dive clean. Seems, uh, seems like a lot. But maybe it's because those people were just here for the weekend.

And I can get back to my sweet, sweet solo place and not like it matters, but, but if I can be there by myself, I will. But because she was cleaning up stuff, she was actually cleaning the washroom as I left. So I didn't get to pee. But the beauty of Japan, my neighborhood in specific, maybe it's because I'm right by the fancy, uh, shopping street. There's a bunch of washrooms.

Out of coins, got a feet of bill in here. So many that I'm not even, uh, I'm not even afraid to buy a coffee. I'm not concerned about buying a coffee before I find the washroom. Because I just know that there's tons of washrooms all over. I got the, uh, Zelda coffee with the Korok guy, the big rock dude yesterday. What did we get today? Mmm, nice warm coffee. Feels so good in the chill in and slink again. So yeah, not bad. Because again, I don't actually know who's all on these here, uh, cans. I don't even remember. I don't think I did, you know, in breath of the wild, the fish land. It's like the fish prints. And isn't there like, yeah, that was like depressing. That one is like a dead fish princess or some shit in her spirit helps you.

But I'm not sure in tears of the kingdom. I never did get the chance to finish that game before I left to start traveling because I'm just playing it on my cousin's switch. I don't think I even did the fish stuff. I don't know who even is involved in the fish part. Maybe there's not a fish guy in this one. I don't know. Anyway, it's a functionally. I've pretty much got everybody. But I'm going to keep buying these just because it's such a, it's such a guaranteed coffee that I like. It's so nice and convenient to not have to just, uh, get a random coffee and hope, hope that it all works out. So even though I got to go a little bit up the hill to get my Zelda coffee, I just certainly worth it.

Mmm, yummy. Alright, so I got a plan for today, but I'll get into that after I go find a washroom.

Man, I really do like this weather. It just made me realize how, just how weirdly uncommon this is. Like there have been some kind of bad days, pretty rough days, but it's because it's been overcast. And then that's the kind of cold that it's like, mm, this is for real cold. This is kind of weird. Where the sun and the cold together, it's so good. It's kind of nice because it makes me think like obviously I got very lucky this particular winter was really gentle. But if I do come here on a harsher winter, maybe that won't be so bad. Maybe I'll be alright with that.

I was watching, so there's this guy, Quinlan. He does the YouTube channel, Go North, Japan. And I saw him do an interview on a different YouTube channel, where he talked about how he's from Madison, Wisconsin, such a fairly Canadian-ish part of the United States. And he's lived in Japan for over 20 years, how he lived in Tokyo for 10 years, and he then moved up North. And one of the things he brought up that, man, spoke to my fucking soul, was just the miserable heat in Tokyo and describing like August. And now just everything sucks. Then he moved North, and not only is it snowy and stuff, especially good if you do skiing and things which I don't really do, but I do just like the snow in general.

But he was saying how, you know, within an hour of his house driving, I guess that's another downside, without driving, this would change things a bit for me too. But within an hour of his house, there's like these, well there's six different ski resorts for one thing, but there's these coastlines with 200 foot cliffs and just like amazing shit. Where literally no one is there, no one is there but him. And I'm like, ah dude, that's the protracted 20-year version of the same kind of experience I had in my two little tiny visits to Japan, just where I came here once in the summer and then once now in the winter. And I very much got what he was talking about.

The North sounds like it might be pretty good, because I was also thinking stuff that I got to add to my tinerary, you know. Of the places I've gone on this trip, like what are the places I got to go back to?

This is definitely one. I'm on the boardwalk or whatever you call it, the promenade next to the bay. I definitely got to come back to this neighborhood, no question. And obviously Ome station. And then Fukuoka in general, but I would say probably Desaifu would be a good stand-in of just like a place to go where you can easily get to a mountain. And hike around, but I mean pretty much everywhere in Fukuoka works for that. But short visits would be fine, like for instance around here now that I've kind of pinpointed that I love the bluffs, but the bluffs it's a very tiny neighborhood. So if I got another 90-day visit someday in the future, like I can come back to these places for little teeny stop-ins and just go other places, go check out other stuff. And I mean more and more the North is starting to sound pretty good.

But I could do that in short bursts too, like more of like an experiment. What if, what if I get up there and the fact that I don't drive just really fuck shit up and what if I'm just snowed in and stuck. You know if I just go up for a little bits, just as a test. That could be cool.

So right now I'm heading to the Red Brick Warehouse that I noticed when I first got here because I looked up a list of stuff to do. And pretty much all of it is right in this neighborhood and is all stuff that I've, if not gone to, then you know, just sort of strolled nearby. There's two different ramen museums around here. Geez. But the Red Brick Warehouse they mentioned is it's the hip shopping thing. They took an old big brick warehouse and turned it into a cool shopping plaza. So I mean, I'm just going to walk through there just just why not because I'm heading that way anyway. It is weird though. What a weird description. Does that work on people? Oh, that's the hippest place. I want to be hip. Let me go to the hippest place. I think I'm really going to get it. It is funny to see people stuff about travel, travel tips and whatever, like how to deal with your baggage when you bring back all your crap that you bought. Maybe just don't. Okay, I won't get into all that again. 10:00 But yeah, from the hippest place, my other plan for today, the one thing on the list I saw that was not in this neighborhood and I never heard of it. It's just a good excuse to go walk. Just a good excuse to go explore farther is I had to make a little save point on my mat because I don't recall the name.

Again, this is technically just a buying stuff area, but in a different way. Oh, darn it. I didn't write down the name. All right. Well, I'll figure it out, but it's a Haku Raku station, H-A-K-U-R-A-K-U station. Right by that is a shopping street that apparently is super old style. It's like they've tried to keep all or if I don't know if it's still liberty or it's just happened this way. But the buildings all still have the old-timey style of I don't remember the name of the era. I don't remember shit today, but the era that basically spanned from the 1920s to the 1980s, that basically everyone is nostalgic for around these parts when particularly in the latter half, everything was poppin in Japan and the economy was doing great and everyone had money. You know, the fond old memories, apparently this shopping street is very much like that. So again, I'm not going to buy anything. I'm just going to wander through it just to soak it in. But it's also just an excuse to walk somewhere because it's a little bit far north. It's going to take a little while.

But I was looking for a reason to pick a direction, to have some reason to go somewhere farther than here.

And that seems like a pretty good reason and I can pass by the brick warehouse. And I guess this will take me by also this Ferris wheel and stuff that I saw the first day that I just kind of never went back to because I'm not going to go on a Ferris wheel.

But yeah, that's all I needed. It was just an excuse. An excuse to walk to nowhere.

And I feel like I've been to places like that with the old-timey style before. But I guess it's kind of hard to tell. It's hard for me to determine exactly what style is from when or if I am in an old-timey area. I mean, to me, it's like, I don't know. It's just just Japan, right? I don't know. So we'll see. We'll see when I get there, I guess. If I go like, oh yeah, I've been to places like this or maybe not. Maybe it's like a whole new thing. A whole new old thing.

All right, the free Wi-Fi still works. So that's handy. That's a definite bonus to being in this waterfront area. Man, though, it's a little tough to find the name of this place. I've been hearing people say lately that Google is not the search engine at once was. Now it just tries to funnel you, I don't know, like predetermined, recommended stuff more than actually what you're searching for. And I mean, that's true in this case. I was like, okay, show what Ira, I believe, is that Ira I was yammering about. So I searched, you know, like, show what Ira shopping street. Well, I guess it does fit for this. But anyway, Dobuita is all that'll come up. It's just like go to Dobuita. It was like go to Dobuita. And I mean, I will go there eventually because I've heard of it just because it's in the game Shenmue. But I also haven't played the game Shenmue. So that's a couple levels of abstraction. And apparently it's like an American street. American street with tons of bars and burger places. And it's like, you know, it doesn't really sound like somewhere I would go to. Why do I give a shit about that? I'm really only interested because of the video game connection, but I need to kind of research the video game. You know, the whole thing is just a little weird. But like to the point where it's given me these results that say like, here's a result. But it is missing the words Showa and Ira. And it's like, well, then why'd you give me that result? Bitch, it's fucking not what I'm looking for. You fucking, like I couldn't believe how much I had to search. Finally, I just went to that railway station that I had saved. Went to reviews and then someone in the review says, this is the nearest station to Roka Kubashi shopping district. So yeah, that's where I'm going. But thanks for fucking nothing, Google. Stop, stop giving me these fucking results that don't even include the words I typed. You bitch fuck. It's just so annoying.

And yeah, it looks like I have wandered outside the Wi-Fi zone, but that's fine. I got what I needed. That's all. I just wanted to know the name of the place that I'm going. But yeah, I mean, I think I guess if I understand things right, maybe I'm being too hard on Google. I mean, I think Dobuida Street. I think that's that same Ira. Right? Probably. But anyway, I don't know. It's just funny to see results.

Results do not include the important part of the search. We know what you want more than you know. You don't know what you want. You want this. We know what you want. 15:00 All right.

So the Red Brick Warehouse, it's just, it's just restaurants mainly. And I would not describe it as remotely hip. It's, it's more like a, I don't know, it's like a food court. It's like if you've ever been to a food court that's like downtown in a big city. So it's like for tack workers. So, you know, essentially they are just going to a cafeteria, but you want them to feel like it's a little fancier. So it has, you know, fucking wood finish on everything. And the lighting is a bit dim and you spend $17 on Kalamari, but it's, it's just a fucking food court. That's what the Red Brick building is. So I don't even know where I found that list, but I'd call that description suspect at best. I did find though while I was dicking around trying to determine the name of the street I'm going to a top 50 list that I bookmarked that does seem to have a lot more out on the edges type stuff. So I'm going to look at that later because, yeah, I mean, I think it's probably, it's safe to say there's probably not really anything on the list that I actually give you shit about, you know, because I'm just such a weird traveler. Like, I just want to walk nowhere for no reason, and that's fine. I don't really care what's there when I get there. But I do enjoy having a target. It is good to have some reason to walk to nowhere, you know, not literal nowhere. So that could be handy. Man, actually, because I don't normally use one of my two phones, I've got one phone that has the good GPS that I use the maps on, and then the other one, hardly ever. So I opened up the map on that. And Moomin Valley Park came up. It's like, oh, I guess that's the last time I use this phone. But little stuff like that is so weird as far as going nowhere. I mean, that's the most nowhere I've gone in a while, just going to Saitama for no reason. And then even that, I mean, I didn't actually go into Moomin Valley Park, but that I now, not only am I aware of that, now I know what Moomin Valley is, you know, that is this weird, finished cartoon that's inexplicably popular in Japan. The way North America loves Japanese stuff, Japan loves this one show from Finland. Why not? It's so cool to just learn about weird stuff like that by complete accident while you're just wandering around. And then that led me to stuff like, why is Moomin Valley so popular in Japan? And answers were inconclusive. It's like Anne of Green Gables is apparently really popular in South Korea. And I had, I worked with a girl named Sunghee when I was a coffee shop worker. Though that's one thing that's interesting is Japanese people always keep their Japanese names where Korean people and seemingly Chinese people. I don't know, I only really knew one Chinese guy and he did go by Leo. But Korean people always take a North American name. My boss's name was James. His name wasn't fucking James. He never told me what his real name was. He was in the South Korean. You know what now that I think about it though, he gave me a big story when I started working there about being in the military. But isn't military conscription mandatory in South Korea? James? There's nothing special about you being in the military. Everyone's in the military. Anyway, whatever. He was kind of a dick. But Sunghee was super nice and she went by sunny. I'm like, oh, that's a good compromise. You know, that's close to your original name. But I remember I asked her about the Anne of Green Gables thing. Oh, it's because she was telling me where she was going after Vancouver. She was going to go to Toronto and she was going to go to PEI and I was like, oh, PEI for Anne of Green Gables, right? And she said that is right and she was very enthused about it. But I don't think I actually asked her like, what is the deal with Anne of Green Gables?

How did that become so popular in South Korea? I'm approaching the big Ferris wheel. There is a roller coaster wrapping around the big Ferris wheel. Oh, look at that creepy thing. I thought it wasn't moving the other day. But I guess I just don't understand shit about Ferris wheels. It's supposed to go slow. It takes 15 minutes to go around the Ferris wheel. 20:00 For some reason, I thought it was supposed to go fast. Like, it's a ride. But I guess it's really just for the view.

Alright, well, I think for today's adventure, this might be a case of I don't have enough information to be able to appreciate where I am. Because the idea with the street is that it is more old school feeling. Like, ah, time warp. Time warp back to the 70s. Time warp back to the 80s. But I guess that's a little hard for me to appreciate because I have not been to Japan in the 80s. And I've been to a lot of other streets that still have that kind of feeling, you know. So I certainly wasn't overwhelmed with the feeling of teleporting through time, you know. But it is one of those tricky things where sometimes if you find like an old mall that hasn't been renovated in a long time in North America. And it's cool to go in and be like, oh, yeah, this is how malls used to feel when I was a kid. This is like a 1980s mall. But it is still just a mall, you know, it is still a modern mall. And some ways things just haven't changed that much. A lot of underlying infrastructure is changed with cell phones and internet and computers and shit. But the basics of the world are kind of the same. Like, I remember thinking that when I read the book The Fountainhead is set in the 20s. So literally a hundred years ago. But it's one of those things that if you just don't think about the fact that nobody is ever on a cell phone and no one ever references to the computer, then it all just seems like the normal modern world people are walking around in, you know, streets and buildings and taxis and whatever. And it isn't until I just remember specifically this one character went into a diner and got like an entire breakfast and a coffee for 10 fucking cents. And I was like, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Like, it takes that to realize you're in a different era. So I suspect that that's kind of like what happened here is, is I just don't know the difference. I've probably walked through a whole bunch of areas that have this kind of feel, maybe not quite to this degree. But I don't know how to untangle it. I don't know how to untangle the show at era from the current era. So, you know, maybe it makes sense that Google was pushing me so hard of like every single result is Dobuita. Here's fucking 50 results about Dobuita because that's got fucking hamburgers. That's clearly what you want. And maybe that's, you know, though it's a bit annoying, it does kind of make sense because that probably is what makes more sense. That probably is, if I'm the average person traveling, that probably is what I want. Or even for me who thinks they want something else, probably when I go to Dobuita, it'll strike me a lot more. I'll be like, oh, there we go. I'm Erica Town, you know. So this one really did. It kind of went over my head. But it was a good excuse to walk. And mostly what I noticed on the way around the bay is a lot of parks and big modern buildings. And then as I passed into the city proper, you can really feel the economics of the buildings go way down real fast. Like instead of these great big modern gleaming skyscrapers, it's just normal houses. And they kind of went through phases of I walked through one neighborhood that was very, very old buildings and just like old storage units and stuff. And one person was getting some stuff out of their storage unit. And I'm like, what even is in that storage unit? It just looks like it's full of junk. What even is going on with that? And then as I went further, the houses got more fancy pants and bigger. And now that I'm deeper in, it's also kind of cool because things were really flat for a while. And as I couldn't stop going on about at the bluffs, I like when stuff goes up and down. I like elevation changes in a city. I just find it really interesting and exciting to look at. And as you go deeper into Yokohama, it does get to be that way, but less severe than the bluffs. You know, it's like gentle ups and downs, but there are ups and downs everywhere. And like I just passed a thing that is like a very common type of landmark here that is one of the few things I recognize from Shenmue. Because even though I haven't played Shenmue, it's a very famous Sega game. So I have absorbed quite a bit of Shenmue. And it's this, it takes place in this general area. And it's this one street type where there's like a rock wall on one side because there's a big cliff side, the big elevation. And then the street goes up the hill and turns the corner. And I don't know, it's just 25:00 one of these things that I definitely remember from that game of just just the rock wall curving up a hill and turning around. And that's, it's just this kind of street that pops up a lot. And every time I see it, I'm like, ah, Shenmue. But anyway, I thought since I'm here, this is one of these cases where there's not exactly a tunnel going on. It is just nice to absorb, absorb the feeling of the city in general. You know, just walk through it and let it flow through it as it flows through me. But there's no real way to walk back in a different way. Since I curved around the bay to get here, there's no other way back besides that same route. I can't like loop around and go check out another part of town on the way back. I basically, I'm going to end up taking the train. So I figured since I'm in this vicinity and I don't know if I'll ever be back here again, what can I check out? What's the opportunity I can take while I'm here? So it's not exactly close, but on a map, the thing that stuck out, the thing that stuck out was Mitsui Kei Park, MIT SUI Kei Park. It's a pretty big park and it's got like three big lake looking bits of water in the middle. And there's actually not even a subway station, especially close to there. But it's three o'clock, I got two to and a half hours of sunlight. And yet it's a bit of a walk from here, but if I just pushed forward, I should be able to make it there and then push even a little further forward to a subway station. And again, really just as an excuse to go somewhere, just to soak it in while I'm here. Yeah, it's kind of neat because when I was just by all the big skyscrapers by the bay and then transitioning into just the deflatlands of just normal residential neighborhoods, it was a little uninspiring. It's just like, okay, this really is just residential land. So it's kind of cool that now I'm getting deeper into Yokohama, just that it's becoming more interesting again. There is a lot of ups and downs and overpasses and underpasses and interesting architecture, but I never did come up with the right word for this because it's not that the buildings themselves are particularly stand out. It's the the landscape, the architecture of God, the architecture of the of the area is so up and down and variable and different everywhere. Nothing is a grid, nothing is consistent, nothing is the same, everything is just flowing across this landscape. So it's a lot less severe than the bluffs, but it's still really cool.

I came across a little thing Baba Kebokuan flower garden, B-A-B-A-K-A-B-O-K-U-E-N.

Though this time of year, it is light on the flowers, but still kind of nice. Man, as I get deeper in, once I got off the major street, I found a little uh, a little stream, like a little cobbled sidewalk that followed a stream. Quite a long ways. And yeah, now as I get deeper in, it's like this just gets kind of better and better. The farther away I get from, from stuff, you know, like the neighborhood really just becomes, becomes what it is, as Julianne Hatfield would say.

She has an album called Become What You Are, you see. And yeah, like walking down the stream, there was a a vending machine that I still don't quite know what it is, you know, it was kind of expensive. It was like 1100 yen for a canister of something to do with seafood. I think it's probably like sprinkles of some kind, like maybe shaved fish or something, flakes. Yeah, be in a port town, there's a lot of seafood stuff around here.

And this really distinctive old guy walks past me and I took so long trying to translate the stuff on this machine and failing that he walked back past me the other way. And then when I got to the end of the little stream, I turned the corner and I saw him going into his house and I'm just so chronically video game-addled that it really felt like a video game where like that used to be a big deal in old Bethesda games and stuff. Like, well, you know, if you follow the people in the town, they're not just random. Every person has their own house and you can follow them throughout the day. They go to work and then they go back to their house and go to bed. It's amazing. And that's how I kind of 30:00 felt a bit is like, oh, okay, that's where that guy lives. That character, even though he's an actual person and that's his real house, which is arguably creepy, I guess. I mean, it's not like I'm like following people in real life. I just happen to be walking by, but I guess I'm glad people don't notice that I'm noticing them. And developing these little routines in your mind, I mean, it's kind of handy because that's what makes me come to these places. Like, I'm 100% just in a normal neighborhood, but this is, man, I like this so much. That's what I love. I love to just walk around to totally normal neighborhood and soak it in. And you need these little swirls and warls in your brain to do this. Otherwise, why would you? Because there ain't nothing here, man. And I'm not too far from that big park. Still, yeah, no, it's getting pretty close at this point. Not even four o'clock yet. I should be all good. Yeah, I don't know. It's just kind of a neat feeling. It's kind of a neat feeling to just to get that feeling that you're absolutely not being catered to. Nobody gives one single fuck that some random Canadian guy is here because they don't expect you to be here because why would you be here? It's a way different feeling than being down by the waterfront and having, you know, tourist decks and Wi-Fi's. What the heck is that? And you just get to see such weird random cool stuff. So I'm just higher up in this random neighborhood, just in a corner part where I happen to be higher than the neighborhood ahead of me so I can see out across.

And there is a red and white Tokyo Tower looking building. I wonder what that is.

It's really hard to find towers on maps. I remember the first time when I was walking toward the Skytree and I'd never heard of the Skytree so I didn't know what to search for. I'm trying to find it on a map. It's quite small. It's quite a small thing. Whatever this is, I don't see it on the map and if I search tower, nothing around here shows up. Hmm. I mean, it's not close and as I learned from the blue building down by the bluffs, just because I know it's over there doesn't mean anything. As soon as I go down into these buildings, it's going to disappear forever.

Yeah, like there's a park. There's a nursery school, a bicycle shop, a Lawson's, a orthopedic hospital, and a high school, and eventually that park. I don't know, maybe it's part of that park. I guess we can only help. Hope that it's part of the park that I'm going to anyway because I have no fucking idea what that is but it's clearly something. It's a great big tower. The fuck? I suppose two towers are always farther away than they seem. So there is a river here. This is a roomy river. Maybe it's on the other side. I mean, yeah, it could be way further than I think it is. Who knows, man, I'll just walk in that general direction and cross my fingers.

But yeah, I really do like the, even here where I'm walking along this little street. If I hang a left, I go higher up. If I hang a right, I go lower down. I'm going to go down because that's toward this tower. That tower is really big. Maybe I actually can't get to it. Maybe I won't lose it. But yeah, man, this is my favorite thing ever. It's just make your own adventure. I didn't even know this tower was here. It's so neat because even though going to the Shoah era street was a little lost on me, it got me going. It got me rolling. It got me out here. And then the adventure begins with just random shit that I made up. But it's so cool because I didn't know any of this was out here. And I'm glad to say that like Yokohama in general, even though it's less severe than the bluffs, it does continue to be like just the elevation right where I am. The buildings to my left, it's like two stories up before they even begin. You know, you got to walk upstairs. But just to my right, I'm kind of level with the roofs of the houses on the right. And this is just some normal street. Like yeah, the elevation changes around here are totally wild. And it's not just the bluffs as I was starting to think maybe it was. It just goes on and on for fucking miles.

Man, yeah, that tower did disappear completely as soon as I went down into the buildings. It's amazing how fast these things can just disappear. But now it's directly in front of me. 35:00 I'm on a more or less straight route. I guess not quite. Two and a half blocks ahead of me is a T junction. But basically straight. So I got to assume that tower is in the park I'm going to.

I think it's all going to work out. I think too when I was reading about the Tokyo Tower and the Sky Tree, these towers are functional in the sense that they're used as broadcast towers. They're they're not just tourist things, you know, like they didn't just make the Sky Tree. Like let's just make a real tall tower. So people will go see it. You know, that's part of it. But also the Tokyo Tower wasn't tall enough to transmit broadcast signals. So maybe that's all this is just a functional tower. But it's still a really tall tower. And it basically looks the same as the Tokyo Tower. And I just think it's interesting that I never heard of it before. I've never heard anyone reference it. But I mean this does happen all the time. It's surprising how when you move somewhere. I always think of Toronto as a good example of this. There's so much stuff that's very famous in Toronto that I never heard of till I got to Toronto. I guess it's just natural if you don't live in a place. Unless you have like the PR team from hell. No one's going to know what's going on in your particular city. I was thinking too with all this broadcast stuff because there is a TV in my little room which is super silly. If anything I got to be careful not to hit my head on it because this room is so small that I don't even know how you would watch this TV if you're laying down on the futon. It's way up on the wall. You know, it would be awkward at best. I didn't even turn it on. Oh, that's a nice view out across the city. Just a view of again, just a sea of houses cascading out and down. But I was watching Paulo from Tokyo does really good videos about Japan. And he did want about being at his in-laws when the big New Year's earthquake of 2024 hit. And that was the earthquake I wasn't even aware happened because I don't know where I was, but I didn't know. But I mean, as in Tokyo, it was very light here. They were a lot closer, but one of the things that happened that apparently is normal. This is just what happens is all the TVs turned on and started blaring warnings. So they had a little bit of warning before the actual earthquake hit. And I think phones do it too. So all the TVs and all the phones send out warnings when there's big weather events that are about to happen. So I wonder, I just assumed all these TVs were just some kind of, you know, it's just expected that you have that or whatever. Again, the hotelification of Airbnb, like maybe people are just like, wow, there's no TV. Oh my God. Whereas I just, I turned on the TV a bit on each of my trips because at first it's kind of fun just to watch Japanese TV. But pretty quickly, it just started to become a little weird. Like, why? Why do all these places have these TVs? And this one is the most weird of all. It's like, this is not even a functional TV. But that made me wonder, maybe it's kind of required. Maybe you're supposed to have TVs for warning system stuff. Because I know Airbnb around here. In Japan, it is treated basically like a hotel. They have a lot of regulations and stuff, a lot of hoops people have to jump through. Maybe this is one of the hoops. Maybe they require a TV in the rooms so that if they need to send an emergency signal, there's a TV there to receive the signal. I have no idea. It's just pure conjecture on my part. But maybe it could be. But yeah, it extra makes me wonder where I was that day because I just have no idea. If everything was blaring a warning, I don't know. Maybe they didn't do that in Tokyo. And obviously, it can't come through my phone because I don't have a data plan. So I guess I was just nowhere around anything, which I guess is not the most surprising thing in the world. But yeah, I don't know. I wonder where I was that day. It was the day that I walked to the man-made reservoir lake in Saitama. Maybe that's where I was. Because I did spend a pretty significant amount of time walking between those two lakes. And there sure was nobody fucking there. That's for sure.

Hey, there's another tower. So yeah, maybe these are just utility towers that mean literally nothing. Oh yeah, and is that another one behind it? So yeah, maybe that explains why nobody thinks this tower is a big deal. Because yeah, I'm just at the top of some stairs within a specially good view out across Yokohama. And I can see two other towers that appear to be of the same ilk. It is one of these things that like, sure, it's not cheap to fly to Japan. And 40:00 sure, even though I try to keep my prices down, you know, I didn't go for especially expensive Airbnb's. All I spend money on is random convenience store food. Obviously, still not a cheap journey. But not the most expensive journey, relatively speaking, it could be a lot worse. And once I get here, I'm like a fucking cat with a ball of yarn or a kid who just plays with a cardboard box. I'm just like, wow, a power tower that's not special and no one cares about. But to me, that's fucking exciting. Let's go try to get to the power tower, wow. Because I've lost it again. I don't know where it went, but it's gotta be near here. Oh, cool. Guess what? Everybody, I found the power tower. Look, this is why I have to do a podcast where I just talk to myself and hope to someone else listens to it later because who the fuck's gonna care about this story? You'll never believe what I did today. Oh, there it is. I see the top of it. I walked through residential Yokohama to ward a power tower. Whoa. And I'm almost at Mitsui Kei Park. And it's only four o'clock. It's not even dark yet. Win-win.

Man, this is a really beautiful park. So Mitsui Kei Park, MIT SUI Kei Park. I do think my kind of initial read on Yokohama, I still stick with like if you came here for two days and you just did this stuff around the bluffs. I feel like, you know, you're good. That's the really cool park. But if you're here for more time, this park is really neat. It's like three lakes that are down in a bowl. So right now I'm walking around the outside edge and I'm looking down at the lakes and you can walk around the lakes down there too. And from here you can see a view way out into the city. It's really fucking pretty. It's too bad I got here at quarter after four. I only have a little time before it gets dark and the towers here. And yeah, it turns out it is just a Mitsui Kei digital television and FM radio relay station. So yeah, it's it's not a famous tower. It's just a tower. Although, you know, to be honest, whip some lights on that bad boy.

The difference between it and the Tokyo Tower is negligible. But yeah, this is this is nice man. I like Yokohama. This is a cool place. So yeah, I'm going to walk around this park and then I'm going to find myself to a subway station. But I hope you've enjoyed this ramble. A nice, pointless ramble. My stocking trade, my fucking my my specialty. Yeah, man, oh jeez, this is a good park. This is a really good park. It's so cool how it's just like the main park is down in the center. And then there's just a path that goes all the way around the outside edge of the park. It's like a double park. Which I guess this is Yokohama's specialty, right? Is the multiple levels, multiple layers. This would be a great deathmatch level. You could rocket jump up from the center, the center battle zone up onto these. It's like having a catwalk that goes around the park, but it's just the natural layout of the park. Super cool. All right, well thank you for listening.

My plans from this point are absolutely nothing. I have no idea. So join me then for that. Okay, goodbye.