#94 The tourists of Enoshima, Japan

Transcript

Okay, it's the next day. It is super overcast, barely raining though, but I got an umbrella just in case.

But I just noticed something. I'm at the station right by my Airbnb, and I'm looking up and again this insane terrain of Yokohama by the Bluffs, where I'm upstairs. I'm on the platform of this station, which is like the second floor.

I'm at Omeba. I'm going to the next floor.

Ishi Kawacho Station, by the way. And I'm looking up through, you know, there's like a roof to stop the rain, but then in the middle there's no roof, so you can see out. And there's a tunnel, again going through the sky almost, because this hill is so big. And at the top of the hill is a western-style house. I'm pretty sure that must be.

Yeah, it is. Bluff number 18, the diplomat's house, Yamate Italian Garden. So I just think it's weird that I was up there looking around, and I'd never noticed that the subway station is right here, but maybe it's because the edges are in the way. Maybe if I was, I guess I would have to be in the second floor of that house, but then I could look straight down into this station. I wonder, I gotta go back up there, at some point, and just see if I can do the reverse angle, see if I can look down at where I am right now. Because I never noticed this at all firm up there. I mean, there's a lot to look at up there. There's a lot of, apparently I was just obsessed with a tiny blue dome house. But yeah, I don't know, I'm just like, holy shit, there's that house. What the heck? Anyway, my train's here.

Alright, I went to Sugido Station, and I'm back at Sugido Park. This is the first place that I managed to make it to the coast south of Tokyo. It's got palm trees and shit, and it sure does look different when it's overcast, although I can see the sun peaking just trying to peek through the clouds up there. I don't think it's gonna make it though. It's pretty much completely overcast, just the gray sky, which this is what I thought I was signing up for. Coming to Japan in the fall, I did not want to spend another winter in Canada, and the WestJet slightly less expensive flight ended at the end of October, so I'm like, alright, my decision is made.

And maybe normally it would be more like this. I don't know. I definitely got lucky this year, but this has been weird. I mean, I really don't know how the weather works around here, but I just assumed on an island. There would just be intermittent terrain, you know, between this stretch from the end of October through almost all of January. I can count how many times I remember raining on one hand. Like I noticed my shoes were a bit slippery on the way here. And it's like, oh yeah, that was an issue in Fukuoka. That was a long F and time ago. I was in Fukuoka, where I was like, oh no, do I need to buy new shoes? And then it just never was an issue, because yeah, my shoes are kind of weird. I mean, I could hike up literally hike up mountains, and it was no problem.

But you get a little rain on the wrong kind of terrain, and they're slippery as hell. Oh, there's a little bit of sun. Look at you. Sun shower. I mean, it has very, very light rain. I do have an umbrella that I grabbed from the Airbnb, one of these nice big umbrellas that they like in Japan.

But I'm not sure once I get down to the shore if it gets real windy. I might not be able to keep it open, but it's like that not too bad amount of rain wear. I mean, there's like some kids playing soccer, and I passed some kids earlier playing baseball. I think they're both having dubious days, but that's not insane that they're doing that. You know, it's like a pretty light rain.

And yeah, just being bundled up is all that really matters with weather like this. So this seems okay to me. This is fine. Jesus, that's one thing with, I mean, I love thermal shirts. That's like the Canadian standard issue. You got to have thermal shirts. I got two thermal shirts I brought on this trip. The only problem with a thermal shirt is you got to take all your layers off. I was at Sugito Station standing outside. It had to take off my jacket and my coat to take the thermal shirt out of my pocket and put it on and then put all my layers back on. 5:00 Like that transition process of getting that thermal under layer on is sure unpleasant. But I got that. I got my little stretchy gloves with my secondary glove layer of the people who abandoned some gloves on Takau Mountain that I took ownership of. So I'm pretty good to go. I got two hoods because both of my coat and my jacket both have a hood and a little winter hat. I'm good to go. This weather ain't going to fuck me up. And that's what I love about water sides coastlines is it doesn't need to be nice. Like pretty much all the days I've walked on this beach have been very nice weather.

But I like the water sides so much that the weather has nothing to do with it. Like there were times when I was staying at this Airbnb at the beaches neighborhood of Toronto where I'd be walking along the edge of Lake Ontario during snowstorms. Like while snow and wind is coming down and it's still awesome like at night couldn't be a worse situation. But it's so fun. You feel like a fucking Viking just like fuck. As long as you're bundled up you know as long as you got your face covered and you got your hood and you got your big heavy coat it's fine. Got your boots. It's like exciting. It's fun. So yeah I mean this weather they're saying nothing this is fine.

Man I also did get to experience to one of one of my little daydreams. So one of my daydreams was you know I wanted to be in Japan on Christmas which I was and I was like I wonder if it'll snow. These little visions of walking through the center of Tokyo while it snowed and that did not happen didn't even come close to snowing. But the other one was just hot drinks out of the drink machines because I never got to do that when I was here in the summer. It was just blazingly hot all the time. And I just got to experience it at the station where I must build some coffee on myself like an idiot. So I had to go wash the coffee off my neck. Like how does that happen right when you're drinking from a bottle with a tiny narrow neck and I still somehow didn't get it in my mouth. But anyway I was kind of wet and chilly in general after I decoffied myself but my hands were wet and this one of my dumb quirks is I really don't like using hand dryers because they're just so loud it like rattles my brain. My sound sensitivity it's like it feels like I'm standing in front of a jet engine to dry my hands it's not worth it. So I had these wet damp hands and my gloves were buried away in pockets somewhere and I was just like man my hands are really cold and chilly. So I got a hot tea, a hot lemon tea out of the machine and not only did it warm my hands it dried them. I didn't even drink the tea because I was getting on the train you know like I didn't want to open it. I just held it in my hands as a portable heater. It's like this is fucking awesome. And then when I got to the next station I guzzled that bad boy down wonderful speaking of I'm by one of these machines. I do have a nice boss strawberry latte that I managed to find. I haven't had one of those in a while. I got that tucked away in my pocket but that's cold. This is my last chance to get something hot before I hit the shore. Oh there's that espresso with tea, tea with espresso in it that I had when I first got to Japan. God that shit was sick, it was gross. I think I'm just going to go with milk tea just get old milk tea. I wonder if the rain's getting harder. It sounds like it like visually it's one of these things where I guess I can kind of see the rain. Still doesn't seem that bad but it sounds quite tippy tapety.

Mmm so warm on the hand. Jesus I noticed too, two of these machines have only two of them. They seem to have little hidden cameras in them. I don't think that's common. Maybe I've just never noticed it before. But I think that must just be because we're down here by the beach and we're relatively obscure. Really nobody here, it's like a little parking lot just for the surfers. That'll be interesting. I should really look up wetsuit stuff. I never did look that up. I thought it was pretty crazy when it was relatively nice out that they were out there. This weather's not so, I guess if you're basically in the water all day I guess what do they care if it's raining, right? What's the difference? I'm just shocked that a wetsuit can survive these temperatures. I mean it's not actually that cold. I'm going to guess eight degrees. It might even be closer, nah probably eight. It's going to say ten but ten's too much. It's not warm, it's just really not cold. It's just the wind is a little bad.

All right, we're going to walk under the underpass of the highway. 10:00 So yeah, I'm feeling a lot better today. I still didn't get amountlessly. I guess I just don't. I still stayed up way too late last night. But there's levels, you know. There's levels to this where this is a totally functional level of being a little tired. Where yesterday I was just dying. And it's not like I stayed up for no reason. I mean I did still stay up just listening to music for no good reason. But I did valuable research if you were ever wondering. If you remember the old 80s cartoon, Gem and the holograms. It was about this girl who gets left 50% ownership of a music company from her dad. And then of course an evil guy has the other 50%. So they're always button heads. But Gem also got left this hologram machine that can turn her into a musical superstar.

And she fought against this band called The Misfits. And I didn't realize that Gem haven't really watched it since I was a kid. But I always liked it. I had no problem watching shows that were not for guys. You know, a lot of ways I think Gem is extremely cool visually. I love the style of it. And I didn't remember how much music there was in that show. Through like three seasons of the show. There's literally 187 songs that are all like a little over a minute each. And some of them are bangers. So if you're curious, the band The Misfits.

They're the evil band that Gem's always fighting against. They're kind of like honky-tonk rock with an 80s flair. Their best song is called Universal Appeal. And it's so fucking cool. Like they're just like mega-lomenico. We're the best band in the world. Give us everything. So Universal Appeal starts out with just like, hey everybody likes us. We have Universal Appeal. And it builds up to like, I'm bigger than the sun. I'm bigger than the cosmos. I'm bigger than the Milky Way. I'm the fucking biggest thing ever. Fuck everyone. And it's just super catchy. Oh, nobody out here. I don't see any surfers today. So no, I guess this would be it too much. No, there's some. Okay, there's like three of them down the beach. Toward in Oshima, which is so much closer today than it was yesterday.

Pretty nice waves today. Definitely better waves.

Man, yeah, this is great. You know, already this beach was mostly, was surprisingly unpeopleed. Even when the weather was amazing. Yeah, there's where I was sitting the other day, although I wouldn't sit today. That's for sure. Today is a keep walking on the beach. Do not sit. Can't even come close to see a Fuji today. Two overcast.

But yeah, it's like Saturday. And there's nobody here. So yeah, I guess that explains that. As I learn slowly, absorb information about surfing. This is apparently not surf appropriate. But yeah, if I just wanted to be around no one. Fucking nailed this one mid-January, even on a Saturday. Nobody's here. Yeah, I was wondering that with Inoshima. I was like, oh shit, like that place when I looked it up on YouTube. It kind of turned me off immediately because it was, I was like, oh shit, it's going to be Saturday. And it just seems so touristy. It's like, I'll pay $3 to go through these caves where you hold a candle and pay to go up on the observatory. And here's the shopping street by some ice cream. The escalators. That's the one that really killed me. I don't want to walk up the hill to the shrine. Spend $250 to take escalators. I was like, nah, none of this is what I am into. I mean, just yesterday I didn't spend the $3 to see the giant, crazy boot ahead. I'm just not into anything like that. I just want to walk to a place. Like, it seems like the opposite of that island north of Kukuoka, which technically was not really an island. You know, it was connected. But it had an observation deck. And that place was crazy. I was like, how is it so undeveloped? There was a little tiny town. And then literally nothing. It's like I was walking through the fucking jungle to get up to this fucking observation deck. Like, that place was incredibly wild and undeveloped. That's where I stood and watched the little kid on the racetrack, where this feels the opposite. I know Shima seems hyper developed. Like, we got this fucking cool, sweet island accessible from Tokyo. Taurus, derupped, boys. So I was like, oh shit, I already feel like this is maybe not going to be my vibe. I forgot that it was going to be Saturday. It's going to make it even worse. But maybe this is going to work out in my favor. Because maybe because of this weather, no one's going to be there. 15:00 If this beach is any indicator, I don't know, I'm curious to see how this goes. Because my plan is to just wander around, to just soak it in, and to not partake of anything. Anyway, Universal Appeal is my favorite misfits song. And the best gem song is called Like a Dream. And it's just basically about how dating gem would be like a dream. She'll show you how the world could be like a dream. It's an amazing magical dream world. Like a dream, I'll appear to you like a dream And that is coming true like a dream. And these songs are like one minute long. And some of them are so fucking good. I don't know if that's not a good reason to stay up late. I don't know what fucking is. Hey, there's one person walking down the beach toward me.

I don't know, the surfers aren't visibly shivering or anything. They seem fine.

Alright, so my journey down the beach continues.

Overcast and rainy now. Just the right level of wind though that I can still hold this umbrella. Not bad, not bad. It's not like the... I mean, that's the Canadian problem for sure is...

If there's any wind at all, it's probably enough wind to turn your umbrella inside out. It's like fuck this.

Japan is surprisingly temperate when it's not a disaster.

I don't know. It is strange. I just assumed island life. You know, I just thought everything was going to be crazy around here. I like this level of non-rain has been like weird. There's so much non-rain while I've been here. I definitely just don't understand the climate at all. Like when they say the rainy season, they fucking kidding. That's the rain and then it just stops. So we'll see how this goes. For my last few days in Japan, but if it stays like this, that's fine. That is fine, dude. I got more than my share of sunshine, this fucking trip. So this will be all right.

Definitely seeing more surfers as I walk down the beach. Holding the umbrella up is getting a little. That's just a little too annoying. It's not super windy, but it's just don't really need it. But yeah, I'm watching these surfers.

And man, what a bracing life. You know, like watch someone come surf in on a wave. And then like I saw this one guy just like was near the shore. So he's only up to like a little past his knees. But a big wave came and he just had to turn his back and boom, you know, hit all the way up to his shoulders. And he just had to tank it. Just take it. Both. But it's like, well, man, you can get what a bracing life must feel alive. But then I watched him lay on his board and paddle out and even just going over a wave on his way back out just the sudden up and down. That's when I realized all of a sudden like, oh, I don't think I could be. I don't think I could really be a surfer because I used to get really bad motion sickness when I was a kid. And that mostly passed. But I guess I still get car sick sometimes a little.

But I think it's probably tied into whatever's going on my inner ear, my fear of heights, all this equilibrium shit I got going on. Even just I noticed today on the train, there's a bunch of tunnels because, you know, Yokohama so insane. And I was like looking at my phone and I realized because I had to kind of plug my nose and blow out to try to make my ears pop. Because I was like, oh, we must have gone through a tunnel when I wasn't paying attention because even just going through a tunnel, it just messes up my ears. Yeah, that up and down, I never thought about that, that up and down of being on the water. I bet that would fuck me up good. So rather than be a bracing life, again, like I said when I first got here, if I was going to be a surfer, I think those days have passed me by. But yeah, probably, probably I would just be a barf civill, maybe.

But it's cool to watch. I'm happy to just walk along the beach and bear witness, bear witness to these fucking mad lads that are out there paddling away.

Because I mean this, you must have to really like surfing because the waves are bigger today, but not that much bigger. 20:00 Certainly not enough to make up for the much shittier weather.

But then again, I don't know. I really don't know what it must be like to be out there all day because maybe this is better. I mean, I've definitely learned just being a land lover that the sun is bad. The sun is a bad thing. I guess if I was going to be out in the water all afternoon, would I want the sun beating down on me and the water blinding me? Maybe this is better. Maybe this is nice.

I don't know, it's cool though. Surfing is cool. Surfing is cool because it's one of those neat human ingenuity things. Like who the fuck even started doing this? Who figured out you could do this? How did this start? I've watched a lot of stuff about the history of skateboarding, so I know skateboarding came from surfing, but I don't know where fucking surfing started. But it's not one of those super ridiculous things. It's not like cliff diving or paragliding. You know, it's not like dangerous, extreme bullshit. It's like safe, neat, cool bullshit.

Oh, speaking of bullshit, man, these beaches, there's like, it's very hard to find a stretch where you can just walk unobstructed on these beaches. There's a lot of construction up ahead of me, and I don't know if I can get through this. They're not actively working, but I mean there's like, this happened to me yesterday too. I had to like go up around some big waterway. Oh, fuck, that wasn't paying attention. Oh, gross. I got water all over my shoe. It wasn't paying attention to the water. Oh, my socks all wet. Dang, I usually have a... It's gonna say I usually have backup socks, but I guess I only have backup socks when I bring my book back.

I haven't done that in a long time. Ever since I got this little day bag on OEM or Road, there hasn't really been room for socks. So I do not have backup socks. I think I'm just gonna have to tough this one out.

I mean, I could always go to a convenience store in the way home and buy some socks, but I really only got my toes. This would be okay. This would be all right. Shit, though, I didn't expect that.

I was staring at the construction. Well, anyway, whatever. Worst case scenario, I just gotta go around.

There is like a consistent walking path. But yeah, walking along the shore, there's all these areas. So many, I've never seen so many construction vehicles that I've never seen one on a beach ever, but they're all over the place on the beaches in Japan. They don't quite know what they're all up to, but they're doing some at least one spot between each station. There's a bunch of construction doing some. Oh, poof, there's a guy just fell off a fucking wave. Cup-pow.

Oh, and there's a lot more surfers down this way. All right, all right. So this must be the real surf zone. And it's just that the first day I was here, the weather was so nice that the surf zone stretched all the way to the next station.

But yeah, there's like a whack of people out there. There's like 50 people easy out there. So there we go. This is surf weather. This really is like, do you ever see that show an idiot abroad? I love that show. It's like my favorite travel show. It's this guy, Carl Pilkington, who just, he doesn't, he doesn't pull punches. He's the guy that says like, fuck the pyramids. Like, look, there's a goddamn pizza hut right by the pyramids and a dirty diaper flowing in the air. Like, these tourist traps are fucking tourist traps. They're not good. But also, he's just ignorant of what the hell's going on, but I like that instead of just trying to pretend he's some kind of expert. And he had occurred to me today, like, I could have called this podcast if that name wasn't already taken. It would be a good name. Cause I don't know fucking shit about anything.

Oh man, this is way bigger than I thought. This is like, nearly a river sized thing. I definitely can't get past this. I think I got a walk all the way up to the road. Well, alright then, I guess I'll do that.

See, the weather's still pretty decent today. Definitely more or less umbrella optional. So, bad weather definitely didn't hurt the tourism too much on this here island, because I got to the bridge walkway to Anashima. It's going to nice do where I saw a walkway first, then I was like, hmm, does that connect? I couldn't tell from where I was, and then I saw that there was another walkway behind it with people on it. 25:00 So I'm like, okay, now that's the one. And then, yeah, that first one I saw, it goes out to like, it's probably a pretty good view. In fact, she's kind of too bad I didn't go out there. I bet the view of the mountain from out there was really good probably. But I didn't go to the dead end walkway that goes out into the water. But then I got to the bridge coming into Anashima, and yeah, lots of people, just like on the pilgrimage with the continuous line of people coming and going. A lot of cosplayers, I've seen very few cosplayers, because I think from what I've heard, it is kind of a, you know, you kind of cosplay in the appropriate areas in Japan. Like even if you're cosplaying at like a convention, you don't really wear the costume on the subway and then walking down the street. Like you get changed at the convention center before and after.

So since I haven't been to the specific events, I haven't really seen cosplayers. But I saw three separate groups of them today already, you know, probably like 10 or 12 people. So I don't know if there's a specific anime that has anything to do with this island, or if maybe there's just good photo ops around here, I don't know. But so far, I've walked up the dreaded stairs, which again, really no big deal. And that's some kind of shrine, and it is one of those things where, yeah, just thinking now about the other view from outside, might have been better because this is a beautiful island from the outside. And then once you're in here, you know, it's fine, but it's just a shopping street and a shrine and, you know, just stuff. There's a lot of, you know, it's a, there's a lot of trees on the island, so you can't really see from here. I mean, I'm only halfway out, I guess, or halfway through. But you can't see off. You don't really have a sense that you're on an island, so it just kind of feels like any, any kind of, a shoppy tourism type area. And the reason I pulled out this recorder though, is because it is weird to be at this shrine. And I mean, I mentioned this, I guess I think I really started feeling it in Ome. When I found some, some shrines that really looked odd up there, one that was just very unusual. Just how quickly you started to take this for granted. Like, I have to kind of remind myself, like this building I'm looking at right now, it's beautiful. It's fucking gorgeous. If this was the first one of these I ever saw, or even the first hundred of these I ever saw, I would be amazed at how beautiful it is. But since it's the thousandth one I've seen, and they're all kind of the same, you know, like I am at that point now where I have to remind myself. It's like, oh jeez, look how beautiful this is. And I just don't care. It's just the fucking weirdest thing. I don't know, something about stuff made by people is just different from nature, because I can see a million paths through the woods, and I can see a million views of the water, and it's always good. But when you see a thousand buildings made by people, even if they're gorgeous, when they're all kind of the same, you just, it's just like, yeah well, I mean literally there's going to be another one around the corner. There's so many, so many shrines and temples in Japan. So yeah, I mean maybe that is also a good sign that 90 days probably is too long to visit, but it's like not so bad that I'm about to go, because it's time to refill the wonder tanks, you know. This should be blowing my fucking mind, but instead I'm just like, oh yeah, alright. What's next? What else you got? I wish I wasn't. I wish I wasn't such a fucking shallow dick, but I'm just reporting on the facts, ma'am. This is just how human brains work. Oh, that's neat. I've never heard big drums before.

But actually, I kind of liked the steps because I was walking along. My standard thing, even when I'm quote unquote rested, I'm probably a little more tired than I think I am. And I start to notice it in weird ways, like I just started having some phantom argument about nothing to no one while I was walking on the beach, and it's like, I got to shake this off. I was kind of thinking like, oh, I miss the, I do miss the mountains in West Tokyo, because that always did such a good job of shaking all those cobwebs loose of my brain. It's like no time to be tired, no time to just get stuck in stupid little mental traps and dumb crap for no reason. When you're moving upward, your energy is focused, you know, and it's like, wakes me up, makes my life better.

And there's been a distinct lack of that on the coast, you know. There's the ups and downs of Yokohama, but even that, that's like different. It's not like a nice consistent hike. Instead, it's just a, it's a visually cool thing that destroys your ankles.

So anyway, this nice hike up the steps. Yeah, I liked it. I don't know. I think I really do think if you take the escalator at Inoshima, you need to re-evaluate what is happening in your life. You better be a person who needs a cane to walk, because if you're not, what the fuck?

But yeah, this definitely, thinking of this in comparison to that island on Fukuoka where there was nothing. If anything, it had two little. Somebody needed to whip that place into shape a little bit, just a little more maintenance of the washroom and just like a little more reason to bring a tourist there. It was so wild and there was just nothing there except the observation deck and it was fucking, it was cool though. But yeah, like wandering off to that shit all by myself and not knowing what's gonna happen and then just fighting my way through the jungle is definitely what I like to do better. It makes me realize like there's, there really are people that do, they just do travel, like so differently than I do. I think this is the best thing in the fucking world. Like, yay, I came in here and I got a souvenir and you could buy a t-shirt and you can get fried food down at the bottom and you can take an escalator up here and it's just like, yeah, this is it. It's not my jam. So anyway, we'll see how the second half of the island goes. I hope there's some nice views coming up because so far, so far. I mean, it's what I thought it would be, you know, you too boring to me. I knew what I was getting into. I knew the journey would be better than the destination on this day. And I see clearly that that is the case.

You know what, I think they, I think they managed to tourist trap me. I haven't seen a machine with mystery drinks since Fukuoka, and this one has mystery drinks for 120 yen. I don't have 120 yen, but it takes bills. I do have a bill now. A lot of people are like kind of laughing as they go by, I have mystery drinks, but I'm the man of mystery. I'm going to buy one. Because yeah, along the back there's uh, there's some views. You know, the views aren't bad, they're okay. Looking out into the ocean, maybe on a clearer day it'll be different, because I was looking up at the sea candle, I think it's called where you can go even higher up, but I'm not sure what you would see because you can already see as far as you can see, you know, from the ground. And then from up here on the back end of this island, I guess you can see farther, but you can see farther to nothing. So if you were even higher up, I don't know, I don't think you would see anything. Okay, I'm weirdly embarrassed that I'm actually buying one of these because everyone else is just laughing at them. So let me buy this before more people come by. Okay, mystery drink, pick me up.

Get my change. I don't recognize the bottle, it's clear. Mitsuya Classic from Asahi. All right, let's figure out what the heck this is. Let's figure out what my mystery drink is. It's 500 mils, pretty big. This is so dumb. This fucking, this did kind of pick up. I was like, you know, thinking like, oh, whatever. This is lacing, I guess the views are okay. You know, restaurants and stuff. Here's yet another tourist place you can buy little hats and stuff. I don't know if it's your thing or your thing. The stupid mystery drink, man. They got me. They got me. They know, they know how to make my tourist heart happy. Fucking mystery drinks. Yeah, like I haven't seen one of those. Even in Fukuoka, I only saw that one machine. It's not a normal thing to find mystery drink machines. And I got to save one of these thousand yen bills so I can do laundry before I leave, before I leave Japan. Gotta remember not to overdo it. All right, it looks like this is some kind of cider that began being sold in 1970, limited reprint. So maybe this is a re-release of Mitsuya Classic 1970s version. All right, let's try it.

Hmm, carbonated a little. A little sweep, but not too much. Doesn't really taste like a cider. It sort of tastes like like a blue-freeze or like one of those just color this freeze. He's just 35:00 the white ones. Yeah, like a white-freeze, but watered down a little, which I mean, it's actually not bad. But yeah, one thing I noticed, even on this, you know, this island's not very big, and it seems like pretty prime territory, you know. There's definitely some houses, but mostly businesses. I don't know. I guess this depends on where you go. Maybe there's more houses than I realize there are. But there's this one specific cliff part where a lot of people were taking pictures, like really steep cliffs down to the ocean. And I noticed a terrifying disrepaired balcony on one of the buildings where the guardrail was mostly gone. And then I realized the whole building was completely fallen apart, like nobody lived there. And it's surprising to see an abandoned building on a place this, you know, this prime, especially right by the ocean, like right at the edge of the cliff's total ocean view. It's pretty weird. It must just belong to somebody. So, you know, maybe legally nobody else can just swoop in and take it.

Or maybe they just don't live there because it's too terrifying because it is right by the fucking cliff. And yeah, just I was imagining that balcony even when it was brand new at the height of its powers. And I still was having a hard time imagining who in God's name would ever stand on that balcony, staring out at the ocean from hundreds of feet up, straight down to the cliff side. I think I'd be scared just to live in that house. It'd be hard to put out of your mind that you're next to the horrifying cliff at all moments of your life.

Whew, I'm out on the rocks. It's mighty windy, but it's at my back, so I think this is okay.

So, this island, man, this island, what a troll bitch ass island. So, at first I was pretty impressed that I'm impressed in both ways, but I'm in a double impressed, but it's fucking for two weird reasons. So, I went in to take a pee at the very top of the mountain of the island hill.

And I did a little recon and saw, oh, there's a squat toilet. Like I said, ah, that's funny in a weird way, because this place not only is the island itself so tourist-centered, but you can take all these like special trains. There's like a tram or something that goes straight here. There's all kinds of trains that transit to get you here too. Like they're like, come on, come to the island for fuck's sake, come to this fucking island. A lot of restaurants in the back half as well. Tons of restaurants. So, I thought it was pretty funny to see a squat toilet up there. I mean, that is like Japan's final, final joke to a tourist, to a foreigner. It's like, man, we could not have signposted more clearly that we want you to come here. Please come here. Oh my god, we have escalators for fuck's sake. Just come for god's sake. Please come here. Oh, squat toilet, fuck you by the way. Here's the squat toilet. So that tickled me a little. I was like, that's this pretty funny actually. It's like that. And then I got to these tidal rocks and these are pretty cool. I mean, I'm like, I'm down on the far end. It's super windy. Nobody else is even here. I'm all by myself. But there's some people on these on the rocks, but yeah, I guess I don't even know if these existed all times of day, but they're here right now. And I was like, yeah, this is kind of nice. This is pretty. This is just nice rugged nature shit. This is, this is, I'm into this. But just as I thought, like, I want a nice little loop around the island. Because I can see from here, like, there's where it came in. It's not that far from here. But there's the pay cave. And there's nowhere to go unless I miss something obvious. I think there's nowhere to go, but the pay cave. I was like, you, you fucking sons of bitches. I and my kids say it's deliberate. I don't know what else they could do to be honest. I mean, just by the way the island is set up, it's not like they blocked off some other route back to be fair. They'd have to go pretty far out of their way to make a walkway that actually got back to the start. And I mean, why not go through the pay cave? What kind of fucking moron wouldn't? Except me because I'm just like, I'm getting increasingly tired and cranky today. I don't want to go through with a bunch of people. They say it takes like 20 minutes. I don't want to, ooh, and pretend that I give a shit about the fucking cave. And I don't really like caves. Like, even walking through that little cave to get to the Congo Falls was very unpleasant to me. Yeah. And I just, I don't want to go in the cave.

I'm not a cave man. But I was like, wait a fucking second though. If you don't go through the pay cave, do you just have to go back? Is that literally it? It's like, un, un fucking believable. Like, I knew this was going to be tourist trap island, but that's literally, you're literally trapped. It literally funnels you all the way around through the shops and past the restaurants. You can pay to go through the cave. I was like, you unbelievable, beautiful bastard. How dare you? But upon reflection, I mean, what time is it here? It's hard to tell because it hasn't been sunny today. I think it's getting on in a day a little bit. Yeah, it's like four o'clock. I got another hour. I got nothing else to do. I mean, after here, this is it for the day. So, why not, man? I'm never coming back to Anoshima Island. Why not walk back through it the other way? Takes like half an hour at most. It's really not a big deal. But I mean, that just cracked me up. Right when this island was turning around with me where I'm like, oh, maybe you do have, maybe you do have a little pizzazz, Anoshima Island with your squat toilet. How could you do that to the tourists? That's funny. And then they just put me right into the cave trap. But again, I mean, I'm being unfair. Yeah, like I said, I don't know, I don't know what other option there is. It's going through the cave or go back. I mean, that's just the physical geography of the island. I'm attributing Tom Foulery and Prankery Turkish behavior to just a big crazy island. It's just how it is, man. Anyway, I ain't mad at you in Anoshima, but that's that's funny in a different way. That's funny in a, please give us money. Which why not? Why should everything be free? I don't know. I don't even know what I think. I don't know anything. Who cares? I'm just going to walk back through the island. I'm just going to stop talking about that. But yeah, I like this back part of the island, especially. This is pretty cool because you're really just on the ocean, on these rocks, on these tidal rocks. And I've seen two different people doing a king of the world pose because they're fucking douchebags. Fuck you. I hate tourists. Get out of here. You dope. Oh, it was worth it staying up to watch the Gem in the hologram songs. Who needs to be rested? Who needs to be in a good mood? Hey, fuck that. I'll be in a good mood when I'm dead. Fuck you.

All right, I'm on the walkway to escape. Yeah, this island really does look good from the outside. It's really cool. And you know, it's not the worst from the inside, but I'm going to go back to the beach, walk back to Sujito, walk up to that station. Apparently there's a giant Buddha around here somewhere or whatever, but I don't know. Whatever. Sun's going down and that's enough people. It's enough being around people for me. There was an alternate route I saw that nobody was taking. So I also didn't, in case it was just a dead end to a garden or something. But I think it actually did loop around. So there is a proper loop you can do. It looks like from a map I saw later, but it really doesn't matter. It's not a big island. Going back was no biggie. It's like 4.30 now and I'm out of there. No problem. And I saw a lot more cosplayers. I think even a little more than I saw in the way in on the way back. And they're not totally consistent, but I saw at least two groups that were wearing really similar looking robes in this distinctive blue hair, kind of ray, Ianami, adjacent haircuts. So maybe it is something specific, but I don't know what. I'm going to try and look it up later. Like what the heck is this? What are they dressing as?

What happens in Inoshima? But one of the cosplay ladies I was walking behind her and she had pretty large heels, you know, big platform heels. And she was distinctly pigeon towed, especially on the right foot. Like her right foot was very much turned inward. And that's something I've been noticing the whole time I've been here. I noticed it really soon after I arrived and I've been noticing it a lot. But I never brought it up because there's a lot of bolegged people around here. And I never brought it up because I just thought maybe it's just like uncouth to bring it up until I at least looked it up. And then I just didn't ever think to until yesterday I finally did look it up because I saw somebody, I saw two people yesterday, one of them where he was walking like on the sides of his shoes basically because his legs were so bowed. And then I saw this other lady who it seemed like she could barely walk. And I was like, okay, I gotta look this up. What is going on around here? And weirdly, people don't seem to know. There's theories about maybe it's from 45:00 sitting on the floor. Maybe it's the way people carry babies and these specific types of slings. Maybe it's that apparently being pigeon towed where your toes point inward is considered cute and ladylike. You know, if you walk with your legs split open and your feet out, that's like a masculine walk. So maybe it's just that women are encouraged to walk with their toes in and that causes their legs to bow. But I've certainly seen men with both legs too. It's definitely both genders. And it is just it's enough that I've realized at some point like, okay, it's not just me. There is something going on here that does not happen in North America. But I don't know, I don't know what it is. Answers are not easy to find.