#96 So long Ikebukuro

Transcript

All right, two days left in Japan. Let's start with the classic leaving the Airbnb.

Just stepping outside into a nice Yokohama. Hmm, can I say mourn? Probably not. Pretty late start today. Shit, 12-30. So I think I nailed the perfect start to the day in this neighborhood just yesterday. I realized even though I'm just going to head to the train because my plan is to go somewhere at Yokohama, adjacent. I don't know if I'll spend too much time in actual Yokohama. Dang, my perfect morning's already messed up. The, uh, I'm just going to take the steps up behind the secondhand clothes shop to the Zelda coffee. I think I can though. I think I just got to go around to the block, but there's a giant truck. It's actually really weird. Usually all the vehicles are very small and especially in a little back alley. What the heck is that thing doing here? They're having to help guide another car around it because it's, uh, fucking shit up so bad. Man, I got to walk all the way to the street just to, uh, sneak around a different way. Although there's the tunnel I went through when I first got to this neighborhood. There we go. Back into a sneaky back alley. Okay, back to the plant. Yeah, just to finish things off. In traditional style. Of course, I have to be, uh, asleepy head too. But there's a train that goes from Yokohama station straight to Ikibukuro, it seems. So it shouldn't be that big a deal to get out there. Do one last run. All right, the giant truck's out of the way. How nice. How nice. Up the stairs by the shrine. Up the other stairs to the Zelda thing. I wonder how much money I have because I basically got today and tomorrow. Then travel time. Yeah, I got like a hundred dollars left, a hundred dollar bill and I think 80 bucks or so. Maybe less. I don't know. On my, uh, my suite, a card. I think I might have too much money to spend. I wonder what would be better. I mean, I could just change the stuff in the airport in Korea or whatever. You know, even though I only had a dollar on my suite a card before, it stayed for four years on the card. No problem. I wonder if it's better to keep money on a card. I got the Gorak guy or the bill. I just, even as I'm saying, it is like, of course, don't, don't just charge up the card and keep the card till the, because I don't know how long. But if I do still have like a, a 10,000 yen bill, I could just tuck it away, tuck it away with my birth certificate or something. I'm not going to lose that. Or just change it. I don't know, whatever. But yeah, from here, I can go up to the Italian Rose Garden, wander through there. Then wander down to that other machine on the street that dispenses coffee out of a little paper cup. I actually just remembered that. So maybe I shouldn't have got the Zelda coffee too late now though. Double coffee time. Then I can drink that and throw away the cup as I go to the family mart. And then from there, I can escape. It's just also easy unless there's a gigantic truck in the way, but usually men is just like, yeah, just leave the house. Go around the corner. Go up through all this cool, amazing shit. Not too bad, man. Zelda coffee.

Mm, yummy. Still a little bit cloudy today, but I don't think it's going to rain. Looks pretty good.

Ah, up at the top of the garden. Looking out over the buildings. There's the little dome building. There's the weird bluffs to whatever. I don't even know what the building is above the dome. I did walk right up there, I guess, because I walked up those stairs past the blue dome house up through there, but I don't know what all that is up there. It's kind of a big building, whatever it is. And then yeah, in the distance, that fucking bay bridge man, that thing is the money around here. There's so many different areas you can see it from. And it is just that postcard in the sky look. It's just like, whoa, big bridge off into the distance. So cool. And then yeah, just looking down at the street right under me. Man, just the weavey complexity, all the little 5:00 alleyways you can see just from here. I mean, I can't even see that far. And it's just so complicated and weird. It really is that that Kalunwald city feeling. I mean, even just what happened to me earlier, where I got turned around because the truck was in the way. But to go back and around, you couldn't just go, quote unquote, around the block, you know, this dead ends and you get blocked off. And it's all you got to know what the heck you're doing. You got to know how to make it through all this stuff. But yeah, I was trying to think of what I should do tomorrow, because tomorrow is it. That's the last day. And there is a part of me assuming I can actually go to sleep. I mean, I would not be able to do it on a day like today where, you know, I can, this is fine, whatever. How much sleep does a man need? I'll be fine.

But there is a part of me that even though it's so ludicrous, what is that beeping? What is that?

Where is that coming from? Strangely noisy up here today. There's some beeping in the distance. I don't know where it's from. I mean, I guess the overpass is always there, but it seems evident today. I guess this is probably a sign of sleepiness, I guess. Extra sound sensitivity. Yay for me. But yeah, there's a part of me that is like that, that just push, that push to action that's like, you know, if you did just get up, like even though it's ludicrous to go to Ome from here, it is absurd. It's like I basically as far as you can go. For real, like I always said, it was as far as you could go for me to West Tokyo, but now I'm adding a north-south component. It's very far. But if I did just get up early and go to Yokohama station and get on the train to Hachiyoji, I mean, really that's the bulk of it. Then Hachiyoji to Hijima, then Hijima to Ome, all those little bits and pieces add up. It would take me at least two hours, probably more than two hours to get there. And then back to so that I could then do the Ome, the north Ome Hills hiking course, which also takes several hours. But I could do it. Like I guess the thing that makes me kind of want to do it is if I don't, it's going to be a long time before I do it again. But it's stupid. It's just way too far to go. It's so ludicrously dumb. The fountains are already turned on today. They're not going to shock me. And there's actual people here today because it's not rainy. Let's go stroll by yesterday's empty cafe. See what the level of patronage is on a nice day.

Because yeah, the other far more sensible option, given where I'm at, is to just go to the coast. Go to the coast and walk on the beach for the last day. Which I think in a lot of ways would be better. I mean, the coast, I'm going to not have the coast when I get to Seoul to have a big river apparently. Well, yeah, still pretty empty in there. This would be a good fucking spot to come hunker down with your latte and your laptop, man. A really good spot. Pretty nice view from here too. Well, I guess a lot of buildings from this particular vantage point, not that greatest view. But if you just want to skyline a Yokohama, you could do worse. But yeah, I don't know. I'm feeling that tug toward both. They both sound like very good ideas. But one of them is actually accessible from here. And the other one is like a stunt to go that far back in one day. Just to walk on a hiking course. It's just too stupid. But I'm visualizing it in my mind. And it's weird because I'm in that spot where it's like, oh man, these are the day dreams I'm going to have when I leave Japan. I'm going to be thinking about that homemade course and those views and what it looked like. And I could go. I still could go. I got one more day. I could still go. Doesn't have to be a dream. I could do it. But it's so stupid far. Then I guess what's the con of the beach? The beach is like, whoa, the beach. Holy crap. Amazing. But the beach definitely has turned out to be better in dollops and small doses. It's not like I could. Like the way I could just go walk along omay all afternoon. And it's amazing. It's just not how the beaches work around here. You go to a specific part of the beach and it's great. But as you try to walk along the beach, that's a lot harder to do. And it is just kind of a big endless beach.

And yeah, then I suspect, today and tomorrow, I suspect that will be when I will wrap up this particular Japan stuff because I liked chronicling the airport adventures to get here and to get to 10:00 Fukuoka. But I don't know that I want to chronicle the airport adventure to leave. It's a different vibe. It's like, you know, I don't really want to leave. So why would I want to capture that moment? And it's always stressful to go to a new place. Like, you know, just get to South Korea, fill out the forms, do the stuff, talk to the guy. I mean, it'll be no problem. But it's still new things, new countries, new processes, new stuff can't help but be stressful. So, I think it'll help me be less stressed to not be recording crap while I do that. Yeah, I think this is like where the podcast will shift gears, where with this second trip to Japan, just I do feel like every day, every stupid day, every dumb little thing that happened. It's like, I could talk about that. But yeah, once I leave Japan, then it will be time to just let these episodes unspool and come out. And I can stop recording all the time. And I'll just soak in soak in South Korea at a different pace, just updating in a more general sense, maybe.

Anyway, no sense talking about it. Let's just go do it. Let's go wander to that other coffee machine, get a coffee. Start making my way to Ikabukuro.

Alright, I wasn't sure if I could find the machine, because again, everything is so windy and tricky around here. But there it is. Oh, there's somebody sitting right in front of it. What the fuck? Get out of here. Well, hey, dude.

Whatever, I'm gonna get my drink. You can't stop me.

I see I don't know how this connects or how this ties into the Japan beverage, little cup culture. But that little bench, the lady was sitting at, there is like an ash tray next to it. It's like these standing ash trays. They look like, you know, those cylindrical like air conditioners or whatever, or fans that sometimes people have. It's like quite a large tall cylinder that's actually an ash tray. And I usually just don't really clock them. They're around, but you know, I just don't pay attention. I'm like, oh, okay. Man, being that close to a cigarette, too. It's been a while. The vague, you know, you walk past a smoking area smell. It's not always the worst, but right next to someone who's smoking, man, that brings me back. A bunch of my friends used to smoke and stuff. I guess my cousin still does. And he has just like, oh, what a fucking smell. Shit's brutal. Go ahead, I'm doing laundry before I leave. I mean, that's all I'm standing next to them. I'm sure it'll be fine. But it's incredible how much that shake gets stuck to your clothes. It's fucking brutal.

So yeah, I wonder if there's some connection there. You just sit there while you're smoking. And is there something about a coffee out of a little... A little paper cup that's somehow better than a can while you're sitting and smoking? I don't know. Anyway, I got my... I didn't really have a lot of options because I only have one 10-yen coin, so I could only get the 110-yen stuff, not the 120. So I don't know what I got. I just got some coffee. Smells good. So fucking hot, though. Okay, I touch it.

I heard another place where I saw one of these machines. Man, that was a cool night. The night that I saw the fucking Tokyo Tower. When the sun had gone down and it was all misty, and I saw it from that island, from the Sukuji Island. And then as I walked to the Tokyo Tower, I found one of these machines. And yeah, I got a little coffee from the machine and the little cup. Man, that is again just the magical shit. I think I'm already ready to start reminiscing even though I'm still here. As I walked toward the Tokyo Tower, I mean, I was still a ways from it. But there was a point where I saw the tower reflected in a building like a fucking 40 minutes before I got there. Just perfectly reflected. It was just like, God, so beautiful in this misty, cool day. Oh, geez. So good. You know, it's just thinking, too, I think just talking things out. It does help. Just that little walk down from the Rose Garden. I was thinking of the two things, which one, which one sparks joy. I think I have just gotten a lot of nautical stuff lately, being in the Yokohama area. Like the shoreline just doesn't feel the same, doesn't have the same pull. It was super amazing when I first got there. But then I've gone a bunch of times. If I was going to do my send off to each area, my perfect moment. 15:00 Walking down the beach the other night in the dark was the perfect moment. It was so cool. You know, the beach in the daytime is awesome. But at night, that was definitely stuck in my mind. That was a weird experience. It was so dark. But even just yesterday in Yokosuka, I ended up just, it's nice and forced downtime. I wish I could say I just stood at the border of the marina and just watched the sun go down. I did, but the reason I did is because there's a Starbucks there and I got slow internet. And I wanted to download some videos of these videos I've watched of people doing their Shenmue adventures. You know, like here's my walking through Dobuita going to all the places from the Shenmue game. I wanted to watch those again now that I had a better sense of what they all meant. But the internet was slow. So I had to stand there at the pier for 20, 25 minutes and just watch the sun go down behind all the boats. But it's nice to be forced to do that kind of thing because it was awesome. So I mean, that's not the same as the ocean, but still water. A lot of water stuff going on where it's been two weeks since I left Ome. I haven't had any mountain stuff. I haven't had any hiking through the wood stuff. And I looked for like woods hikes near Yokohama. Question mark? Not really. It's not really. It's too a city everywhere. You know, there's nothing like that. There's small areas. So I am thinking of the two. And if I do have money to blow, like I would rather just spend this money if I can before I go, rather than have to deal with getting a change in stuff, it's fucking $100. I don't go fuck.

Can I eat $100 worth of shit? By then, I mean, maybe. I don't know. But that ride out to Ome back. I mean, it's gonna be like $30. It's absurd. But if I want to get rid of the money, if that would actively help me, you know, it's starting to add up. It's like, it won't be that crazy. If I just get up and get going, the journey always takes less time than I think. Just throw some stupid fucking YouTube videos on my phone. And if anything, I do watch a lot of, you know, since I can't play Magic the Gathering anymore online because I got too addicted to it and it was ruining my life. So instead, I just watch people play it. So if I download some games of Magic, I mean, a game of Magic, you know, usually those videos are like 40 minutes or so, or an hour. So if anything, I get where I'm going too fast. I'm like, ah darn, I didn't get through the stupid nerd game of Magic that I'm watching, you know. Like, the travel's really not that big a deal. And it's just from here to Hachioji. It's not a big deal. And then from there, I know everything up there. I know how that all works. It's like, not a complicated journey. I mean, I haven't talked to myself into it. Maybe my last day in Japan will be a big cobblom, which it was last time, too. Last time, it was when me and my friend, Brad, we met up at the Skytree. And then that's when I didn't make it all the way home to Akiruno. I only made it to Tachikawa. And I had to walk all the way back in the dark. And then the next day, we went to Hasawa Falls. It was so far west, we had to take a bus. And then the next day, after that, I left the country. Like, maybe it's appropriate that my final day be an epic. Yeah, dude, it's just the more I'm talking about it, the more obvious it seems. And then on the other hand, again, the ocean is so beautiful, but the best thing you can do at the ocean is what I did the first day. Just sit there and watch, watch surfers, because trying to travel down the beach is just a different. It's a, it's a, a bit of a difficult endeavor. Dude, can I just not stay up till four in the morning tonight? That's the question. But then on the other hand, even if I do, what if? What do I just push it? Like, it's my last day. Who the fuck cares? Dude, just do it. I think I'm going to just do it. Man, this coffee is really hot. This whole time, I've just been waiting for it to cool down.

Oh god, I love coffee out of a stupid little machine. It's so good. Mmm, all right. Well, again, speaking of journeys, going to drink this coffee, throw this fucking thing out. Should I eat something before? Yeah, probably. Apparently, it's like an hour from here to E.K. Bucharest. I guess we'll see. That's part of the science. I've had a hell of a time in Yokohama. Now, these last couple of days will be the experiments of leaving. How hard is it to get the hell out of here? Go back up to Tokyo. I guess we'll see.

Alright, I made it to E.K. Bucharest, not a short ride, but not terribly long. The way I parked things out, I didn't even make it through one game of magic. I watched half of it, and then I was like, wait a sec, I'm tired. I could close my eyes. And by the time I had that thought, I listened to a 15-minute podcast about the state of New Japan Pro Wrestling. And then I listened to the 11-minute demo of Paranoid Android, and then I was here. I mean, that's not so bad. I cost like $7. You know, it could be worse. I'm at the Metropolitan Gate. What the fuck is this? Where am I? I've never gotten off the train here before. Alright, I'm on a rooftop where I can look down into the train stuff. I see a building in the distance that looks like that big, famous Shibuya Shinjuku building that's in your name all the time. You know, at the lights.

Could that be it? Can I see that from here? I mean, I guess these neighborhoods aren't that far from each other. And it's a very tall building, maybe. Oh yeah, and I guess if I walk to the other side. See, I think this is going to spit me out by E.K. Bucharest Gate Park. Let's see. I don't know. I don't know where the fuck I am.

And it is kind of fun to just this idea of having to just burn through my money. Like, how am I going to spend this stuff, you know, without going to like a fancy restaurant and buying expensive fish or something? That'd be the easy way. But since I am such a stupid, hermit weirdo, all I can buy is cheap, a weird junk. But it was a bit of a weight for this train. It was like a rapid. Didn't stop for many times, like six or seven times. But the actual weight for the train was a bit. So I just kept buying shit out of machines at Yokohama Station.

I got two different bags of gummy things, like a grape one and a green apple one. And some kind of like little dried fish, anchovy type thing snack bag with little crackers and stuff. And then these chips, these potato chips that were covered in chocolate, I just kept pulling up the sweet cacao and like, give me that, now give me that, now give me that. And it made my stomach feel a little funny for a bit. I was like, oh, why did I do that? But I feel fine now. And it was fun to just eat shit, just eat junk.

All right, going down some stairs. Still don't quite know where I am. It's weird. I'm like, oh, I know we can book her over. This is 40 days. I live near here. I walk around it all the time.

It doesn't mean I know where the fuck anything is. But I think it's like 230. And it really doesn't matter if it gets dark on this walk. It doesn't matter if it's daytime or nighttime. It's all good either way. I think my plan is I'm going to walk around West Eekibukuro a little. Once I feel okay, wait a sec. So here's the, yeah, okay, I think there's the fancy pants part of the mall, the Tobu thing, which connects to the Tobu line. So I think I'm around the side of this station. So I think I am heading toward the Westgate Park. Yeah, I figured I could do a little walk through this side of Eekibukuro. The east side, you know, it's cool and stuff. But well, I don't know. Maybe I'll walk across the east side if I just walk from here, because that is the way to get to OG. But then the other plan could be to just hop on the JR from here, because last time I was here, I got off two stops from here, two stops around onto the JR, and just walked through a nice little quiet neighborhood to the park by OG station.

And then I walked up the Shikouji River from there. That's also a possible plan. It just depends on how much walking I want to do. It's funny how sleep gets sleep, energy gets energy. Once I close my eyes on that train, it's like, oh no, I am tired. Oh God, I feel so tired. We're now that I'm off the train and I'm walking around. I don't feel like that at all.

I mean, it's a good thing that I rested my eyes for a bit. Got a little second, but it is interesting how being tired makes you feel tired. All right, yeah, I'm almost sure there it is. There's the rings. Sweet. All right. So I am more I thought I was awesome. So I'm heading to the main entrance. Or yeah, I guess I had my nice little send off to this neighborhood on Christmas. That was a nice moment as I sink back over my adventures. My little Christmas moment in Ikebukuro because Christmas was a little wasn't my favorite as time.

But I'm heading to that area right outside the station. 25:00 Hey, I'm just going to go walk around. I'm just going to go walk around West Ikebukuro because it is the best. It is so cool.

And really not too busy too. I mean, we passed through Shibuya and Shinjuku on the way here. And I was like, yeah, I don't want to go back there. Fuck that. Especially, I mean, just in general, that holds true. But especially when time is of the essence, when there's no time left.

Definitely, man, Ikebukuro is just like so good. It's so fucking good. I fucking love this neighborhood. I mean, I said it this, I said it when I was here before, but for one of the big hitters, the Pokemon store, anime shop, every little fucking weird stupid thing you could ever want to see, game centers, yada yada. For all of that stuff, man, you just can't beat Ikebukuro. It is so, so clearly my favorite.

I just ended up in a little corner of Ikebukuro. I've never been to before because from the pedestrian underpass, is where I'm heading now to go from the west side to the east side. But down from there is, well, there's all kinds of weird walking bridges over the train tracks toward the big smoke stack tower thing, whatever the heck that is. So I've been down this way, but I just got a bit turned around and threw a little neighborhood and man, it is packed with love hotels, just packed with them. But it's kind of cool because they're really like fancy pants. I think walking through there at night, I'd be like, what am I doing here?

I'm getting in the way of the love hotel people, but in the daytime, it's just like, oh shit, look at this, cool.

But completely not related to love hotels. One thing I've been doing the last couple of days is somehow I never really looked at, maybe I'm just getting desperate for actual semi healthy food. There's like little vegetable side dish things you can buy at the convenience stores. And then I've been drifting toward kimchi just because it's like, hey, you know, get some veggies, but also give my taste buds a little kick in the dick too, why not?

Maybe I'm prepping myself inadvertently for South Korea, wasn't the plan, but it couldn't hurt.

But since they are just veggies, and they're a little bit expensive compared to what's mostly in the convenience store, which I figure is probably a good sign. It's probably a sign that I'm buying real food. They're just actually not just processed trash. But since it is just veggies, then I also like to get like a rice ball and just eat whatever piece of salmon or whatever's in the middle of the rice ball, and then just put all the rice in the kimchi, and yum yum yum, eat it all up.

Very tasty. Very tasty, and I gotta assume it can't be terrible for me. How bad could it be? It's rice and veggies.

Yeah, I decided I'm going to walk. I'm going to walk through this pedestrian underpass that I'm heading down into now. Take a quick walk through the east side. Yeah, I realized I should head my way over to OG, and the Shikouji River, while the sun's up, because I'll be looping back down through here. The plan is to go up to Nakai Tabashi, and then take that train back to Ikebukuro.

And then if I want to do a second wander through Ikebukuro, why not do it at night? It'll look way cooler at night. Man, I forgot about this tunnel. It's barely taller than my head. What a weird feeling. It feels like I'm going to hit my head on this the whole time every time I take a step. But not quite. And then from up here, I can hang a left, and that's like the smoking zone, where all the cool smoking people hang out. But I don't know, I just like the vibe of it. I'm going to go walk through the smoking zone.

Then hang a right, go through the center of super anime town, and then out and escape Ikebukuro. And then I'll just go to the park. And then I'll go to the park.

All right, standing outside of 7-Eleven by the smoking area in East Vokinikebukuro, had to get some desserts to wash down my kimchi. I got melon whipped cream puff from the seven sweets line and a mochi, rice cake, red bean paste, and strawberry. But yeah, this zone, especially 30:00 at night, I always liked it. I don't know, I just kind of liked hanging out here, but in the daytime, it is a frankly excessive amount of bird shit everywhere. There's just bird poop. We're way too much. This place in the daytime, it's like I never really noticed that before. Plenty of clear signs that I gotta get the heck out of you kebukuro in the daytime.

Coming back at night, night is way cooler. Man, it's nice how my subconscious just like,

more or less knows how to navigate around here. I mean, I was just saying, I still don't know how anything works and I keep getting lost. But I also just, if I ramble around this neighborhood, I just seem to end up in the right place. Because I'm on the road straight to OG. It's just like, oh shit, here I am. So I'm walking across the bridge that goes across the train line. And there's the sky tree, big as day. Man, it looks enticing from here. This was the, you know, kept seeing this in 2019 before I knew what the sky tree was before I realized how far away it is, before I realized that I was only seeing part of it and not the entire even height of it. But yeah, this was where I finally was like, ah, fuck it. Fuck it one day. It's like, I'm gonna walk to that. I'm gonna walk to that goddamn tower. And yeah, it's just cool to see it because yeah, it really is, I can see it really well today. Still a little bit cloudy, 50% cloudy, 60% cloudy. But man, I can see the sky tree perfect. If anything, actually the clouds behind it, maybe they help. It's really popping. And yeah, it just doesn't look that far. I can see why I made that stupid choice. Because in a weird way, it's like perfectly framed because of the, ah, the train tracks. It's just, ah, like a cut through the ground. Like, fucking, who's the giant guy with baby blue ox? Fucking Paul Bunyan. Like a giant Paul Bunyan dragged his axe behind him and carved a fucking line in the ground. And you can see straight between the buildings and straight all the way to the sky tree. But we ain't going that way today. Hell no. There's actually a neighborhood though, just as you head that way. I can't remember what was called now at the top of my head. But it's just very nice little neighborhood, just like one station adjacent to, ah, Kebukuro. And I just always remember it being really cool. By the way, even though I've said it a million times, I really don't pronounce E Kebukuro very well. Because it's like, like I say, like there's an E, E Kebukuro. But it's E Kebukuro. E Kebukuro. E Kebukuro. It's never too late to start actually pronouncing something properly. After you've said it, 10,000 times. But this other little neighborhood of Suka must be a Suka. Anyway, I just remember finding it pretty at night, and I liked walking around there. And then I was looking it up one of my times during COVID, what are I, just exploring random stuff, like, oh yeah, I was here. I was there. And I saw people commenting that apparently that neighborhood is really famous for prostitution. And I was like, wow, really? And then I watched one of those, like, just walking through Japan videos. And I was like, oh yeah, I guess there kind of does seem to be a lot of suspicious activity going on around that neighborhood. I didn't notice it all. But I guess that's not surprising, because I'm the guy who's like, wow, a lot of love hotels. Hey, by the way, you can add the rice from your rice ball to your kimchi. Don't lose it. But yeah, I don't know.

I guess I don't really know what I'm looking for, too, as far as random prostitution neighborhoods, because it's a, it is a little less, I don't know, is it less clear or more clear? It's hard to tell. I feel like it's more clear than like North America. However, here there's literally just women standing around on the street holding signs and stuff, but I don't really know what those signs meet. Is that, is that something illicit? Is it not? I don't know. I don't know what the hell's going on. I'm leaving in two days. No time to start learning now. It's too late.

Oh, man, I mean, I'm sure I've said extremely similar things all the other times, 35:00 that I've been back to this neighborhood walking around anywhere, around, between the triangle, the Ikebukuro Nakaitabashi Oji station triangle. A man, it just feels so good to walk down this stretch. So I was thinking how this trip, it's not a coincidence that this is where I decided like I'm going to do a travel podcast and just excessively record, just record every single day, because these circumstances were so unique that I was thinking it through and it's like I went to, I went overseas the first time to the Netherlands and then I got all freaked out. I mean, I was fine when my friends were there. Once I was there by myself, culture shock hit me and I realized I was not as good at traveling, as I thought I was. I'd never been outside North America and I came back home. So I was worried about my ability to travel the world.

And that thought weighed heavily on me when I came to Japan the first time and then it was just great even with all the troubles that I had while I was here with losing my passport and my bank card problems. It wasn't nearly enough to salvage the journey. It was so fun and I just had such a great time. And then COVID hit right after. I was like, all right, cool, I'm going to just put that in the rotation. Japan's just going to become part of my life now.

You know, I'll probably never really learn how to speak it. I'll never really try to stay. I'm just going to visit, but I'm going to just visit forever. I'm just going to make it part of part of my lifetime routine. Make my way back to Japan once in a while. And then COVID hit immediately and locked everything down for the next four years. So it built up this perfect storm of this yo-yo effect of like, uh-oh, traveling is stressful. Maybe I can't do it. To, there's the lows and then the high of, oh, wait, though, but now I can. The second time in Amsterdam went pretty good. And then the time in Japan went great. Then back to the lows of like, oh, no one can go anywhere. Just stay in your hometown for years and years, please. Then back to Japan. And as I've been chronicling, I mean, I would call this a high back on the high of the yo-yo. Everything went so well this time. And just exploring and going further up on mountains and out to coastlines and all kinds of fucking shit. But there is just within all of that, speaking of Paul Bunyan and his stupid fucking acts of the hell I was hammering about just because this is still the place when I first came to Japan the first time.

And like 40 days. What a long dang time. I don't think I've ever stayed in any air being be anywhere that long as I did in Naka, Itabashi. And it's not like I was only ever in this neighborhood. I explored around, but the majority of it was around here because who needs anything else? And I still kind of feel that way. As far as the interior city experience goes, I don't know, man, it's just what else do you need? Naka Itabashi to Oji to Ikabukuro. If it ain't in that triangle, who the fuck needs it? No, but just just like this that I know this this stretch so well. But it's like the lame is shit. It's just that I got to this this intersection where there's a bunch of pizza places. And I was like, ah, pizza place intersection. And it just made me happy. It's like, ah, here I am. And if I were still staying in Naka Itabashi and I wanted to squirrel my way more directly there, from here to there instead of going to Oji in the Shikouji River, I know that if I go over that way and weave through those buildings, there's barber shops. Mountains of barber shops. And yeah, like I don't really know it. If you asked me to draw a map of this area, it would be a fright. It would be very wrong. But just in a vague back of my mind kind of way, I just know all the stuff. And it feels good, man. It feels real good.

Because yeah, I definitely have found on this visit, like I'm surprised how much you can get done in three or four days. Three or four days is probably enough to get a very solid taste of a neighborhood, to get a good sense of what's going on. And then stuff like Yokohama, I'm glad that I was there for two weeks because there's sure no to be a lot more going on than I expected there to be.

But then there's other places, I don't know, like San Gengaya. That was good. A few days there, that was good. How long was I at that place by the sky tree? Was that two weeks also? That was a long time. I totally ran out of shit to do there. It's just like, why am I still here? But anyway, 40 days out of control. That is insane amount of time. That's like you just live here now. You just live here. So maybe that's what I feel. Maybe that's why it feels so good.

In as much as you can feel like you live in a place that you've only visited twice in your life, where you don't know really what's going on ever and you can't really talk to anybody and you're just walking around doing nothing. Within that set of parameters, it does kind of feel like I live here. If I live anywhere, I live here. Which of course, I do not. I do not actually live anywhere. I don't live here. But you know what I fucking mean? It's like a metaphor or a simile or some shit.

Oh yeah, and speaking of the pizza fucking square coming up to the big highway overpass intersection where all the major convenience stores are represented. I just remember this one day here in specific. I went to the family mart and I bought this thing. I only think I bought it once on this trip, but I bought it an excessive amount of times before. But it's this little tray of little custard balls that's in like the cold treats section. But it's like a lot. It's like a dozen. It's unusually big. Maybe it's not a dozen, but it's a lot. A lot more than most Japanese items. I ate every single one. Like a glutton. That being said, well, he well, he well.

There's the Lawson. There's the 7-11. The family mart is fucking God. That's unusual. There's a sign that says happy. I don't know what a happy store is, but I guess something called happy is moving in. How weird. Maybe that happens all the time. If you live in Japan, maybe it's a common occurrence for convenience stores to disappear. I guess this did happen one other time. The family mart, when you're at the Disney store in Shibuya and you walk up the hill toward Yogi Park, that family mart is gone. It's a coffee shop. So I guess it happens. I guess it's not like some unbelievable thing that the convenience store type of which there are a million would disappear. They probably disappear more than anything, but yeah, it's not common for me to see that, and I've never seen one in flux. It's just a big, a big nothing building right now. Well, anyway, at least I got to have my little time standing outside it, eating custard balls. I will remember you.

Alright, I walked down to OG and I'm about halfway up the Shikouji River. Actually I just realized I'm right by the first easily accessible 7-Eleven on this route. I'm just going to go get some if they have the sourdried plums, because I remember I ate some of those on this on this route once and it is making them come back into my brain. So let me go get some. But yeah I'm definitely, I mean I'm definitely sleepy, but not in a bad way. I feel fine. I don't know. I mean I got such a nice blast of nostalgia happiness even just walking on the way here. That should carry me on by itself, but I'm pretty much in robot mode. I'm just blissfully walking along as the sun goes down. It's not quite dark yet, but it will be before I get to Nakaitebashi. But yeah I think I'm going to wrap up the episode here because my plan is to just walk in semi-brain mode with my brain semi-off.

Just march, march, march up the river. And then I doubt, I doubt that I'll do another tour of Ikibukuro at night. I think I'll probably just take the train to Ikibukuro and then just go back, 45:00 just go back to Yokohama. But this has been very nice. I'm glad I got my ass moving and I got myself out here. And yeah, join me next episode for the grand finale where if everything goes well, maybe, just maybe, I'll go on a big hike on a mountain one last fucking time.

I guess that's one thing that's kind of nice too about neighborhoods that you're comfortable with or that you like and that you know, it's real nice to walk through them tired. It's just like ah, you know, it just feels so comfortable. It's kind of nice because you don't need to fire up your brain. It's like, yeah, you know, I don't need to be observant. I don't need to be soaking this in. I don't need to be trying to learn a new place. All I got to do is walk, just walk on through.

A beautiful drift. Okay, I'll see you next episode and adios.