Latest / bit of a Rambler / 116 Ramble On

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116 Ramble On · bit of a Rambler

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Kai, and I am a bit
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: of a rambler. I like to travel, learn and tell stories.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: And it's time to ramble on again. So I mentioned
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I met this old guy in Japan named Taka, and
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: I met him on a bridge, or near a bridge.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: I was sitting on a wall eating some sashimi, as
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: I often do in the afternoon, and he said hello,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: and he's seen me a few times, and his English
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: was good enough that we shared a short conversation, and
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: he said he likes to drink whiskey in the afternoons
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: and invited me over to his place and we had
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: some whiskey, and actually I think I had a lemon
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: sour that first day because I've been having so many
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: seltzers while I'm in Japan. But he had his whiskey highball,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: and then he invited me to come back the next day.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: Because there's there's like a CouchSurfing type of a group
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: for bomb shower bicycling something, and I don't know anything
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: about it. This is the first I've heard of it,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: but apparently it's a long running thing that bike packers
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: can connect two hosts on a bomb shower, something called
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: bomb shower. I guess. It's the website, and if you
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: need a house to sleep in between two points that
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: are very far away from each other, that's how you
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: can do it. So it's like CouchSurfing for bike packers
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: as far as I understood it when Tako's explaining it
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: to me, and he's been doing it for a long time,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: like fifteen years or something, and he mentioned a couple
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: French people were going to show up the next day,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: and he invited me to go to the dinner party
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: with Yeah, with them and just meet them and hang out.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: He likes hosting, I guess, but it's funny because he's
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: kind of crotchety. He does complain about his guests like
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: a lot, but he's fun to talk to you and
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: it's a good time to hang out anyway. So I
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: said yeah, because I've been doing a bunch of podcasts
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: and solo hobby stuff, so it was good to get
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: the invitation to do something sociable. So I showed up
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: the next day. He was already ready. I didn't know
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: if I would be getting up early enough to join
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: him for a supermarket trip, but it turns out he
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: went before I arrived, but he still needed to take
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: his dog out for a walk and asked me if
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: I could take out the dog, and so I did
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: and it was great. It was fun little walk and
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: then when we got back, me and Taka started sipping
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: on our drinks. But the French people showed up a
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: bit late and didn't offer any strict time of when
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: they would be showing up after their appointment, had I guess,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: And so Taka finally went out to go do something,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: and of course the two French bike packers showed up
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: five minutes after he did, and I was just hanging
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: out in Taka's home and I didn't even know where
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Taca went, actually, so I looked around outside and one
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: of the bike packers like started bowing and saying ohio
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: or konichua, and then she saw that I was one
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: not Taka and two not Japanese at all, and I
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: was like, hey, he just went out a minute ago.
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure where he went or if I'm supposed
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: to invite you in because it's not my house. But
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: then I thought about it. I was like, well, he
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: invited you here, and he told me you were coming,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: and he is cooking chicken for you guys. So just
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: come on in, and then Taka showed up, I don't
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: know five ten minutes later. I made some drinks for
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: the French bike packers and we just talked until talk
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: about got back. I'm still not sure where he went, actually,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: but when he showed up, they started eating and they
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: were quite hungry, and we were all drinking and it
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: was a pretty fun time. Overall. French people are very
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: precious about their language, like they don't like other people
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: speaking their language, which is pretty rare in general, Like
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: I have not been to many countries where people don't
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: want you to speak their language. They would just rather
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: you don't speak it. But I've met and I haven't
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: been to France yet, but I have met more than
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: my fair share of French people while traveling, and not everyone,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: but much more common than speakers of other languages. French
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: people make a point that they don't want to hear
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: people try to speak French. Seems like a prideful habit
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: of theirs. They seem like a prideful people. So when
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: the dog came in, I was like, ash, yeah, yeah, right,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: that's French for dog. She's like yeah yeah. But before that,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: I guess I said it just to be contrary, because
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: I learned to speak a little bit of French when
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: I was in Morocco. They speak French there as a
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: former colony, and I was pretty bad at it, so
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: I didn't continue it. And then I was going to
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: study French, but then I found out how few people
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: actually spoke French. It's not a very popular language, so
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: I stopped studying it so much. But one of the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: first things they said, maybe it was about a host
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: or something, I can't remember, but the two bike packers
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: showed up. Okay the sequence of events, so Taka left
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: to go outside. The two bike crackers show up, I
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: invite them inside, give them a couple drinks, and we
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: start talking. And one of the very first things they said,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: before I spoke any French or anything, was just they
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: mentioned the girl mentioned that she doesn't like it when
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: people try to speak French. And they were young, so
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: that might be part of it, to like early thirties,
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: and I don't know. As soon as she said that,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: I was like, ah, the only people I ever hear
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: say that are French people who are like, just please
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: don't use our tongue. We prefer you to speak English
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: or anything. Not French. But despite that, it was very
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: fun hanging out with them, and they had stories of
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: where they were going, and they were interested in going
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: all around East Asia especially, and I've been to East
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: Asia especially, so I had plenty of advice I could
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: give them, and just general travel stuff that they didn't
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: know about, and I gave them Weaky voyage and just
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: a whole bunch of pointers, like you can use VPNs
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: in China, the trains are great, just all this stuff
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: that they had no idea about China, and China is
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: really difficult compared to other countries because everything is Chinese.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: In China. There's no Airbnb. You have to use their
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: trip dot com or sea trip or something. There's so
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: many almost everything has a copy of it made in
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: China for Chinese people. So all of the stuff they
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: used to like Google and all that kind of stuff,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: they won't be able to use over there. But if
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: you have a VPN, you can still use a bunch
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: of it. They talk about canceling all VPNs in China,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: but I don't know. I've been there however, many times
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: for the decades since they said all VPNs are blocked,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: and VPNs always worked there. When I visit. We'll see
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: how it is this visit, and China has just opened
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: up a little more. They're allowing a bunch of allowing
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: a bunch of country citizens to stay for ten days
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: visa free, which is wild. I never thought I would
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: see the day where that happened, where China became like
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: a transit tourist destination. That's pretty interesting. So we just
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: talked about their route and how they would survive in China,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: and Taka complained about China a lot. He was in
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: his cups well before the rest of us because he
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: was drinking whiskey and the rest of us were on
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: like beer or plumb wine mixed with a little bit
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: of show chew, so his alcohol percentage was double everybody
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: else's at least. So after a couple hours he just
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: started railing against China and how the were very japan
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: and China don't like each other, and how dirty China is,
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: and then the French people would be like, is it
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: really that bad? I was like, not really, especially not
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: these days, but they certainly don't like each other. But
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: it was okay because my Japanese was good enough that
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: I could kind of Taka's English isn't super great. And
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: then they were French, so their English is their second
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: language as well, so whenever there was a miscommunication, often
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: I understood Taka Taka's English well enough because I'm good
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: at deciphering accents that I could sometimes ask him in
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Japanese to confirm, and then I could translate into English
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: what he meant for the French backpackers into English. And
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: that felt really good to be a sort of translator
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: for this, for this crew. And it was a fun
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: dinner party. It was basically it was just a big, old,
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: drinky dinner party. They had this steamed chicken that talk
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: was making, and he put in a bunch of vegetables.
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Talker also only eats sashimi and sushi. He doesn't like
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: meat or vegetables like of any other kind, and so
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: he always said that. So he was like, all right, yeah,
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: the eat the mushrooms, and the French bike packers were like, oh,
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: do you want some He's like, no, I hate vegetables,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: you eat them. Or when the chicken was done, like
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: oh do you want some chicken, He's like, no, I
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: don't like chicken. I only eat fish. And he was
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: pretty drunk, so he said that probably like twenty times.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Throughout the dinner party. It was a pretty fun time
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: and it was just a yeah, a raucous dinner party.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: And these guys were hungry and cold, so they were
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: happy to be full and inside a warmhouse. Tako wanted
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: some ice cream after a while, so he decided to
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: play John Canpo, and whoever won John Canpo or whoever
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: lost John Kenpo had to go get the ice cream
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: for everybody else, and I lost. So I asked what
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: everybody wanted and they told me, and I went to
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the convenience store down the street and got everybody ice cream.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: And it was pretty fun to walk back with big
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: armful of ice cream and see everyone's faces light up
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: when they got it. Man, those French bike packers must
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: not have eaten anything, because they were ravenous the whole
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: time they were at the house. They were from some
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: island to south of France. They weren't from the mainland,
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: I think, or something like that. I don't know. We
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: had a lot of plumb wine and shocho. They brought
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: plumb wine too, and Talker also hates plumb wine. He
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: only likes like whiskey and fish and doesn't eat or
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: drink anything else. And when we ran out of plumb wine,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: we cracked open their bottle of plumb wine kept eating
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: their drinking plumb wine mixed with Showchu, which I liked
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: a lot. I did not like the whiskey mixed with
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: show chew very much. I don't like highballs too much myself.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: But the ume wine, the plumb wine mixed with show
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Chu means it's a little bit stronger, but it's not
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: so sweet because the show Chu is mixed in and
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: we drank a bunch of that. We drank a whole
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: bunch of that and taka. The first day I met him,
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: which is only the day before this dinner party, had
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: showed me his sword. He has like a faux Samurai
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: sword that he keeps on he keeps on his coat
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: rack that is mounted on the wall, and there's just
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: a Samurai sword on top of it, which is pretty
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: great and it's still sharp enough for sure, and it's heavy,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: but it's not a real Samurai sword. But he's very
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: proud of it. He showed me at the first day
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I met him, and then after this dinner party was
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: in full swing, he took it off the wall and
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: gave it to the French people to check out, and
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: we all took pictures with the sword. Oh and Taka
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: hates Trump and of course every other country. He doesn't
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: really like Trump, and I voted against Trump twice, so
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: we had plenty of politics crap to talk about, and
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: Taka turned on the news and then we were all
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: just watching like depressing news for twenty minutes. But it
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: felt good. I felt kind of like I was half
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: a host. Also, because Taco was already in his cups
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: and he didn't. It was clear he's sort of fed out.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: He's had too many guests at this point and it's
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: feeling more of a burden than a fun social interaction
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: for him. So I was kind of steering the conversation,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: so even when the crappy news was playing, I would
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: just ask them about their plans and keep the atmosphere
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: a little more lively than depress. And Taco when he
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: told me about his Samurai sword, he was complaining about
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: Chinese swords and he's like Chinese swords very big, very heavy.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Japanese sword is like a laser, and I thought that
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: was the best. He was so emphatic and excited to
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: talk about his Samurai sword and how the superiority of
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: Japanese swords over Chinese swords, and I thought it was
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: really cool when he described Japanese sorts as lasers. I
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: was glad. The French people asked me so many questions
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: about China because there's a lot they needed to know.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: And then it got me thinking, even though I was there,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know a year ago or something, it it's
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: changing so crazy fast, like that country, their energy, their
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: rail their hygiene in general, like it's just everything in
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: China changes is changing, especially these days, so rapidly that
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: it got me thinking about China. So when my said
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I should go visit him in a couple weeks, I thought, yeah,
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: why don't I stop there for a few days and
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: just see what it's like, because it's been a while
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: since I've been in that country, and I certainly wouldn't
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: mind eating all the good food and I can find
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: out about these new like what else is different Since
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: now they're letting seventy countries have visa free transit in
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: China for the first time, I wonder what other policy
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: changes are different. And I'll say for we chat, which
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: is their version of WhatsApp. You can now add your
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: credit card and use their QR payment system directly using
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: your credit card, and it's a lot too. It's like
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: up to ten thousand dollars per a year or nine
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: thousand US dollars roughly per year, so you can. Yeah,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of advantage to be taken there. That's
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: extremely useful that you can just use is your card
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: whenever you want to your foreign card, which was definitely
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: locked out of the system when I went to China.
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: Before you could you had to use local cards only,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: but apparently now that they're opening up, they've made it
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: much easier. I hear you can also do it with ollipay,
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: their other main payment system. But I have my card
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: hooked up to my we chat wallet now and it
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: was not very difficult to do. It's they have an
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: English language version of their app. So the app in
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: China is called was Sin and then the English version
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: is called we Chat, and it's very similar to WhatsApp,
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: but it does a lot more. You can buy train
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: tickets on there. There's a whole bunch of apps you
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: can install in the we Chat app, so it's a
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: multifunctional thing. But I didn't know the payment systems had
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: integrated foreign cards, and I'm not sure when they did that,
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: but they have. Yeah, you just confirm your identity, add
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: your card, and then you can use your card. You
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: can't use it for giant purchases, but up to like
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: two hundred remen B it's Feelus transactions, so I can.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: That's hugh, that's a lot of places. Most foods are
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: going to be well under two hundred remen B, and
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff that they sell is only going
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: to be five or four remen and B, which is
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: usually it's a pain to like transact for those. But
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: now I can use my Feelus credit card, and yeah,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I have an instant wallet, which I haven't had since
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: I owned since I had a bank account in China.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: I don't have to do that, which I was so
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: happy to find out, because it is such a pain
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: to open a bank account and just go to the bank.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: It's not even like very difficult, it's just takes forever.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: The administrate, the bureaucracy in China is burdensome, so I
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: just didn't want to have to go to the bank
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: at all. And now it turns out I don't also
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: the Japanese SIM card says it works in China. I
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: am so curious to try it that out. It says
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: works in Korea also, so I'm going to go. I'm
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: going to try it in Korea and in China over
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: the next couple weeks, and I'm very excited to try that.
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: The only thing I finally have this simcard that's supposed
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: to work in a bunch of countries, and the only
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: place that doesn't work is like most of Africa, and
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: that's I was thinking of going there soon, but I
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: know I'm going to be thinking about the SIM card
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: that I just think is so cool that I can
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: use in all the different countries. It doesn't have a
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: phone number, but it's data only and that's usually what
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: I get anyway, and it's cheap as heck, like the
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: for one month three gigabytes of data, which I just
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: get because you actually have unlimited data. It's just really
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: slow after you use up, so you can top up
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: if you want, But it's like three dollars, it's something
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: or four dollars maybe, but that's for thirty days of
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: unlimited data and however much you want, I like, for
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: four dollars, it's three gigabytes of premium data, and it's
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: like twenty dollars for thirty gigabytes or something. It's a
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: pretty It's a very good plan, and especially I'm so
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: excited to see if it works in Korea. If it
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: also works in Korea and China like it says it should,
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, that's gonna be one of the coolest things
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: I've gotten a long time. That'll be extremely useful for me.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: It also says it works in the US, so when
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: I go back and visit people, I can still use
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: this little same simcard. Apparently very excited to try it out.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: So just by talking to these French bike packers, I
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: was able to think about and then look into a
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: whole bunch of stuff considering travel in China that I
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: hadn't thought about in a while. And it was really
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: interesting to look into all that stuff, especially since I
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: have the travel community in this podcast, there's more stuff
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: to learn and talk about. Oh, I saw a of
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: shooting stars that night because it was like the new moon,
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: so there was no moon in the sky for almost
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: three nights, and I saw so many shooting stars on
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: one on the second night, I think I saw seven
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: in a row, which is crazy. One of them was huge.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: One of them was like dime sized, like it was
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: a large orange fiery racing across the sky. That was
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: the biggest one I saw, but I saw a ton.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: The skies are so dark here, there's so little light pollution.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: I thought it would be great to go out and
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: see if I can see shooting stars. And immediately upon
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: going out, I saw my first one, and I just
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: walked around with my head up staring at the sky,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: and I kept seeing more and more shooting stars, and
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: it was the coolest. Love stars, love shooting stars, love
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: the night skies. It was a really fun walk, fun time.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: When I left the dinner party, it was getting late.
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: I didn't I want to stay too long, and I
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: was like, Okay, if these guys show up and they're terrible,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: then I can just leave it eight or whatever, and
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: if we have fun, then I can leave a little
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: at ten. But if I stay too long then I'm
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: going to be keeping them up. So if me and
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Tak are just drinking while they want to go to
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: bed and are tired. So around like nine thirty ish,
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: because we were all having a fun time, I decided
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: to take my leave and sounds like the dinner party
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: wound down a bit after that, and I started looking
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: into all these the payment systems and the transit visa
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: free things in China, and I just walked around under
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: the stars. What a fun night. And it felt good
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: because I was sociable, which so many of my hobbies
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: are solo. It's nice to be sociable now and then.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: And it was funny because me and Taker were talking
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: like we were old friends, like we knew each other
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: so well, and I think someone commented on it, and
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: then talk was like, oh, I met him yesterday. No,
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: we just became friends recently. That was also cool. And
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: when I left, I said, oh, I asked me to si,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: which is the Japanese good night, And that was pretty
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: That was pretty cool. Yeah, there's this big bridge I
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: came across, and I just stopped in the middle of
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: the bridge at two in the morning or something, no
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: moon in the sky, and stared up and saw that
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: was the day. I saw seven shooting stars in total,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: it was including that really big fiery one. It was
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: pretty late in the night and I thought to myself, well,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: you know what, I'll just look for one more before
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: I go and then after one more shooting star and
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: like basically while I was thinking that, another one whipped
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: by me, and I was like, all right, I guess
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: it's time to go. Now. There is a bicycle. So
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: there's like six bicycles outside of Matsuyama, in one of
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: the little towns, and there's this big bicycle rack, and
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: then there's six bicycles that never move, and they look
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: old and crappy and are broken down. And I thought
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: the signa originally said you can borrow these bicycles, but
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: that's not what it says. It says like lock up
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: your bicycles, be careful. But after seeing the same six
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: bicycles unlocked in the same place, all on the left side,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: like sort of together in the corner of the bike rack,
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: I thought, you know what, maybe these are just discarded
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: bikes that anybody can use. And of those six bikes,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: most of them some of them didn't work at all,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: like one of the chain was broken, and most of
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: their tires weren't pumped. But one of them had two
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: like mostly pumped up tires, and it looked old and crappy,
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: but it worked, it pedaled and the chain held up.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: So I decided to take the bicycle after dark and
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: ride up to this curry house I saw one day
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: that was pretty far away in Imabari, in another town,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: another city, I guess, and I thought it would just
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: be fun to go up the coast from Matsuyama to Imabari.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: And it was far, but it was worth getting there
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: because the curry house actually turned out to be an izakaya,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: which is like a pub that has food and drinks,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: and there was a huge raucous party going on inside
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: and I was a little nervous to go inside at first,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: but as soon as I got inside, two guys got
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: up and gave me their little table they were sitting
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: at so I could sit down and eat and drink.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: And one of the guys turned around to me and
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: we started talking, and I spoke really crappy Japanese, but
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: he understood me when I did say it, and I
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: sometimes understood him. We used the Google Translate a few times,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: but I had like an okay, really basic Japanese conversation
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: with this local. And it turns out they're all parts
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: of an acrobatic troop in Imabari. And he showed me
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: a picture of him holding his seven year old son
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: on his head on the top of a pyramid, like
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: a human pyramid, and his son was like, the yeah,
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: the top of the pyramid. It was pretty crazy to
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: see that, and it was fun. The beer was good.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: I got a giant beer. The curry, the black curry
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: that was advertised was super good, strong, tasty curry. But
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: the guiodza, oh no. So people gave me takoyaki as
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: a gift, which I didn't realize. I thought we were
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: all sharing it, so I just had one takoyaki and
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: then they were like, oh, he didn't eat the takoyaki
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: we gave him, and I hadn't realized it was just
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: for me. The takayaki was fine. I don't like takoyaki
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: that much because there's not a lot of taco. There's
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: not a lot of octopus in the octopus balls. It's
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: usually just like a bready. But anyway, they were fine.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: The problem was the gyodes a holy crow. This imabari
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: iza kaya giozza was the worst, the worst kioza I
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: have ever had, and probably the worst thing I've eaten
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: in Japan the whole time I've been here, because I've
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: mostly been eating great food, but It was shockingly bad,
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: and I tried my hardest to eat. Like some imagine
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: it was soaked in oil, so it was, and the
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: vegetables tasted and it completely bland. But it was like droopy, wet,
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: soggy with oil. It was so gross, like black. But
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: I ate like some of it, so it didn't look
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: so bad. And the curry was super good, so I
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: ate that with gusto and even dipped some of the
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: giotza into the curry to try and choke down a
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: couple of the giodza. So the shop owner didn't feel
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: bad because she was being very kind, but I couldn't.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: I couldn't believe when she served me the guillos. I
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: when I ate one piece and I was like, is
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: this really as soggy as it looked? I almost gagged
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: because it was so soggy with oil ew gross. I
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: don't even want to talk about it. Anyway. That was terrible,
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: but the conversation I had with my new acrobat friends
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: was pretty fun. And even though my Japanese was extremely
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: limited and I hardly understood anything they were asking, everybody
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: was nice. It was a fun atmosphere and I got
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: to ride the bicycle up there, so I felt good
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: all over, and then I took the bicycle back on
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: home after someone had put a half bag of rice
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: and a I think a bicycle lock in my basket
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: of the bicycle, and I maybe that was supposed to
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: be a gift, but I was confused and I was like, oh,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: these aren't mine, and just gave them to one of
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: the people in the pub and they were like, okay, yeah,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: that was bizarre. I just remember that. You know what
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: after the was that the same day after that? He's
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: a kaya That might have been the same day there
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: was a Ramen house across the snow. No, I went
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: to the Roman house at different time, and they had
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: good ramen. That's the whole story, but it was cool. Okay,
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: never mind, that's not the whole story. That Ramen house
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: that I went to has low like table, so it's
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: like a raised platform, and then there's tables on that
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: raised platform and you just sit on a cushion with
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: your legs under the table, just sitting cross legged under
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: the table, which I like that a lot more than
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: sitting in a chair. I have for a long time
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: am either standing or I'm sitting on the floor. I
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: don't find chairs as comfortable as either standing or sitting
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: on the floor. Like when I'm recording these podcasts, I'm
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: almost always my laptop is on a low table and
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: I'm just sitting in front of it with the microphone.
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: So I thought, I think that seating arrangement is so cool.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: So I wanted to stop at that restaurant, and it
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: was very fun to eat my ramen in the yeah,
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: at one of those little traditional tables. It was a fun,
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: little time, fun little time. What else was going on.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: I got some whiskey for Taka, not because he needs it,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: but because so many people had shown up, and he
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: always talked to me. He was like, hosting is nice,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: but they're so messy and it always costs so much
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: because I have to pay for their food. And I
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: saw seeing how much these bike packers ate, I was, Yeah,
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: I was kind of surprised at how much that. Yeah,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: he was providing a lot as a host. So when
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: I went to the supermarket next, I thought I should
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: buy him a bottle of whiskey to make up for
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: all of the whiskey that we all drink out of
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: his bottle, And I gave him a gift of a
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: big old bottle of whiskey, and he seemed appreciative of that.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: And then after I gave him the bottle, he invited
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: me to go to an izakaya with him down in
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: another town called Iohojo. And so that's like two stops
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: outside of Matsuyama or something, and I haven't been taking
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: the train a lot, so I thought that would be fun.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: And well, that'll take a long time to explain. I'll
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: talk about that on the next episode. Yeah, we can
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: end it on whiskey bottle gift and then I get
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: invited to in Izakaya in Eo Hoju. The Acrobat Troop
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: was surprised at how popular curry was back in the States.
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: They thought it was more of a Japanese thing and
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: didn't realize that we have like koku chibanya, like the
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: famous curry house in the United States in California, there's
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: a bunch and in Hawaii, and they were very excited
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: to find out that Japanese curry it's a popular curry brand,
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: like a chain of restaurants koku Ichibanya in Japan. So
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: no one in Japan's going to be like, oh, it's
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: the best curry in Japan, but it's a popular restaurant
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: and Japanese people very unlike the French people who do
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: who want to safeguard their culture and their language. Japanese people,
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: like many other countries, are ecstatic to find out that
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: their culture is exported or popular in other countries. So
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: it was fun telling them that, like koku Ichibanya was
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: in the US and die so it was my favorite
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: store and that's in the US too, And the whole
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: gacrobat troop was like wow, Di sos in the USA
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: didn't eon and I'm like yeah, and it's my favorite store.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: I get my neck pillow and all my little gadgets.
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: That shows a great place. So thanks for coming along
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: this stroll down memory lane. I'll talk about my trip
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: out with the local to he's akiahs and snack bars,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: which are weird. Hope you're havin a great day. You
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: can talk to me at bit of a Rambler at
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: gmail dot com, Bit of a Rambler all one word,
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: and bit of a Rambler on Blue Sky and Lemmy
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: hope things are going your way. I will talk to
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: you soon.