Latest / bit of a Rambler / 114 Ramble On

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114 Ramble On · bit of a Rambler

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello. My name is Kai, and I am a bit
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of a rambler. I like to travel, learn and tell stories,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: and let's ramble on. It's raining today and I thought
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: it would be nice to do a podcast while it
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: was raining, so I learned the name of the most
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: famous sokra in Japan, the somy Yoshino, because there are
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: so many different types, and both the lady on the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: train and now this raw Men house owner explained to
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: me the name Somi Yoshino of the most famous cherry blossoms,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the most famous sakara that are everywhere. They are starting
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: to bloom finally where I am, right on Q as
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: they were supposed to, and it's pretty great to see
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: all of the sakara bursting forth. There's a huge rain,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: you know, it's been raining like all day today, so
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I don't know what tomorrow is going to look like,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: but it should be pretty nice couple days after because
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: all the remaining ones will probably bloom in just a
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: few more days. Very exciting. It's always great to be
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: in Japan during the cherry blossom season. It's such a
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: huge part of their culture, which is so tied to
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: the cycle of seasons and cycles in general. So I
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: love being here when all the soccera blooms, and then
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: you'll see tons of people having picnics and meeting their
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: friends and hanging out with the sokra while the sokra blossoms,
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: bloom and fall. Currently it's or like a Concurrently, it's
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: pretty fascinating because it's such a short lived phenomenon. Most
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: of the trees bloom for maybe a few days, like
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: a few like three days, but already by the third
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: day the pedals are starting to fall. So it's a
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: very ephemeral celebration. And yeah, the Japanese take to it
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: with gusto. It's really cool to see. So this will
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: be my I can't remember, but my third or fourth
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: time in Japan doing this, and I do have I
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: made a friend here, Taka, who says he wants to
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: go have a picnic under the cherry blossoms when it happens.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: So we'll probably bring some booze. That's another nice thing
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: about Japan. You can drink in public because people are
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: considerate in Japan. So we'll probably have a couple of beers.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: He'll probably have whiskey, he likes his high balls, and yeah,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: we'll have a boozy picnic. Anyway, if you've ever been
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: curious about the name of the most famous cherry blossoms,
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: the Sokra, it's so may Yoshino. Apparently I never knew that.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I've looked that up before, but
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: this is certainly the first time it's stuck. So many
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Yoshino and I talked. My Japanese is getting a little better.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: I'm one step up from nothing. I was able to
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: tell the owner of the raw menhouse, who explained it
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: to me, that there were very nice so many Yoshino
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: behind the train station, and that was pretty big for me,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: being able to express any thought I had after being
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: here so long and constantly not being able to express myself.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: It wasn't perfect, and he asked me other questions and
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: I was like, sorry, I don't understand, but he also
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: asked me a couple of things I did. So I'm
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: it's certainly paying off studying Japanese so much, and I
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: like studying languages anyway, so it's fun. But I'm finally,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: I finally feel like I'm making basic communication, having basic conversations,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: which is really nice. E this it's good. So I
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: went to some waterfalls, and there were new cherry blossoms
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: there from the last time I went. And there are
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: actually two waterfalls near each other. The second waterfall is
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: only a i don't know, ten minute walk away from
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: the first, and I hadn't seen that one yet, so
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: I walked to the second one, and it was much
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: bigger and grander, and the banks of the river were
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: extremely muddy and the water was cloudy and silty, and
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: I was really surprised. But it just really thick clay,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: and it was really interesting to see because pottery is
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: such a huge part of Japanese culture and roof tiles
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: and all that kind of stuff, and I could see
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: when I went to the second waterfall, I was like, Oh,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: of course, it's a huge part of their culture. Look
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: at this like perfect mud that they can just pick
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: up and make anything with. That was pretty. It was
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: very interesting to see because with really good clay like that,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: you can make a house. If you mix that with straw,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: it becomes a very strong wall. You could make bricks,
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: you can make roof tiles, you can make obviously pottery
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: bowls and plates and whatnot. It's pretty. It was fascinating
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: to see this clay because it was so it was
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: so obviously moldable and very fine, extremely fine clay, So
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: it was really very cool, like there was no there
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of dirt or sand mixed in. It
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: was just extremely fine grained clay, very smooth and very tough.
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: It felt like like you could make it into something
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: very easy to work with. But it feels like it
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: would hold together extremely well, especially after it was dried.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I should have taken some, but I would have had
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: to carry it back. Hm, maybe I'll go do that.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: There's a rose garden in the park that is not
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: quite alive yet, but I check on it every now
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: and then. I would guess that the roses are going
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: to bloom far after the cherry blossoms, though, by which
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: point I will be in Korea and then China and
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: then Mongolia. I walked through a cool park that had
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: all of the zodiac zodiac animals. It's in statue form,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: and a lot of them had like like there was
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: the cow and then a baby cow with it, and
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: there was just much cool statues and it made it
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: nice to walk through the park. Oh, and there were
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: no bird droppings on any of the statues, and I was.
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: I didn't know if that was because it was winter
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: and it had rained so or if I don't know
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: what that was, or if they actually have a guy
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: just go through the entire park and clean it, clean
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: all of the statues, because they were all sparkling, shiny.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: They looked new, like all of the statues looked new.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: And I've been there a few times and there's never
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: any anything on them. But I imagine if they had
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: to clean all of them, it would take a long
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: time because they're not next to each other. They're all
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: scattered throughout the park, and it's a pretty big park,
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: so you'd have to walk like, I don't know, five
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: minutes to each one. And there's what twelve they're twelve
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: zodiac animals. So anyway, it was really cool to see
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: those statues. Oh, walking around that park, I found a
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: hair tie on the ground and it looked perfectly new
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: and clean, and I just picked it up, and I'm
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: still using it because I only had like two hair
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: ties left and one of them got stretched out. And
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: then I was walking around these statues and saw a
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: hair tie on the ground and there you go, So
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: now I have a hair tie. I did my taxes.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: I got those out of the way, which was very nice.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: It didn't take very long, and I feel like I
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: should mention it again. If you live outside of the
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: US for more than three hundred and thirty days of
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: the year you complete that's you have achieved the physical
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: presence test of Form two five FY five from the IRS.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: So US taxpayers, that means that you don't have to
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: pay Federal income tax earned income tax on your first
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: to one hundred and thirty thousand dollars per year. They
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: adjust the amount each year the IRS, but right now
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: it's about one hundred and thirty thousand US dollars, so
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: you don't have to. You can work for any company,
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: just be outside of the US for three hundred thirty
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: days or more, and then you qualify for the FIE,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion, and you don't have to
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: pay earned income taxes. I did it for a decade.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: It's great now to retire. My income is now passive,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: so I do pay tax on unearned income passive income,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: but earned income if you if you're an English teacher
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: abroad or a programmer or whatever job you have, as
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: long as you're outside of the US more than three
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: hundred and thirty days of the year, you don't got
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: to pay no taxes, and I recommend it. It was
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: a very nice little perk to just fill out this
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: form for five minutes every year and not pay taxes
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: for a decade completely legally, that's the physical presence test.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: You're not in the country for three hundred and thirty
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: or more days, you don't pay earned income taxes. So
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: if your income is earned rather than unearned like passive income,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: you're golden pony boy. I found some orange trees and
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I've been using the peels to put in my beers.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: But the beers and the seltzers in Japan are so
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: tasty anyway, I don't really have to worry about adding
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: in orange peels so much. Like when I visit the
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: States and I don't know, Budweiser, bud Light, whatever is
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: the only it's just the cheap beer everywhere. I put
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: in a little bit of lemon juice and some orange peels,
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: and a bud Light tastes pretty good. Get a lot
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: of nice sour bitter in there with the beer and
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: it's okay. But here in Japan, I got some of
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: these oranges and took off their peels, and then realized
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: that everything tastes so good here anyway, so I don't
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: gotta Oh I made a margaro song. Did I already
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: talk about that? Oh, it's been a while. What was it?
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: It was something like margro suki, this magro machi shushin
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: this That was it? Margro suki, this magro machi shushin,
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Margroo Margro margroo magro margrou daisukids, which means I like tuna.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: I come from tuna town. I like tuna the most. Basically,
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I thought that was so funny. I was singing it
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: while I was showering the other day after I had
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: some margaro some tuna sushimi, and I just started laughing
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: singing that song. And I'm still singing it. It's a
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: good song. I shared it with my Japanese friend back
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: in the States and her husband, and she was like, hey,
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: you're speaking Japanese. I was like, I know, I'm doing
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: it the apex of my life. I put up some
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: curtains around the house because there's big old windows and
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: for some reason, there's no curtains up in the house. Again,
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: I don't think this host lives in this house. Normally
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: because everything's put away and packed up. So I found
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: some curtains in I don't know, one of the closets,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: and there are a whole bunch of magnets everywhere here
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: with hooks on them that must be popular in China
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: or something, because he has hundreds of them. And so
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: I put up the magnets that with the hooks on them,
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: because the curtain rod couldn't hold the types of curtains
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: I found. And then but with those hooks, the curtains
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: go up fine, and now I have a much more
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: private house instead of the large Florida ceiling glass window
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: doors that you can just see in from the the street.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: So it's pretty that pretty happy with that. Put up
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: some privacy curtains in the restroom too, so I can
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: leave the window open so there's a fresh breeze going
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: through there, but obviously privacy. So yeah, I was happy
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: with the curtains I put up. Oh my gosh, have
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: I mentioned heating yet? I didn't realize, Oh boy, I
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: didn't realize the heating worked in this house. I thought
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: there was like some minimum heating, but some of the
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: days I was like freezing, and I was like I
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: guess Japanese people just don't have heating, which then I
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: was like, that's crazy. Of course they have heating. They
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: really like their modern amenities. And then the AC on
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: my wall, all of a sudden, after oh gosh, three
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: weeks of already living in this house, I was like,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: oh wait, it's an air con slash heating duct. And
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: I realized that I could turn on the heating at
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: any moment that I wanted to. And it was freezing
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: a couple more days and now it's fine the temperature.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: But so for like two weeks plus, I was just
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: freezing in this house and not understanding how they could
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: not have heating. And then I checked the listed amenities
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: on the house and it said heating. So I looked
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: around and I realized, oh, the AC is also heating.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Yea dumb, dumb. So I had a few nice warm
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: days that combated the extreme cold, but then that totally changed,
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: like last week, I don't know, the past ten days
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: or something, it's been getting steadily warmer. Like I said,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: all the so many yoshino, the sokka starting to bloom
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: blurm bloom. But I thought that was so funny that
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: I didn't even realize there was heating and I was
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: just super cold. For the first couple of weeks, I
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: was here like a dumb dumb I found an old
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: bike in the So there's a lot of abandoned houses
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: on this out like suburb suburbs area of Matsuyama, and
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: there's not a lot of people living out here. So
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I after I had some sushi one day, I walked
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: over to well, I just walked through like all the
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: town's just taking a walk, and then I saw this
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: really old, abandoned I don't know, almost a barn, I guess,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: but I had a whole bunch of crap in it.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: And a lot of these houses have a whole bunch
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: of crap in them, and nobody's living here, Like I wonder, Yeah,
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: this must be a symptom of the massive population decline
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: of Japan. I didn't realize how steadily their population was diminishing.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: But in the past five years it's gone down like
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: five million, which is they're the eleventh most populous country
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: in the world with one hundred and twenty three million
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: people in Japan. But that's still a lot. That's like
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: almost five percent of the population. One in twenty people
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: is gone after five years. Every year, one more person
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: out of one hundred goes away. It's pretty wild to consider.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: So I'm guessing that's why a lot of these smaller
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: suburbs and towns have fewer people these days. And by guessing,
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: I mean mathematically that obviously has to be true because
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: there's less people. Anyway. I found this old, abandoned barn
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: with a whole bunch of stuff in it, and I
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: went around poking around, and I saw a bicycle in there,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: which is really cool because I've been wanting to ride
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: a bicycle around. It's such beautiful weather and they have
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: such nice roads in Japan. But I don't want to
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: rent a bicycle because it's crazy expensive here, like one
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: hundred US dollars per day to rent. At all of
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: the rental places I saw, the cheapest one was like
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: thirty US dollars per day or something like that. But
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: that's I mean, that's one hundred fifty percent of the
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: cost of a new bike. I feel like I could
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: buy a new especially all of the Japanese people I
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: see around me are riding like older, normal, crappy street
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: bikes that cannot cost that much. But I can't find
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: any place that sells those secondhand old bikes. And there's
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: even a bike shop here, but the guy only sells
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: new bikes, and he has a ton of secondhand ones,
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: but he doesn't he won't sell any of those. He
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: just replaces the parts in the new bikes with those
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: old parts. But everyone around me is riding the regular bikes. Anyway.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: I found one in this old barn, but it has
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: that little hoop lock, so the back wheel was locked,
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: and I realized that there was an old key in
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: the front part of it that was unlocked, and the
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: key was totally stuck. So I found an old hammer head,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: like the head of a hammer, and I put the
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: key inside the whole of the head of the hammer,
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: and then I use that to get a little more
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: leverage because it was completely stuck and felt like it
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: wouldn't turn at all. And that actually worked and I
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: got the key out, and then I was like, holy cow.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: So I unlocked the back hoop and then now there's
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: another bike. There are bikes all over outside of the city,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: like it seems to people just abandon them all the time.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: So this is another abandoned one. Oh, but it is
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: an electric bike, so it does have a heavy battery
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: and it's not great for pedaling. I just thought it
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: was so cool that I use the head of a
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: hammer to get more leverage to turn the key and
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: get it out. And it worked actually, instead of snapping
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: off the key or something. That was pretty cool. What
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: else has been going on? Oh, going to my friend's
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: wedding in June. I did try to get out of it,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: to be perfectly honest, just I don't know. I think
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of tired. I've been going to weddings and
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: traveling frequently, and so I was just tired. And I'm
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: going to meet other friends in Hawaii, so I don't
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: want to have to go to the US and then
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: back west, you know, go east from Asia to the
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: US for the wedding, and then go back west to
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: Hawaii for to visit those Hawaii friends. But it turns
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: out I'm part of the bridal party. Is what it's
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: called the grooms party. I'm one of the good men,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: not the best man this time, but I'm a good man.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: And what the heck are those called? How come? I? Oh?
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: Grooms man? Oh that's funny, good man. We'll use that.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: So he said if you don't show up, then we'll
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: be imbalanced, and like you were planned to be part
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: of the party, and I didn't realize that the marriage
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: party is that what it's called. And so I was like, oh, no,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: of course, I was just asking because the schedule. But
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: if I'm part of the marriage party, yeah, I'll certainly
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: be there. I don't want to mess anything up. It
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: sounded like it sounds like a huge party. It sounds
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: like or a huge wedding, like the just wedding I
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: have probably ever been to. There's gonna be a lot
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: of people there, so I thought, you don't even need
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: me there, right, And then he was like, oh no,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: you're one of the grooms men. You should be there,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: so I'll see you guys at the wedding. I rsvped
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: gave him a gift. I didn't get the ticket. Yeah,
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: I gotta get the ticket soon. I should probably get
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: there earlier too, because all the flights seemed to be
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: going crazy, probably partly because of Trump's war in Iran
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: and also the funding freeze for US transportation. And I
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: got to get back there in a couple months, I guess, yeah,
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: about two months. Pretty crazy. This world is crazy. What
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: else has been going on. I got Charsu ramen. I've
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: had the shio the show You and Charsu, and the
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Chartsu was good. I liked it, but to show you,
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: I think I just like the regular show You with
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: the regular pork rather than the Charsup ramen. Glad I
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: tried it, though I should probably try the curry next.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: I like this ramen house because it's close by. It's
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: not the best ramen I've ever had in Japan or out,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: to be perfectly honest, but it's a cool place. It's
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: all hardwood. He makes it by hand behind the counter,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: and it's just a familiar place. And it's an izakaya,
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: so I can order a bunch of side plates like
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: squid or hard boiled egg or giozzo, like whatever side
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: snacks I want to with it. Yeah, it's a cool
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: little spot, so I like going there. It just feels cozy.
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: Oh man. I had a great sashimi picnic, tuna, salmon, seabream.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: There's no eka, there's no squid. There was some other fish.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: It might have been hamachi actually, And I got one
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: of those beers I like with the lemon slice inside
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: the beer. And I walked out. They have a bunch
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: of causeways on Japan shores, and I walked out. I
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: don't know, they're pretty far, like thirty meters down the
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: causeway and just hung out on a couple of rocks,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: eating a picnic, watching the inland sea between Hikoku and
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Honshu and the boats going by, and the beautiful sun
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: and the seagulls flapping around. And the sashimi was delicious,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: of course, because even though it's supermarket sashimi, it's still
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: delicious if you get it in Japan. It's so tasty.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: And it was a really clear day. So there's a
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: great picture you can see if you had the Lemy
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: community crazy people dot online, slash sea slash travel is
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: the Lemmy community. And there's a great picture of the
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: little picnic I had looking out over the inland sea
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: on this beautiful clear day. That was really fun and
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: really delicious. I liked it. What else? Oh, Gmail spam filter?
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Good to talk about this? So people have been writing in,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: and look, if you're writing in recommending another person who
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: you think should be a podcast guest, I'm probably not
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: going to answer you. I get a crazy amount of
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: emails and I'm not that interested in talking to marketing
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: people for other people, and usually those people are unrelated
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: to my podcast. So if I'm not answering you and
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: you're a marketing person, that's deliberate. But if you're if
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: I'm not answering you and you just happened to be
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: a fan and want to write in, that's my bad.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize how strict my Gmail spam filter was
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: so huge. Shout out to the last couple of people
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: who got trapped by it Ian from Ireland and Leanne
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: from Canada. Was she It's been a couple weeks now
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: I can't exactly remember, but thank you Leanne andy In
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: for writing in. I answered both of them once I
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: realized that my spam filter had detained real people and
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: was letting all the marketing people through. So I've disabled
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: my spam filters entirely. So now right into a bit
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: of a Rambler at gmail dot com, I will see
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: your email. If you're a marketing person, I'm going to
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: throw you down into spam or just trash it. But
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: if you are a fan of the podcast, or if
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: you just want to write in Bit of a Rambler
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: at gmail dot com, you will not get stuck by
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: the spam filter anymore, because I have disabled it entirely.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: I was really irritated when I found out that two
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: people had written in and I hadn't responded, But luckily
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: I wrote back to both them, and Ian I think
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: has already written back. So I'm glad you guys. Thank
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: you Ian and Leanne for writing in. Sorry you got
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: caught by the spam filter. Will not happen again. I'm
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: really glad I could throw some travel advice your way.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: And it's so cool that people are writing in. I
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: get ten people writing in every day, and I probably wouldn't.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: You know, that's a lot of people writing in every day.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: But it's nice here and there to get a message
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: and just know that there's some engagement going on with
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: this podcast that people are finding it useful in certain
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: ways in their own lives. I don't expect every podcast
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: topic to be relevant to every person. Like an academy,
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: they have to study everything. But when I do get
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: emails from people saying, hey, I've been listening to podcast.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: I really found this part interesting or this episode made
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: me think about traveling and is very inspiring. That's great.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: That's all this is doing. This is just supposed to
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: be a well, I don't want to say fount of inspiration.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: That sounds a bit vainglorious, doesn't it. But it's supposed
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: to inspire and inform that traveling is much more accessible
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: than people think, and if you want to do it,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: you probably can do it. If you want to travel,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: you probably can travel. Most people can. And most people's
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: barrier they think is financial. But if you're speaking English,
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: you got a guarantee job, and it does not cost
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: much to travel as long as you book by the
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: month and cook for yourself. Sometimes it's very easy to
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: travel for five hundred to one thousand US dollars per month.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: It's incredibly easy. So I'm so glad that message is
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: getting through because I'm the people like Ian and Leanne
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: I mentioned and a few other people writing in and
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: saying that they like the podcast and it's helping them
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: understand travel a little better, and they have a couple
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: of questions. It's really cool. So thanks for writing in.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: If you want to write in bit of a Ramblergail
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: dot com, I will answer. You won't get trapped in
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: a spam filter anymore. And thanks for listening. I picked
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: up sashimi from the store five minutes before the sticker
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: guy came out to put discount stickers on everything, and
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, nothing's on sale today, But I
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: guess he was just ten minutes late putting all the
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: discount stickers because the sashimi in Japanese supermarkets it's always fresh.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: It's made that day, and then after the afternoon rolls
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: around they put stickers on everything showing like how much
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: each sashimi or sushi is being discounted in the afternoon
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: because it's not as fresh as it was in the morning.
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: And I usually get there after they put the stickers on,
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: but this day the guy didn't, and I picked up
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: a roll and I was like, oh, whatever, because it's
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: not a huge discount, it's just nice, like yeah, why
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: not pay a dollar less or whatever? And I picked
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: up a sashimi and walked away, and then I heard
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: the door open right over my shoulder. He was putting
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: the stickers on everything right after I had picked up
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: the one, and so I went over and I was like, Hey,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: can I get a sticker from a different stock guy
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: stalking the shells and he's like, no, sorry, that's that guy.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: You have to ask him, but then he was already
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: back in the back again. He was a madman putting
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: all those discount stickers on, And you know what, that
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: is fine. I was perfectly happy paying the extra sixty
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: cents or whatever the heck it was for tasty, delicious sushi.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: So I did find more orange trees, and besides the peels,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: I want to try the fruit, but it's super super sour,
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: so I guess it's just not ripe yet. But there
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: are so many oranges and orange trees in a ma
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: in Chikoku, the southernmost main island. I'm finding random, full
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: orange trees all around, and nobody's taken the oranges. They're
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: just falling off to the ground, so I assume they're ripe.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: But then everyone I've tried has been quite sour so far.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's just during the winter, like before spring, it's
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: sour in general. I don't know what's happening with that,
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: but it's really cool because there are giant orange trees
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: full of oranges that you can just grab oranges from
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: and they're not on anyone's property or fenced off or
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: anything like that. There's just so many in Hikoku that
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: they're yeah that they're around. Oh did you know Japan
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: has fourteen, one hundred and twenty five islands officially, so
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: they've been counting and every year, you know, it goes
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: up a little more because the island census is like, oh,
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: there's another one. But that kind of blew my mind.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Fourteen thousand, one hundred and twenty five islands right now
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: is the count for the number of Japanese islands. That's
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: a lot of islands. That's pretty crazy. And I've been
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: to two. I've been to two of those islands. I
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: should probably get to work on visiting a couple other ones.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I've already heard. There's a there's a Rabbit Island and
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: a deer Island along the ortherern Chicoku coast near Matsuyama,
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: So I kind of want to go to those. Just
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: going to two more and I'll have doubled my island
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: count and then I only have fourteen twenty one left
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: to go to. Oh wait cha, Cookea's not even the
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: southern the last quqs, she's the southernmost. Yeah, I got
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: to get to some other islands, even if the tiny
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: Deer Island and Bunny Island, I should go check those out.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: Get my island count bump that island count. Oh. So
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: in other news, I got a new wireless mouse, which
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: the old one has been not clicking correctly, like I
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: have to put a lot of pressure, I have to
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: click it on the right part and then it's been
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: pretty bad this trip. And I was like, oh, you're
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: in Japan, it's like the best place to go get one.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: And so I went for a long walk up to
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Dice and after Gang there there's a whole computer accessory
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: section and it was only I don't know, three dollars
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: for this for this mouse that I got for a
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: USBC recharge flat form factor mouse, and I was like,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: boom perfect. So I tried it out and it works
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: very well and I'm using it now, and yeah, I
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: was very happy that my mouse finally decided to die
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: while I was in Japan next to a bunch of
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: Diso and there's one in Korea too, So if I
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: need anything else I forget before I leave Japan, I'll
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: be able to still stop by some Disos for a
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: week because apparently there's a whole bunch in Korea, which
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: I didn't realize. I love Diso. It has everything I got.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: I should check them for stuff sacks. I was gonna
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: check when I got the computer mouse, but then they
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: were closing soon, and so I was rushing and I
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: forgot to check. But a couple of stuff sacks would
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: be great for my jackets and mostly my jacket anyway,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Happy to have my new wireless mouse. What else has
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: been going on? It was fun walking around walking to
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: different disos. And I just walked up and down the
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: coast of Chakoku, the northern coast near Mansiyama, and I
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: just made a whole day of it, just walking around.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: The sunsets are so nice on the inland sea. It's
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: always like some bright orange, pink or red, and the
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: sky's blue and all the leaves are green. My heart's
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: as full as a baked potato. Man, have you seen
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: Cannibal the Musical? If you like comedies or musicals, Cannibal
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: the Musicals one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: I still watch. I watch it fairly constantly, like I'm
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: always watching. I don't know. It's one of the few
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: movies I still I watch more than once. These days,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: I mostly only watch a movie once, but Cannibal musical
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: is so funny, and I found out about it when
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: I was nineteen. I want to say, uh, in college,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: my girlfriend's brother like corny, funny movies, and I think
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: she introduced me to it because he introduced her to
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: Cannibal the Musical. And I still laugh like hard sometimes.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: I've showed it to a bunch of my friends. What
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: a great what a great movie. But yeah, my walk
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: that song I was singing was from Cannibal the Musical.
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: My walker along the Coast was very nice. I got
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: my wireless mouse. It was a very satisfying day. Also,
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: dark skies in Japan, I just want to mention real quick.
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: I think it's so cool, how attentive or how how yeah,
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: how much attention is paid to dark skies in Japan,
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: to not having too many street lights and not having
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: two bright lights anywhere so you don't get light pollution,
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: So you can see so many stars. Even if you're
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: inside a populated area, you can find like dark sky
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: pockets of a city, and you can also if you're
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: outside of the city, it's all dark. There's very little
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: intrusive light pollution in a lot of parts of Japan,
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: which I love because I love just staring at stars.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: They're amazing looking and fill me with the sense of humility.
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: So I've been going out stargazon a lot since. Yeah,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: I'm in Japan. It's such a great country for that.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: It's so crazy. I didn't realize it was the eleventh
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: most populous country in the world. I just found that
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: out when I was reading it's Wikipedia page about all
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: the islands. One hundred and twenty three million is the
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: eleventh most populous country in the world. And for being
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: in the top what five percent of countries by population,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: the care they pay to not over developing cities and
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: not over developing their islands, I guess they have fourteen
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: thousand of them is even more impressive than it already was,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: and it was already very impressive, But now that I
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: know they're the eleventh most populous country, it's even crazier
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: that there's so many private rights that are taken for
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: granted here that countries like the US don't have. Like
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: there's not as many security cameras, even though you know
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: cameras are big, there just are not as many security
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: cameras here as there are in countries like the US
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: or most of Europe. In most places now, China for sure,
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: but human rights are so important in Japan that you
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: don't have as many security cameras just everywhere because privacy
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: is just a huge thing in Japan. Privacy is huge here. Anyway,
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: I'm loving living in Japan. It's been really fun. I'm
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: gonna enjoy it for another week and a half and
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: then go bounce off to another country, Korea, and then China.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Go visit some friends in China. It's been a long time.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: And my friend asked me, why don't you just stop
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: here and visit? And I was like, oh, yeah, why
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: don't I there's no good reason not to, and so yeah,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: that'll be really fun. And then up to Mongo Leah,
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: probably gay. I's tired from traveling so much, so I
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: kind of want to slow down, but I don't know.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: It doesn't seem in the car. It seems like I
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: just gotta keep learning. If you want to listen to
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: more of this, go listen to the other hundred episodes.
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: These are all the ramble on ones. Sound like, thank
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: you very much for listening, everybody who is, thank you
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: for writing in everybody who is, And I hope your
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: day is going great. You can talk to me a
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: bit of a Rambler at gmail dot com or the
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Lemmy community or Blue Sky, Bit of a Rambler on
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: Blue Sky, and bit of a Rambler on Lemon and
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: I hope you're havin just a super day