K [00:00:08] So lately I’ve been thinking about or I should say I’ve been fantasizing about and I’ve been researching, traveling in the US versus traveling in Japan post vaccination. And if you follow us on Twitter, you know I have really strong, strong feelings about vaccination that I won’t repeat here, but if you can get vaccinated, you should be. So we’re in the middle of our vaccination process, which is what’s sparking my fantasies.

C [00:00:42] Yes. The inter-jab wait.

K [00:00:45] Yeah, I was really surprised because I got my coupon before you, so in Japan there’s a thing called my number and my number is basically like a Social Security number. And if you have applied to the my number system, you get a ticket in the mail, which is not a ticket. I was totally bummed because I thought we were going to get one of those postcards

C [00:01:08] that is going to be like a Willy Wonka.

K [00:01:10] No, I thought I was going to be like a normal Japanese like post thing that you have to rip open and then it folds out.

C [00:01:16] It might have been in some cities. Every city gets to decide how they’re doing their own thing.

K [00:01:21] Because in Japan they have these postcards that are sealed on one side with really weak glue. And you peel it and it can open up like a map. Some of them open up to be as big as like,

C [00:01:33] Yeah, double double their size. They open up to be four panels instead of front and back.

K [00:01:38] I have some that like are folded in half. And then folded it again.

C [00:01:44] Right. Four panels. That’s what I was saying.

K [00:01:47] Six panels

C [00:01:49] Well front and back, six panels on some of them

K [00:01:51] No, six panels just on the front.

C [00:01:53] Oh, wow. The way that it was folded, they just checked it.

K [00:01:58] Yeah. So here’s the thing. Your Japanese reading is better than mine. So I have to open it up to tell if it’s spam or junk mail. Yeah. And the junk mail in Japan is intricate.

C [00:02:09] Yes, it is intricate.

K [00:02:11] It comes they come in envelopes that look that on a bill. Right. With like all of the steam. So the mail in Japan has like different sizes and different windows for different things, for different bills. And all of the bills come in a different shape. The gas bill is the most confusing because it’s just a thin little piece of ticker-Tape.

C [00:02:33] That’s the notification about the actual bill will be.

K [00:02:36] And that’s what Chad thinks.

C [00:02:38] Hey, that’s what I know, because it doesn’t have any payment method on it.

K [00:02:43] No, sir. I say no. And I think that I listen to you and didn’t pay it. And our gas got shut off for like an hour. I was waiting for the other bill, OK? And then they when I called, they said, no, this is the bill. OK, so when was the last time you pay bills?

C [00:03:04] The last time I pay bills, yeah, like an hour ago, I told Ross that here are some bills, go pay them.

K [00:03:11] Exactly. And then I tell us to go to the bills and he’s like, and I get the bills demised. Yes, exactly. Because you when you start the bills, you just decide that like 80 percent of what we receive is junk mail.

C [00:03:25] It is. And I think this is in effect, like one of the subtle effects of differences in laws. And the U.S., if there’s not a stamp in something, it’s against the law to put it in a in a mailbox designated for postal mail. So, like, if there’s a mailbox out there, you can’t just stuff the mailbox with your shitty fliers. You have to have the house food stamps on it.

K [00:03:48] What are you talking about?

C [00:03:50] I am talking about in the U.S. in the U.S., it is a federal crime to put unstamped mail into a mailbox.

K [00:03:59] We had to get direct mail, unstamped mail in our mailbox.

C [00:04:02] And I am telling you, that was a federal crime. So the gang was actually like just a couple of guys hanging out on the street corner talking tough to each other as opposed to here you get the whole yakuza in your mailbox.

K [00:04:17] What are you you’re saying like the most bizarre things to me right now? This is so bizarre what you’re saying. Why are you bringing in gangs? You think they’re gangs involved in the junk mail?

C [00:04:28] You told me there’s a gang of mail in the box without stamps.

K [00:04:32] Everybody knows that a gang of means a lot

C [00:04:35] and everybody knows that. I like to make a joke out of a metaphor, like just a thing that’s saying,

K [00:04:41] oh, my gosh, you guys can some sympathy, love, Yelchin sympathy, lol.

C [00:04:47] Yes, go ahead. My crowd, my crowd of laughter.

K [00:04:51] Yes, I’m sure all of the music notes are chiming in with their laughter.

C [00:04:56] They are. They’re like Moha.

K [00:04:58] But I’m from. But I’m from

C [00:05:02] ah, those times to you

K [00:05:04] know, those are like you made a joke, but I’m pumped.

C [00:05:09] So I think that that’s how you think the rimshot goes.

K [00:05:12] No, it’s called a rimshot, but now that’s what I think they do on late night. But I’m from. OK, yeah, so what I was saying, see, now I get to do the hard redirection, but I was talking about is vacation, but I got confused by mail because as describing how we get our vaccination. Yes, I want everyone to go down and get their my number. So if you live in Japan and you’re an expat, please go to your ward office and get your my number and tell them you want your my number and you can just say my number. Walk up to the person in the little suit that stands in the back to help everybody and say my number to them and they will give you the forms and then if you can’t fill them out, you just make a big round eyes and shrug and then put your idea on the counter with it and not fill it out for you.

C [00:06:09] Yes. So the my number system is compulsory. Everybody in the country is supposed to be enrolled except for I think, like kids under a certain age as part of the koseki or family registry system. So unlike in the US, you do have to inform the government when you move in Japan. Yes, everybody does. This is not a thing specific to non Japanese people. So when they say we’re going to send out the vaccination stuff by the my number system, that really is supposed to have 100 percent coverage of all residents of Japan.

K [00:06:43] Right, because everyone’s supposed to have it right. So I got my no card two days before you

C [00:06:51] three days yet. I think I got mine on Thursday and you had yours on Monday,

K [00:06:56] which I feel is really disrespectful of the age gap. Are supposed to be doing it by age.

C [00:07:01] They were supposed to be doing it by age. And I am in the lower age category than you. The lesser category.

K [00:07:07] There should have been a weekend between

C [00:07:09] us, but they were supposed to go out the same the same day.

K [00:07:13] I of agree with that. I want something for my seniority.

C [00:07:16] They were supposed to out the same day, but you’re supposed to be eligible for yours before I was eligible for mine.

K [00:07:22] Yes. And you’re getting yours. You got yours on a Wednesday. I got mine on a Thursday.

C [00:07:28] Right. Because I had our son tell them, yeah, I’m Chad and I’m a fatty, fat fatso. And they were like, oh, my

K [00:07:37] goodness, that’s not even what happened. You’re willing to go all you were willing to go all the way to the port and now you have to go all the way to the port for your second shot. Yes. And that’s 90 minutes one way driving because we can’t take public transportation. Yeah, that’s wild.

C [00:07:56] And not taking public transportation has been one of the hardest things for me because, you know, I love it. Like I’m going to the airport. If I get the magic train, I can get on the train here and end in the port and I have to make the transfer over because they’re not running the one all the way there anymore, I don’t think.

K [00:08:12] But in two stops, that train is so packed that it’s standing only because it’s going to Kayama. Yeah. So until you get to Kamiyama, it’s a packed train.

C [00:08:21] That’s all I’m saying.

K [00:08:21] I’m just empty at our stop. Right then two stops is standing only and then it’s that way all the way for like 30 minutes to Kamiyama. Yeah.

C [00:08:29] Because it starts at our stop. Our stop is the first stop.

K [00:08:32] So it’s half the time to get there by public transportation. Yes. If we catch the right train. But in catching the right train that goes to the port, it may be that you arrive an hour before you need to.

C [00:08:46] This is true.

K [00:08:48] And there’s no we don’t know how far away, so taking public transportation as a whole, another thing, because you have to know the walking thing to get there, so you have to go there the day before to time it or like a week before whenever just before the time it and walk and find out where you’re going.

C [00:09:08] Yeah, I do, because I get lost,

K [00:09:10] yes, so and I like to do that too, because I don’t like getting lost and I usually don’t, but I also don’t know how long it takes me to get anywhere because I don’t understand how my body moves through time. Yeah, I don’t get that at all. So I’m like everything takes 15 minutes or an hour.

C [00:09:32] I was thinking, sometimes you’re like, babe, if we go to the subway that it’s across the street from us, it’s going to take 15, 20 minutes to get there.

K [00:09:42] 30 minute platform. That’s like thirty, forty five minutes. And then Michael down there for an hour just in case of anything. Exactly. Now I know. And here’s where the 15 minutes come in. I know that I can get from our door to the platform in 15 minutes if I broke up, if I’m like rushing. But then I have to take the overarm and I have to run up the stairs. Speed walked over and jog down all the stairs. Yes. I don’t like doing that. I like to stroll up,

C [00:10:15] yeah, and so now

K [00:10:17] and there’s two really unpredictable lights. To be fair, yes, they’re across the street, so no matter which way you try to cross the street, there’s two really unpredictable lights. I try to cross the street the other way and thinking that the light doesn’t matter. But that little one way side street gets a lot of traffic. It does. It’s a tiny little one way street that when you look at it, it’s like there’s nothing down here, but there’s a gang of houses. So everyone’s coming and going from home on the little side

C [00:10:44] streets again with the gang.

K [00:10:47] It’s everything, just gangs and gavel’s, OK. Gargles So in the United States, I feel like no one stop traveling. I feel the majority shouldn’t say No one. I feel the majority of people do not stop traveling.

C [00:11:02] I feel like that’s accurate.

K [00:11:04] And I feel like there’s a lot of people who feel comfortable getting on planes right now.

C [00:11:10] Yes, there are a lot of people who feel comfortable getting on planes.

K [00:11:14] I don’t know when I feel comfortable getting on a plane again.

C [00:11:17] Yeah, that’s a tricky one. Like, even once we’re fully vaccinated. Like getting in the same spot as everybody else for 14 hours. Yeah, that’s a lot.

K [00:11:31] It is. And so I think everyone should go on YouTube and Google, Naomi Campbell getting on a plane and this is what she used to do, pre pandemic. So she’s to sanitize everything because she didn’t want to get sick and she didn’t want to catch a cold because she’s like, I’m traveling for work. Right. And everybody would make fun of her because she’d wear gloves and a face mask and had hand sanitizers and had her own vomit and like her own gear. So basically she would just wrap up and mummified mummify herself to make sure no air touched her. And now she’s like, see? I told you I was right all this time, and I completely agree with her. So because I don’t want to get on a plane and I don’t want to take public transportation, I’ve been thinking about when I was hella broke in the United States, what did I do for travel? And what I did for travel is I found a cheap hotel that was driving distance or sometimes walking distance from my home. And I would go stay there. Yes. What do you think about that, just. Going like 90 minutes away from the house, just like go see like Monet’s pond, which we’ve never seen

C [00:12:52] now, we have always seen pictures of it and video and video

K [00:12:57] go on YouTube and Google and Google and YouTube and put in Monet’s Pond, Japan. Stunning. I want to see it in person. It looks just like them on a painting.

C [00:13:07] I think it’s stunning, but we don’t know because we haven’t been there yet. So I think that going there would be fun.

K [00:13:14] So the video of it makes it look just like, right, I’m on a painting and I have been recommending for years, I recommend all of my clients go to when they go to Mona’s porn, because it’s one of those insider things. It’s and it’s really close to Nagoya and it’s a day trip thing, something they can do on a day trip. And it’s outdoors and it’s at a park and the kids can run around and have a good time. The kids can not get him on a pond, but they can run around and have a good time.

C [00:13:49] I feel like there’s a lot of different places in Japan that recreate famous works of art. And some of them and they’re like, no, we’re not recreating the art, the art recreated us. We’re just making sure that you can see how we were the inspiration. Like there’s a place called Matsumura here, which is that Meiji Village. That’s a historical theme park. And they’re like, no, no, we didn’t make this historical theme park by, you know, creating a sham facade here. What we did is we restored the original village so that you can see why it’s in all the Studio Ghibli films and such.

K [00:14:29] Yeah.

C [00:14:30] But Monet’s Pond, I feel like they said it kind of looks like something Monet.

K [00:14:36] Painted like, no, they need it to look like the money.

C [00:14:40] That’s what I’m saying. I think they took

K [00:14:41] they want it kind of looks like a Monet painting. Before they made the pond, they painted the bottom right.

C [00:14:49] And all I can say is I think they’re like, wouldn’t this be cool to look like a Monet painting? Because it kind of does. I think somebody said it kind of does already. And then they said, we’re going to make sure it looks like it by painting the bottom, by planting the right kind of lilies and all of that kind of thing.

K [00:15:06] No, they literally made it to look like Monet painting.

C [00:15:11] Yes.

K [00:15:13] Not someone discovered a pond that existed natural in nature and said this almost looks like a Monet pond. So they decided to rip out everything to drain it, put cement over the what? The mud that already existed there.

C [00:15:30] Thank you for describing the process.

K [00:15:32] Is that your

C [00:15:33] fantasy? That is my fantasy. So thank you for describing us so clearly.

K [00:15:37] So when we go, we’ll find out. Yes. OK, so you think that they found a pond that kind of look like bunnies pond?

C [00:15:45] Yes.

K [00:15:46] In what way?

C [00:15:48] In the way that they looked at it and they said not Tsukushi like nostalgia, like they looked at it and they thought, you know, how this would look better, as if we painted it.

K [00:16:01] OK, so they’ve had this natural pond in nature, right? And they said this nature’s beautiful and reminiscent of a painting.

C [00:16:10] Therefore, we should over engineer it so that it looks exactly like it.

K [00:16:15] Yes. Think that’s a very Japanese thing to do. Logit. But I don’t think that’s what went down. I think what went down is that Gifu doesn’t have a lot of tourist attractions and they’re trying to draw money to the prefecture, and so they made this pond that looks like a Monet painting because the Japanese are really good at recreation. Yeah. And Scintillation, so I’m not saying that every Japanese person is I’m sorry. I’ve been to a lot of tourist spots that are recreated and feel like the real thing. And I feel like America used to be good at it and then tore down from your village,

C [00:16:59] made you feel like that’s the reason that they’re no longer good at it.

K [00:17:03] Yeah, because they tore down from Travilla and then they tore down walls, that little place that the other one carried the name of it. But it was how we ended up going to the Chinese festival is that we were going to the little petting zoo.

C [00:17:20] I think that was just the petting zoo.

K [00:17:23] No, it wasn’t. It was something else. I can’t remember it. And I like a little castle that you walk to the side and the front door. Anyways, I tore it down and it was some nostalgia for me. So that’s why America, at least in California, they’re not good at recreating things. OK, and the two times we drove cross-country, you know, good recreation’s.

C [00:17:44] This is true.

K [00:17:46] Not a one.

C [00:17:47] So I hear people say, well, Keith, who is famous for its hot springs and I’m like, OK, but have you noticed that Japan is a volcanic Japan is a series of volcanic islands,

K [00:18:00] ghetto’s famous for its hot springs

C [00:18:02] and Geto is in Gifu, is it. Yeah, it’s in Gifu Prefecture.

K [00:18:07] So it’s in the way part of the issue though. Yeah. You keep trying to get me to go to jail and I don’t know why. Because you cannot be around any sort of sulfuric smells, they make you nauseated and dizzy, they do already have difficulty walking around. I don’t enjoy hot springs to keep trying to get me to do like a private one.

C [00:18:30] I was just thinking that I was thinking. But ANGELLO They have the private one where you get your room and you have your own your own portion of the hot springs in your room.

K [00:18:39] Yes, so the ones in the room at least won’t have the monkeys. Yeah, I don’t know why anybody would want to be in the hot springs with a wild animal. Well, Cold Mountain monkeys will come and they sell it on the poster. Yes, they have they want people to come in the winter so that you can go in the hot springs with a wild mountain monkey.

C [00:19:04] They’re very friendly.

K [00:19:06] Why would I want to do that?

C [00:19:07] To get a picture

K [00:19:09] of what they’re ripping off my face.

C [00:19:12] No, you take the picture before it rips off your face.

K [00:19:15] Yeah, no, I’m not doing that. They have sharp fingers and sharp teeth and they’re territorial. And if they’re a mom and a baby in the hot springs, you can’t get in it. And they don’t know that. You can’t go to the bathroom in the hot springs. They don’t know that you have to get out of the hot springs to do your business right.

C [00:19:34] The monkeys just refuse to use the toilet.

K [00:19:37] And I know they cleaned them out in between monkey business, yeah, but no ill and I know the water’s supposed to be so hot it sanitizes itself. But now just not. Thank you. I’m not doing that. So the girl that I want to go to is the one that has the sulfur deposits. Yeah. Which means you have to go to the sulfuric hot springs that are so hot they will boil you alive or peel off your skin so you can’t get in them, but you can walk around them and see all the beautiful colors that the deposits made.

C [00:20:13] Yes, somewhat like Yellowstone.

K [00:20:16] Yeah, that’s the one I want to go to, and you don’t want to go to that one

C [00:20:20] because, as you said, makes me dizzy and I have trouble walking around anyway. I feel like it’s a video game and I’m just going to topple in and you’ll be like, restart, restart. I’ll be like, sorry, no, I toppled into just. Spewing sulfur.

K [00:20:37] Really get really. Wow, your internal life is bizarre, isn’t it? Do you think if I saw you getting ready to fall into a molten hot. Importantly, hot, hot springs that I would just be like, OK, I’m just down here, wait for Chad to fall in so that the game can start over.

C [00:21:00] No, I think you’d feel like he’s going to drag me into if I try and grab him and he’s not actually going to fall and he’s not back.

K [00:21:10] I see you’re reading me right now because any time you fall, I tell you I would catch you just fall on top of you. Because, babe, the one time I did try to catch you, it was a mess. Yeah. I knocked all kinds of things off of walls. It was horrible. And you were like, why did you try to catch me? Just leave me alone.

C [00:21:30] Definitely it

K [00:21:31] is. I thought I could.

C [00:21:33] It is part of the agreement between us that you don’t try and prevent that kind of stuff.

K [00:21:38] Like, Yes. And I was like, but babe, I’m saving you. You are not saving me. I would not have hit my head if you had not jumped on top of me because like I did not jump on top of you. I was catching you from the front. That’s how I viewed it. Catching you. I can catch you from the front.

C [00:21:57] You can catch me from the front. But we have very soft floors that I fall on the floor. It’s not a big deal. Yeah, but it would be a big deal if there was a hot springs right there.

K [00:22:07] Yes, so we’re not doing the ghetto hot springs, but we are doing moaners porn. Yeah, we’re looking at October and we’re going to drive there and the big debate is Airbnb or hotel. Yes, and looking at the United States, they seem to be divided evenly between people who think that urban bees are safe and people who think hotels are safe. Yeah. And our friends that live in the United States are also divided evenly.

C [00:22:43] Yeah, I think that the market for Airbnb, like aside from the people who are like, if you’ve been vaccinated, you can’t come here, which Airbnb will cancel your listing if you insist people be unvaccinated, remove you as a host. It was a whole thing.

K [00:23:01] OK, what start over, I missed it

C [00:23:04] in the U.S., there were people listing their places on Airbnb saying if you’re going to stay here, you’re not allowed to be vaccinated because if you’re vaccinated, you’re going to be like load shedding virus, which doesn’t happen. And you’re going to interfere with my 5G Wi-Fi because you’ve got Wi-Fi implanted in your brain and like. Conspiracy stuff. And Airbnb has been removing those listings saying, no, this is actually against our terms of service. Here in Japan, Airbnb is really small, it exists, but it’s pretty small. And when it was starting to get big, the Japanese government was like, no, we’re going to regulate this. So technically, anything on Airbnb here should be as clean as a hotel because they’re required to follow the hotel laws.

K [00:23:54] For me, a big part of the hotel is the buffet. Yeah, and I feel like if they make everyone wear gloves and a mask, I don’t and protests on the tables all from each other and wipe down the partition in between and unvaccinated, I don’t know. Could I do a buffet? Mm hmm. That’s the thing that I don’t know, because in the Olympic Village, they were doing the buffet. Yeah. So I was like, that’s where I got the idea that maybe I can do the buffet, that all those Olympians got covid. But I noticed that there were different behaviors of different Olympians and the Olympic teams that were like, we’re going into our training area in between competing. Right. So I was watching a lot of the the Water Olympics and I noticed that the Chinese divers in particular and specifically they did not rinse off in the communal runs off and they did not talk with any other teams. And the other teams would get off their dove, rinse off and the thing, talk to each other and hang out. I also noticed that the Japanese and Chinese and Korean teams, we don’t normally hug and kiss like a Japanese Chinese.

C [00:25:14] And you’re all of those things.

K [00:25:17] I am. I’m everything. But culturally, I’m bicultural and we don’t normally in Japan, we don’t normally hug and kiss. Yeah. And so doing like the air hug. And Pat was seriously what we do. We don’t touch elbows because we don’t touch and. Right.

C [00:25:34] They’re not your place. You’re not replacing a handshake or like a hug or something. You’re still bowing because that’s what you did before.

K [00:25:43] Right. And the Europeans who do the levees or the double kiss the and some of them do four or five and six kisses were like hugging and kissing and jumping up and down and talking among themselves. And they were the ones with the higher rates of contracting the virus. I felt like I don’t know, it seems like the process is cool.

C [00:26:05] I think so. And I think that some of the places we’ve stayed that probably have an extra couple of staff members who will just be like, tell me what you want and I’ll get it for you from the buffet. I think you could walk around and they would serve you so that only one person has contact with the food. What I think some of the places we have stayed will keep their buffet open, but have somebody there to help you with the food, the way that they have somebody there to help you with omelets or whatever. Uh huh, because many of the places have an omelet station and you go request your omelet and they make it right. I want

K [00:26:41] to know if on our third night if we would still start getting our special snacks from the

C [00:26:45] kitchen. Yeah, see, that’s the question. I would hope so.

K [00:26:49] The buffets in Japan are really sushi buffets. They’re not like the US buffets. You’re not like in all you all you can eat, but they’re not like going like a king circle or something. Yeah, it’s what’s called the king’s birthday. The the king chef, I think.

C [00:27:07] The King’s buffet. Yeah.

K [00:27:09] What’s the one you worked at?

C [00:27:11] I worked at the Royal Fork, which was a really tiny chain that had like six I

K [00:27:15] think, you know, I

C [00:27:15] like six restaurants in it ever.

K [00:27:19] So what do you think is the most fishy thing that you see at a Japanese buffet?

C [00:27:25] I think the most easy thing to see at a Japanese buffet. Depends on how you define. Some of them, they have had a sommelier to recommend what you should have with your buffet.

K [00:27:39] Yeah, there’s a sommelier.

C [00:27:41] One of that we went to it wasn’t part of the buffet, but you could get teppanyaki and then that entitled you to go to the buffet and you were in your own private room with your own private chef. Feel like that was pretty sexy. Yeah.

K [00:27:56] What I think if she is the fresh desserts.

C [00:28:01] Yeah.

K [00:28:01] And the different types and levels of desserts, it’s certainly the food is five star. It’s interesting to me because they have things as low brow as French fries. Right. Right. But they also have things as high end as well as quail eggs, temperate quail eggs, which is one of my most favorite things in the world to eat. They’ll have like a full tempura spread put it is not fancy, but it can be elevated. This is elevated temperature. It’s not just the onion balls, right? It’s like the onion balls and onion ball and tempura is they take onion and radish and different things. They mix them up in the batter and then they deep fry them and they make like a round this shape.

C [00:28:47] Yeah. Called called Tenderloin. If you read it written, it looks like tendon like bones and tendons, but it’s. Yeah. Tendon which is like a bowl of tempura.

K [00:28:59] Yeah. And they don’t have any yakiniku there’s like meat on a stick, right? It’s all really good. And they have, like, the weirdest thing I’ve ever eaten. One of the weirdest things I find in Japan is Japanese lasagna.

C [00:29:18] Yeah, it’s a trip.

K [00:29:19] So Japanese lasagna is made with cream, three types of cream, imitation cheese and cheese, slivers of overcooked noodles. So it literally melts in your mouth. But it is nothing like what I would expect.

C [00:29:37] It is very much what did I just eat?

K [00:29:39] Yeah, I was like, you have to go eat this lasagna.

C [00:29:42] How is it lasagna if there are no lasagna noodles? Like there was a noodle in there once upon a time.

K [00:29:48] Yes, I had to get it because I served it in like the creme brulee individual creme brulee cups. Yeah. Or like individuals to fake souffle cups, but they have award winning chefs and a lot of these, the upscale buffets, they have Michelin stars because the food is so good and so high quality.

C [00:30:09] I don’t think we’ve ever been to a buffet with a Michelin star.

K [00:30:12] Yes, we were the one. And he had a mission, I think three Michelin stars.

C [00:30:17] No, I definitely didn’t have three to you. I think I had one. One is a big deal like any stars at all. It’s a big deal.

K [00:30:24] I know it had a Michelin star for the heat of beef.

C [00:30:27] Yeah, it did. And we weren’t buying that Bagheera beef. We were having a buffet, but we stayed there for a week and like a night four or five, the chef sent over some heat up beef has chef’s compliments

K [00:30:41] because that’s all right. We stay places three or four nights and we go to the same place and we’re super polite. Yeah. So they give you stuff. So if you’re ever in Japan, go revisit places that you go, be super polite and they will give you things.

C [00:30:56] Get to the point where they expect you to come the next night and then go the next night and they’ll be like, we are expecting you.

K [00:31:03] Yes. And they say it and they’re like, so thrilled when you show up in Japan. They love, love, love when you meet their their expectations and professional settings like we knew you were coming. It’s so excited. Like we made a reservation. Our names on the reservation. Yes. Because you have to make a reservation at the buffet. It’s not just you can just show up. It’s not like a Hawaii buffet.

C [00:31:26] The wildest buffet I’ve ever been to. You did not you were not there with me. Was in Korea,

K [00:31:32] I was going to say the Korea buffet.

C [00:31:34] Yeah, I didn’t know that’s how we were going there. Like, we’re going out to dinner. It’s a nice place. And I go there and we went there. I went there with a bunch of mathematicians and it was just wild. The highlight of the evening. You had the book like they only had certain times that you could book, because the highlight of the evening was that they took bluefin tuna like an entire bluefin tuna and started carving steaks off of it.

K [00:32:01] For an art form, it’s really impressive to see. It doesn’t sound like something impressive to see, but like skinning and staking. Yeah, bluefin and bluefin tuna are huge.

C [00:32:13] Yes, they’re

K [00:32:14] ginormous.

C [00:32:16] They are like that, like the two a table. And people are gathering around, like commenting on how skillful a chef was.

K [00:32:23] And and I’ll always be embarrassed that my husband did not appreciate the bluefin tuna table. I appreciate it that I do not care. I do not care. I’m not like that. Well, in the US, it seems like everybody is not doing urban, everybody is doing hotels. I have a friend whose husband works at a hotel. And she keeps saying the hotels are safe. But she’s not staying in hotels, so I feel like home. Are you staying in the hotels are safe as part of your as part of your husband’s propaganda, right. Are the hotel safe? I don’t know and I don’t know how to find out,

C [00:33:10] I don’t know either, because the information on transmission here in Japan is so politicized.

K [00:33:16] And they have the app on the phone now that they will let you know if you hit a hot spot right in contact with somebody, but I don’t have a cell phone, so I would have to be with one of you, either you or Rosta at all times. And it does track all of your movements by CPS. And if you come if you’re at the same place at the same time with someone who test positive for Koven, it will alert you your phone and you’re supposed to go get go get tested.

C [00:33:48] Yeah, if you’re positive, they’re trying to do some tests and trace here.

K [00:33:52] But the testing here is not blood testing. It’s not nasal testing either. It’s saliva testing.

C [00:33:58] Yeah, they’re doing the rapid tests now instead of the PCR.

K [00:34:02] And you’re really anti saliva testing.

C [00:34:05] I’m not anti saliva testing. I just it’s not the same as a PCR has slightly lower accuracy. And I feel like if they have reason to suspect you have been exposed, then they should do the full PCR test.

K [00:34:19] Yeah, I had a friend that had the fall and they said it was horrible. They were traumatized.

C [00:34:24] Oh yeah, I’m not wanting to get it, but I would if if I was asked to by the government

K [00:34:28] at that point, also had a fear of things being put inside them. They don’t know cutups. And there is no tissue up the nose like

C [00:34:39] the pleasures in life. Huh. So you’re saying they didn’t want any of the pleasures in life?

K [00:34:44] I don’t really like the I clean my ears with the cutups, but I prefer a finger in the ear if it’s itching.

C [00:34:50] Yeah, it was very satisfying to itch it.

K [00:34:52] Yeah. You know, I will stick to you all the way up to my. I love tissue up the nose. I do it every morning. I blow my nose to shore up my nose. So for the TMI. Talking to our friends here in Japan, they’re just back while they have not changed, none of our friends have changed their lives at all. And I was really mopey a couple of weekends ago because a bunch of friends of mine were having a cookout and it made me mopey as heck. I want to go to the cookout so bad and I couldn’t go. Because hello. It’s not safe and I was like, are you all vaccinated? Is it like, hey, we’re vaccinated. Let’s hang? And they’re like, No, none of us are, but we’re going to be soon.

C [00:35:42] We’re celebrating the fact that we’re about to not have to have so much risk celebrating things.

K [00:35:48] Yes. And I have another friend whose art group is still getting together. And an enclosed space that’s wild, right,

C [00:35:57] like I wish that I wish things were calm down, because right now is prime Biergarten time. It’s like the end of Biergarten season. And I used to love going to the beer garden every year for a buffet. And like all you can eat, I can drink buffet. Yeah. You didn’t like

K [00:36:15] the buffet and you love a buffet if you haven’t noticed. Because usually every summer you go to the beer garden. Yeah, once or twice with friends. Yeah. And have a chill time.

C [00:36:26] And here in Japan, like Buffet has two different ways. A sad one is buffet. Like the French and

K [00:36:35] I like the biking,

C [00:36:36] yeah, biking, which is a Viking, so they’re like, this is what the Vikings did and therefore like this is the buffet is the Viking.

K [00:36:48] I don’t like Viking buffets. I find that they tend to be a little bit more. American been under the spotlight too long buffet. Because the is I like to go is where the fruit gets snapped up so fast it doesn’t have time to sit. Yeah, and if any food does have time to sit, they replace it. Yes. Hey, I didn’t want to let the staff eat it or what. I don’t know what they do with it. I got they’re throwing it away. But it’s really rare that anything sits right for a long time. I think the salad might sit for a long time. I don’t think so. I like the creams and the salad dressing definitely does.

C [00:37:26] I think that that’s something that took a while to get used to the Japanese buffets, is that it? When we go in the U.S., like if you think about hometown buffet or or one of those that have like 50 servings out, if you get mac and cheese, you could not possibly eat all of that macaroni and cheese that’s out there. Yeah. When it gets down to like only five platefuls, they swap it out and then put the extra on top. Here in Japan, you might go and be like, you know what, I’m going to go get some sushi because they have sushi at the buffet. And you go and I have like four pieces out. And be like, OK. Should I feel bad taking all four pieces of sushi,

K [00:38:12] I don’t

C [00:38:13] write and then somebody comes out and refreshes it, so there’s monitors on the different stations and the idea is not to minimize the number of times they have to refresh it. The idea is to minimize how long things set out.

K [00:38:26] What I love is when I get my own follow person. Oh yeah. So long because they know

C [00:38:33] when we’re there for like eight days and about about day four, they’ll come by the table and inform you we have restocked this item that you like.

K [00:38:42] Yes, I love. Would you like

C [00:38:44] me to bring you some.

K [00:38:46] Yeah. Because I was like, oh no thank you. I’m not doing the temperature. And I feel like if I’m doing the tempura, they will let me know that that that couple has been refreshed because I love Japanese pumpkin pumpkin and tempura and I also like. Shiban YCA Bell Peppers. Thank you. I would like to not say p.m. what’s the other word? And I say no, they call it paprika.

C [00:39:15] Yeah, which is correct. Yeah. But in us English as bell peppers.

K [00:39:20] Yes. I love the bell peppers and I love okra. Oh my gosh.

C [00:39:25] If Japan is five.

K [00:39:27] OK, yeah. You have not lived until you’ve had tempura okra. So, so, so good. You don’t like it but you’re a heathen.

C [00:39:36] I don’t like it because it’s always so burning hot. It is because when I was young, I had when I lived in Arizona, we had okra because we had fresh okra. So I was familiar with eating okra like okra. I like okra, but the tempura is just like either cold and oily. Or so, how to burn your tongue

K [00:39:59] for the night when it’s so hot that the inside has liquefied and you have to it like like that.

C [00:40:07] Yeah. Like inhaling the whole time so that you don’t burn your tongue saying it’s like it’s so hot it will just burn you.

K [00:40:16] So I feel like traveling for me. It seems like the essence of traveling for me is a phase.

C [00:40:23] Yes, and the specialties like when we went to our conine, which I think we did a whole podcast episode from Haqqani.

K [00:40:30] Yeah. And I think we talked about the book. Yeah.

C [00:40:33] They brought us out the special local like herbs and spices, soup.

K [00:40:37] And that was that was so good. Right in. My gosh, that was so good. It was mushroom soup. Yeah. So good.

C [00:40:46] And hita they brought us out the special beef like we, we tend to stay in the hotel for most of the time. Yeah, and we tend to eat at the same restaurant every night, so

K [00:40:57] workaholics, so we leave the hotel like two or three times and then work the rest of the time. Mm hmm. Because I know that I finished a chapter of my proposal, we went to, you know. Yeah. And we went out twice and I don’t

C [00:41:12] think this is so unusual, writers will be like, I’m going to go on a retreat to finish my book. How is that any different than us deciding we’re going to go to a hotel? And, oh, by the way, while we’re here, we’re just going to work the whole time.

K [00:41:24] So I feel like I need to go and travel to get out of the house and just be in a different vibe. Yeah, the first night at the hotel is so wonderful to explore this new place that I’ve never been and I’ve never stayed at an Airbnb in Japan. So I don’t know what the experience would be like is because when we stay in the hotel, there’s no grocery stores anywhere near it.

C [00:41:50] Now, there’s usually a convenience store, either in the hotel or nearby.

K [00:41:54] Yet the hotels are I think there’s some kind of rule or something because the hotels are always in food deserts. Yes. And all of the attractions are in food deserts. There’s no hotels, no grocery stores anywhere. And that’s fine. But I wonder if the BNP would be in hotel. I mean, be near a grocery store so that I can cook because when my home I cook for myself. Yes, three or four times a day. Yes. So every time I eat, I’m cooking for myself. And I don’t cook for you anymore because you don’t like what I’m cooking, you don’t feel like eating what I’m cooking anymore, and I’m done cooking three, three dinners so that everyone can eat what they want. Yeah. So that’s the kind of mom I was back in the day. I think I’ve talked about it from the past that I would. Yeah, you have three meals so everyone can eat what they want. But I don’t know. I’ve been kind of craving stuff that I think that you would enjoy eating. But I think that’s because I keep worrying that you’re going to get super sick, I’m just like, I don’t know something about being vaccinated because everybody was like, I can’t call it from the vaccine. I’m like, no, you didn’t. OK, I have long covid from being vaccinated. No, you don’t. There’s no live covid in the vaccine,

C [00:43:15] there’s no dead covered in the vaccine. The Johnson Johnson is derived, but the Moderna that we’re getting, there’s no alive or dead covid.

K [00:43:23] Right. So everybody’s so in Japan. It’s like it hurts my arm and they go back to work. Yeah, but the Japanese will go back to work after they’ve lost a limb and say we had a very good friend who I was so worried about. Luckily they’re happy, healthy and whole that they had like stage four cancer in the hospital needing a bone marrow transplant to fight off their cancer. Luckily, the bone marrow transplant worked and we’re very, very happy that they’re healthy and OK. But before their hair even grew back, before they could even drink tap water, their immune system was so depleted they could only drink things that came in. Bottles. Yeah. To make sure that the purity and quality was of a certain thing and like all of their food had to be prepackaged and prepared a certain way because their immune system was so depleted, they were back on the road as a traveling salesperson. So for me, I feel like I can’t trust the Japanese version of it, but I also can’t trust the American version of it. And I keep waiting for these long covid supposed to happen. And I happen to know several people that have long covid and. Are still getting vaccinated, Harrar, thank you if you’re listening, I appreciate it. And then our special friend that we mentioned every podcast Puddin, I have no idea what Puddin’s vaccination status is when Putin’s getting vaccinated.

C [00:44:52] I do, but I’m not going to discuss it here,

K [00:44:54] OK, because I’m really worried because Putin’s getting ready to travel

C [00:44:58] and has already been vaccinated. That’s a requirement for travel.

K [00:45:01] So I thought you weren’t going to say.

C [00:45:04] I’m not going to say all the details because the details could potentially tell you, my brother and yay,

K [00:45:10] Putin, you’re vaccinated. Why didn’t you tell me? Oh, all the info. I get nothing. I get nothing. I feel no love, but I forgive you. I’m happy you’re vaccinated. Yay, yay, yay, yay. And I hope you have safe travels and all of that. And I hope you’re listening to us on the plane. I hope for how you spend an hour of being on the plane or forty five minutes. So we were supposed to talk about travel and we did. We talked about traveling to the buffet and how you think buffets are

C [00:45:46] that they don’t call it taking a trip to the buffet for nothing.

K [00:45:51] Thank you so much for spending this hour with us. We’re so happy that you gave your time, resources and attention to us. We love all of our beautiful music notes. And today, let me put my spectacles on my spectaculars. Today, we are talking about book distribution on the take two. So, yeah, I’m just as surprised as y’all are because when I put my glasses on, I could see. So we hope that you follow us on over to the take two. We appreciate everyone who is a patron. If not, you can find us @theMusicksinJapan on Twitter or you can leave a comment on the website. We respond to all of our comments. We’ll talk to you next week. Bye bye.