The One About Japan

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, I'm Adam.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Ethavitable and I'm Sarah.

Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is the Decass Podcast, a podcast about love, sex, culture,
and society. This week, we'll be exploring the pros and
cons of visiting me poem or Japan, whether you're.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Married or fingle or poll or a bar hanging and
on Witzmanner's back at your place listen to us and
begetting no buck, a tender and mumble and plenty of
young trying and trying and having to luck because we
all know.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Dating kind of sucks. So how the hell is it
June already? I can't believe it. Time is flying when
you're having fun or when the world is on fire,
and maybe it's been a bit of both.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Yeah, dare I say? Things are going great on a
micro level and terribly on a macro level for all
of us. This episode, we're going to catch up with
each other in the first half and then focus on
my trip to Japan for the second half. So join
us for whichever part you want or both. Speaking of
catching up, that makes you think of ketchup, which makes
you think of Mayo, which makes you think of Adam. So, Adam,

(01:04):
how much Mayo are you buying right now? And why
did you write this ridiculous intro?

Speaker 1 (01:10):
This is what happens when you leave it up to
me to write the entry. I know my brain goes
to weird places.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Mayo, that's not that weird for you, though.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Not for me. You know it's not not for me, Carly.
I'm actually going getting low on Mayo because when I
went grocery shopping other day, they were out of Duke's
mayonnaise and so I had to not no, and I
don't really Helman's is okay in a pinch, but I
prefer to have Dukes. So you know, I don't know
first world problems, but I have my proper mayonnaise, so

(01:43):
not only have.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
Dukes.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
It's right. I know. I've been trying to get Dukes
to sponsor me for so long, like if I'm doing
the bacon photo shoot, to tagging them in things, and
like even when I just they they've never responded. It's
it's unfortunate. I feel like they could be a beautiful
relationship with Dukes to really have them sponsor me. So
uh yeah, no, I'm down to just two backup jars
right now. So things are getting dire. I'm gonna have

(02:08):
to go back to the grocery store.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Soon backup jars. Notice that, well.

Speaker 1 (02:14):
Right, because I've got I've still got one of the
fridge and then I've got a squezele one by my
desk for you know, just eating on the emergencies, and
so the two in the in the pantry are like
he once those run out, you know, the backup jars
you always have to insane? Why is that insane?

Speaker 2 (02:29):
That makes me think about the only one that I
have of Like you have a squeezable one and one
in the fridge and two as backup I don't even
have a backup ketchup jar.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yes, the squezal one is great because you don't have
to put in the fridge because it doesn't get contaminated.
So I just have it sitting by my desk so
you know, when I'm meeting my lunch at my desk,
I can need a little dabameo, you.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Know for sure?

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Sure, yeah, right, so it's great. You know, It's like
when I went on the road and add literally I
think I think it was like fourteen jars the fan
is with me that I just brought and then I
would just bring them to airbnbs, take a new jar
in and then just use it while I was there
for a week or a month or however long, and
then I would just leave it there in the fridge
and just move on and take a new jar with me.
And yeah, I finally ran out of that man, by

(03:11):
the way, I finally like it was during my first
year here that I finally went through the last of it.
I knew the last of it because it had expired
like a couple of years earlier. But does many really expire?
The answer?

Speaker 2 (03:21):
I just blacked all of that out from my mind
because I know you've mentioned that to me before, And
what the fuck adam reaction?

Speaker 1 (03:28):
I think, yep, that is that is my life.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Well, what else is going on in your life? Is
going on in at.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah, I've been doing a lot with comedy. Comedy has
been going really well. I put on a little showcase
here which was nice. Did that at the Looney Bin,
which is the oldest running comedy club in Oklahoma, and
had headlined a show with a couple of my comedian friends.
We had like a good time. I was like a

(03:58):
good audience and everybody seemed to enjoy it. And then
and then I just happened to work that weekend there
hosting for a comedian named April Macy, who is very
funny woman, and she is someone that I had worked
with in Orlando like ten years earlier, so it was
nice to see her again get to do more comedy
with her. I was like seeing people especially it's funny,
like over a decade just watching. Not that I remembered

(04:21):
all of her stuff, but I remember, you know, enough
of it, and then seeing how things have evolved and
stuff like that. And it was the same with like
when I had the weekend with Bobcat Goldthwaite, and it
had been like twelve years earlier I was with him,
and I remember like how his jokes he had like
changed some of his structures and stuff like that, because
I remember thinking some of his stories were really funny,
but they needed something and he had actually found that
something over the ten years, which is pretty cool. Yeah,

(04:41):
so that's good. And yeah, so that comedies comics. While
I had a bunch of shows out of town too,
Oh this is this is fun. I did a show
called The Gateway Show. And this was the show where
you show up completely like sober and straight. Do you
do like ten minutes and then the host has you
go behind the building and smoke just like a shitload
a weed. Yeah, And so he had like these hash

(05:05):
laced joints that are pre rolled and uh and we're
like infused with hash oil and like, I don't know
what else in there. And so you went and you
smoked those, and then you went up and you try
to do like another seven minutes of material.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
How did that turn out?

Speaker 1 (05:19):
Well, you know, so, as someone who doesn't smoke ever,
and it's very rare for me to do it, it was.
It was funny. I was the I was one of
the only people who don't and so everyone else they
do kind of smoke on a regular basis. So for them,
it was just more like, hey, I'm not gonna smoke
until after, you know, until the time, you know, so
they didn't smoke at all during the day. For me,
it's like, oh, it's been like a year since the
last time I hit any any type of joint and

(05:39):
so funny, funny enough, I think I was the least
affected by it, even really I'm surprised that I am too, though,
Like one of one of the comedians and she smokes constantly,
she was like it hit her fast, but she's also tiny,
so maybe that's part of it.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
Like just getting through the blood stronger hit.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
No, we were both thinking we both smoked with the
same I mean, you know, he had two different drugs,
you know, a little pack of joints that he had
made that they were all identical. I don't know. Maybe yeah,
maybe I didn't inhale it properly. I don't know, but
it did affect me, but it took a little while.
It wasn't until I was on stage and like kind
of up there that I started I started to notice
that I felt a little off. But honestly, I don't

(06:17):
think it affected my performance at all, because I think
my instincts just kicked in and I'm just like I've
been doing this for long enough that I was like
just kind of went through my material and it and
it worked that fine. And so it actually was a
lot of fun. And it was really weird just to
have a show like that because two days later, or
maybe because even the next no, two days later, I
had to drive to jop On, Missouri. Now Missouri weed

(06:39):
is recreational there here in Oklahoma's Medicinal did drop on
Missouri for a show called Puff Puff Laugh and it
was one that I had booked a while ago, well
before this Gateway show. So it just kind of happened
to be a coincidence that I had both of them
within the same three, you know, within two day period.
This one was a it's a dab. It's a dab bar,
but it's not a bar, but it's a private club.
So it's a private club called Ja and Jay and

(07:01):
Ja's I think, a really cool little place, but you
you have to have a membership to go in if
you're you know, want to be a member. And with that,
they just have like they have like a giant like
thing of that you might have seen, Like they have
a dentist office where they have like a giant like
a lollipops or whatever, except filled with the joints just
to reach in and grab a joint if you want
to join and then you uh. Basically they have just

(07:22):
dab stations to do dabs.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Do you know what dab is like from a pen?

Speaker 1 (07:26):
No? Okay, so it did so okay. So dabs are
like they take like the the whatever whatever it is,
the weed they extracted into almost like a I know,
im it's it's like a it's like it's a resin.
They basically get it down to the resin just this
the the whatever. It's the teacheet resin. I don't know
what with the actual thing is, but it's the stuff

(07:48):
that then they heat at super hot temperatures. They have
a little dab rigs that you light it un till
it's super hot. In the oil it's an oil, and
it turns into smoke. It's super hot, super high temperatures.
So then you and hail it and inhale it, and
you have to in haal it fast because it literally
turns back into wax and oil or whatever as you're
inhaling it. So people who dabbed cough a lot because

(08:11):
like literally like the dab ooil is like yeah, it's
it's yeah, it's the entire thing. So that's what dabbing is.
It's a very it's like an advanced, super high level
of getting high. So it was this place, Yeah it was.
It was a lot, but they had dab rigs for everybody.
And then I we were doing comedy. I was I
was the the middle act and had a really good time.
It was a really cool place, but I had such

(08:32):
a contact high when we left, just because sitting there
with just the entire place that just fill the smoke
and just you know, just weed smoke everywhere. The owner
is like he loves to cook, so he had a
like a he has a pizza oven and it actually
like has a whole kitchen and as part of his club,
and he was making like all different types of pizzas
and stuff like that. So that was really fun. It
was like a really fun, like a little experience to

(08:53):
kind of do those shows. And and then I was
in Columbia, Missouri for for a show where I was
headlining a show, and that was fun, except on as
we got into my not my car, by the other
comedian's car to drive there, I put the hotel into
the GPS and found out that I had accidentally booked
the hotel for Columbia, Illinois, not Columbia, Missouri.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Oops, there's too many Colombias.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
And I just didn't think about it, and so that
was frustrating. So I had to book that. Change that
all up. But all all, I've been doing a lot
of comedy. It's been going really well. Starting next week,
I actually started teaching a comedy class here too, So
I'm gonna be teaching a stand up comedy class for
Tulsa's anybody who wants to try comedy, like salespeople, business people, whatever.

Speaker 2 (09:36):
That's cool. Going back a second to you doing the
what was it called the Gateway Show? Have you ever
done and you just kicked back into your instincts and
it didn't really affect you as much as you thought.
Have you gotten on stage and been close to blackout
drunk and done a set and that also happened or
what was that experience or do you just not get

(09:58):
blackout drunk?

Speaker 1 (09:59):
Yeah? I mean, so I've got on stage pretty drunk
like an open mic. I've never done like a paid
show where I was being you know, paid to be there,
because that just didn't seem professional. But I've done it
at like an open mic and I and it was.
It was not great, like I think. I I still
managed to like do some material, you know, but but
it was definitely sloppier and it was harder to do.

(10:20):
I do remember that the day that I found out
that my best friend had killed herself way back in
like two thousand and this is before before you knew
me whatever, I had a show that night and I
was like, oh, I'm not a professional, I can go
do this show. And I remember sitting at the baring
and I got drunk before the show. This wasn't a
paid once. I wasn't too, but I was like, I
got drunk before the show and I got up there

(10:40):
and instead of doing my material, I decided to just
launching a whole thing about suicide and and like in
my head it was funny, but it was not funny
to watch all the audience like all of a sudden,
like see their faces ready for jokes. And then at
first they laughed because I what I said. I don't
remember what I said, but I remember it was kind
of funny, but then it just started getting sadder and sadder.
And then I remember like literally the audience came up

(11:01):
and gave me a hug. Like that was like like
people from the audience started giving me a hug. And
I was like, that's not what a comedian wants. You
don't want hugs, but it's probably what I needed at
that point. And I learned my lesson that maybe when
things are a little like tumultuous like that, you don't
don't want to go right up and do that. And
then I had another time. I remember that I was.
I was so sick, and I still had to host
a show. I was the house up. See, I still

(11:22):
do fifteen minutes, and so I took like two five
hour energy shots. I drank a red Bull, and then
I took like a couple of those pseudofedron, like the
big pills that are like the ones they make meth
out of. Uh. Took a couple of those big white pills,
and I was like, this will keep me clear, just
to tell I can you know, get off stage. And
I remember being up there and things were not clear,

(11:45):
like it was definitely like I was stuffed on. My
head was like it was it was somewhere else. I'm
doing my material. It's going okay. But then I had
my drink and I was like so thirsty, So I
went to go take a sip out of my drink
and instead started drinking out of the microphone like like
I basically like took the microphone and put it up
to my mouth and just started like literally trying to
like sip out of it. And the audience laughed. They
thought I was like it was part of a gag.

(12:06):
And that's when I realized. I was like, oh I
am fucked up, like this is I am sident?

Speaker 2 (12:10):
No.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
Yeah, So after I got off stage, I asked the
feature act. I was like, hey, can you just close
out the show? And I told the owners like I'm going, oh,
I can't, like, I can't continue. I I can't stay
to keep doing. I need to go to bed right now.
But but other than that, it's always just been instincts kicking.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
That's crazy, Yeah, pretty funny.

Speaker 1 (12:29):
So that's uh, that's been been my life, uh.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Recently, well not all of your life at all.

Speaker 1 (12:36):
Of it, but you know, kind of most of it.
Do we want to get all the other stuff?

Speaker 2 (12:40):
If you want to? We could take a break and
you can decide if you want to let's.

Speaker 1 (12:44):
Take a break.

Speaker 2 (12:46):
Well, Adam has had some time to think about if
he wants to talk about his dating life or not,
because I know there's things happening in Tulsa, but it's
not anything crazy. So what's your verdict. Do you want
to talk about?

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Oh, yeah, let's let's talk about let's talk about it. Yeah?
Why not? Okay, No, it's it's it's an interesting situation
and it's it's one of those where it's like, you know,
I suggest people do as I say, not as I do,
because it's probably not the best. Yeah, I know. Yeah,
I met somebody through tender actually yeah, and she is

(13:22):
interesting strangething. We went on a first date for brunch
and then ended up going out to another bar for
a second location hang out there, and then came back
to my place and I was like, so, what would
you like to do? Like, you know, we just kind
of came back here to recoup, like kind of just
like let's see what we're gonna do from here. And
she's like, you know, really, what I would love is
if you would just like read to me. You have

(13:44):
such a great voice, Like I would just love for
you to read to me.

Speaker 2 (13:47):
You're like, I have this whole podcast where I read
right right.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Yeah's true. Yeah. I was like, I was like, well
that's nice. I don't I like that idea. That's that
sounds kind of kind of sweet and and everything. And
I was like, I don't really have my couch sucks,
and she goes, well, let's lay in your bed then
let's do that. So we ended up like literally laying
in my bed and I read to her. And you're
gonna say, Adam, what could you pick to read to
her that would be something that would be interesting, and

(14:12):
of course I had to be me, and I picked
one of one of my books. Yes, I picked the
novel I wrote the last a couple years ago and
read her like I want to say, like maybe like
ten chapters of it and a lot. Yeah, she was
like she was fascinated by it. She's like, this is
so good whatever. And then I think we just we

(14:32):
probably made out a little bit and just kind of
stayed there, and I think, did she stay to night
that night? She might have. And it hasn't it hasn't
been an entirely like physical as much as it's been
kind of there's there's been a lot of intimacy and
a lot of like emotional connection and not not as
much physical, which is okay, I'm not any Russian. You know,
I don't really like sex, doesn't you know. It's not

(14:53):
like I don't I don't have to make sure that
happens immediately, you know, it's whatever. If it happens, it happens.
But since then, so we've been seeing each other pretty
you know, pretty regularly. But she's kind of in a
bit of a love triangle unfortunately, And this is where
we're in a spot right now. And I don't think
you know any of this because I haven't really told you.
I've been trying. I've been trying to figure it out

(15:13):
and get it handled before like I even talk about it.
But but I think we'll talk about it. She has
an ex who was out of town when we met,
and she was baby. She was like dog sitting for
him and house sitting for him because otherwise she has to.
She lives with her with her mother and brother, and
she's like, it doesn't like being there, and so we

(15:34):
had a lot of a lot of time there. But
then there's also something that she had started talking to
at the same time that she and I started talking,
who is also kind of intriguing to her. And we're
all very different. That's that's the interesting thing. And so
do you.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Know the other suitors.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
I don't. I don't know them except for that she
I know that she's comfortable talking to me about them,
and you know, I so I know I'm I'm older
than they are, but I also they are both extremely
emotionally mature, to the point that one of them was
I want to say, borderline like emotionally abusive and has

(16:11):
continued to be kind of like manipulative and kind of shitty,
and the other one, when he came back from dogsying
the X or whatever, started yelling at her and called
there a salt. So they're neither of them, I think,
are yeah, very good guys. But she's also wrestling with
her own issues and trying to figure out what she's
worth and her value. And I feel like this is
a running story for me. Is the finding someone.

Speaker 2 (16:34):
Yeah and that sounds way too familiar to other people
you've dated that it didn't end up well.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Right, and is trying to help somebody understand how valuable
they are and how much they deserve to be valued.
And and she like literally will will will, She'll come
over and will spend just a you know, time just
spending time together, and she will be like, I've never
felt safer in my life, like I you know, and
you just know, like you, I feel like I can
be here forever. It feels like the most comfortable place

(16:59):
you were comfortable. You're someone that I feel like I
can say whatever to and and all that and uh
and we have you know, we've we've fooled around a
little bit too. And she's like I've never had anybody
touch me like that, you know, and things like that,
so it's very you know, positive things. But then I think,
she hmmm, because I don't necessarily not not necessarily because

(17:20):
I don't need her in my life, Like I'm, well,
it's great having.

Speaker 2 (17:24):
Her, Yeah, And I think there was a point in
time where you were thinking, I'm not going to be
in Tulsa forever. So what is the point that's been
your mindset for a while.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Yes, but like now that we've we've like with with her,
it is something where I was like, oh, I could
see spending more time here, like like I genuinely like
enjoy her company to the point that I'm like I
actually could potentially see a future. But I'm you know,
I don't. I don't need her. If like, if actually
stopped talking to me tomorrow, i'd be sad. You know.
We talked about attachment. She's like, I'm worried. I'morried about

(17:55):
getting attached, and I was like, I'm already attached. I said,
I've been attached to we like from the beginning. I
really got attached very quickly. And that's fine. I mean
that you have to be attached to willing to risk
being attached. I said, so, it's gonna get hurt regardless
if if you know, if it went things end. I said, so,
I can't really affect that part. I can't change that part.
But I also like, if if that happened, I would

(18:16):
be hurt and I would get over it and I'd
be fine, you know. And and so I think that she's
much like much like kind of Katie was what do
we call her? I forgot her nickname over these many years,
A little miss something No, no, I don't know. That
was a little miss blt though was someone else? Tinkerbell,
tinker Bell? That was her tinker Bell who ended up

(18:38):
you know, basically said that she needs somebody to need
her and that's why she ended up with who she
ends or with the mini me that she ended up with.
And then later I was like, that might be a mistake.
I don't know, And I kind of see that being
a potential here, that that this person needs someone to
to like, she wants to fix, she wants to help

(18:58):
fix people. She wants to as she's going on her
own journey of trying to make her fix herself and
get herself on, you know, on the right path, and
and you know, kind of her emotional journey, she wants
to also help other people. So even if they aren't
necessarily treating her with the way that she deserves to
be treated, she still sees them as as someone who
like she should kind of almost pity and take and

(19:21):
try to try to, you know, help, And that's I mean,
I don't think that's good for her own self respect,
and it also isn't great for for how I see
her and you know, my respect of her either. So
that's been that's been kind of the bigger issue. But
we're still kind of in this weird flux where we
spend time together and it's great, and then she kind

(19:42):
of disappears and she talked, and then she's like, I
just you know, this guy just said this to me,
and he said this to me and her she's sharing
these screenshots, and I'm like, so, then why are you
talking to him. I don't understand that part I and
I can't control it. I said, I'm not gonna I'm not,
but I'm very right, and I'm also I'm also not objective.
I'm not gonna be objective because I don't think they're
person people. But I'm also taught and I'm interested in her.

(20:03):
So we'll see what happens with all of that.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
What are you on the fucking Bachelor?

Speaker 1 (20:07):
I know, right, yeah, yeah, But you know, you want
to know how bad this has gotten is that I
have started sharing memes with her from Instagram, Like I
see a meme that I'm like, send it to her
that I thought she might enjoy or it might be like,
I don't do that. I've never done that. I'm not
a mean person.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Oh no, you're attacked.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
You are attached. Attached, I'm attached, and I'm also aware
that it's going to end terribly. But you know what
I'm I mean that you're.

Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah, the layup for this is, oh, it tracks all
my previous relationships that have not ended well. But I'm
still gonna go for it.

Speaker 1 (20:42):
I mean, she's still going to go for it. I
don't know. We'll see. We did it. Interestingly enough, we
did talk about polyamory and she was like, she was
like that that seems like that might be a potential
path and I was like, you know, that's actually fine
with me because I like having my own time too.
Like I don't I don't want, I don't necessarily when
someone all around. And so I was like, but I
wouldn't want to be kind of the primary person. I

(21:03):
feel like I would want to be the person that
you know that this is kind of the home home spot,
and then you go do whatever. You know, you go
do things. If you want to go out with the people,
that's fine, and that gives me freedom to do so
if I want to as well, you know, well that
sounds like a lot of effort. Yes, yes, so so
you know that there is that possibility too. I really
honestly don't know, and we're going to see. But she's

(21:27):
been so like, yeah, I know. She came out for
comedy multiple shows and has been like it is really
like attentive and you know, interested in everything and actually
like legitimately like cares. And it's interesting that she's that
at the same time, she's kind of punishing herself by
like letting these shitty guys treat her like that.

Speaker 2 (21:48):
She's got to learn. Yeah, yeah, and you can't teach her.
That's the thing. You can't teach you too, No, I can't.
It's not your responsibility, even though you like helping people,
and that the track that you tend to fall in
and you're in relationships, you can't do it.

Speaker 1 (22:04):
No right exactly, and I'm not going to but we'll see,
you know, next time we record where if things have
ended terribly or continued or whatever. But that's what it
is right now. Just somebody that I enjoyed my time with.
Sounds cool and and you know, otherwise is whatever.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
Yeah, interesting insights.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah, I imagine there's gonna be some listeners who are
going to have ship to say to me about something
about that, about like what are you doing, Adams, You're
hurting yourself or whatever. You're like, You're you're pushing yourself.
So I'm sure, Uh, let's let's let them figure out
what they're going to say. Let's take a break, and
then we'll come back and I get into your life
a little bit. So that's enough about me. What's been

(22:53):
going on with with you and Roy and.

Speaker 2 (22:55):
Seattle life, Seattle life. I mean, we'll get into my
trip stuff later, but for me right now, my main
focus is my whole showcase that I have at the
end of the month. Oh yeah, yeah. So since I've
been traveling, I have put not a lot of effort
into my routine, and then I took a class yesterday
and it absolutely kicked my ass. I am very sore

(23:18):
and I sprained my I didn't sprain my wrisk.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
But like I have, I saw the things I was
wondering if that was what it was from.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
Oh no, yeah, previous risk injury. And I kind of
fucked with it a little bit in class yesterday. So
I'm not feeling too great about my skills, just knowing
I have to get in front of an audience in
two weeks time and perform a routine that's not finalized yet.
And of course I'm thinking just drop out, just don't
fucking do it and drop out, But I think the

(23:44):
whole point of it is to just get some performance
experience under my belt, yep. And knowing that this is
a showcase event where there's beginners there and everyone's kind
of doing their own style, so it's not high stakes,
you know. So I have the first I would say
forty five seconds of a minute, and I think I'm

(24:04):
probably gonna do a minute and a half because two
minutes might just be pushing it for everything that I'm
at right now. But I was talking to my instructor
because I was posted that I wasn't ready and she
was like, just pick stuff that you're really good at
already and just put it all together. And I'm like, yes,
I can totally do that, but half of it, I
feel is a stamina thing. It's a problem that I'm

(24:26):
having now with stamina of It's not that I can't
do it in a cohesive timeframe, It's that I have
to also perform on top of that, and then you
add the stress on top of that, which adds more.
I need extra energy for those types of things, so
I'm a little concerned. But I also have a pull
at home, so I can do extra reps at home,

(24:49):
even though it's not exactly the same, But that is
top of mind right now, is figuring out how the
fuck I finish my routine and feel show ready by.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
The end of Like, like, literally, when is your showcase?

Speaker 2 (25:04):
It is June twenty eighth, Saturday, June twenty eighth, so okay,
two weeks from Sat. Next up on Saturday, so you
have a couple more classes between then, a couple more classes.
It's it's really just I need to get in the
studio and actually fully do it. Because the pole in
my house is not as high as the pole in
the studio, so I need to actually rep it with

(25:25):
the same heights and flow. I'm just nervous. Yeah, I
think I think back to, you know, doing color guard
routines with very little notice and getting on stage and
not giving a fuck and being like, oh, okay, it
doesn't matter. I guess it's just that I know i'm
and I'm not going up against anyone. But it's the
mindset of there's gonna be people who can do a
lot crazier shit at this showcase, and I'm doing kind

(25:49):
of I'm doing kind of the lower level stuff that
I'm capable of doing consistently well because I don't want to.
I don't want to fuck with something that I'm not
sure i'm getting, you know, seventy five percent of the time,
and then you add in the audience pressure and extra
sweaty hands or whatever, and then you fuck it up,
you know. So I'm trying to just keep with what

(26:09):
I'm good at, which feels like a lame routine in
my opinion, because I can do a lot cooler shit,
but not consistently.

Speaker 1 (26:17):
So I think, no, it's cool. Who is the audience
for this showcase?

Speaker 2 (26:21):
It's anyone who purchased a ticket. I believe all of
the tickets go towards a strippers, like a I'm butchering it.
But it's some kind of association for like sex work
and strippers. Okay, so that's it's all donation based. But anyone,
it's mostly going to be people who either attend the
studio or friends of people performing the showcase.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
Okay, okay, how do you know how people are in
the showcase?

Speaker 2 (26:49):
So there's two shows. I'm in the first show. I
think there's about fifteen people in each.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
Okay, Yeah, that's cool. That's cool. It'll be that'll be interesting.
So is where I going to record it?

Speaker 2 (27:00):
Probably he's gonna every everybody who performs gets a plus one,
so he will be that he'll be my plus one.
But yeah, I guess he'll record it. I just don't
want to see. I don't know. It's one of those
things where I record myself in the studio all the
time in class and then I posted online. But it's
in class, and I don't really give a fuck. It's
just different when you're now going to have one hundred

(27:23):
eyes on you, Yeah, doing some routine like oh, I
guess that's what it's like if I wanted to be
a stripper.

Speaker 1 (27:30):
Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah. Yeah, it's just one really
creepy eye with a guy with a patch.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
Yeah, true, Pat.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
But I think I think it'd be cool to have
a cool video of like an actual, you know, good
video of you. And especially now that he's getting into
photography and stuff, I'm sure he can figure out what
to record it in, you know, a good way.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Oh yeah, I mean he's very deep into photography. He's
about to end his class. He's been taking a photography
class for the past couple of months now at one
of the like I think it was, it's at Seattle University.
So that class ends this week and then I think
we'll probably take like another advanced photography class. But he's
gotten a lot better. I mean he's always been pretty solid,

(28:14):
but he's gotten a lot better at his photography skills
and just honing in on different ideas he has. I
mean there's there's a lot of times when we were
traveling where he would just stop and take a photo
and stop and take a photo, and I'm like, he
better not say shit to me when I stop and
take a video for TikTok or something because the amount
of times that he stops to take photos, I just
kept walking. Yeah, i'll see you later, we'll catch up.

Speaker 1 (28:37):
Yeah, yeah, it's okay, Okay, So anyone who's in Seattle,
can they come they hear this episode.

Speaker 2 (28:47):
I think tickets are sold out. Actually, unfortunately they they
sold out rather quickly, and so tickets I think went
on sale at the beginning of May, and then I
was just out of the group chat for all the
Pole stuff over the month of Bay when I was traveling,
and then it was like everything sold out, and I
like checked all the messages again and there was so
much activity in there. So I believe both shows now

(29:09):
are sold out. But feel free to watch for my
video that will eventually be posted on my story. I'm
guessing I'll be either all my stories or actually on
my Instagram once I perform, if I like it, if
I maybe even if I don't like it, I'll still
post it as a learning or something. I don't know, Okay,

(29:30):
but yeah, yeah, and then just another plug that's not
finalized or anything yet. But I kind of teased on
my Instagram story last week that I was thinking about
hosting a group trip for other people who want to travel,
but maybe not travel solo. And I was just asking
questions around which country would you be interested or how

(29:53):
long would you want to travel for? And Peru was
the overwhelming country that most people chose. I also had
like Cambodia and Bhutan and a couple other places that
people just might not be as excited to travel to,
which is fair. But because I got that response, I
am working with a travel organization that is helping me

(30:14):
launch a group trip. Details aren't super final yet, but
it's a six day trip at Peru in May twenty
twenty six and the cost will be around twelve hundred
dollars but again not finalized yet, and I'll be sharing
more information and the landing page and everything when it
comes out. But if you're interested, you can shoot me
a DM on Instagram and just say hey, I'm interested,

(30:34):
send me the link first, because I want to sign
up as soon as I can because there are limited
spots for that. But that'll be in the next couple
weeks that I'll announce the group trip.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
Yeah, And to be honest, it's something I'm like, I'm contemplating. Really,
I thought it might be kind of a fun thing
to try you know, and that gives me enough time
to really prepare for it too.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
That was the one thing I originally was going to
try to launch a trip before the end of this year,
and then the woman I was talking to is that
is to get people to have that money ready to
go and buying a flight on top of that, it
might not be the best option. So I was like, yeah,
I totally agree. I'm all for pushing it back. So
if it's only twelve hundred dollars plus the flight, plus

(31:14):
you know, if you book an extra day here or there,
because you'd the trip would start in Cusco, so you'd
probably want to have an extra day or two to
fly into Lima and then fly into Cusco to acclimate
to the altitude, and then the tip would start type
of thing. So I would bake in a couple of
days beforehand. Just so you're saying, I don't know how,
you know, everybody reacts to the altitude difference differently, but yeah,

(31:37):
just something to keep in mind. Again, nothing's final yet,
but I do expect that that will be launched before
the end of this month, hopefully.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
Cool. Yeah, I was looking I actually was looking up
the weather in Peru in like May and June, and
it seems like it's relatively comfortable, like it's sixties, you know,
not like super hot or anything like that. And if
it's up in the mountain, I've edited it up in
the higher areas, imagine you probably even cooler.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Yeah, it is.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
Shoulder positive positive in my mind.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Yeah, and it is shoulder season there too, so the
crowd shouldn't be as bad. April May is more of
the shoulders. Like there's busy season and then there's the
shoulder seat. It's just like a travel.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
Like well, shoulder season. I've never heard though, Oh.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah, that's like just the in between of when it's
really dead, it kind of picks up and then it's
really busy. So it's just.

Speaker 1 (32:24):
Yeah, okay, oh cool. Yeah, I think it's really I
think it's I think it's about time you started with
all your travel that you've done, like started to be
able to instead of just giving tips, being able to
actually bring people places will be really cool hopefully. Obviously,
once we have details, we'll be sharing on all the
DKs stuff too, so in the group and and you know,

(32:45):
anything through there too. If you have questions, you can
always reach out to either of us about it as well. Yeah,
and if I end up going, oh my gosh, DKs trips.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
So yeah, we'll see. That's very cool. Well that's That's
really all I've got as far as other things going
on in my life life, so nothing to too eventful
on that front for right now.

Speaker 1 (33:04):
Did you clean your backyard yet?

Speaker 2 (33:06):
I'm close, I'm very close. Close, I'm very close. I
didn't want to talk about that because it's not done yet,
and I've just my friends are pressuring well. There, it's
a it's a joking friendly thing where we're the house
with the big backyard and they're living in you know,
they're living in spaces that have patios and yards, but
not like our backyard. But Roy and I recognize that

(33:29):
our backyard has been very overgrown, and especially when we
got back from Japan, it was a fucking disaster and
very overwhelming. So I've been kind of chopping down things
every single day, putting an hour or two every other
day to work to just fill bags full of yard
waste basically, and we're almost done. We bought a grill,

(33:51):
so we're ready for summer here and we were planning
on hosting like two or three parties I guess at
our house, we want to do a game night, we
want to do like a backyard grill night, and then
we'll probably do a Fourth of July thing too, So
with all those events, Yeah, we'll be busy.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
Yeah, that's what that's fun. Yeah, the the you know,
the group chat friends here that I made and the
one that bought a house that has a pool. So
we've just been we were getting on her to get
her pool clean, like, can you get your pool ready
for us to start doing pool parties at your place,
because yeah, it's only fair, it's obviously, that's nice. Yeah,
And so then she finally had the cover taken off
her pool and had to start cleaning and they found it.

(34:28):
They found bones in her pool, her cover. Yeah, apparently
her cover had a hole in it, so an animal
crawled in and they think it was like probably like
either a really big squirrel or like in apossum or
maybe a cat. They don't know, they're not sure, but
it basically left like a stain on the bottom of
her pool where it died. Yeah, it was. Yeah, So

(34:49):
she's been like spending She spent like two weeks just
like bleaching the fuck out of it and just like
trying to like get it all clean and like that
so that she feels happy. Yeah, yeah, just because her
cover wasn't like secured properly in the winter, so probably
crawled in and get like warm and then just drowned
or something.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
Yeah, that's sad, I know.

Speaker 1 (35:07):
I know she was also horrified and disgusted.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
By the end of time, I would be yeah, same same. Ugh. Well,
on that note, I guess we'll move on and take
a break so we can all digest that information. My god, Yes,
we'll come back to traveling to Japan and also why
traveling to Japan is so popular right now? All right,

(35:32):
So there's this joke going around on social media that
once you enter your thirties or your midlife crisis, whichever
happens first, you have a few options for where to
take your life. And there are four options, but I
could only remember three, and the three options wore run
a marathon or half marathon, Go get your master's degree,
travel to Japan.

Speaker 1 (35:54):
I think by a convertible might be the fourth one
or something like that. Okay, I think it's something like that.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
But yeah, yeah, so that's everyone's like choose your warrior,
you know how that was a trend on TikTok a
while back too, so I was thinking about it. I
was like, Damn, I guess everybody really is traveling to
Japan right now. I have like three co workers who
have all gone in the past couple months. Everything I'm
seeing on social media is Japan this or Japan that.
Like anytime. I even told my travel friends, Hey, I'm

(36:20):
going to Japan with my boyfriend, and they kind of
gave me shit, saying, oh, Japan like everybody else, and
I was like, damn, guys, okay, which, you know, low
key for me. It makes me less excited to go
to places for everybody right is already traveling because I
don't really feel like I'm gonna get not an authentic experience,
but it just feels watered down because I'm not not

(36:42):
that I need to feel special when I go on
a trip, but it just feels like, Oh, I'm going
to a place that everyone else goes to. So it's
just like, what is the point of me going? You know?

Speaker 1 (36:49):
I agree with that. That's how I feel about things too,
so I understand.

Speaker 2 (36:52):
That, yeah, yeah, so, but what made Japan so desirable?
One Roy's been there and he talks so highly of Japan,
saying that it's probably one of the best places he's
traveled to, just the food, the culture, the things you
can do and see he really enjoyed, which cool. I've
never been there, so why not go someplace I've never
been before? Right, And then the yen is down, which

(37:14):
makes it more cost effective for Westerners to come visit
Japan when things are reasonably priced for us. So, I
don't know, and on top of that, like compared to
be traveling to I don't know, Nicaragua or Guatemala, where
they're not there might be less everyday luxuries when you're

(37:35):
traveling to some of those places. I feel like Japan
has like that plus more where the toilets are extra
extra nice, or people just feel more comfortable traveling to
Japan versus other countries that they're like, oh, I've never
really heard of it, and I don't really want to
travel to a place like that that I would get
out of my comforts, you know.

Speaker 1 (37:54):
Yeah, And I'm from speaking from Seattle to I imagine
Japan is, you know, in easier place to travel sometimes
than like Central America or South America, because I mean
you're as far north as you are. It's it's really
an easier.

Speaker 2 (38:08):
Trip, unfortunately. Yeah, Like trust me, I love Central and
South America. Those are my favorite places. It is a
beast to get down there from Seattle because there aren't
any direct flights. I have to fly from Seattle to
either La or Houston or Dallas and then connect and
then maybe have to have another connecting flight. Flying into

(38:29):
Nicaragua from Seattle, I had to fly into El Salvador, stay,
stay for like a couple hours in El Salvador as
a layover, and then fly to Granada, where I was going.
So it just took it took so many extra steps
versus from Seattle to Tokyo. It's a direct eight and
a half hour flight. Yes, it's long, but I don't

(38:50):
have to stop. I'm on the plane. I'm good to go, right,
and that's the way to do That's the way to
do it.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
Yeah, yeah, No, I prefer as few stops as possible
when I fly. And I think it's it's because it's
also a bigger chance of you getting your luggage lost
and stuff happening, you know, or too many delays, you
miss flights and things like that. So the easier it
could be that aspect of travel, which is the one
aspect I hate the most.

Speaker 2 (39:15):
Yeah, I mean especially being from being from being in Seattle.
Now too, I recently traveled to Taiwan. That was a
direct nine and a half nine hour flight, which wasn't
that bad. So I think Seattle to places in Asia
are more easy to travel to versus when I lived
in Orlando or Nashville. Yeah, that was a trek and

(39:38):
a half. You're literally flying over the continent and then
flying across the ocean.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
So yeah, no, well that's that's really cool. What was
your your knowledge of like just Japanese culture and society before.

Speaker 2 (39:52):
This, Well, Roy made us do some media research beforehand,
so we watched a lot of anime. We watched a
lot of anime. And when I say a lot, it
probably wouldn't be a lot in Roy's standards, but we
watched some anime.

Speaker 1 (40:08):
Did you ever watch The Battle Royale that I tried
to get you to watch?

Speaker 2 (40:11):
No? I didn't that. I was okay, Now, what's the
We watched Showgun. We watched one episode which was very
disturbing to me. Have you seen any of that show?

Speaker 1 (40:23):
It's on my list to watch actually.

Speaker 2 (40:24):
But it's don't get me wrong, it's very interesting. But man,
one of the scenes just is burned in my fucking
brain about how they killed somebody, and I just can't
ever forget about it because it's just like horror of
killing people and that was the reality. You know, it's
rooted in some truth. So I don't really do a
lot of research on countries before I travel there because

(40:46):
I feel like I learn a lot about the history
while i'm there at the museums and things like that.
But obviously I know the World War II history and
some of their you know, their ban on Catholicism and
some of their trade relations that they had with the
Dutch before because they were very closed off from the
rest of the world, which makes sense. But outside of that,

(41:06):
didn't really have a whole knowledge of the culture before
getting there, which I was just kind of gonna let
it hit me in the face, which it did. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah, I can imagine. I'm always to one place I've
always wanted to visit, just because I mean, you know,
my degree is and then so that's always something people
forget Japanese. My bachelor's is in East Asian Studies, and
so with a focus on Japanese. So I focused on
Japanese religion and art and language. Took four years of it,
and everybody in my who was part of my that

(41:35):
major went on to spend a semester in Japan and
I wasn't able to because my parents couldn't afford it,
and I just couldn't. They just started't have the money
to try to go over and do that. So I
missed out on that opportunity, which is kind of okay
because almost everyone came back acting like a total douchebag
like they thought they were Japanese after that, you know,
like wearing fucking kimonos and just like, oh, I drink
his tea and eat sushi. Now, you know, it's just like,

(41:56):
oh Jesus Christ, you stopped making your personality years you know,
six weeks in fucking Japan. But beyond that, it was
it was something I still want to try to make
it to at some point. And I know, especially now,
I would probably stand out like a sore thumb to
just a six foot with a shaved head and a colored,

(42:18):
multi colored beard, like I can only imagine what it
would be like there.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
You'd fit in a lot in hair Juku. That's for
sure in Tokyo.

Speaker 1 (42:25):
Where the sumo wrestlers are.

Speaker 2 (42:27):
No, that's where all like the the hair jukuh okay. Okay,
that's a lot of but it's mostly it's just like
the the alt punks, okay is that? Yeah, so people,
if you're looking for people with really interesting outfits, they're
typically in that area. But what we can get into
some of the other things we could take a break
and actually get into, like the trip and learnings and

(42:49):
things like that. But I just kind of wanted to
give a background of why Japan, why.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
Now before we before we do take the break. I
want to I do think it's kind of funny that
you're dating zone is not Asian, but like but like
going to a place where like you can totally be
like I'm going to find your man and which now
you've done that several places, but you know, like you
you've gone to several you know, Asian countries after your
whole original preference episode that we did like like how

(43:15):
many years ago, like five years ago, six years ago,
maybe even more of them.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
But my preference is very specifically. I don't think i've
shared this. I'm really into Filipino.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
It was Filipino. I don't think you've ever said that.
You think you just kind of said, so, that's kind
of funny.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
I've dated It's yeah, I say Asian, but yeah, like
mostly Filipino and one Vietnam.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (43:37):
That's like not that I'm like, I mean, I'm dating
a fucking white guy right now, so who cares. But Roy,
we did joke about that while we were over there,
just like just because there's so many attractive people there
that were like, Oh, she's really hot or he's really hot.
We could get into it so much.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
All right, Well, let's let's take a break and when
we come back, we're going to get more into your
trip to Japan. So I really blows my mind that
you were in Japan for like sixteen fucking days.

Speaker 2 (44:06):
That's insane surprise. I mean, if you're gonna go over
there and adjust to the time zone and do it right,
you got to go for more than just a week.

Speaker 1 (44:16):
I mean, I agree. I think that's how most trips
should be. I feel like people should just go places
for a month at a time just to really drink.
You've been doing that. You've been doing that, and you
kind of got a good sense of how well that
actually works sometimes.

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Yeah. Well, and this is different because I wasn't working
while I was there, so I could really be on
the go places versus when I'm working and traveling, I'm
mostly just in one location.

Speaker 1 (44:38):
Right, So tell us about where you went for these
sixteen days.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Okay, I head up as many cities as I possibly could.
So I did Tokyo to Hakone, to Osaka, to Kyoto,
to Hiroshima, to Kojima, to Nagasaki to Okinawa back to Tokyo. Wow,
that was my journey.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
You guys flew into Tokyo.

Speaker 2 (45:02):
Then we flew into Tokyo. We stayed a couple of
nights in Tokyo just to get you know, acclimated and
to see a couple of things for two days, and
then we did a day in Hakone, which is.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
I guess that's one place I've never heard of. I've
heard everywhere else, but I've never heard of.

Speaker 2 (45:19):
Okay, you can pronounce it, correct me and all my
wrong pronunciations. Then that you're the You're the East Asian
Studies expert, and I'm just I'm just the person, the
stupid American who traveled to Japan. Uh.

Speaker 1 (45:33):
But that you said it right, you said it right,
I say, you didn't say it wrong.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
So yeah, traveling there was it's it's a volcanic town.
Like there's a lot of volcanic activity and hot springs
all around the area. So one big thing I think
everyone should do while they're in Japan is go to
an on Send and rely on sen is basically the
hot springs. And if you have tattoos, that can be

(46:00):
problematic because you can only have maybe one or two tattoos,
or they can't be that big, or you are just
not allowed in depending on what their policy is. And
Roy has tattoos, so we had to make sure that
we found a place that had private on sense, which
led us to booking a riocon for a night that
had private on sense.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
So they have restrictions against the native tattoos. You have.

Speaker 2 (46:23):
Some places make you place like these waterproof stickers over
the tattoos. It really just depends on the place that
you find.

Speaker 1 (46:33):
Interesting is that because of like the criminal element that
like like Yakaza tend to have fully tattooed arms and legs,
so it prevents them from using it.

Speaker 2 (46:43):
You know, interesting, you would know I think you would
have way more insight on that than myself.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
I thought it was I really don't know.

Speaker 2 (46:49):
Yeah, I thought it was just a cultural thing that
less people like. There are definitely people in Japan who
have tattoos, but I think it's just less people tend
to have tattoos and just a cultural thing that I
don't know, huh, how.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
Is it that thought? I mean, that's just it's so weird
that they would like have restrictions, especially on tourism, like
tourists doing that too.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
Yeah, it's just a respect thing and a cultural thing,
and that was one thing that I So we stayed
at this riocon and they gave us. It was probably
the best night's day that we had, and it was
a little bit of a splurge. I think we spent
around four hundred and fifty dollars for the one night,
but it included dinner and breakfast and you know, the
private onsend. But they gave us these yakatas, which are

(47:35):
basically cotton kimonos to wear, and they didn't really give
us any instructions other than this one sheet of paper.
So I'm looking at it and I just felt like
I needed to do it so right to not embarrass
myself and also not to insult the culture. I don't know.
I just I felt a lot of cultural pressure on
this trip that I don't think I've experienced, and maybe

(47:59):
in Taiwan a little bit too, but I haven't experienced
anywhere else like this, where oh, I really need to
do this right and I really need to show respect,
and I really, you know, I don't want to be
a disrespectful loud American tourist because I know they fucking
hate that, right, I get it. So trying to put
on this yakata and keeping the lines perfect and doing this,

(48:20):
I thought it was gonna be an easy, Oh, just
put this on, tie it, We're good. Here you go.
And Roy and I spent way too long cursing at
this fucking YouTube video trying to figure out to make
sure our lines were perfect, to make sure, you know,
it was tied correctly and there was enough space where
our neck and our you know, wherever it was was
supposed to be. And it was so stressful, and then
we finally got it and I was like, do not

(48:41):
touch me. I'm not taking this off for a while.
I want to be presentable when the woman comes in
to service our dinner and she's impressed that we're wearing
it correctly, which was such a like silly thing. But
I also again didn't want to be disrespectful and not
wear it. And like, if you if you folded over
one way, that's only worn for funerals and something else,

(49:03):
and if you call it over the other way, that's
the correct way. And then if it's not like there's
things that could be just totally disrespectful or wrong that
watching this YouTube video, I was freaking out. I was like, well,
if I just saw the paper, I would have just
been who gives a fuck? But no, I wanted to
do it right.

Speaker 1 (49:18):
So just because let me ask you this. This is interesting,
so I want to ask you it. So this is
the equivalent of like a hotel suite that you guys.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
Are staying in, right, yeah, I would say so.

Speaker 1 (49:28):
And so you were putting you were getting served dinner
within your own hotel suite.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
Yes, and but you.

Speaker 1 (49:35):
Wanted to They gave you the ropes as a this
is what you should wear when you're even when we
come serve you, not not just like being your own
weather clothes. You want to wear.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
It's part of the experience to wear it. I think,
so a lot of guests wore it for breakfast too
the next day, which we didn't do because we were
on our way out of the hotel that morning. But
people tend like you couldn't. I mean, yeah, when you
when you stepped into your room, you couldn't wear your shoes,
you had to wear these slippers. There were just certain
things that you needed to follow that I just felt like,

(50:05):
when we're here, we need to do it correctly.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
So then asking did they ask your sizes before you
got there? No, So look at someone like me, I'd
just basically be have to be in my underwear, wouldn't.
I like it is really I would have no options.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
That brings on another really, Oh, yeah, you're framing.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
I know you're gonn talk about the fitting stuff, but yeah,
we're being tiny there.

Speaker 2 (50:31):
Yeah. I mean I think if you let them know
ahead of time, hey, I am a larger person and
I still want to participate in this thing, maybe they
could accommodate. But I'm going to jump around. But I
had this really outside of acone, I had this weird
experience of just trying on clothes in general in Japan

(50:52):
and constantly being told I was big and I as
someone who's like, I've lost thirty pounds over the past
year and a half and tried to lose a little
bit more weight. I've been trying to just lose a
little bit more weight for the summer or whatever, just
you know, five pounds or whatever. But being told, oh,
you're not going to fit into this size because you're

(51:12):
too big, just straight up being told that, what the fuck?
And I told my friend, who has has traveled in
Japan a lot and has she has been so many
more places around the world than I have. She was like,
it's a cultural thing. She's like, it's fucked up. Don't
take offense to it though, It's just it's just a thing.
So I had to kind of get that under my

(51:33):
belt because at first I was kind of offended by
I was like, why would you say that? And then
we went to we went shopping in Kojima, which is
like the main place to get raw donim in Japan,
and every store after I knew my size, they're like,
that won't fit you, big size, and they just kept
saying big to me, big big. And then of course

(51:54):
their biggest size is like a fucking size two, you know,
So it's just insane. I'm like, what do you I mean,
this is still fucking small to me, but just their
frames versus you know, other frames, they just tend to
run smaller, which was very interesting and still kind of
wild to me, but something you adapt to.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
Sure, No, no, I mean that makes sense. I think
that Yeah, I could see that being kind of off
putting and not to derail your story, but I just
remember when I was performing comedy in Melrose and in
Los Angeles, I was staying out Tel Run off Melrose Boulevard,
and I was only going in for a night performing
and leaving the next day, so it was a quick,
quick trip. And I had literally tore a hole in

(52:38):
the ass of my pants as I was getting out
of my uber into the hotel, and so all I
had was a pair of cargo shorts just to kind
of wear around. But I had to wear pants on
the stage. You don't wear shorts on stage, especially at
the comedy store in Los Angeles, Like that's not a thing.
I remember. I was like, well, let me just walk
around in the shops on Melrows to see if I
can find a pair of pants. And I remember just
walking into these places and like just being like as

(53:00):
soon as they saw me, they'd be like, oh shit,
I have to say tell this guy he's too fat
for our clothes, like you can tell like the salespeople
immediately like. But but I would just I would make
a joke out him. I would walk and be like, hey, so,
do you still pants for fat guys? And they would
kind of laugh and they'd be like, uh no, it's like,
you know, what's your largest waist size and the like,
I think we have some thirty eights around here or whatever,
like and just you know, like thirty eight is obviously

(53:22):
that's an average size. You know, that's a that's a
small waist, you know, like that's not even like your
average guy probably has like a forty inch waist, you know,
forty two baby, so and uh I was like, oh yeah,
I'm looking for like a fifty inch waist and they're like, oh,
I don't know where you can find something that big.
I remember I just had to like take an uber
all the way to like Burbank or Glendale and go
to like a big and tall store to get pants.
But anyways, there's just you know, very similar So I

(53:44):
can imagine like and things like that in Japan, like
having to you know, if you want to you know,
comply with the customs and you want to wear the
wear that around, you know, and you have to probably
ask ahead of time or something else. I don't even
know what you would do.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Yeah, I that is something I was not prepared for
ahead of time. And I think if I wasn't a
bigger body, I would feel like I felt kind of
self conscious about it when people just straight up called
me big or said like, no, you're too big for
the size, and I was like, right, the fuck what
are you talking about? So I think if I was
in a larger body, I would feel worse about like

(54:19):
it's shitty. Yeah, and no one should feel like that
when they travel. But that was just something I never
clocked before.

Speaker 1 (54:25):
So then the private onsen and to kind I get
back to, you were saying that like you had to
you were that, But then you had a private onsen
that was attached to your suite so that you could
just go soak in it.

Speaker 2 (54:34):
So it was downstairs, so we'd have to leave our
hotel room, but we would walk down the stairs and
they had a whole on sen area and everyone had
their own key for their designated onsend, which was nice,
and they had water available there and kind of a
shower that you could wash yourself before and after with
funny story there actually, but that area was super nice too,

(54:54):
and I noticed in the more so. We did a
nighttime soak after dinner, which everyone checked, and then of
course the first thing you want to do after that
is to go soak in the onseen. So it was
kind of busy and you could hear the other people
next to you, so yes, it was private, but you know,
people are chit chatting and changing or whatever. Fine, but
we went in the morning at like five in the
morning to soak and there was nobody and you just

(55:18):
heard the chirping of the birds and just being kind
of in the mountains. And that was so much better
in my experience to just really feel like you were
alone and your private little hot springs just soaking it up.
And I love that.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
That's my So that did you have like was it
like wald On, like on the sides and then you
had like a view looking out? Is that kind of
what it was?

Speaker 2 (55:37):
Yeah? Yeah, so it was wald on three sides and
then yeah, the.

Speaker 1 (55:40):
View looking at you guys bone in there.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
No, we didn't bone in there. Also, I as much
as I love a good hot springs and a good soak,
I can't hang for that, like whether it's a sauna. Yeah,
I just I get overheated so quickly where Roy can
sit in there for so fucking long, and it blows
my mind because he hates taking hot, like hot hot showers,

(56:04):
and I take showers that scald this skin off me,
you know, and he's like, what the fuck is this?
And I can't do it if I have to soak
it a tough though that I don't know, it's weird,
but so I would get in and out and he
would just kind of soak the whole time. But no,
we did not bone he wanted to.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
I think how many times did he make refs just
sucking his dick in there like youah, had to know
what had to happen a couple of times a couple Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
So it was also interesting because it is sulfur water
in the hot springs, but you couldn't smell it. So
we washed off beforehand, but we didn't even think about
washing off after. So we went to bed and the
next morning I was like, oh, we smell awful, because
I thought I was like I didn't even think about it,
and it was it was so bad, Like we did

(56:54):
a hard shower after when we left, but it was
kind of funny that shower after two down and no
one was watching us. So I mean, this private onset
experience was a lot more tame than my experience had
a Hot Springs in Taiwan where I was naked around
fifteen other women. So you know, different experience, but if

(57:16):
still both are nice. Both were nice experience.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
Yeah, the being naked in front of other people thing
that you were all kind of, you know, really worried about.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
So yeah, yeah, and I didn't have to do it
in Japan, so that's good. Yeah, that's good. But uh,
let's see. Uh, after Hakone, we did Osaka and Kyoto,
and we mostly just stayed in Osaka and then we
did a day trip to Kyoto. So I know a
lot of people love Kyoto, and like the main three
cities people visit are Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto within a

(57:47):
first trip. If they're doing ten days or two weeks,
they'll spend more time in both of those cities. But
because we're trying to hit so many places, and really
my main my main places, I wanted to visit were Hiroshima, Nagasaki,
and oak Kanawa. Those were higher on my list of
places I wanted to visit because I just know me,
I tend to lean towards the mid to small sized
cities and I find more enjoyment in that. So Soka,

(58:11):
tokyot To, Socca were very overwhelming, just as far as
millions of people live in the city and it's just
like everything all at once with the signe, like the
flashing lights and this, and being in crowds and just
people everywhere. It was a little overwhelming and overstipulating. And
then we got to Kyoto, and I think the vibe
a lot of tourists expecting Kyoto is that it's going

(58:32):
to be super peaceful and serene and you're going to
be one with nature. And yes, there is some of
that if you go to the right places, but there
are other obviously, the popular tourist destinations to visit. In
Kyoto feel like you're in fucking Disney World, And to

(58:54):
the point where I looked at roy and I was like,
I want to get the fuck out. Yeah, just so
being let me kind of walk you through the day.
So we started we started at a temple we walked through.
We did two temples in the morning that were very
kind of secluded from the rest of Kyoto, and that

(59:15):
was very nice, and it was before probably ten am,
so we did that was before the crowds really come.
And then we continued walking down into the main bamboo
forest that everyone wants to take a photo in, and
everyone is there, and the second you kind of turn
the corner into the bamboo forest, you're running into a
million tour guides with flags that are bringing people through

(59:39):
that you have every other person stopping to take a photo,
which fine, I understand, but there's not like there's no
edit when everybody's doing it and there's a million people everywhere,
there's no etiquette of like, oh I'll stop and you
know what I mean. So it's just people rushing past
you just to go wherever they need to go. And
then they also had these and I I know that

(01:00:02):
they sell these types of tours, but a low key
felt a little disrespectful to me. Maybe I'm an idiot
American who doesn't understand. But they had a man carrying
kind of like you know those bikes that will carry
people in the back to events and stuff. They had that,
but instead it's like someone literally running carrying these, yes,

(01:00:24):
like a rickshaw and these the people in the back
had on their full kimono outfits all you know, dressed
in traditional Japanese attire and being wheeled around, and that
was just seeing that with the crowds is like, this
feels way too gimmicky. Like that element felt a little
gimmicky because they were only those rickshaws were allowed in

(01:00:48):
areas that other people weren't so they could get their
photos and stuff, so it was like a photo op
type of thing too, And I just I was just
watching it happen more. They had the photo photographies set
up on the backside of this bamboo forest, and then
they were stopping the crowds to then get all of
these you know, rickshaws in place to take their photos

(01:01:08):
with the people all dressed up in their kimonos, and
I just watched it for a couple of minutes and thought, yeah,
I want no fucking part of this. This is I
don't know, it's just it's just a peak level of
tourism that I'm not interested.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
It doesn't feel authentic. It found that you're like you said,
it feels just manufactured and that's that's exciting.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Yeah, I get it. It's it's an industry and it's
somebody's job. But that's not my idea of wanting to
experience the culture. And there were so many people who
wanted to do that and were just like in awe
of this tourist thing that it just I didn't like it. Yeah,
So that was just that was one experience there, and
then we also just walking around Kyoto in general. I

(01:01:51):
didn't experience it much in Osaccer or Tokyo really, but
I just felt like there were way more disrespectful tourists
in Kyoto than the other places. And maybe it's because
I had already experienced the stuff in Hakone of being
hyper aware of how I'm dressing and doing things or whatever,
but I just I felt like people didn't have as

(01:02:12):
much respect for the culture of the tourists I saw.
They didn't have as much respect for the culture as
I was. Like, I was kind of policing myself, you know, right,
and these people were just acting like you're not supposed
to take photos of the geishas just like cultural things
that are frowned upon people didn't give a fuck about,

(01:02:34):
you know, or just being quiet on the trains, or
just things that I had experienced in Tokyo where people
were following the rules. All of a sudden, it just
did not fucking apply in Kyoto, and I was a
little it was a little daring after being in Japan
for I want to say, like five days already and
kind of seeing people fall in line to this cultural norm,
to them being like, oh yeah, people really don't give

(01:02:56):
a fuck here. And sure I did visit most of
the touristy places while I was in Kyoto, And if
you had a great experience in Kyoto, please tell me
what you did that made you love Kyoto a lot.
I know I missed. I missed a couple of things
because I only really had one full day to experience it.
But I think I still don't know if I would
have liked Kyoto even if I spent a couple of

(01:03:16):
days there. You know, I did the the Tory Gates hike.
I actually really enjoyed that hike. But my overall thought
with just Japan in general is that if you have
to wake up at the ass crack of dawn, like
five of the fucking morning to get somewhere to then
enjoy a place to beat the crowds, you might not
have a good time. You might, you know, like maybe

(01:03:39):
you shouldn't. It's not always about beating the crowds. Like, sure,
I don't love the crowds every place I go, but
that shouldn't be your main prerogative on a vacation is
wake up and beat the crowds for this, and then
tomorrow I'm gonna wake up and beat the crowds for that.
It just gets a little fucking overwhelming when you're on
vacation to be waking up every every morning to try

(01:04:00):
to beat the crowds, you know, and then be exhausted
and you know, run tired the rest of the day.
So yeah, that's my rant on Kyoto.

Speaker 1 (01:04:10):
Before you went to Osaka. In Osaka, did you see
America Town? Did you visit that at all?

Speaker 2 (01:04:15):
Did you get a chance to id? I didn't visit
America Town now, okay, because I just I.

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
Was wondering if I wanted to see what your thoughts
of were of their own version of like how our
cities have, like Little Italy and Little Japan or whatever
that they have America Town, because I've seen some videos
of it. It sounds really insane, like laughably like hilarious.
So I didn't you see you didn't get a chance
to visit.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
That, Okay No. And there was also an America town
in Okinawa too that I thought about visiting, and I
was like, that's fine, but no, I didn't get a
chance to visit that. I did feel like, although Socca
is a very large city, I got a really authentic
vibe in Osaka just from where we were staying and
the areas that we were able to just walk into

(01:04:57):
and experience. I there, Yes, was overwhelming and is an
overwhelming city just because of how large it is, but
you can still find really cool pockets in the city
to enjoy. And that's the shit when it comes to travel.
That I really liked that I was able to find
in Osaka.

Speaker 1 (01:05:12):
That's good. Why don't we take a quick break and
then come back and we'll get back into the second
half of your trip because we got through Kyoto, but
we'll get back into Hiroshima, Kojima and Makasaka and know
kind of after that, so we'll be right back.

Speaker 2 (01:05:26):
Well, we've got four more cities to touch on from
my trip, So from Kyoto or Osaka, where we were staying.
We went to Hiroshima, but on our way to Hiroshimi,
we stopped in Kojima for denim shopping. Roy is a
big fan of Denham and Kojima is like the raw
denim capital of Japan, and that's where all the high

(01:05:47):
quality denim is produced. And even just American denim does
not compare to Japanese denim. I've had the whole lecture
from Roy. He educated me, O, he educated me, and
then I was like, I don't know what I'm looking at.
While we were in Japan, and so we did a
lot of shopping there. They had some wild shit like
denim ice cream and denim lemonade and a bunch of stores.

Speaker 1 (01:06:09):
How do you have denim ice cream? Can you explain that?

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
I didn't have it? So I just saw that.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
You try it? How did you not while you're there?

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
Because I already had the lemonade and I was full?

Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
Okay, so what's the lemonade? Tastes like denim lemonade? It
tastes denim lemonade.

Speaker 2 (01:06:24):
Okay, say denim aide.

Speaker 1 (01:06:26):
You know that's right, That's what I was I was thinking.
I somehow switched it. Okay, But denim lemonade.

Speaker 2 (01:06:31):
It just tasted like lemonade with a little bit of
I don't know it. I think it's just a gimmicky thing, honestly.

Speaker 1 (01:06:40):
Okay, because denim is a cloth, right, There's not like
denim is not a flower or something. Right, It's not
like it, okay, because I didn't know if it was
like some origin that I had no clue where denim.

Speaker 2 (01:06:51):
I mean, like they use they use indigo and other
things to die, yeah, but no, it just it was
just a blue lemonade that had some other flavoring, but
it mostly just tasted like regular lemonade.

Speaker 1 (01:07:03):
In my opinion, how much money did you spend in
denim town or in you know? Could you?

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
So? I gave myself one hundred dollars denim budget. That
was stupid. That was so stupid I spent I think
I spent two hundred and fifteen dollars. So I went
over a little bit double it and some but I
ended up getting two pieces there. I got this denim
jacket and a denim skirt and they kind of are

(01:07:31):
the similar shade of dunhim two so they work well together.
And then I mean, okay, so let me, let me
be real real here, my spending budget for Japan. I
underestimated how much money I was going to spend on
shopping in Japan. So if you were planning a trip,
plan save save some extra for shopping unless you have

(01:07:53):
self control, which I clearly did not. I gave myself
a spending budget of five hundred dollars for shopping, and
I spent a thousand.

Speaker 1 (01:08:02):
Wow. Was that all clothing related?

Speaker 2 (01:08:05):
No? So I bought ceramics, I bought skincare products, I
bought shoes I bought, and then I bought some clothing
and some other like I got a couple of like
trinket purses and some other like hair clicks and things
like that. So all in all, yes, a thousand dollars.
And you know, I most of my money. My big
ticket items were the skincare I spent a lot of

(01:08:27):
money on the two pieces of den on the shoes
was like one hundred bucks. So like all of that
was that way more than I should have. But I
really like every piece that I purchased, so I'm not
mad at it. But at the same time, I'm like,
damn it, Sarah, you didn't stick to the plan, and
that's why everyone was like, I'm just going off vibes.
I don't have a budget, Like, oh, okay, mister, I just

(01:08:49):
got to raise in promotion. I don't have a budget.
That's cool.

Speaker 1 (01:08:53):
What kind of skincare stuff was there?

Speaker 2 (01:08:56):
Literally anything and everything? Their sunscreen is so much better
in US brand sunscreen, so I picked up some sunscreen.
I did some moisturizers, some vitamin C, some body lotions.
A lot of the face mask like the sheet masks
that they have, I purchased those. I did. I purchased

(01:09:17):
a handful of stuff from my friends as well, so
they all kind of wanted skincare, so I did a
little mini hall. I purchased some hair care products, so
it's kind of a mix. I didn't buy makeup because
I just assumed I could color match correctly, So just
stuck with straight skincare.

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
Okay, I'm justus.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
No, no, no, that's fair. But yeah. So in Kojimo
we did all that shopping and it was a little
bit out of the way, but we made it to
Hiroshima that night and then walked around the park, and
our main thing in Hiroshima was to see the museum
the next morning, which one of the most impactful museums
I've ever been to. Obviously like horrific thing things discussed

(01:09:59):
in that museum, and you know, I already knew just
and maybe maybe this was just me mentally, but so
I visited both Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Hiroshima I really had
a hard time with like feeling happy in that town
Versus Nagasaki. I was like, oh, I like, oh the
you know, went to the bomb museum obviously like an
atomic bomb museum, and that was obviously sad, But I

(01:10:21):
didn't feel as sad in Nagasaki as I did, just
like overwhelm Likerosh. Not that it wasn't Nagasaki wasn't devastated
after the atomic bomb there, but I just kept thinking,
like in Hiroschma, I was like, this whole town was
just leveled and everything that I'm seeing now wasn't here,

(01:10:42):
and just and then going to the museum and going
like oh, holy fuck this. You know, things that they're
never going to teach you in a high school or
college history class that they covered, and the perspectives of
the survivors and the cancers they experienced after and the
hardships they experienced after and just all of the fucked
up shit that really went unnoticed except for the people

(01:11:05):
who were suffering the horrors, you know, twenty thirty years
after really went unnoticed. That was highlighted in the museum,
which I was just shocked by. And then all the
artifacts and stuff that they have and the paintings, and
I mean, it's I can't forget it. And it's one
of those museums that, like I kept telling this, I'm like,
I'm not gonna have a good time there, but it's

(01:11:26):
going to be meaningful. And I think that's the history,
and that's the travel experiences that like really matter. And
like when I think back to traveling Japan, I'll remember
going you know there and letting that history and how
it affected me sink in.

Speaker 1 (01:11:40):
Were there any obnoxious American tourists that there that like
maybe didn't appreciate the severity of it, do you think?

Speaker 2 (01:11:47):
I don't think so, I thought, And I was trying
to clock that just because of like the experience of
having Kyoto of just Westerners being loud, that being in
that museum, I felt like everyone respected what had happened,
and it made me, honestly, it made me question a
lot of things as an American. You know how people
have those shirts that are like back to back World

(01:12:09):
War champs, right, just yeah, dumb shit like that. Like
it made me confront a lot of those things that
as an American we really don't think twice about. And
I'm like, is that really a good thing to promote?
Like look, I mean, war is fucking terrible from all sides,
but I don't know. Just just getting that perspective that
I hadn't had before and I'm like, there is no

(01:12:29):
It just made me question literally fucking everything that happened
during that war and why why did they have to
do it? And I did say I was doing some
background knowledge or background research to get more knowledge before
we went to the museum, and even then I was
already being pissed off.

Speaker 1 (01:12:44):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
So it's not good or fun history by any means
or like wow, you know, but it just makes you
confront a lot of really heavy shit and go, Okay,
this can never fucking happen again. And both in Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, I was like I was sad. In Hiroshima
like cried, and just like some of the videos they
showed of just interviews from survivors, I was like I

(01:13:08):
can't watch this anymore, Like I'm literally going to sob
in this museum, and like they had tissues, like I'm
getting emotional now just talking about it, and that had
an impact on me. And then getting to Nagasaki their museum.
Yes they had stories about survivors, but it also talked
just about the impact of nuclear weapons and nuclear testing
and how the US has done way more than any

(01:13:29):
other country, and how nuclear testing in America has impacted Americans,
And I was I went from being sad in Hiroshima,
too fucking furious in Nagasaka and just being fucking pissed off,
and I was like, I just want to get the
fuck out of here, like I'm so over America. Like
it was crazy, how different Like those two museums, similar topic,

(01:13:50):
but I had a total different experience than what I
took away from it. So both both were great, like
you know, good experiences to have on a trip to Japan,
And I do think if you are visiting, you should
visit one of the two bomb sites. Hiroshima was obviously
easier to get to if you're flying in from Tokyo
because it's closer, but both are impactful.

Speaker 1 (01:14:09):
I did you were you doing train everywhere to get
from place to place or did you fly?

Speaker 2 (01:14:13):
We did train on the main island of Japan, and
then to get to Okinawa you have to fly right right,
because it's yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah Nagasai. I would
say outside of the Atomic Bomb Museum in Nagasaki, what
I really enjoyed there was the European influence because it
was one of the main port towns for European trading,

(01:14:33):
so they had a huge Dutch presence and you could
you could see that in certain areas there was a
European area where some of those buildings I'm not sure
if they were rebuilt, but they were preserved so to
kind of still have that feel, and they had I
we didn't go to it, but just like a Catholic
or Christian museum because that's kind of where Christianity began

(01:14:56):
in Japan, because when the band was lifted, that's where
it started. So I thought the those aspects of history
were really interesting. And then the city itself is beautiful.
It's just right on the water surrounded by mountains, is
a really picturesque town that I think if I was
to go back to Japan, I would skip I would do.
I really enjoyed Tokyo. The second go around, I would

(01:15:17):
skip all the other stuff and do probably the western
side of Japan. There are sand dunes over there, there's
some other like bays and things to see, and then
I would do the southern part around Nagasaki, fuku Fuokua.
I'm totally Pukuoka Fukuoka. Fukuoka is what it is. And
there's a couple other hot springs towns down there that

(01:15:39):
I would go visit and spend more time in. So
and we didn't even explore north of Tokyo. There's like
Sapporo and other you know, the more wintery towns if
you go during that timeframe. But yeah, Nagasaki, I think
was my favorite city that I visited in all the
cities we visited in Japan. I obviously like, I really
enjoyed Tokyo too, but as far as what normally falls

(01:16:01):
under my travel vibe, right, Nagasaki fit the bill for me.
And then we went to Okinawa and we stayed in Naha,
which is kind of the main area when you fly
and you're in the southern part of the island, and
I underestimated how difficult it was going to be to
get around Okinawa. I think again, if I could do
it over, maybe I would get my international driver's license

(01:16:23):
and buck up and rent a car. But I typically
don't drive in other countries because their driving cultures are
different and I'm not trying to die or get in
an accident. So it made transport between areas we wanted
to go very difficult and a lot longer because they
do have a monorail system, but the bus routes aren't
as consistent, you know, as like one bus to this

(01:16:44):
area every hour, so if you fucking miss the bus,
you're you know, it's like you're waiting an hour or
forty five minutes for the next one. So it just
wasn't as frequent, which caused us to change a lot
of our plans for what we wanted to do. But
I think at the end of the day, I wanted
to go to Okinawa just to relax and do kind
of nothing and just hang by the beach. And we
had a full kind of two days of doing that,

(01:17:05):
so it ended up being exactly what I wanted anyways,
So I think, yeah, if you want a more vacation
y beach town vibe, Okinawa's worth visiting.

Speaker 1 (01:17:14):
Do you know do you know why Okinawa is famous
in America?

Speaker 2 (01:17:18):
Well, there was so I didn't realize this. I told
my dad I was visiting Okinawa, and he's like, oh shit,
you're going there just because of World War two and
how a lot of US soldiers went to Okinawa and
fought in the war. In World War two in Japan,
there there is a military base in Okinawa. And then
I forget. There's a lot of other history which is

(01:17:38):
like soldiers, Like there was one soldier off the coast
of Japan who still thought the war was going on,
like twenty years later type of thing, and they found him.
Did you I'm sure you know that story.

Speaker 1 (01:17:49):
Yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker 2 (01:17:51):
That is an insane story. What else am I missing?
You tell me?

Speaker 1 (01:17:54):
I would say pop culture wise, the Karate Kid mister
is from Okinawa and then they go back to okinf
for Karate Kid too, and they're tying it all in
with they So Okinawa. The first I ever heard of
Okinawa as a kid was from the Karate Kid.

Speaker 2 (01:18:07):
So oh, I had no idea.

Speaker 1 (01:18:11):
Just a pop random pop culture reference.

Speaker 2 (01:18:14):
Huh, that is cool. Of course I wouldn't know the reference. Surprise.

Speaker 1 (01:18:19):
Well, And the funny thing is that I remember because
I remember when I got older, I looked at it,
looked into this was that in Karate Kid, mister says
that he's from Okinawa, not Japan, Okinawa as its own country,
and that is because they do consider themselves, you know,
kind of very separate, and so that's an interesting oh
yeah distinction.

Speaker 2 (01:18:36):
Yeah, the cultural difference being there was was noticeable. I
mean they and I'm blanking on the name of what
some locals refer to the island. They don't call it Okinawa,
they call it another name because I mean, Okinawa had
been conquered by the Chinese, by the job, you know,
it's just it has been conquered so many times that
people who are from there are just like, yeah, we

(01:18:58):
might be, you know, a Japanese island, but where this,
you know, there's there was a cool cultural thing there.
They have these protectors, these lion dog like statues called ESAs.
And we noticed everywhere we were walking and just without
any knowledge, I'm like, what are these things there's and
they look they're different in size, they're all different colors.

(01:19:21):
Everyone kind of had their own, you know, aesthetic of them.
And when we went to this museum that told us about.
She says, I was like, okay, Broy, we got to
get some. So we ended up getting some, and we have,
you know, two outside of our house, but one one
has its mouth closed and the other one has its
mouth open, and it's supposed to protect your home from evil.
So that was like a cultural thing there that we
didn't see throughout the rest of Japan. It's just an

(01:19:42):
Okinawa thing.

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
Interesting, and I think if I remember correctly, I've seen
like parades and stuff where they have like the one
with the head and they'll have the whole body with
people dancing behind it and stuff like that too.

Speaker 2 (01:19:52):
Yeah, that's what we did see that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:19:55):
Cool. So I want to ask you, traveling, you know,
across all these different cities and everything in different areas
food wise, did did the food vary from drastically from
place to place?

Speaker 2 (01:20:06):
I wouldn't say it very dressed. Okay, I'll backtrack here. Japan.
Of all the countries I visited, I've almost almost visited
thirty countries, Japan is the top two country for food
I had. I don't think I really had a bad meal.
My Number one is Mexico. I just love Mexico. I don't.
Japan's very close in that. But every meal was a

(01:20:29):
fucking banger. Nice places that we went to that were
highly rated or kind of mid rated, or you know,
had some recent bad reviews that were like, eh, maybe
we shouldn't go, and then we went anyways, and it
ended up being phenomenal. I mean, we had some meals
that were just you know, whatever because we were on
the go type of thing. But I think overall, the
food really is as good as what they say it

(01:20:50):
is no matter which city you're in. I would say
Osaka is known for being the food capital of Japan,
but I would challenge that and say, Okinawa some of
the best food that I had, But Osaka there's okinomiyaki,
which is a Japanese style pancake and that that's really

(01:21:10):
popular in Japan. But we had some really I think
it originated actually in Osaka. We had some really interesting
dishes in Osaka that I hadn't had in other parts
of Japan. So I enjoyed that. And yeah, the food
was consistently good everywhere we went.

Speaker 1 (01:21:24):
That's cool, great, all right, should we take a break
and take another break, maybe kind of start wrapping up
new or your takeaways.

Speaker 2 (01:21:34):
Yeah, I'll get my main takeaways, and then you could think,
if you want to plan a trip.

Speaker 1 (01:21:37):
For Japan, that's right, right, all right, we'll be right back,
all right. So obviously I think we could probably do
like a ten part series on Japan if we had to,
probably you having spent sixteen days there and really you know,
experiencing so many different cities. But this is people, you know,
this is the ADHD, you know, world, and people don't

(01:21:58):
have the attention spend for all of them. So let's
say that's fair. What would you say are some of
your kind of main takeaways from Japan for anybody wants
to either travel there or or always considering it, or
just in general, like you know from your time there.

Speaker 2 (01:22:10):
Yeah, big tip, don't rely on Google reviews. They don't
always matter. I think people in Japan have very high expectations,
so you'll see things that'll be ranked in the upper
threes like three point eight, three point nine or lower fours,
and you're like, I don't know if I should go
there because it's not a four point five or whatever.

(01:22:30):
Don't let that deter you because it's probably still good.
And that ended up being the case, so just keep
that in mind. I would also say, as far as
finding places to eat, don't rely on TikTok recommendations or
social media recommendations. There are so many places. I mean,
my feet is all Japan still, just because I was
searching different things. There are so many restaurants that TikTokers recommend.

(01:22:54):
You know, it's a video specifically on one restaurant and
the line is an hour for whatever. You do not
need to wait in line to get good food in Japan,
Like I already mentioned, you can find good food pretty
much everywhere. So unless it's a reservation, I want to
eat at the number one restaurant in Japan or a
Michelin Star whatever. I wouldn't pre book a bunch of

(01:23:16):
restaurants to think you have to eat at the best
place here or there, because you're gonna find amazing spots
wherever you go. And to find those good spots, look
especially for lunch spots, look for the men in business suits.
We got really lucky and we we didn't want to
wait in a forty five minute line for a restaurant
that was recommended and had high ratings and very touristy.

(01:23:38):
So we're just kind of walking around the Hairdjuku area
in Tokyo and we saw a bunch of businessmen leaving
this one restaurant that didn't have a line. We're like,
you want to go in there? And it was amazing,
So follow follow the men in business suits. They know
where to They know where to eat because they live there.
So consider that.

Speaker 1 (01:23:56):
It's dea probably also know where to eat fast too,
because they I don't think they get much time for lunch.
They probably know where you can go in without much
of a weight.

Speaker 2 (01:24:03):
At the same time, totally, that's a very good point.
Use your jet lag to your advantage in the first
few days. So if there are things where you in
the first couple of days, if you want to beat
the crowds and play that game, do it when you
first get into Tokyo or wherever you land in Japan,
and do it that way, just because you're going to
be waking up early. Another thing that was kind of

(01:24:23):
surprising to me is that you don't really need to
know a lot of Japanese to explore Japan. We met
we actually met up with Royce coworkers who live in Tokyo,
and they were saying that because of the twenty twenty
Tokyo Olympics, a lot of the signage had changed to
be English. A lot of just announcements on trains and
things are all in English. You know, it's in Japanese

(01:24:43):
and English now too, because they were preparing for the
Olympics and we all know they still had it, but
you know, lesser, and because of that, I think a
lot of people have kind of added English to everything.
So I really only know good morning, Oh hi, gozaimas,
thank you, arigato, gozaimis, hello, and excuse me, sumimas in

(01:25:05):
am I butchering all of this, you a hello, just
knowing those things and then you know, just you know
a thing, you know, one of the I got the
gozaimas and that ended up being fine, and I felt
that was enough for me.

Speaker 1 (01:25:21):
Yeah. I mean so that's that's the that's the most
important one. It's like me because that's that's what everybody says,
is just basically getting you know, getting getting everyone's way basically.

Speaker 2 (01:25:31):
Yep. I use that a lot, like I used that
probably the first hour landing in Japan, and boys like, wait,
what what is that again? Teach me what that is?
Because I'm going to need to know it. So that
those those four phrases I think did me pretty well.
Oh and then the other thing I would recommend, especially
if you're traveling in a group, is to do karaoke
somewhere in Yeah. Yeah, that was We got very drunk.

(01:25:55):
We did it with Rooice co workers because they suggested it,
and because we were in a group of four. It
would have been lame if it was just Roy and I, right,
but because we were in a group of four, we
were all kind of lit at that point. And then
we got more drinks, so we were very intoxicated, just
singing terrible karaoke until one in the morning. And just
when you leave your studio room where you're singing karaoke

(01:26:17):
and you walk down the hall, you also hear everyone
else is trashed and singing bad karao. It was so
funny and so fun and really it's part of the
Japanese culture. Karaoke is so I just I'm so happy
I got to experience that in a kind of authentic way.

Speaker 1 (01:26:31):
I think it's great that you get you have to
do that. I think that it's I experienced that for
the first time in New York City as at a
blogging conference and we were done at like midnight. We're like,
let's go find somewhere to do. So we went into
I think we went into the Koreatown and we went
and did one of those karaoke rooms until probably four
in the morning, and there was there was like fifteen
of us and we were all drunk and we just

(01:26:52):
kept drinking because they kept bringing us drinks. And it
was one of those things that was like, this is
so funny, Like because I've done karaoke obviously, like way
in a bar or whatever, which is very different, you know,
you just have a bunch of drug people, but doing
it like in our room with your friends is one
of the just most fun experiences. And it's like you
just sitting there, you pick up you choose songs you
never sing otherwise too, because you're like, let's just try

(01:27:12):
this one, you know. And they usually have the displays
with the songs playing that things playing are usually you know, fun,
fun graphics. I bet in Seattle there's got to be
just because of the heavy Asian population, there probably is
are rooms that do that that you could probably do
have a fun night that doing that.

Speaker 2 (01:27:27):
Yeah, oh my god, I should look that up.

Speaker 1 (01:27:29):
Yeah, yeah, you really should because I imagine there has
to be because that you know, obviously the highest population alone.
Anytime you're gona find that, you're gonna find that there's
gonna be some place that's going to offer that service. Yeah,
that is a lot of fun. That sounds amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:27:41):
Yeah, that was That was great. Oh and I would
also say the hotel rooms are small, so be prepared
for that. But if you're looking for a larger hotel
size room, book a love hotel. Love hotels are you know,
you can book by the hour or you can do
an overnight stay. But those rooms are fucking massive for
its intended purposes. I mean, we had a couch, we

(01:28:03):
had a massive bed, we had a huge tub jacuzzi tub,
and a little bathroom, and then we had porn on
the TV, and we had porn on the We had
free porn on the TV. We had a bunch of condoms,
we had a bunch of lubes and lotions and all
of anything that you could want in a basically a

(01:28:24):
sex hotel. We got in this love hotel and I
was afraid I was really gonna hate it, because that
was the first place we stayed in Tokyo, and then
we didn't book another Love Hotel when we got back
to Tokyo, and I was kind of sad about that
because I really enjoyed staying in a Love hotel. So
some are gimmicky, some are not. Some just feel like
more standard hotels. And people in my comment section when

(01:28:46):
I shared that I went to a Love hotel that
were like, I wouldn't stay there. Use a black light.
That's probably disgusting, And then other people were saying, if
there's any place I'm gonna stay in a hotel like that,
it's gonna be in Japan because they're going to clean
it really well, and that's kind of my sentiment. The
hotel very clean, and we didn't see any other guests
in the hotel. We also didn't see the front desk

(01:29:06):
person either. It's all a not you know, they take
your credit card and whatever, but you pick your room
on a screen and then they hand you the key
and they're behind a screen too, you only see their hands.
The only people we saw at the hotel was the
cleaning staff when the rooms were being overturned, and even
then they would like run past you and not look
at you too. So there there was a level of

(01:29:27):
no one wanted to be recognized in these places, and
they had multiple entrances, so if you didn't want to
leave at the same place from say you met up
with a random stranger, you could leave in two different
exits on different sides of the street. So it was
a really interesting experience and huge hotel room. If small
hotel rooms really annoy you.

Speaker 1 (01:29:48):
Costwise, were they about the same?

Speaker 2 (01:29:50):
I think they were pretty recent. I think for the
Love hotel we stayed at, it was only one hundred
dollars and it was pretty inexpensive. So yeah, that's all
I've got. Yeah, those are my main tips.

Speaker 1 (01:30:02):
Yeah, so that's it we got. I mean that's a
that's a there's a lot, but I think, uh yeah.
What I recommend is that you follow Sarah, look at
her TikTok or Instagram, look at all her reals. She's
done a lot of content on Japan that goes into
depth of every every city that she's visited and everything,
and I think you if you are more interested, if
you're iNeST in learning more about visiting Japan, you definitely

(01:30:22):
need to follow her on the Instagram and TikTok and
check out like all the content because there is like
good detail, like you know, good videos and stuff like that,
you actually get some visual of, you know, more than
just hearing us talk about it. You can actually see
it visually, which I think helps quite a bit too,
including some funny, funny TikTok she did like about Kyoto
and stuff like that, which I like, Well, that's that's fantastic, And.

Speaker 2 (01:30:45):
I hope this was valuable for you and for the
listeners of just Japan in general, and to get kind
of a first hand experience of or second, I guess
it's second his experience of what traveling to Japan was
like for me.

Speaker 1 (01:30:59):
No, as I think it's great. It really was interesting.
A lot of a lot of stuff that I don't
think we would have I would have known, or that
I thought about. So that's great.

Speaker 2 (01:31:07):
Now you gotta go.

Speaker 1 (01:31:08):
I know, I need to start making their travel planes.
I think checked out. You know. The thing is, I
don't want to fly and be cramped in a plane,
so I'm gonna have to pay for the extra like
either first class or business class everywhere I go. And
so it's that cost that the cost prohibitive, you know,
nature of it. So it's only downfall.

Speaker 2 (01:31:27):
So one more tip, I would say, book either JL
Airlines or a NA Airlines. Those airlines have way more
leg room and just seat with in general compared to
a Delta or other American based flights. I was actually surprised.
I was like, Oh, it's only a couple inches more
of a seat pitch. That's not going to make a

(01:31:47):
huge difference. I was so comfortable with that flight over
to Japan and back. I was surprised and it was noticeable.

Speaker 1 (01:31:53):
That's great.

Speaker 2 (01:31:54):
So and I flew economy, so you know, you still
might want to fly business class, but there was a
good difference there.

Speaker 1 (01:32:00):
No, that's very good to know. Uh, do you have
extra tips or do you have questions about Japan? You
can go ahead and email us would love to hear
from you. A Dating kind of Sucks podcast at gmail
dot com, or you can post in the Facebook group,
Facebook dot com slash group slash DKs podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:32:16):
Like Adam mentioned, you can follow my travel adventures on
social media or Adam's adventures and photography. Mine is at
simply serergy Underscore and Adams is at Avitable. Adam is
also very Are you still yeah, you're still really active
on Threads. I'm not on Threads. He's active on Threads
and Blue Sky and TikTok as well. For Threads and

(01:32:37):
Blue Sky ites at avitable and then for TikTok, it's
adam Avitable.

Speaker 1 (01:32:41):
Yes. And of course if you have something you want
to ask us about, or you want us to you know,
talk and do another topic, do atle episode on, or
you need advice or anything like that, you can call
our hotline, which is always available. You can leave a
voicemail and that's four oh seven five one nine zero,
one eight one. That's four seven five one nine zero
or one eight one. We'd love to get some voice

(01:33:01):
smails from you. And of course if you were listening
to this on iTunes, we love a five star rating
and review if you haven't already, or Spotify share if
you're on Spotify.

Speaker 2 (01:33:11):
Yeah, I really think that's it. I mean yeah, and uh,
there's anything.

Speaker 1 (01:33:15):
Else I don't think. I don't think that's it. We'll
we'll be back whenever we're back. I'm not gonna I'm
not gonna try to give a dead deadline because you know,
you never know. Uh, Sarah's got trips coming up, I
think right, No, maybe not nothing for a little bit.

Speaker 2 (01:33:27):
I'm here for the summer, but your comedy stuff is
really ramping up.

Speaker 1 (01:33:31):
And yeah it's making it harder for recording on evening
and stuff like that. So yeah, well we'll see, well
when we can know, but we'll be back when we
have a new episode we know something worth talking about. Totally,
thank you for listening, and we'll be back.

Speaker 2 (01:33:41):
And we're back until next time.

Speaker 3 (01:33:45):
Whether you're merried or thing praying on what's your place?
Listen to us and be getting a tender grind bubble
and plenty of young trying and trying and happen to
pluck because we all.

Speaker 1 (01:33:57):
Know dating kind of stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:34:06):
Sarah and Adam are due a kind says stupid shit
and she doesn't mind. They're not doing with this, so
don't make any fuck life but a chickenoos but they say, buck,
why does it work?

Speaker 1 (01:34:13):
We'll hear with the brook.

Speaker 3 (01:34:14):
They both know.

Speaker 1 (01:34:17):
Dating kind of sucks. Dating kind of sucks

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