My favorite part is when Fer says “It’s travel time” and travels all over the place.
Today’s reading indicates a trend of growing bolder and more willing to enjoy the fruits of my hard work.
At least two of these cards can also act as warnings though, so better to keep an eye out.
I was slightly sleep deprived but at least I slept a little bit. I even had time to double check stuff and wait for a couple of packages to arrive before I left.
I’ve been to Ise enough times that I knew the route: First to Namba and then the Kintetsu up to… wherever the heck I was meant to go on that specific trip.
This time it’s the usual stop of Isuzugawa, which I’m relatively familiar with since it’s the station near Ise Jingu.
Also, you can tell I’m in the boonies because the google maps stuff looks like this.
Yes I’ll take a cab, thank you.
When I arrived at the place I was so giddy. A whole two story sort of accomodation! Basically a house! And for relatively cheap too. Of course I assumed that it was that cheap because even in this general area we’re nowhere near any landmark nor convenience.
As usual I let my luggage explode and recharge my devices a little before I make a run to resupply at the conbini.
Now, a random thought that has crossed my mind from time to time is “man, it’d be nice to have one those houses near my building that have two stories and stuff”, honestly just because they looked neat.
This room changed my mind, fuck stairs holy shit. The mere act of checking the place around was a bigger chore than it needed to be.
Anyway, it’s time to go out and holy fuck the skies are so pretty today.
Aside from taking in the sights and the smells and the sounds I just stopped every few steps because the sky framed a different cool spot.
I make it to Seven Eleven and I buy SOME stuff before I look for somewhere to eat.
There was a chinese restaurant across from the street and a hawaiian food izakaya near where I was standing, but I decided to try and find a smaller place for fun. Then I saw there was a different Izakaya in a more discreet building.
I snaked through other smaller roads and houses and I kept thinking about how expensive it might be to buy land around here, how much it would cost to build a big countryside house… and I found myself curious but not tempted? Not like I have that kind of money, but I can dream of goals and this one didn’t feel like a dream that enticed me in particular.
The countryside is nice, but I guess I prefer the conveniences that come with living right outside a big population center but not in the middle of it.
Regardless, I make it to the restaurant. It’s a house where the bottom floor has been remodelled to be a shop, one of the tables had newspapers the owner was just reading, there’s no english menu, the menu is a bunch of handwritted bits on the wall, and said owner is an old lady.
This is gonna be soooooo good.
And it was! I ordered a Yamakake Soba. Basically soba where the broth has grated yam and egg. You wanna know how good it was? I never drink the broth from soup and such (it just doesn’t land too well in my stomach, lifelong thing) but here I did it because it was that nice.
NOT TO MENTION, ALL OF THAT AND A COKE FOR JUST 1200 YEN.
Satisfied I made my way back and I decided to make a second Seven Eleven stop for a couple of things I forgot and heavier stuff like drinks.
Then I go out and the sky has turned red.
I forgot to mention it earlier, but my reaction upon seeing the room I was gonna stay in was a very familiar tinge of “man, I wish I had someone here with me to share this right now”, but today I noticed there was a parallel bit of “hell yeah I’ve got all of this for myself!” going on. I suspect what’s happening is that as the feelings of “oh man, I’ll be own my own forever due to some intrinsic moral failure on my side” go away, isolation becomes solitude.
In other words: The difference between a dog that holds its own leash (solitude) and a dog tied to a pole (isolation).
Point being that as I admired the super duper pretty sky, the tinge of sadness came in but immediately after I felt a sense of “and I get to enjoy this at my own (chaotic, frantic, laconic) pace!!!”.
I return to the room and I wanted to use the smart telescope since here I’d be able to just leave it out and let it do its thing, but the super duper pretty clouds also meant no stars.
It’s also a full moon.
Eventually I get ready to sleep and another bit of “oh this is why the place was so cheap” rears its head.
The bedroom has a huge ass exit sign.
My uneducated guess is that it’s a safety thing given that there’s no door right before the stairs. Safety reasons don’t matter though, what matters is that sleeping was Hell.
Nowadays I write these posts the day after, to summarize the day into a single story best I can, and to make it a memory exercise, force myself to remember what I did so my days don’t feel “wasted”.
I’m writing this entry as I wait for sleep to return to me because the light blasting on my face had me having some ungodly dreams that I can’t even remember but I woke up agitated nonetheless.
For now my measure was to put the towel I wrap The Girls in during transportation so as to lower the glare somewhat, at least until morning comes and I can get some extra supplies. A simgle bobby pin or tape to put something over it would already make a world of difference.
Also no, I can’t turn it off, the switch it has does nothing too.
I was wondering if I should just stay awake and walk to Meoto Iwa to get a pic of the sunrise, but the forecast says cloudy and as of this writing it is indeed kinda cloudy.
Seems like tomorrow will be clear skies, though. So I’ve got that to look forward to.