Scribe

Oh my God, you guys.

Have you ever had honey flavored nyquil?

You know how how honey has a little bit of like funk to is only it starts off all funk. It's like, it's like the roots or something. It's all funk.

That's amazing.

So jealous.

Yeah.

Hopefully you guys are practicing safe mic sharing.

Okay, cool. It's fully in Johnny's mouth right now. So.

Okay, um, well, first of all I want to say like just so we're recording video for this so people in the Patreon can can see some video and I'm so jealous just like looking across, across the world at both of you guys sitting in the same room. So that's really cool here, Andy. Oh, well, let me get on plane real quick.

Yeah, just hold them up.

So. So one thing I wanted to mention is last episode I heard. So I guess it's actually really good to hear that a bunch of people listen to the show because the got lots of feedback that the audio for the last episode was bad. And you are right, it was very bad. And that is because we had a couple audio hiccups and we couldn't get everybody's track. And for some reason at the same time we got. We captured Tim's audio at a way lower volume. So that was on a different microphone.

Yeah. And so I ran it through this like this audio level later that Adobe offers and turns out I had it turned up too loud or something and it was just gating the audio really bad. It was real choppy. So apologize about that. You have my personal commitment that we will get a lot more kind of like rigid about how we record and make sure that it's coming in a good quality because I'm excited that like, again, people apparently listen to the show still. So after 10 years. So, yeah, people, people gave me that feedback and I appreciate it. I also wanted to mention I did get another couple pieces of feedback. So last episode I just sort of like casually just put it out there that I got laid off from my job and I got Covid and people were like, you kind of just like said that and then just moved on and like, are you okay? And by the way, I'm kind of hoarse right now because now I have a cold that's led to just some really kind of gravelly Kathleen Turner esque voicing. But. But yes. I just wanted to let you know I. I am okay. I. I don't know if I've actually just went out and just mentioned this on this show before, but like 2023 and the last half of 2022 is like pretty crappy. In my life, like, lots of things happened. I got divorced, I sold a house. I moved into different apartment and went through two jobs. And so, like, honestly, getting. Getting laid off from a company that's like, going through some stuff was okay. I got some pretty good severance. And I mean, Covid was absolutely no fun, but like, it was the first time in. First time ever I've gotten Covid, so felt pretty lucky to have made it that far.

So please. So thank you for your concern. Thank you for thinking about me. Um, things are getting better and like, obviously they're cold right now. When I recover from this, I'm going to have a real nice February, and then in March I'm going to start a new job, knock on wood. I'm going to start at Microsoft, which is a very large, very large company.

Just a little. Just a little startup called Microsoft. Yeah. And I'll probably mention a little bit in the main topic, but like in a new relationship, that's. That's pretty good. So, yeah, things are. Things are getting better here and I appreciate people's concerns. So, yeah, thanks for. Thanks for thinking of me.

We love you too. I love you guys too. I'll do the little Korean. Korean hearts if you guys can see it.

Oh, really? Yeah. I don't know if it's actually specifically a Korean thing, but here, let me

Okay, that's the.

screencap, the album art. All right, so let's. Yeah, let's move on to the actual episode.

My tools of the trade sounds actually a lot like a fresh points because it's kind of some cool things. I just started reading friend of the show, Carol Beggy, who I think she's. I think she's a patron or has been before, just wrote a book. It is by. Published by Bloomsbury. It's called Pencil, just called Pencil. And it's in a series called Object Lessons, which is a series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. So this is really cool. It kind of offers just a lesson in temporality and it's kind of about the history of pencils.

And I just started it last night. So, yeah, we'll have a link in show notes if you want to buy your own. And hopefully we can get her on the show or something to talk about this because not every day people write a book about pencils, especially when they're connected to our community somehow. So that's really good. I've been off and on reading a book I got that was a Kickstarter that I got in the mail. It's called Shift Happens and it's a book by Marcin Witchery, who is a designer. And it is just an amazing book. It's about the history of keyboards, typewriters, keyboards, everything. And it's not just a book. It is a three volume set that's well over a thousand pages. And it was. I bought it on Kickstarter for like $170. It was a lot of money. And then they made extra that they sold for 250 that they sold out in just a few days after they started shipping. So I don't know if he'll ever do another run or maybe do an ebook, but it is gorgeous and he's somebody I've wanted to. He's been writing this book for like four years and I wanted to try to get him on the show longer than four years. Like probably like eight years.

So Shift Happens. Great book. If you go to Shift Happens site and sign up for his new letter and read his kind of like backlog of newsletter that's also a really, really great resource if you care about keyboards, which everybody in this room, I think does Tim. I have one that I need to send you that's. They're going to be doing a pre order pretty soon and they're just amazing. Looking so cool. I don't want to like stoke your keyboard buying kind of. Oh, no.

Yeah. I've been listening to just like the rest of the world, I think in the last few days, listening to Tracy Chapman. She was recently on the Grammys with Luke Combs, who is a country music singer who covered Fast Car. And I, I think I wrote a thing on social media just about how like when I was younger I didn't like Fast Car and I think it was because there was a lot. I just sort of didn't appreciate it then. And as I gotten older and known some people who've kind of been in similar situations in their life about trying to get out of a small town as fast as they can in a fast car, like, yeah, I've come to appreciate that song a lot more. And I'm also almost certain because Tracy Chapman lives in San Francisco, I'm pretty sure I've seen her before just like walking down the street. So I'm not sure of that, but I think so. I assume if I was like, hey, are you Tracy Chapman? She'd probably just say, no, get away from me.

But I've been listening to just some of her music a little bit more and she's so great. She's really good, really good singer. And I've really. I don't care that much about Luke Combs, but I've. He's always been felt just kind of like a fairly middling country singer. And his version of like Fast Car is like fine, it's very countryish. But I do really love, as did the rest of the Internet, love, kind of like the reverence and respect that he just sort of had for Tracy Chapman in that, that Grammy moment. He just like was. I mean, first of all, I'm sure getting a duet with. Getting Tracy Japan to come on the Grammys and do a duet was a really hard thing to do. And it sounds like he got rights to do the song because he just has just super reverence for that song and for her did it right. And he did a really just. Yeah, great job with it. So that, that duet was really great.

Yeah, I've seen the Black Pumas one

Yeah.

I was reading about it, and a little bit, just as I'm sure everybody else was, about how, like, so many people have covered it, like Justin Bieber covered it, but people. People have messed around with the verses, and then also a lot of men who have covered it had changed that verse. That's like, you know, I have a job as a checkout girl. They change it to, like, checkout boy to kind of fit with the. With the gender. And it sounds like Luke Combs was just like. Just like. No. Leaving it exactly the way it is.

Something in it, you know, just leaving that piece intact.

Actually, especially in country music. I'm sure that's something that.

Yeah.

Yeah. Seems like an interesting guy. So that is. That's what I'm. Oh, and I'm writing in a. One of the. Shoot. Which field notes is this?

The little. The white one that they just came out with. Oh, the Birch Park. And writing with a pencil that I. An Italian pencil I bought in Japan called a Corvina, which is just kind of a Bic pen. But it's. Yeah, it's really. It's really nice. Just a. Just a mass. Mass ballpoint, which. Well, we're going to talk a lot more about my Japan trip in the main topic, but that's me, Jim. How about you?

I don't know.

Forget it. All that trauma's in your music.

I assume a lot of it is just, like, framing some stuff. Because, like, the Beatles at this point are. I can Only assume it's like the most popular band in the world. Right? Like, that's probably gotta be the case. And there's just like so much stuff, but yet there's so much literature and stuff that just like, keeps coming out. So, yeah, that's cool that there's stuff in there that you hadn't heard before.

Are you reading anything from Ringo or from John? Well, I was actually gonna mention that.

I really want to read that because I really want to hear about the Mr. Conductor years.

You know, what more do you need?

It's a rock band.

Rats Saw God.

Shit's Creek in the Bear.

What happens when it's, like, not that good? Is it just like the Chilies of the mind?

The chili's, too.

Oh, the old country buffet.

Golden Corral.

Darling.

Oh, cool.

Where'd you get them?

Amazing.

This episode is sponsored by Britbox.

I don't think so.

It was one of those, you know,

Did they save Mrs. O's cow? Was that the.

They.

Accessibility, low vision, just like all sorts of things.

I was gonna say, are we gonna see a certain local bookbinder at that store?

Nice. So if anybody's in the Baltimore area.

Oh, man, that is so cute.

Where did you find those floppy disks?

What happens if you stick that in the computer? What are you gonna find?

Speaking of. Speaking of floppy, I did not want to say anything, but it's such a good transition. Tim, you're looking a little floppy over there.

Oh, yeah.

We're good at it. If you're listening and not watching, Tim is flopping around a pencil.

It's one of. It's one of those, like, kind of rubbery pencils that have, like, graphite in the very tip, right?

Yeah, well, Tim, they make a pill that'll just clear that right up so

We're getting old.

It's a. It's a perfectly normal thing that happens in every podcaster's life.

Hold on. I'm taking a. Taking a screenshot of this.

Okay.

Yeah.

So first I'll mention. I think I mentioned the last episode, but I just spent two weeks in Japan. I went with my girlfriend in. We first went to Niseko, which is a small skiing town in kind of north Japan. And not much sort of stationary stuff there, but just, like, just really snowy. Really good for skiing. I'm a terrible skier, but I did it for a half day and then loved me in onsen. Can talk more about that later. But, like, the Japanese bathhouse is really fantastic. But then we spent a week in Tokyo, and that was definitely a long time coming because I. I mean, ever since we had Jun Thomas on the show, what, like, five years ago, four years ago, whenever that was, talking about some of these shops in Japan, I've had a list of, like, places I wanted to go to. So this was definitely really fun for that. But, yeah, I don't know. Stationary culture in Japan, it's. It's a lot more. And also, I just want to be like, you know, I've been to Japan once, and therefore, I'm just an expert. Like, just like all those. Oh, you don't understand. Everything's better in Japan, right?

Yeah, that's a certain brand. Ever since I had ramen in Japan, I just can't eat cup noodle anymore.

certain brand of white boy who goes to Japan, and then all of a sudden just, like, you know, knows everything about it. But I will say I just loved it. Just loved so much.

I'm gonna have a podcast where I talk about my experience in Japan. I have T shirts for my podcast. I have a T shirt, by the way, if you. If you can't Get Johnny's T shirt. That is our first ever t shirt from almost 10 years ago.

So, so somebody, we were talking about something else with some friends and they mentioned how there's many things Japan didn't sort of like invent, but they perfected. And one example is spaghetti. So my girlfriend and I went to a spaghetti restaurant in Japan. Just like spaghetti and it was if it was not the most amazing spaghetti I've ever had in my life, then like, you know, I don't know what but like they, they got it. It's picture perfect. Like I got spaghetti with meat sauce and like mozzarella cheese and they like laid a strip of bacon on it and it was just like gorgeous and tasted amazing. And that's just Italian.

It was a spaghetti restaurant. And we went in and. And they had one of those machines with all the buttons that you order from and it spits out a form and then you hand it to them. So you have to pay like this machine in van. No English anywhere. Um, and my Translate app was not working so I basically had to like point to things, pictures on the wall and ask the, the like beleaguered, very busy like hostess to come and like help me know what buttons to push. But like so anyhow, like, so they, they can take things and just like perfect them and just, just design them to just. It's very intentional design, very functional. I feel like this is like an old, just kind of like a UX trope. But I feel like so many things are so user centered in Japan and just very intentional. And stationary is a perfect example. Like they, they have special paper for receipts, they have special paper for banking, they have special paper for like I went to a notebook store where they, you could like build your own notebook and they had like a little graph saying like, oh, this is better for pencil, this is better for fountain pens, this is better for ballpoints. And like that's all the stuff that we know and that we think about. But most of the US doesn't give a crap about that. Right? Like it's just like, oh, that's some paper. And I just feel like more people there and more of the companies are just like thinking more about like, just like that experience that like somebody will have writing with it. And just also I feel like sort of the standards of manufacturing is just much higher often. I mean that's how you get Tombow and Mitsubishi pencils and just all of the amazing paper companies. Yeah. So it's, I think a lot of it is just like just very thoughtful about the user's experience and then also just very detail oriented. There's also, there's a lot of like focus on precision. Um, my friend Bruce so met up with my friend Bruce Eman, who's a friend of the show and he's like a stationary circle guy from. He. He's from the U.S. but he lived, he grew up in Japan and then he recently moved back there. He, he married Kaoru who is the head of Bungu Box. Um, there's a, like a high end fountain pen shop in Japan.

And, and so we were just talking at one point and um, my girlfriend, who appreciates good stationary but isn't like, you know, like us about stationary, she was kind of wondering kind of out loud like what, what it is about Japanese stationery. And Bruce is like, you know, in, in school there's such a focus on precision. Like, you know, you're not, you're not gonna fail the test, you're not gonna fail this thing. You're just gonna do it again until you do it precisely right. And that's something that I think carries over culturally through a lot of things and making pencils and using pencils and using the right tool for the right job. This is a handwriting pencil. This is a business writing pencil. This is a creative pencil. Like that's very, very just ingrained for general writing. For general writing.

Yeah.

For retouching and special drawing.

Yeah. Have you ever thought of pencil and you know this drawing is just, you know, this is special oven. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

And then of course there, many of them are made by elaborate process.

Like that's like very favorite saying ever on a pencil.

Yeah.

And, and we've, we've gotten, I think generally speaking like normies in the US at least have really gotten just used to the commodification of pencils and often notebooks. Right. Like, like the idea that like, I think one thing Blackwing has done really well is bringing sort of this idea of like an experience. I'm. I'm doing air quotes here. Just a good user experience of pencils to the. Generally the general public. Like somebody who'd be like, I can't believe I just spent $30 on a dozen pencils. But these are amazing. And.

Yeah. And before that, so many people just like their minds are just. They're used to an Office Depot pencil or something.

Why?

When we're in. I'm starting writing. Writing down.

IBM Electro Graphics. Like, they were such a. Oh, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. How long ago was that?

Forever ago.

So I don't know. That's. That's kind of what I think is why people like us who appreciate good stationary really gravitate toward Japan. Because that same. That carries through to all sorts of other things too. Like transit in Japan is so well thought out and well done. Like, I was taking. It took me just a couple rides to figure out sort of the subway system, like all the little like pieces of the system. But once I did just get everywhere and. Yeah, just amazing.

It's a little bit.

Yeah, it's a little bit of an anachronism because like, yes, things feel more intentional, but. And also like, surprisingly Cheap. Like, things don't cost that much there. And maybe that's a little bit skewed because I live in one of the most expensive cities in the country. But, like, just going and getting just like a really good plate of spaghetti for $8 is, for me really cheap. I mean, that same plate of spaghetti

I know. Yeah.

And like, so many things are, like, inexpensive, relatively inexpensive, but also things are, like, fairly high tech. Like, their transit system is very well integrated. Like, as soon as I landed in Japan, flipped off my. Like, flipped on my data roaming and I. My Apple wallet had a little thing that popped up saying, like, hey, welcome to Japan. You can go push this button to download the transit card and add some money to it. So I did that. I added 50 bucks, and immediately, like, when I went through the first turnstiles to get on the subway to get to my hotel, it just was like, bloop. Didn't have to wait in line and buy a ticket. Just boom, right there. And there's only a handful of cities in the US that have anything that closely matches that. Like New York and Boston and San Francisco and maybe Baltimore. I don't know. Like, electric transit cards.

Yeah. Yeah. So.

Yeah.

Yeah. Lots of investment in infrastructure.

Yeah.

Yeah. Although. Yeah. I was in, like, the part of Japan that Kidoboshi was in, which we'll talk about here in a little bit, like, was. Those streets were just, like, wild. Just like, luckily I had, like, really detailed directions on Apple maps and I could get where I was going, but I would get lost. And the density is just incredible. Like, everything's super dense. Like, alleyways is main streets, like, it would be amazing to see somebody's, like, apartment front door, and they had a little table and they had some, like, bonsai or whatever. And that's just their, you know, their, their side yard, so.

Yeah. Another really good. I think both of you would appreciate kind of like a stationary coffee culture in Japan. So good. Like, I, I, I, I bought a $60 bag of coffee.

That's not even a full pound of coffee.

Oh, yeah, it was very good. It was aged. It was aged coffee. So they aged the green beans and then they roast it. And it does real weird stuff to, like when you. I was doing a pour over and, you know, it, it just acts differently, which is weird. And the guy warned me about it. But also, like, it was. Yeah, it's so good. It's just completely different. Kind of like coffee taste.

Um, this was like, maybe a medium roast, but they still ro. I still roast, like, a regular coffee, but, like, because they age it before they roast it. But it's more. I don't know what the right word is. Like, spicy isn't the right word, but it, like, you know, when it ages, it ferments just a little bit. So it's maybe a little, you know, when you eat like a piece of pineapple that's like a little bit alcoholic.

Yeah.

shop, stuff like that. Yeah. Well, I did, I did re. Listen to our episode with June. Who Jun Thomas. And I was just kind of googling to see if they all still existed. And I think the big main ones that I really wanted to hit, like, one of them was the Itoya store, which is just like 12 floors of stationary, like, different things. That's still there. That's where I made that custom Parker jotter. That's so fun. Um, and Tokyo hands was still there, like h A n d s which is. I don't know how to describe it, but it's basically kind of like a department store where you can also buy just like, cleaning supplies and stationary and like, other things like that. Too. Kakimori was still there, which is just Walmart. Yes. Kind of. But nice. Way nicer.

Yeah. Kakimori was that place that. I don't know if you remember Jun talking about this place where you go and you have a little tray and you can put in notebook covers and then you put in like different paper inserts and then you pick out the color of the spiral binding and like different things and you take it up and they just like put it together for you, like did that. So I had kind of like a broad idea like that. And we also had some other things to do. Non stationary things, which I guess. Yeah, like, I did this really cool thing. There's this Japanese denim brand called Betty Smith, which is a funny. It's funny because it's. It's from an era when Japanese denim was trying to be like American denim. And so they like branded their thing. And then since this brand has kind of had a resurgence and sort of popularity, and they do this really cool thing where you can. It's called the jeans making experience. And you go and you pick out a pair of jeans and then you. There's like a big tray of like different colored rivets, different shapes and colors of rivets. And then like, like the jeans button, the front button, different patterns and colors, and then there's old vintage patches and you pick out what you want. And then you can put the rivets on yourself and the front button on yourself and then they'll sew on the patch. It's really fun.

I got a really cool pair of jeans that. The front button is. It's hoku size wave. You know, the old, like Japanese, like the wave. Um, yeah, just. Just so much fun. You just got to experience making jeans and then you have a really nice pair of jeans. It's like a souvenir. So most of my souvenirs were jeans and pencils.

Yeah.

Yeah. So I had a plan. Didn't hit them all. There's still a bunch on the list. Um, but most of those are stuff that's not in Tokyo. Um, and I really only spent time in Tokyo, so I really want to go to Kyoto and Osaka and a few other places. Um, and I didn't. I didn't also. I also didn't go to the Travelers Factory, which I would have loved to have gone to the Traveler store. But they. They have had weird hours and just kind of conflicted with some other stuff.

Yeah, I also gotta go. Went to this. A couple cool, like, electronic stores. There's one called Yamabashi Camera Shop, which is in Tokyo, which is. It's called the Camera Shop, but it's like nine huge, huge floors of just like personal electronics. Like, if it's a consumer electronics, it's there. That was overwhelming, but so fun. And I also went to this really neat. There's this thrift store called Hard off, which is a hilarious name, but you go in and they have like, musical genre. Yeah, yeah. I can't sell that.

Tim's showing us his floppy pencil. Excuse me.

I mean, you can just go and buy like a Nintendo DS that may or may not work for 20 bucks. And they have like, old, like, Super Famicoms, which is the original Japanese NES Nintendo. It's kind of like blue, red and gold in color. And you can buy that for like $10. And like, they test it and maybe you can fix it and maybe you can't. It's just fun things like that. I didn't buy one, but I just think they're really cool.

That's a really good question. I. I really, really wanted to find pencils that I had never seen or heard of. And the trouble was is I kind of failed in that. Like, I did. I did find some pencils that I hadn't really seen or some. That I haven't heard of, but almost all of them are ones that like, you know, we know about or have talked about or I've been able to get, like in San Francisco or. You've gotten in. Yeah, just elsewhere. So I had. I didn't see a whole lot of pencils that I wasn't sort of familiar with, but I. I really wanted to just sort of like, see. Just see what these experiences were. So there were like the make your own Parker jotter thing or the notebook making thing. Like, there's like. I think I included a man. My brain isn't working the made by elaborate process. I think I threw in one of those pencils in the packs I sent you guys just because. Yeah, it's kind of hard to come by. And they're dark. Yeah. And just. They're kind of hard to come by. But you can get them there.

Yeah, so great, great pencils. I think that we've heard of Most of them, but. But I just wanted to see what was out there. So I'm a little bit worried that we're just sort of saturated. Like, next stop is like, we just need to go to like China and India and places where they are mostly making pencils that aren't exported for themselves. I think that's the next frontier of us finding, finding about new pencils because we know mostly about Japan pencils already that I've seen.

But I will say that I did, I did a little bit. One of the things I wanted to try to do was find like antique pencils in Japan. And I did. I do feel pretty successful in that. Like, my girlfriend did a little research into like some of the vintage shopping districts of Tokyo. There's one called Shima Kitanawa and it is lots of like, you can buy like vintage clothes. There's a lot of like just very American stuff from like the 80s, like the big colorful clothes. And there's a whole store that sold just like nothing but like old like Esprit and New Balance and just like that kind of vapor wavy. Like our friend Dade would be in love with this place. The other trouble that I found that I think Tim would also find there is is they don't really have American sizes. So I was. Luckily they have enough Americans coming through that Betty Smith shop where I could find like a size 38, like waist, but cannot, cannot find like a lot of XL clothes. So like shirts and stuff. So that was hard. But I did find some amazing. I'm going to pull them out real quick, so if only for this next bit like you. You should all go subscribe so you can watch our video. But we found this antique shop that sold. It was just like everything you want out of antique shop is like real crowded, kind of dark, really cluttered. I had to like sidestep through like some tables to get to the cashier and I was afraid of like knocking the stuff over. And there's this like, really just like, just like kindly elderly man in the back who was sitting at this desk that's like way down low with just a bunch of stuff around it. And I think he was like writing in a notebook even. Like there's no computer in sight. And I just, I found this like little side table where there were just like, just a very familiar, just like size boxes that were just packs of pencils. I was like, so I go over there, and I, I, I bought a good $80 worth of things, but some of the things I got was. Let me see. See if I can find this here. This is a pack of pencils from. Is it the 1964 Olympics that were in Tokyo?

It's really cool. Olympics pencils with, like, little tigers on them, which was sort of like the little mascot of the. Of that year of the Olympics. These really cool 1960s pencils, like, children's school pencils. I had a little white blonde kid on it. Everything's in. In Japanese. What's cool about this is these pencils like this end, so it's hard to see, but what you're looking at is a pack of blue pencils. And then, like, the, like an inch of one of the ends are in a different color, and you stare at one end, and this is graphite. And if you stare at the other end, that's colored pencil.

So these were. These were, like, children's writing pencils. Well, maybe I'll see if I can take some pictures of these and put them, like, in a, like in an album or something and share them. The one that was really cool is this. And this is hard to see.

I'll show you the back of it. It is just a. Has gorgeous sort of like all Japanese scrolling on it. Just beautifully designed. The pencils themselves are just plain wood. A lot of writing. And I brought this up, and I asked the guy to translate and, Or I, I asked. I asked him if he. If he spoke English. And he. He was like, yes.

So it's like, can you tell me about these pencils? And he was, like, reading them. And he was like, okay, this says the Miyagi Prefecture Student School supply Company. And that was from, like, when businesses were. Or companies like, that were still. And he, he didn't have the word for nationalized, but still kind of like nationalized in Japan. And he was like, I think these are, like, before World War II. And. Wow. So I'm like, I'm sitting here with, like, Japanese school pencils from, like, the 30s or the 40s, which is pretty incredible. And I think I paid the equivalent of, like, 20 bucks for it, but, like, yeah, but well worth it. Found a couple other good ones. Like, I found some old vintage Ione pencils. I. I don't know how old they are, but they don't have a barcode on the box. So I'm assuming it's pre 1990s. So yeah, I, I was really excited about just like, you know, some of the, just finding some of the vintage pencils. So eventually I'll like try to crack em open.

I, I, I did joke. I texted my friend Bruce pictures of all this and he, he's go, he goes, great. Did you just buy out the neighborhood of, of like vintage. I was like, pretty close.

Yeah. That was really fun. So that wasn't like my kind of my main intention, but I was really glad to be able to discover that. Another thing. Excuse me. I really wanted to. Well, I'll talk about this in some of these next questions, so I'll save that story.

Yeah, what is my favorite find? I, I do really like, I do really like the, those, those old pencils. I, you know, like some of the. We'll talk about the Kidoboshi tour here in a little bit. I did also find a really cool other thing, and I think I included that in your packs. But there's a gray, there's a gray pencil called a Craftsman pencil that I sent you guys. Yes, yes. And describing it for the audience, it's just a very simple, like matte grape. Excuse me. And taking some cough suppressants, matte gray pencil that just says Craftsman pencil on it. And they come in different grades. And so I bought that at a daiso and I went to this really big daiso. And for those of you who aren't in where in the US they have daisos, it's like a big lots, or not lots, but Japanese. And I went to a very large daiso and they had this like sub brand called Standard Equipment. And it was all in English. And Standard Equipment is they're trying to compete, I think, with Muji, because I got both a. This pencil and I got that notebook, that kind of green notebook that I sent you guys is from, from Standard Equipment. And it is a very nice pencil. It's very cheap. It was like $2 for a pack of. How many are in here six. And they had all different. They had like several different grades. And each progressive grade, the gray is darker. So it went from a very light gray to a very dark gray, which was cool. Very well color coded.

Yeah, it's really good. And I was trying to figure out it. If you have a high class golden sword, use it side by side. And I think it's. I think they're exact. I think they're the same and they're weighted different because it doesn't have an eraser and it's like coated in gray. But they're made at Kitaboshi and so is the high class golden sword. And I think that they're probably the same pencil and they're both like Muji not or Daiso branded pencils. So yeah, this is really good. If I haven't seen them in any of the daisos in the U.S. but if. If you see any that have sort of like this sub brand section in it that's like. It's like gray with like Helvetica like script that says standard equipment. And it's a lot of like home goods and stationery and stuff. That's what this is. And it's basically just a Daiso trying to take up some Muji market share.

I'll mention I said this kind of in our pre show but like I was also buying some stuff for some nieces who love hello Kitty and Sanrio stuff and a nephew who loves Pokemon. And even then like I found way more cool stuff for you guys. So. So I sent a. I'll maybe post a picture. I asked Tony to take a picture of this so I could remember what I sent you guys. But I. One of the. My favorite things I sent was We've talked about UniBall 1 on the show before and that's a Uniball brand that's very like nicely colored and very smooth and simple and minimalistic. And I found this really gorgeous multi pen that's a collab between Uniball1 and Karimoku. I know my pronunciation is real crap. Sorry guys. Karimoku. And it is a Japanese Furniture brand. And it is this gorgeous sort of like burnt orange. And the grip is wood and it has like black, blue, green, red multi pen stuff and mechanical pencil, which is cool. Oh, and yeah, mechanical pencil. And the push down the, like. Yeah,

I found this at Tokyo Hands and it's just really gorgeous. I had been getting Instagram ads for them just for the, like, several weeks before. And I was like, oh, and I would go into Mido and like, look for it, but I couldn't find it there. So what's funny is now it's at Mido, like, it's not cool. Exclusive from Japan. But I just loved it so much. I wanted to get you guys some.

Also of note, I don't know what that weird little pencil with, like, the

Okay, cool. Yeah, but it.

it's a crappy writing pencil, but it looks cool. And I got that.

Okay, that's good. I got that at Kakimori, which is that. That notebook making shop. They just had that there. Put a couple Kidoboshis in here. I'll talk here about the Kiboshi factory too, in a little bit. Oh, I found a really cool Japan exclusive Rhodia notepad. And yes, found that at Tokyo Hands. And that is Rhodia with. And the difference is, is the lining. Well, it's white and has like a rising sun on the front, but the lining is in red instead of in the Rhodia purple. Um, like the ruling. That's. That's pretty fun. Um, I really wanted to get you guys. There was, you know, Rollbahn notebooks, like those Delphonics. Um, in the US I feel like you can find like, one or two at some different shops, but in Japan, they're all over. And I just wanted to go ham with the Rhodia. Um, I did not. But also my. I was rapidly using up luggage space, so I was wondering. In fact, I had to put all the books and paper products that I bought in my carry on because they were just. My weight was well over the limits, so. Yeah, so. And then I don't really know anything about that eraser. I just thought it looked cool. And Eraser is really nice. It's just a pretty typical Japanese plastic eraser.

Yeah.

Interesting. No, I cannot tell you about it because I don't remember where I got it.

I think I might have picked it up just because it was a Mitsubishi pencil. And I had never seen them all in white like that before. I don't. I don't know. I haven't actually tried mine out.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's talk about the Kidoshi tour next. But that was in their shop. Their like little store, factory shop there. So I have seen very few Kidoboshi branded Kidoboshi pencils. Like I've used obviously Black Wings and like the. The Daiso pencils that are from Kitaboshi. And I have a feeling that they sort of like white label a lot of other pencils. Kido, she really is the Musgrave of Japan. And we'll talk more about that in a little bit. But yeah, there was really one really cool thing. Some of the pencils that I picked up in those antique shops are called Horubashi. Yeah, Horbashi Pencils. And that's an old stationary brand that doesn't exist anymore and sort of got wrapped into other brands. And I found out a few other interesting things, just about the numbering. Kitaboshi has a pencil called an 8900. And I was like, that's interesting because Tombow. Is it Tombow or is it mitSubishi as an 8900? Tombow. Right, Tombo, I think.

Anyway, so I was asking the guy who was giving the factory tour about this and he was telling me about how a lot of the companies over the years have split and come back together. And so some company that used to be Kidoboshi, that Kidoboshi is born out of and Tombow was born out of kind of like split and came together. So like the model number of 8,900 predates some of the brand names. And so they just both take sort of like that designation with them, which was a really interesting. Just factoid I learned that is cool.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Which, like, it's amazing just to like, go into a 711 and be able to buy a pack of combo pencils. Right?

I have no idea.

Yeah.

Mostly 7 11s are not like Japanese 7 11s.

like, mom and pop shop and find

Yeah.

because now they're all on ebay. Yeah.

So can I. Can I talk about my Kidoboshi factory tour?

Yeah. So my friend Bruce told him I was coming to Tokyo and we had a really nice. He. He took us to this really great little place that made. Made its own miso. Like, it's one of the. You sit on the floor, like, it just looks like an old.

What do you think of when you think of an old Japanese restaurant? Paper. Paper screens, like. And he goes, hey, do you want me to see if I can arrange a Kidoboshi factory tour? I'm like, yes, please. So, yeah, so he. He called the factory, he arranged it, we show up. We're the only one. I asked if this was like a situation where it's like VIP pencil podcaster going through a factory, or if this is just like a regular tour. He's like, it'll probably be a regular tour, but. But we show up and we were the only ones there. So what's amazing is. I mean, not amazing, but lucky for me. Bruce is fluent in Japanese and English, so he translated the whole time for us, which was really lucky because there was no way I was going to be able to do that before. But. So the. The guy giving the tour is the board chairman, Sugi. What's his name? Kazutoshi san. Uh, he is the former president of Kidoboshi. His son is now the president. He was. So he was the fourth generation president and his son is the fifth generation. And he sort of just. Kazutoshi san now just sort of like does whatever he wants because he is retired. And so he gives tours and he also. He also does art. And I'll tell more about this art in a second.

So I walk in and like, just. Just the walls are covered with like. Like little sculptures that look like it's made out of modeling clay and, like, pictures on the walls and this sort of like, 3D paint.

And everything's kind of, like, kind of tinted in, like, a wood color. And later I come to find out that, you know how, like, cal. Cedar in the old day, they would take all of their sawdust and they would turn it into fire logs that they. They would, you know, was Duraflame. Kinoboshi takes all of their sawdust and turns it into modeling clay. So they have. And paint.

They, like, grind their wood. Their wood down to such fine amounts that they use it as, like, filler for paint and for modeling clay. And that's what, like, the walls are covered in. So he and his wife are both artists, and they will, like, create the stuff, and they sell it too. I almost bought a bag, but it was fairly heavy, and I was like, I don't want to carry this.

Yeah, we played with a little bit. That was cool. It reminded me a lot of shoot. What is that? It's like, fluffy kind of. And then it hardens into something that's not super hard, but still, but, like, harder, right?

Yeah, it's kind of.

Bloemish. But it hardens. It smell. But it smells like cedar, which is really cool. So his. His tour is like, a lot of. So first you watch this, like, video that I think was maybe a paid advertisement for Kidoboshi and, like, local media, and it's one of those very, like, Japanese news programs where there's just like, these goofy guys who are talking to somebody very serious, and then there's like, a little random person reacting in the corner, like, watching it and reacting. And so Bruce was, like, kind of translating as we were going. But it was basically the story of, like, how a pencil is made. And you take this wood and you squish it and blah, blah, blah, and you dry out the core. And it's like, we all know how pencils are made, but, like, it was. It was pretty neat. So then he starts asking, like, he was very interactive. He's like, does can anybody guess, like, who invented the, like, the. The grading process and, like, drying out the graphite and how. I was like, Nicholas Kante. And he was like, it was Napoleon and it was for this. And I was like, well, Napoleon had scientist Nicholas Conte to it. Like, I wasn't arguing with him. Just because I. You didn't want Jacques. Yeah, Jacques Conte, not Nicholas. But it was. It was funny.

Talked a lot about it. He had some just really interesting stuff that kind of like Hitoboshi innovated. They're working on this, like, watercolor style colored pencil. Like, they have this cool sharpener that's like wastes kind of a minimum of wood when it sharpens or wastes a minimum of graphite, which is neat. So going through this and then the factory tour, like, we spent probably 45 minutes, like sitting talking about this stuff and showing examples of. Of things. And then the factual factory tour was maybe like 10 minutes. Like, we walk across the street and look in and like, we could. I. I was able to see the. The painting machine going. Like it was spitting out pencils. And I was able to see the foil stamping machine going. Um, I did find out that their graphite formulation, which to me I think is kind of the magic sauce of Kitaboshi, that's actually done off site. Um, they don't actually mix the graphite there. And so it's shipped to this place where they squish it into pencils. So that was neat. Actually, my favorite thing was they had Outback a pencil shrine, like a Shinto shrine for pencils. And it is. It is celebrating. Celebrating the spirit of pencils. And he has this whole thing and I. He was actually talking about this and I was writing down quotes. I'm gonna write a woodclinch post about this. I haven't put anything on woodclinch since our live show, like, beginning of the pandemic. But he. So the way this translates, I'll. I'll say it and then I'll actually try to like, give a bit more context. But one of the things he said is pencils shave their body for the benefit of the mission. And basically. Basically what that means is, you know, they. They reduce like, their mass and they like, give up of themselves for like, what people are trying to do. So he has this whole thing about like. And I think like, Shinto is very much like about sort of like souls or spirits kind of embodied in sometimes things that are inanimate, like trees or rocks or things that have some kind of like, life that we give them. And he was kind of giving it life to pencils and how kind of like selfless they are like that. So he had this other whole sort of metaphor that I was kind of trying to latch onto the. Basically, pencils are like human humans. They're the pieces are put together, sandwiched together to make them unbending. So these two pieces of wood become one and they're sacrificing yourself, which is. Yeah, unlike. Same as floppy pencil.

No.

Yeah. So they were trying to think of very corporate ways to celebrate the spirit of the pencil. And they have this little Shinto shrine out back. And one of the things you can do is. Is you can feed in if like stubs of pencils. And every year at like sometime in. In. No, in November, they will go and they'll have a. They'll do a ritualistic burning of these stubs of pencils to celebrate the pencils. And for every five pencil stubs you put in there, they will give you a. A new pencil that has been blessed by Shinto priests. What? And so he.

I didn't have any pencil stubs, but he did give me a pencil that was blessed by Shinto priests.

Yeah. So I'll. I'll post some pictures on somewhere and offer a link in the show notes. But that was really fun. It was. It was not. It wasn't what I was expecting as like a factory tour because it's very. It's a lot more mom and pop than I was thinking they would be. Um, but I also, like, I realized during this trip that like Kiriboshi is the Musgrave of Japan. And like, it's very like family run. It is very small and kind of a residential neighborhood.

They do a lot of white labeling. So I. It's very much like the. The Musgrave of Japan. And I was trying to figure out if like, this guy knows like Henry Hulen and I couldn't quite get through, but they did have a. There was a guitar on the wall. And I looked at this guitar closely and it's a guitar that's made out of cedarwood. Tim, you'll appreciate this. I think both of you will liking guitars. I'll send you this picture, but it's this guitar on the wall and there's a old picture behind it, like mounted beside it. And it is. I want to say it's from the 70s or 80s, maybe the early 90s, not quite sure. And it is this. This Katsutoshi Saiyan San and Charles Berolsheimer, a much younger Charles, because I'm guessing maybe. I don't know if they still do, but at least back then they like cal cedar supplied the wood. I think they still do. Because during the presentation he was like, does anybody know where our cedar comes from? I'm like, California instant cedar from Northern California. So, yeah, I think that. I think that Charles made that guitar out of. Out of incense cedar and gave one to.

Kazutoshi san. Yeah, that was funny. And then also in another corner was a copy of the pencil. Perfect. Translated into Japanese. Beside it was a picture of Kazutoshi san and Caroline. So that was funny.

Yeah.

I think so. I feel like all the pencils I saw were pretty high end. And I can't say for certain like, that they are or that they're like incense cedar, but they really seem like it and they smell like it. So I didn't. I don't think I really ran across and I was only listening, looking in like stationary shops and stuff. But like, I would see. I would walk on the street and see like a, like a, A construction worker and of course had a nice little like, like hyuni or something in his pocket or like all I saw were pencils that I know are made out of cedar. So did not see any like, low end, like basswood or anything that I could tell.

Somebody with more experience can correct me on that.

Well, one thing that I'm so one thing that really just like kind of almost made me uncomfortable. But tipping is not a thing in Japan. And so, like, I had very good service, like from. So if I go to a hotel, I'm usually like, if it's a nice hotel, and I stayed at a pretty nice hotel, if somebody brings some stuff up, I'll tip them. And I usually try to tip like housekeeping. And if there's, like, somebody, you know, doing good stuff. I'll tip. Don't tip in Japan, like, sometimes and often tipping is, like, considered rude. Like, you don't need to tip me.

Like, so, so don't, don't tip in Japan.

One of the things I noticed is that I feel like, broadly speaking, people are more rule followers. And like, I was in a hotel and, like, I left the do not disturb sign on my room before I went down to the onsen and was hoping that they were going to, like, clean my room, but I forgot about it. And so, like, I, and I went down to the front desk and I asked them, like, hey, do you mind servicing my room? Forgetting that I had the do not disturb sign on. So later she goes, oh, Mr. Wealthley, like, the do not disturb sign was on, but you asked us to clean your room. Just, like, kind of confused. It's like, oh, I'm sorry. I forgot about that. And they were like, okay, thanks. Thanks for letting me know. We'll clean it. But also, like, please be sure to remove that sign. So, and then people don't really cross the crosswalks unless the light is green. Like, it's, it's, There's a lot of, like, things are a lot more methodical, and I feel like that sort of, like, method is something that they take a little bit more seriously. And honestly, in, in some ways, in some ways, I think it's good to know, like, think about the process, break things down into, into methods, into process. I think that's a good kind of, like, takeaway there. Um, I don't know what else. I, I don't know. I, I, I tried very hard to just, like, you know, my, I don't know Japanese, but I tried very hard to like, learn the basics, like, you know, Arigato gozaimasu. Thank you very much. One that I used a lot, sumi masen is excuse me. I was very bad at it. Like, if I was in somebody's way, I would say, excuse me. And a couple times, my girlfriend, who has been to Japan several more times than I have, is like, you know, people don't know what excuse me means. It's like, well, I know I'm just, like, trying to be, like, alert my presence. Big dumb American guy. Um, but, yeah, sumi masen. I've said that a few times.

Yeah, did you wear the pencils? One thing that I didn't even mention that I just, like, that sort of, like, collector's itch in my brain that it just. Just scratched that itch so well. And something that was just a little. I would call it a moment of delight that I found. There's lots of places have, like, stamps, like, rubber stamps to show that you were there. And it was no more obvious than, like, several of the subway stops had. The stations had a little section where there were stamps. They call them Eki. Eki. And you go in, and I didn't have, like, a. Some people have special notebooks to collect these stamps. And I just use my field notes. And you go in and there's, like,

And I was just stamping my notebook. And those are cool.

I'm showing. I'm holding this up to the screen, but I have one from the Ningyocho station, which is like a little dog and a little. It's known for this clock in the neighborhood. And, Tim, you'll appreciate that the Jimbocho neighborhood apparently is. There's a big sort of, like, sports arena there. So there's like, a cool little basketball or baseball there.

Yeah. So just some of the other lines, some of the Shinkansen have stamp. The bullet trains have stamps, and some of the special places, like. Like the big kind of Tokyo Tower, that big thing in the sky, has stamps. And you can just collect these stamps. And I love this. And some of the stamps are right there. Some of the stamps, you had to go, like, ask the ticketmaster, the guy at the ticket station. And I basically just, like, showed my notebook and I was like, like, stamp. And he knew exactly what I meant, because I'm sure that happens a lot.

Yeah. So amazing stamps. I really want to go back, and there's 78 transit stamps, and I just want to go collect them all.

Like a little experience.

It's. It's delightful. I want. I would love that to exist in the US More. I just thinking about how cool it would be if, like, different stops. Because in San Francisco, our main subway line, like, our stops have, like. They're in different parts of town that have different histories and cool little meanings. How cool would it be to have, like, a little stamp somewhere there? Wouldn't cost much money. A little station. People who know about it, know about it, and people who don't, they don't care. Another thing kind of along the same lines, but maybe a little bit more, I don't know, reverential or Just like have more of history is there's something called goshen. And at various Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines. So we went to the Meiji Shrine, which is kind of a big famous one. Like if you've seen pictures of it, like you, you probably recognize it. But they have like, you go up and you go into the shrine, you, you like cleanse your hands and wash your mouth. And then you do this thing where you bow twice and clap twice and give an offering. But then in the back they have little souvenirs and little like things you can buy. And one of the things was a

So I was like. So my, my ears immediately perked up and so I come to learn this is different big shrines and there's shrines everywhere. But big shrines have these little notebooks and they're called like, I'm going to butcher this Goshin Icho. And they're notebooks for your goshen. And you go in and you pay. I think I paid the equivalent of like 15 bucks for it. And the first page has a stamp and some calligraphy. And then what you do is you take this notebook and next time you go to a different shrine, you go get their goshen. Like they, if they're like a, a big one, they have like a priest who is on site who will do the calligraphy. And sometimes they come in like little separate cards because they're pre made. But what's amazing, these cards, exact same size as no big ocean. So you can just paste them in there. And as, as a book binder. Johnny, I think you'll appreciate this.

Oh, let me see if I can pull this out. It's one of those, those notebooks where the pages kind of like pull that one. Oh, neat. And of course this paper is impeccable, but you don't write in this. This is just for your temple visits. And. Excuse me. So different shrines of different Goshenicho. Like some are just like, have different designs and sometimes they'll have limited edition ones. Some shrines, if it's raining, they'll have a different goshen that they use. And some shrines, if it's, if it's cherry blossom season, they have a different one and some have different ones for special events. And you just go and you just collect this stuff and you make like an offering of like five bucks or whatever when you do it and whatever, like whatever that is. Like that sort of like little collect them all kind of mindset. Like a. Like no wonder Pokemon is from Japan.

You're getting all your gym badges. Yeah, exactly. Like this is my foursquare check in but like in my notebook.

Honestly if, if, if ever you have a chance to go to Japan, like do it and bring lots of notebooks and paper and just like go collect all this stuff. Like it's so fun. So. And like you know there's hundreds and hundreds of these shrines around and some don't have like anybody like, like working and providing the stuff. But there's different ones. Like this one.

It has like little cats on the bottom of it and those. Apparently this is for pregnancies. So pregnant women go to the shrine and get a blessing for like having a safe pregnancy. A lot of like there were a lot of like older people who were there and it's from what I, I learned it's a lot of like people going to, hoping their like their daughters or daughters in law were going to have a good pregnancy. So they're kind of doing that on their behalf. And so just fun stuff like that. Um, I mean Shinto isn't fun, it's a religion.

It's, it's, it's kind of cool how, how that's incorporated.

I liked way more than I thought. I liked my onsen experience. And so an onsen is like a Japanese spa. Like a public bath or not a public bath, but like a like hot springs bath. So when I was in, when I was in Niseko, that skiing town, so I, I am not a skier and I skied for half a day and then I lost all of my energy. But this hotel we stayed at was really nice and had a built in onsen. So the hot springs in northern Japan like they would pipe in and has all these really lovely natural minerals. But what you do is you go in. There's like the men's onsen and the women's onsen and you go in and they specifically say like, do not wear clothes in the onsen. So just like you're just naked. So, so you go in and there's like a, you sit down, there's like a little like shower station and you clean, you soap up your hair and Soap up yourself and you clean yourself before you go sit in the bath. But it was, it was. So apparently Niseko is also really well known for just like being just A lot of Australians go there to ski apparently.

I mean there were so many Australians, like most people spoke English, so it was just me and like, like probably three other just like naked Australians in the. Just in this onsen and you go and you just like, you know, you sit in just like this really just nice and hot bath, like big, big bath and you just soak and it smells nice and the water is like very minerally and has like little floating bits in it that like. It's just really nice. And that was lovely. And they had an outdoor one. So it was, it's winter. It was like 30 degrees. It was around the freezing point. So it was around 0 degrees Celsius. Trying to learn Celsius because yeah, lots of Japan and Canada use that more. So it was, it wasn't cold, cold, cold, but it was cold. But you just go in and you're breathing this like nice air and there's like snow cause there's walls you can't see out, but the sky is open and so it's like snow is kind of like coming in and it's just really nice. And you could see where the springs were coming into like it basically. I don't know if you've ever seen Spirited Away, which is a, like a studio Ghibli film. Kind of like My Neighbor Totoro or something like that same studio. But Spirited Away is about like a, like a nonsen. And the, the water comes in and it's all natural and then it's heated there and then recirculated and so it's pouring out of a little thing and just a really lovely meditative experience. I don't have any pictures cuz there is nakedness and you're not allowed to bring your phone in so you won't ever see that. But where would you hold it? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

You don't always do it. They had a, they had a plunge bath. So like you're sitting in these baths and if you want to you can get up and go to this frigidly cold water and just plunge yourself. So I tried it cuz I wanted to know what this was like and I was just like definitely made my heart race. You just. It's like jumping into a pool and just holding like just doing it because it's so cold. And then you get back in the warm bath and then it's like very tingly, like kind of prickly. You can just feel all of your nerve endings. Um, but yeah, that was. The onsens are a really nice experience. Had really good food, had the best ramen in my life. Like. Yeah.

Yeah, that's another thing. No tattoos, which I think maybe you're alluding to. So tattoos are a little bit verboten in Japan. Like it's because, it's because the, the Yakuza get tattoos and so, so there are many onsens where they will turn you away if you have tattoos. Cuz like it's maybe considered a little unclean and like dirty. And the yakuza have tattoos. Like obviously my like little pencil tattoo and my little cat using a computer tattoo are like not Yakuza tattoos.

So I, and also I went to a onsen that's part of very private, part of a hotel that has caters to a lot of like Western tourists. So like that was fine. But my girlfriend has several more tattoos than I do and she said that like there's like we kind of look for some onsens in Tokyo, but most of them were just like no tattoos. So yeah, we did see, we did see some people with tattoos. And what's funny is they were mostly like Japanese people that were kind of in like very, what I would consider like Westernish contexts. Like we went to that, one of the really good coffee shops we went to. That guy had a lot of tattoos and he was Japanese, but he had a lot, he spoke English very well. He had like typical, what I would consider typical, like hipster barista tattoos. Just like sleeves, just like line drawings up his like arm and hair in a man bun like very much like I would guess what you would see going into a high end coffee shop in like Asheville. Um, there were, there were some artists and some people who worked at some of the vintage shops that had tattoos. But I would say the general public probably don't have tattoos. So Johnny, if you go to Japan like and, and you can actually, if you Google tattoo friendly onsens, they will give you a list of ones that, that do that. So if you're going, if you're in Japan, Johnny, and you're in like a situation that's like maybe you're going to like an old timey temple or to a really fancy restaurant, like maybe wear long sleeves. But other than that it's fine. Like, they're like, oh, that's a white dude. That's fine.

Yeah.

But also that's not even another coast.

Yeah. It.

Plane ride. Awful. It was nine, I think. I think 10 hours was my first. My jaunt. Like, we flew San Francisco to Vancouver, Vancouver to Narita. The Japanese, the Tokyo airport. But still a. Yeah. Like it's not as bad as when I went to Singapore, which was a 17 hour flight.

Yeah. So, yeah, I don't know if that's basically it. It was. I absolutely want to go back. I feel like the second time around, I have like kind of an expectation set of what is there and what to expect. Getting there is expensive. I would actually say that, like, if you're not doing wildly expensive, high end things, like being in Japan is like pretty inexpensive and like you can have a really good meal for less than $20. Like for two people.

Especially like you every. Everywhere has beer. And it's mostly like, it's funny in the U.S. like, it's mostly like Sapporo, like Sapporo beer and. And Japanese restaurants. And that's the same there. But like I was inside Sapporo. That was kind of cool. That's the like prefecture that like Niseco was in. So that was pretty fun.

I know. Yeah. And also apparently the yen is not doing so great right now. So like American money will. Will convert better.

And then also like the important things. The important things to know on signage is in English too. So stops, like subway stops and like rules before you enter. And often menu, often there's an English menu. So as a monolingual American person, like I could get by pretty well. There are a few situations like that spaghetti situation. Spaghetti situation.

The spaghetti situation.

Yeah. I can't even improv right now, but if anybody's thinking about a trip overseas, like getting there is going to be a little expensive, but once you're there. I was surprised in how little it costs, relatively speaking.

Yeah. I've been talking for. Yeah, yeah.

Like, thanks for listening.

Well, you guys know there is a podcast about. It's not specifically about wooden pencils, but it is about stationary and pencils. Like, there is a Japanese podcast about pencils in Japan.

I don't know. Bruce. My friend Bruce. And we need to get Bruce on this show, but he was a guest on that show, and I definitely think having some kind of a, like, meeting of minds would be a really cool thing. So maybe we need to do one of those.

It is in Japanese. It is. Apparently it has just not penetrated the Western market very much, but I'll. I'll figure out what it's called and put it in. So notes. But yeah, that's definitely a cool, cool thing.

Specifically Johnny.

One quick note about that. I can't remember if I mentioned this last episode, but you can now do annual plans with us. Plans with us. So if you don't want to give a monthly payment, but you wanted to like do kind of maybe a larger like one lump sum every year, you can do that on our Patreon now. So yeah, I set that up recently, sweetest.

Yeah, social medias. Find me in Japan, the coffee shops.

I'm at. You can find all my stuff at Andy. Wtf? And I think I'm going to put something about this trip and about Kidoboshi on Woodclinched, my long suffering pencil blog. So you have. I know. Yeah.

Tim.

I need a Johnny left.

You try not to get shot by Johnny's Nerf guns. That's right.