Are you interested in angels, demons, spirits, ghosts, and monsters? Are you curious about their origins, tales, and influence upon history and on the present day? If so, sit back, relax, and welcome to Southern Demonology, the podcast that explores all of this and more.
Hi, this is Monica Reinagel of Nutrition Diva. Today's show is sponsored by Nature Raised Farms. Grocery shopping can be a little overwhelming, especially if you're reading labels. And in my opinion, chicken shouldn't be complicated. Which is why I appreciate Nature Raised Farms. It's chicken that's just chicken. And their lightly breaded chicken nuggets are free from gluten, dairy, and soy. Look for Nature Raised Farms on your next grocery trip and feel more confident about your choices.
Saturday, September 26th, Two of Combat Sports Most Dangerous Strikers Collide. Bare Knuckle. Liverpool's own down the Guerrilla Till goes to war with super powerhouse no hell soldier Ramiro. Plus the bare knuckle middleware championship of the world is on the line with the rain's depth Dave the Redneck Mundell defense against undefeated British challenger, Jack the Meat Cleaver Colour, BKST94, Till vs. Ramiro. Watch it live only on the zone. Sign up now at the zone.com.
To anyone who has listened to this podcast for any length of time, you will know that I am a complete Nungophile. In other words, I love all things Japanese. I became hooked on the language and the culture after becoming intrigued by watching of all things Gundam Wing after classes in grad school. And that love persisted until I got the opportunity to go live in Japan a decade later as part of my duties at the company I worked at at the time. And I was there for two years.
While I was able to bring the best part of Japan back with me, namely my wife and daughters, I yearned to live in the country like a person forced to flee their homeland. That's why we would go back every chance we got. Well, when the human malware was upon us, that of course stopped cold. Japan closed its doors to the world like many countries did, and it remained that way for three years. While my wife was able to go back and see family as citizens and permanent residents were still permitted entry, I sadly could not. That is until last year.
The country began to make moves to open up first to those who booked guided tours, then, after gauging infection rates during the mass travel that normally happens over Golden Week, the country finally dropped all restrictions in October of 2022. And by God, we jumped on that chance. We immediately booked tickets, and on December 11th, my wife and I hopped on the plane and commenced a 23-hour trip. Six hours to LA, five hours of a layover, and a 12-hour flight to Hanaida Airport in Tokyo. Now, when I normally go to Japan, the one stop will be either Dallas Fort Worth or Pearson, Canada.
I thought that by going to LA, then that would help chop the trip into shorter legs. Unfortunately, that only served to extend the total flight time as the plane flies under Alaska from LA rather than through or above it. Much to my chagrin, I don't know about you, but I am the type of person that cannot fall asleep on an airplane besides a 10-minute cat nap. Why I have no bloody idea that holds true for economy, business class, or that one fateful trip where I was upgraded to first class, headed to the land of the rising sun.
I even on this trip bought both a comfy seat cushion and a very nice neck pillow, all for naught, besides having a slightly less sore tailbone than normal. And so 5 30 a.m. on the morning of December 13th, my wife and I landed at Haneda, and three hours later, we had made it to my father-in-law's apartment. And while the trip there was less than fun, that kicked off a month-long visit that was better than I could have ever imagined. Welcome back to season three, episode two of the Southern Demonology Podcast. As always, I'm your host, JJ.
While I did feel back at home, it was very hard not to notice all the changes. On the airplane before disembarking, the flight crew had made an announcement that masking in Japan was nearly universal, and I paid that no thought. Of course it is. Masks were always a very common sight. Even if a person gets sick, they still come to work unless it's really bad. They normally just throw on a mask and go about their day. Well, I should have paid a little bit more attention to that. Maybe I've gotten used to not wearing a mask in public anymore.
Not that I have anything against that, but that was going to change quick, fast, and in a hurry. COVID pre-vaccination protocols are still observed everywhere. The moment you leave your front door, you put on a mask. You only take it off again when you get back home. Restaurants have plastic barriers up. What used to be open smoking sections have been eliminated and replaced with smoking boxes. There's even an entirely new smokeless electronic cigarette holder that many people have. Now, why is this?
There's a practical reason that while a city the size of Tokyo could never afford social distancing, there's just too many people for that to ever be a reality. The mass helped to alleviate that aspect. But it goes beyond that too. For example, social distancing amongst celebrities on all the talk shows is still strictly enforced. And I think the main reason is the fundamental difference in the views of rights. In the US, rights are absolutely individual based. However, in Japan, that is shifted to the community.
And this is most typified by the lovely phrase, the nail that sticks out is hammered first. Now, I'm not saying any of this as a negative. In fact, I find it works extremely well. Now, there are some bad signs that come with that. You even find it actualized in what I consider to be probably the worst part about living in Japan, which is office business culture. And the tiniest aspect of that is you will rarely find people taking vacations more than a few days in length, as they simply do not want to overburden their co-workers or cause disruptions for their department.
Anyway, I will stop there, for otherwise, this one topic alone will overtake the entire episode. Anyway, the next day we started off our time there with a visit to our favorite place, Ofur no Osama, the Bath of the King, and the neighboring town of Hanukokane. It's about a 45-minute walk or a 20-minute bike ride. If you ever get the chance, go to a barbershop in Japan. You will thank me later. The onsen has a barbershop on premises, and they took both my wife and I. And my god, I have never been more relaxed in my entire life.
They cut your hair, they shave your face, they shave your nose, they trim your ears, you get hot towels on your face. Now keep in mind, I am bald, and they still somehow spent more time on me, an hour to be precise, than on my wife, who has very long and very beautiful hair. Top that experience off with bathing outside in the cold air and some of the most amazing hot water imaginable. And I could feel the accumulated stress of years melt off my shoulders. But let's go back to the whole bike riding thing that I skipped over. Now, I'm going to be honest, I learned how to ride a bike as a kid.
Well, except for that one time when I was living in Japan and tried to ride a bike, and that did not go well. And sure enough, trying to ride a bike again on this trip did not go well. At least at first. Whoever came up with the phrase that you'll never forget how to ride a bike should be dragged out into the street and shot. I looked like a baby giraffe trying to walk the moment after being born. I fell down a lot. I wobbled all over the place, and that is not conductive when riding on a very populated path. See, where my father-in-law lives, there is a road called the Green Road.
It runs between numerous surrounding towns, it has parks and train stations along its path, and even has several protector spirits along the way to help safeguard the land and the people. It is easily one of the most drop-dead, gorgeous places I have ever seen. But in order to keep people safe, every hundred yards or so, there are these bike barriers that leave only a small gap in between themselves. Their purpose is to force bicyclists to slow down and weave in between them. Well, shh, that's all fine and dandy for those people who were good at riding bikes.
Me, they might as well have been pit traps filled with quicksand. In the beginning, I hit every part of my legs on them or just fell over. The other thing about the bike I was using, which is my father-in-law's, is that it has an aging battery on it. See, many bikes in Japan are electronic, which helps add power to each pedal, so it takes less human energy to go places. However, this bike only had about 30 minutes of power it could store as it was on its last legs. So it was mainly me, myself, and I who was powering us to go anywhere. But surprising myself, I persevered.
I watched YouTube videos on riding bikes. I practiced, and by the end of the trip, I was actually able to ride six miles or so without having to stop. That may not sound like much to most of y'all out there, but you have to realize something. At home, I spend all of my time in my magical basement working. While I do walk my dog several times a day, I am otherwise glued to my computer, either programming.
And to go from that level of inactivity to walking anywhere from twelve to fifteen thousand steps a day, and being able to ride a bike that long, it took a while ramping up to all that, but dear lord was I thankful for it. We did have some great fun in Japan. We hit all of our favorite parts in town, like Shinjuku, the elect the department store ward, Akiabada, or Electric Town, and I even checked out Nagano Broadway, a huge indoor mall that caters to a lot of Otaku goods. I was less impressed with the latter, but I did get some photos, if nothing else.
I visited the Unicorn Gundam in Odiva, and then on Christmas Eve, we even saw the new movable Gundam in Yokohama. I didn't realize you had to pay $1,600N or about $12 US just to get into the pavilion to see it. But at least you do get a very simplified gunplug figure of the Gundam to take home with you. We then went, had Yakiniku or a Korean barbecue and walked around Chinatown and Yokohama to see all the lights. And while we were there, Southern Demonology even had its very first official meetup, small though it might have been.
David, who is one of the three people, along with myself and Vic from Trailer Tash Terrors, who are the hosts of the Paranormal Rundown podcast, and who was also a guest last year on my own podcast, also happened to be in Tokyo. And we all, David and his lovely wife, along with my lovely wife and I, met at Sensoji Temple, had lunch, and then walked around the temple grounds and had an amazing time. Thank you both for taking the time to meet. I loved every minute of it. And hopefully we will have future meetups and more accessible places to people around the world.
We fortunately were there for New Year's and partook in the ceremonies that are associated with that day. We rode bicycles to the local Shinto shrine for Hatsumode or first temple visit of the year. And I was amazed by the sheer number of people in attendance. The line to get to the offering box had at least 2,000 people in it and extended three blocks past the temple. And the pathway to the offering box itself is probably a good three blocks long in and of itself. But fortunately, the line moved quickly, and it only took about 45 minutes or so in line to get uh to the end of it.
The temple even had roadside performances. I had a video up on my TikTok channel if you're curious to see that. We then relaxed with some amazake or sweet hot sake and getting our fortunes told. For those curious, I got small luck, which, while not as good as getting big luck, is definitely better than getting bad luck in either form. For the um we I also picked up several amori for or protective charms for warding off evil spirits, something that is sadly very much needed given the types of topics I cover on this podcast.
In our downtime, we relaxed by watching Japanese TV when we weren't at the onsen, of course. And fortunately, there were quite a few supernatural shows that were broadcasted. My favorite one was the one that covered all of the new urban legends of new Yurei and Yokai that had been reported in cities. The two that stick out in my mind was Hiako Hiyako, an onomonopoeic word that signifies jumping, and a motorcycle riding undead that harassed pedestrians with the katana. That last one was just plain weird and really took me by surprise. But Hiyako Hyako is much more typical of Yudei stories.
This creature got its name from how it appears. In the story that was told, the man in question was working at his home desk late at night when he kept hearing yako yako sounds from behind him. Unsure of what was making it, he turns around, only to see a hand grasping the window sill. What scared the man so much was that the floor he was on was not the ground floor, it was the second. Speaking of the spookier side of things, while nothing untoward happened on this trip, I once again found myself drawn to the local funeral home that is right by where we live.
We would pass it every time we take the main road to go to the train station, which is about a twenty five minute walk away or so. And on this trip, I would stop every single night as we passed it and recorded the place. I am honestly not sure why, but there is something about that building and its surrounding grounds that just called. To my soul. I even posted one of these recordings up to, once again, my TikTok page. I need to go back and port all of those videos over to the YouTube channel that we have.
But at the time, data was at such a premium that I was lucky to get anything uploaded at all. Nevertheless, the two platforms. And quick tip for those who happen to have T-Mobile in the States. One of the things that really drew me to them was that they have an international data plan, which is great. Normally you have to pay, you know, 50 bucks in order to get you know 15 gigs worth of data for other providers, but T-Mobile had one for free. And I was like, great, that solves a lot of problems.
And for some reason, I always forget that yes, you might get it for free, but that is capped at less than 256K a second, which sounds like a decent bit, but uh speeds are so horrendously slow that it will take up to a minute to pull up a website. So be sure to purchase the actual true international plan for T-Mobile because otherwise you will not have the most fun of experiences while trying to use your cell phone in Japan. All in all, the entire experience made me feel alive.
From reconnecting with family to being surrounded in a culture and a language that are both familiar and delightfully unexpected. I just felt continuously suffused with energy. And of course, food also plays a big, big part in all that. I don't know if this is true for anyone else, but I just get tired of eating. I go to the grocery store and nothing appeals. I'm just sick of everything.
Part of that is just being in a rut, but the other is knowing that there's an entire world of food stuff out there that I love and have little access to, even with numerous Asian grocery stores available where I live. Before I wrap things up, let me tell you of one funny story that happened there. My wife was going to meet up with a family friend, and so I decided to go home alone. I retrieved the bicycle from the paid parking lot where I had parked it and began to pedal home. And by this time it was around 9 p.m. and fully dark. Remember how I said that the bike I was on had a wonky battery?
Well, even though it does have a headlight for night riding, something that is required, I normally keep it off as it would chew through what little power reserves that poor battery had at its disposal. Well, it's a modality or just like normal. Here I am just riding along with no light when I see a police officer on a bicycle inspecting passerby. And of course, he sees me in clear violation of the law and calls for me to stop. And that in turn makes my heart almost stop. I am petrified of getting pulled over normally, nevertheless being in another country.
And this begins the most awkward five minutes of my life. You have to remember that I am absolutely not fluent in Japanese. I'm good at the basics, and that's really about it. And so I have to explain that I forgot about the headlight, that the bike belonged to my wife's father, that we lived on such and such a street, and that here's the registration for the bike, etc. He was finally satisfied that I hadn't stolen anything and let me proceed back home. And I can tell you one thing for sure.
From that point on, I never rode a bike at night without a headlight on, no matter what it did to the battery. The other thing that this trip inspired me to do was to finally get to a higher level of proficiency in Japanese. I bought so many language books while I was there, and I am bound and determined to get to an end to level by next December. And that's going to do it for season three, episode two of the Southern Demonology podcast. I know this was a little different from my normal content, so thank you for indulging me.
If you have any questions or simply want to share something, be sure to visit the website for either the contact form or the link to my Discord server. And I hope you have a fantastic week. Thank you for listening to Southern Demonology. Find us online at Southern Demonology.com where you can find all of our social and podcasting links. Also, if you have a moment, please feel free to rate this podcast and leave any encouraging feedback that you may have. As always, I am JJ and it has been a pleasure getting to talk to you today.