Sorry to have to be so cryptic, but there won’t be an episode this week. Instead, you’ll be seeing something totally new. It’s not quite ready yet, but just sit tight. I promise it’s worth the wait.

If you’ve ever been traveling with others, you know that there’s a strong feedback between how they’re feeling about something and how you feel about it. The idea is a lot like waves in a pool of good morale– if many waves come together at their peaks, things are amazing, and we feel absolutely vindicated in leaving our lives behind. The problem is that Brian, Matt and I meet at our troughs as well.

Episode 3 begins to explore just how we felt every day living in poverty. We could tell ourselves each day, “yeah, I’m poor, but I’m poor in Japan!” but saying it didn’t take away the mental and physical exhaustion. It didn’t inspire us to put in another all-nighter, and it didn’t give Christmas back to those that missed their families.

Maybe that sounds like a lot of privileged whining. I’m ok saying that, because the depression we felt around being poor wouldn’t have been so strong if we hadn’t had nice lives to look back on. Matts, Brians, and Robs in alternate dimensions, were laughing with their cousins, ordering a pizza, or playing with their cat. They were happy and healthy, and best of all, not hungry all the time. While so many would envy our lives abroad, keep in mind just how tremendous these comforts really are, and also just how much it sucks to live a monotonous life of white rice and eggs.

The beautiful nature shots in the beginning of Episode 203 were from Tokyo Bay Hamarikyu Onshi Teien – a giant tea garden – that we stumbled across while wandering around early in the morning near Tsukiji Fish Market.  We were some of the first people in the park, so we were able to wander around alone in the morning quiet.  It was perhaps one of the most peaceful places I’ve been to in Tokyo.  Shibuya is constantly buzzing and bustling, and our own neighborhood in Miyamae-ku is about as eventful as a crater on the moon (but without the “hey we’re on the moon!” feeling).  So our lives oscillate between the hyper-active and the inactive, but at the park, it was a comfortable medium.

Massive monolithic buildings towered on all sides, making the park seem almost like a little valley from 400 years ago.

Jed and Conrad

About 50 stories by 40 rooms of concrete and glass overlooking a ceremonial tea house…it felt like ancient Japan nestled within modern Japan.

We discovered that long ago, the area used to be a falcon range for the shoguns, but it also came to serve as a tidal pond, a tea garden and a wild duck hunting site.  After WWII, it was made a public park and protected under Japanese law.  Many eras in Japan have passed through this garden, and perhaps it was the layers of history that made it feel so peaceful.  In Tokyo, a subway ride can be literally overflowing with people but also feel silent and almost sterile (at least to a mind accustomed to constant conversation); central squares can feel claustrophobic with so people but also incredibly lonely because no one will ever look you in the eyes; bedroom neighborhoods, like ours, can be full of residences but empty of social interactions.  The park felt like a unique space for us – serene but still stimulating.  The park was mostly empty, but it didn’t feel like we were being separated from other people as much pushed together with our own thoughts and reflections.

Skyscrapers on the lake

Our current diet of experience isn’t incredibly nourishing for our bodies or our minds, but this separate peace in the park helped rejuvenate my passion for traveling.

Finding fun in Tokyo without any cash is a constantly evolving creative challenge.

Finally, an episode out on time!  Ever since I made it back to the States I’ve had trouble keeping things on schedule.  Before I went to Japan I was always at a two week lag from real time, and when I was with the crew on the road I was experiencing things as they happened, but at all times I had to be thinking a few weeks ahead to do my job as producer.  About 60% of my time is spent as editor thinking about what did happen, and about 40% of my time is spent as executive producer/director thinking about what will happen, and the result is that I spend a clean 100% of my time confused.  I was too inexperienced when starting this project to know why production and planning staff are almost always separate, but I think I’ve got the gist of it after living for a few months in this scheduled haze.

This week also marks the debut of our newest musical contributor: Tettix!  I’ve been listening to Judson Cowan’s music for years, both in his current incarnation and under his previous handle of Cicada.  His work has been featured in a number of creative spots, including this Boing Boing short.  It gives me no shortage of pleasure to be editing to his music, in this episode The Graves of Good Humans from the startling Technology Crisis II.  I hope to use a few more of Tettix’s tracks before Season 2 is up, but in the meantime check out all his albums at www.tettix.net or purchase his songs on iTunes!

So, Episode 203 is finished and uploaded, but you may have a little trouble seeing it (or any of our content) at the moment as Vimeo ate the big one at some point this morning. Hopefully they’ll be back up before the end of the day, but until then just hold tight.

The 99¥ Jr. Kidney-Crusher

When I get back, I am never eating another goddamn hamburger so long as I live.