165: Journey To The West

Weird things happened in the Weird.

Weird Weird. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome one, Welcome all to another episode of Blesso said, so, thank you.

Who who is that the happy Buddha? Oh, the enlightened one?

Is that me? Yeah? Okay?

Cool?

Uh? What's up everybody? How are we doing?

Doing good? Man?

Yeah?

Doing good?

Alex? How are we doing fantastic?

We just cut up for an hour or so?

Yeah, we really did. I'm riding high, like I know, my face is probably red and my eyes are probably red because I've been laughing really really hard.

For the business too.

Yeah, it was business.

It's business.

Yeah.

A lot of cutting up in this since then.

Yeah. But also right before we started, Ryan showed me some gameplay of Black Myth Wukong, which is on theme for today.

Yeah, I said, the Ami Taba because there's a boss you fight kind of like early in the game, and I think it was this I can't remember the name of it, but you've probably seen videos floating around of these big headed baby monks. Yeah, you fight one and he's like, O me Tapa is It's just cool, man, It's it's like the the Great Savior Buddha.

M M.

Okay, well Black Myth Wukong is on theme for today's episode.

Yeah, do you want to talk a little bit about that?

What part?

Well, just like the vibe of it, it's very cool because.

The game Yeah oh yeah.

So for those who don't know or are not like gamer people in general, nerds, Yeah all right, I'm listening. Okay, I was gonna, you know, throw up my little nerds sign of people, but you'll just have to miss it anyway. No, it's a cool game. But for those who aren't like gamer nerds and they're not like aware of the significance of it, it's the first ever like mainstream Chinese game, so it's like, oh cool, you know, I can't wait

Right, the vast majority, I mean there are outliers, but the vast majority. Yeah, exactly, Like like by I mean we've lost triple A games ever, with a few exceptions, are either American or Japanese.

Right, So imagine a game where it's literally set out to be the first mainstream Chinese game, right, the first Triple A game, Dude. The vibe is Buddhas statues every bro, the Buddha chants, Like a lot of your enemies are like just these Yao got yao guays, which are like you know, Chinese demons and they're like, you know, seeking enlightenment and they're talking about the the elixir of immortality, and it's just it's on vibe, dude.

It's the music. The music is sounds like very authentic, like ancient Chinese, like the flu, the bamboo flu sounds and it's it's amazing and it's gorgeous, oh God, like like this is the first, like you said, Triple A Chinese title, and they came out swing in. Ryan and I have been following this game for since it was first every announced, which is probably like two and a half years now.

I feel like it's been more, dude.

It was my first apartment, might have been since I saw this trailer. It has been like my most anticipated game. I'm just so hung up on Elden Ring DLC still at the moment, but I'm buying it like next week probably.

I feel like it definitely lived up. Like I'm a little over halfway through the game, and I still feel like, ah, I just got to keep going. I got to keep seeing what happens next.

Like, yeah, we should probably say it's it's called Black Myth Wukong. If you don't know, it's about Journey. It's based off of Journey to the West, which is like one of the most famous mythology stories of all history, right, it is one of the very most famous. It's an all ancient, ancient like Taoist slash Buddhist Chinese myth novel.

Yeah in confusion too, Yeah, yes, yeah, so I didn't know this obviously until we started doing research for the episode. But in Chinese literature it's either four or five. I can't remember the number. I want to say four, but in Chinese culture there are considered to be let's just say the number four. It could be five, but four great works, like great classic Taoist and Buddhist works, and

Yeah, ever and not so like not only is it is it like groundbreaking legendary fantasy, it is also legendary like religious text like it is, I mean we'll go into that a little bit later. And not only that, the cultural impact of Journey to the West, but also the historical truth in it. It's based on a real story, yes it is. Yeah, it's like an it's like a mythologicalized that's like philosophized, mythologized, that's the word. It's like

I didn't know that at all.

I didn't either until I did research for this. They like built a myth around a true story, which is like so epic. But I mean the cultural effect, like I don't know you ever heard of dragon ball z.

That's what I'm saying, dude. I was reading parts of the novel Journey to the West today and I didn't realize it was a thousand pages. So I was like, there's no way I can finish this, you know, in one day. I would like to read it though it reads really well, like I read parts of the first chapter and yeah, too long. But something that's really cool is there is a king Yama who is like the king of Hell, who checks his ledger to let spirits

Yeah, King Yima. He's got horns and everything. He's like a big giant demon guy. He sits at a desk and he has his Ledger of souls. You know what I wonder, I wonder if that's the Book of Life and Death? Is that what that is?

I'm not sure that's a good point. We'll have to read the novel. But I just had a memory. I recently read the first episode, I mean the first issue of Dragon Ball, just out of nowhere. I was like, I want to read the first ever dragon yeah, like with a few months ago, and I want to say it's at the end of it or at the beginning. I'm gonna show you real quick. It basically says like, here's you know, Goku based off of the Chinese legend.

Oh? Oh, it actually acknowledges I'm pretty sure in the manga. Yeah, so, I mean basically like the Dragon Ball parallel thing is okay, So in Journey to the West, just to like jump ahead a little bit, Wu Kong starts as this.

I found it.

Oh, you did. Yeah. He starts as this little stone monkey inside of a stone who like the stone is actually an egg and it hatches and it's the stone monkey on top of this waterfall.

What's it called, like the Mountain of Fruit and Flowers?

Yeah, the Great Mountain of Fruit and Flowers, which is so cool. And in dragon Ball, Goku he like crash lands by a waterfall. Yeah, you know it's right there. He's got the little monkey tale. He's like a little baby monkey thing flying nimbus uh Wukong like has this he flies around on clouds. He can like travel on clouds and stuff like. And then the power pole. You know, we'll go into that a little bit later. But like, like Goku is kind of.

His name is Sun Goku. Yeah, like he's listen. Look, this is the very first ever issue of dragon Ball. This is the last page. When you get you know, you read right to left. When you get to the very end, there's a little banner. It says, remember your Chinese fairy tales. You don't not even the impish monkey king and his magic staff the nioibo. Oh well, drop in next time and you'll learn. And then it says,

No, I I definitely never did. I never know. I never knew they explicitly acknowledged it. Yeah, I didn't even in Dragon Ball.

And they don't in the anime, which I've seen multiple times. So that's that was cool little sinkerity there. But yeah, I mean, I guess I'll go into that for a second. But even though I've never like read Journey to the West, Son Wukong has always been one of my favorite characters of all time. And I know you never played this game because I showed it to you before, but enslaved no which game? Monkey Magic? Oh, it was from like twenty five, almost thirty years ago. I think it was

Right you told me up?

Yeah, and you have the little power pole. It's like a two D platformer game.

Yeah, it looked awesome and when you.

Fight bosses, you fly on the cloud and it's just amazing, dude. And I thought that was cool because I was doing obviously like I was trying to see every adaptation of Wukong ever made in like movies, And apparently there was a show through like the eighties and nineties in China that I can't remember what it was called, but the theme song was called Monkey Magic.

Hmmm. Oh that's cool. That's awesome. There's been so many they've done games. Did you know the game I'm talking about, Enslaved?

Yeah?

I was watching videos of it today. Andy serkis voicing him.

No way, Oh my god, it's been such a long time.

I played that demo when it came out. I never played the game.

Oh yeah, in like Xbox three sixty I think, huh yeah, I played the game at some point. I think it's actually on game Pass. Oh sweet, it might be, but and then smite. I love playing as Wukong and.

Well the Legends too. That's like the first character I ever played in Legal Legends. I didn't know that it's Sun Wukong.

Yeah.

Oh yeah, that's sick the clones and everything. Yeah, so this this is like one of the most adapted characters in history. Obviously, Like if you really think, I mean, you could say, okay, well Naruto is you know, Japanese, and that's fair, but it's also like one of the most ubiquitous fiction shows on the planet. I mean, for sure,

Know, And there's there's references to Wukong all throughout. I mean, look, what was.

It, the foretail or the his name is sung Goku, yeah, which I mean you know, technically he is an ape.

Yeah. Yeah, there's tons of references at one piece. Oh my god.

Really, oh monkey do loofy Yeah. Yeah, I thought about that today.

And then like spoiler alert, Gear five is like is.

It monkey related?

I mean no, but he if you think about it, yeah.

He is kind of like Wukong.

Yeah.

I didn't think about that until now, but yeah, yeah, that does make sense.

There's a lot of parallels. But also his personality is the biggest thing. Yeah, because that's true. So Wukong's personality, he's like very like reckless but rebellious, but also he is like he fights for freedom above everything else, like that's his like major price. He wants everybody to be free and like liberate people, Like that's his big thing. But he's also like he wants to smoke all the time, and he he wants to fight.

Bro the game is like that too.

Yeah, I mean that's that's sick. But like it makes sense that like Goku and Loofy what they want to smoke, like, they they don't just like not shy away from they are ready to scrap all the time.

That's something that I appreciate about like martial arts culture or you know, just anime or Chinese movies because there's tons you know, Helo kung fu movies and stuff like that. It's it's always about just like you know, won the smoke. You know, I love that. I really love that.

Yeah, that's like yeah his character, Lufy's character is very much like inspired by wuk So.

I never realized I had a misunderstanding about the journey of Sun Wukong. I never again, like I said, I've never fully read the story. I've just always like loved this character and seen the many different adaptations and I'm like that's cool, but never read the thousand page novel. But then today, you know, I had the luxury of like reading tons of you know, explanations and watching you know, YouTube documentaries, you know how it goes with research where

Is the victorious fighting Buddha.

Yeah, it's like it's like victory over strife or something like that.

Yeah, he becomes a Buddha. And even before he became a Buddha, he had power that rivaled the Buddha himself.

Wow, did you did.

In your research? Did you come across the thing where he was locked into that eight trigram crucible m hm and like burned for forty nine days. They were trying to melt him, Yeah, and turn him into an elixir. The reason the fire didn't burn him is that that fire can't burn people that are like on Buddha's level.

Oh that's so cool.

He's that Like I.

Read the part where he was like seeking immortality through various means, and we can go a little more into that. But yeah, he apparently ate this peach that was you know, in the land of the Buddhas. I guess they call it like the pure lands.

And it's basically like Heaven, right, and.

When he ate this peach, it gave him immortality. Fun fact, when you start Black Myth, you play the prologue, which is where you're like the fully realized Sun Wukong and you're fighting basically the gods up in Heaven, the Buddhas, and you know, you know how it goes in video games. Sometimes you start full power and then you get nerved and you go all the way back down to level one. It doesn't really like explicitly explain the lore, which I appreciate,

Yeah, in the in the myth, he is like he at one point becomes the guardian of like the Great Peach Tree in Heaven, like how do you think do you think we should like go chronologically like this.

Yeah, let's just do like we do with other myths and just kind of like start from the beginning.

Okay, cool, I have bullet points like on the beginning of because essentially the first like seven or eight chapters of the story is like is like everything leading up to the actual journey to the West. It's like his kind of origin story. Wulkong's like or how he became powerful, how he became what he is, who he is whatever.

And then I read that in the first part of chapter one.

Yeah, he becomes their king because just because he found the source of the water that they could never find for whatever.

It's like it was like on the other side of a waterfall. Yes, he had to cross through this waterfall, yes.

Which is like the the symbolism is already starting, you know what I mean, It's it's like it's it's so this whole story is so chock full of symbolism. And then basically kind of his like heroes journey catalyst is that one day one of his like monkeys in this kind of like adopted monkey family dies and he's like just he's like heartbroken by it, and he goes on a quest to learn how to defeat death, which is like, that's a story we've heard so many times. It's it's

Subputi is the name that I saw.

Saputi Zushi. Yeah, yeah, And so after he teaches him all of these these Dallas principles and like the Way of Immortality and stuff, he names him sun Wukong.

What does it mean?

It means the monkey awakened by the emptiness m And there's like, again, there's a few different translations of that, Like some of the ones that I saw were like meaning in the nothingness. There's a few different Like, so I.

Wonder what that means awakened to the emptiness like awakened to his like he's.

Aware, awakened by the emptiness ah awakened. But but again, I've seen like a few different versions. Let's let's read a couple of the different versions. Let me find it real quick.

To me, that makes me think death like awakened by the death right because it was the death of his friend or family member that sent him down the path.

So it's a good one.

The cool thing while he's looking for this, I want to say, like, something that I realized is that the story of Sun Wukong. So without knowing the story in great detail, I thought it was just a story, but I came to realize that it's actually like an allegory about awakening absolutely becoming enlightened one thousand percent. That is imagine that. Yeah, it it actually is, Like that's the thing, like it actually is.

So check this out. His name literally translate as the monkey awakened by the emptiness.

Wow.

Wukong's name is meant to represent his spiritual journey from an ignorant, short tempered monkey to a benevolent, enlightened being monkey mind. In Japan, he is known as Sun Goku.

Oh wait a minute, oh hallelujah, think about it, dude.

That makes me just go, what is Goku at birth? He is a saying, he's a rash little punk, and then he crash lands on earth and his mind is empty. He has brain damage, he loses his memory.

This ah, I mean, I don't necessarily believe this, but this is.

Making me think of the stoned ape theory because he's a monkey that gains consciousness.

That's actually kind of crazy.

That theory only came out like forty or fifty years ago. Which is the interesting thing because this story has existed like in well that's what I'm unconscious.

Well look what just happened with the quantum entangled particles. The yin yang symbol has been around for thousands, if not tens of thousands of years, and now all of a sudden we get pictures of quantum entangled particles and it's yin yang. Yeah that's wild, dude, it could That's really the same thing that Alex is talking about.

Like, I know this is a little bit off trail, but not really. Since I've been reading The Secret Teaching of All Ages recently, a take that I really appreciated about esoteric symbolism from that book is that when we think of symbols, we think someone created them, right, I mean, it's the natural conclusion who made the symbol?

Made it? Yes, made it.

But the take and I'll see if I can find the quote later, but the take from the secret teaching of all ages is not that these symbols are created and like have attributed meanings, but rather that they exist in nature and the metaphysical power that they are concealing exists in the math of the symbol. So when you

That that tracks.

Think about the yinyang tracks with the yin yang thing. It's an ancient pre probably pre like as far back as you know, Buddhist, Taoist, Hindu. I don't know if that's that's related to Hinduism at all, but as far back as these Eastern mystical cultures go, before written culture when they were orally transmitted, this symbol has been around and oh look, quantum dangle particle.

Twenty twenty three, twenty twenty three. We look at it and it's like it's Yanyang. It's perfectly yin Yang. Yeah, it's not like kind of it's like exactly yin Yang.

Yeah, so just interesting, you know.

I agree, I think that thought there. I think that's true.

Symbols come from nature, they pre exist human consciousness.

That makes perfect sense to me, if if only just based off of the yin Yang thing. Yeah, but I fully yeah, I believe that.

Monkey mind though. We were just getting on that that. You know, when we're meditating, it's like we I have monkey it's monkey mind. Monkey mind, that's what you can't meditate. He's literally an allegory for that.

He is. He's an allegory for like the human spirit and like the evolution of the human spirit, like overcoming our monkey mind. Right, Like that's that's who Sun Wukong is. That's it's honestly the coolest. Okay, So he becomes Sun Wukong.

That makes sense because dragon's more of a royal food.

It is more of a royal meat. Yes, so yep, yeah.

It's ranked when it goes bad.

Okay. So he goes in search for a dragon king and he eventually finds one in al Guong. Yeah, oh like al Quang, Yes, oh wow, Alang the dragon king.

You want to know a fun fact about that, The way that the Chinese language transliterates into English, did you know, like an alternative way to say, kung Fu is gong Fu?

Yes, yes, like Enterchaine, a lot of the k's and g sounds are interchangeable.

That's cool, dude.

Yeah, Alguog he meets him, and basically Wukong rolls up and he's like, hey man, listen, King to king. He's like, I'm a king, bro, you gotta give me a badass weapon. You gotta give me, like literally just asks him, like, give me a badass weapon. That's it. That's and Alguong is like, who the fuck is this little kid? But reluctantly he's like, you know what, I'll give him a weapon because he's like saving face. He doesn't want to look like he's he's hedging his bets. He doesn't know,

I just had that thought. There is a reference and he has the staff and there's reference. Sorry, that just poh, that's.

Perfect and he's one of my favorite characters, Sartoby.

So this is a king dragon arms dealer.

Yeah, where do you get that job? A god? You're a god, like a literal, actual god.

I'm gonna try for that reincarnation. Yeah, I've already defeated two of the dragon kings in the game.

Oh, let's go. Yes. So he gets this staff called Ruyi Jingubong, which is there's a couple of translations of that. One is the Stabilizer of the Four Seas. Come on, that's so cool. That's that's one of the name of his staffs, Stabilizer of the Four Seas. Another translation calls it translates it to the Staff of Miraculous Will, which, like, I just think both of those translations are so badass. Anyway,

And blow up and act like he knew nobody.

Yeah, exact it took are coming.

Yes, they ain't no fun if my homies can't have no Exactly, the whole gang glowed up.

That's like when I saw this video that Brad Pitt or somebody maybe it was uh, I think it was Brad Pitt gave one of his childhood friends fourteen million dollars, just like, yeah, I took all my monkey friends' names out of the Book of Life and Death. Yes, so now the immortality.

Basically yeah, yeah, dude, the whole gang glowed up.

That's awesome.

I know he's he is the.

Sh He really is the epitome of like literally challenging the highest forces of the cosmos.

Oh yeah, the highest forces. And now, because of this act of wiping all these names from the Book of Life and Death, now the most powerful force has got his eyes on him, the Jade Emperor, the Jade Emperor, which is like the primordial God.

Isn't there like a celestial Emperor above the Jade Emperor that he put too? Because from what I read, the Jade Emperor is like asking could like I thought the Jade Emperor was over Earth and then there's like a like an equivalent to the Jade Emperor of the heavenly realm.

Could be it could.

Be Celestial Emperor or something. I don't know.

It may be that what I read is that it was just the Jade Emperor was like he's the primordial God.

Wow.

Yeah, and he like commands the Heavenly Armies and the Celestial Warriors, which like, yeah, he commands an army of one hundred thousand celestial warriors, each of them possessing the power of a celestial body.

What's his name?

I don't know. I just the thing that I was reading was referring to him as the Jade Emperor.

This makes me want to play Jade Empire. Oh dude, I had the same did I haven't played that game in like twenty years. It's a game pass on PC.

Yeah, get it on PC. Played on PC yeah. That is a good marshal large game. It's just a great game in general. You have you did you see the trailer for that secret level?

Yeah?

Oh okay, yeah, yes, And like the the Seafoo episode is like in the style of Seafoo, it looks like anyway, okay. So, yeah, he gets reported to the Jade Emperor, the God, the Big G, the Guy, the Primordial God, because I mean he's like messing with the books of life and death, right, so he's he's crossing lines. So he gets reported. They're like Master Master.

Like the nineties movies.

Yeah, yeah, and okay, and so the the Big G sends the whole Heavenly Army at Wukong, just sends them together.

That's literally the opening of Black Man.

Sends them to get him, shut up, the whole army go get him, and and they fail. Wukom fights them all off, fights them all off. So then the response, this is crazy. This is crazy. He sends everybody to beat Wolkong's ass, everybody, and when it doesn't work, he's like, all right, homie, you can live in heaven. He's straight up like, I don't even want to deal with your ship. You can live in Heaven. Just don't bother me no more, Like straight.

Up, I get those feelings sometimes. What do you mean, I'm tired of messing with you many? Yeah, they go easy on me, dude.

No, no, I think like you know, I'll do something and I'll be like man or like like locking the house right or locking the upstairs door or whatever, like if someone.

Wants it that bad, they can have it.

What.

I don't know that I feel that way, but.

Oh locking, Oh I see what you mean. Yeah, like I leave my third floor like balcony doors open because I'm like they deserve it. Yeah, go ahead, yeah yeah, they climb all the way up here. You got it, you got it. That's what the Jade Emperor did. He's like, bro, you just smacked my whole damn army like you got it. But but he was sly about it. He was he

I saw that, and he took it as a great insult.

It's the lowliest job in all of heaven, like in Yeah, it's the lowliest job.

Which is another cool thing about like Chinese myth is how they portray the gods in the celestial You could say the spirit world as like a bureaucracy.

Yeah, yes, they call it computer. Yeah, they call it like a divine bureaucracy or like a something something like that. But the word bureaucracy is used.

It's like how they saw the because it's how it was on Earth. So you know, it's I guess it's like maybe subconsciously that as above so below thing like when they're writing this, well you know, surely heaven was worked this way too.

Your good point. No, that's a good point. That's probably what it was. They're like, well, if we're doing this, it's because they're doing it and we're you know inspired.

Yea, that's how Chinese culture was.

Yeah, you know, so he gives him the worst job in heaven basically.

So just just a pause though, because I don't think that's the worst thing, like striving for beauty striving for perfection, I don't know, wanting to be like heaven.

Oh no, oh of course no. It's just funny that the way that they describe heaven in their mythology.

Is like a bureaucracy.

Like, dude, we were talking about yeah, we were talking about how like the the Guardian of the Gates of Hell or the King of Hell. He has a ledger, he has a book full of names. It's like, ah, this, you know, this sold.

Probably the book of Life and Death probably what it was talking about.

When I mean, how else you're gonna keep track? Yeah, you can't memorize iPad.

I was literally iPad iPads Now, dude, you know records it is heaven. Yeah. So yeah, gives him the worst job in heaven, makes him a stable boy, and Woukong's like, hold up, shoot, I take that job. No. He's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I ain't no stable boy's son, I ain't doing it. He refuses, and he frees the cloud horses. He like opens up all the gates and just lets them all go.

That's what I would do.

I know, he's such a g dude. He just lets them all go. And then he's like he lets them all go. He turns to leave, and then he's like, by the way, I'm the Great Sage, Heaven's equal peace. Bro, Like he does.

I feel like he is low key and this is what Jeremy told me to but I think he was right. He literally is like the original own character.

He is.

Yes, he's the original archetype of the shown in Hero one thousand percent, and that makes it so much better.

Absolutely, it's like reading this is like reading an Amonga right, straight up, it is. He's he is like a shown in Protagonist.

Yeah.

He he refuses their offer, frees all the horses, and then he's like on the on the Great Sage, Heaven's equal peace, and he leaves. Dude, he's a gee, he's the ship.

I mean, dude, I mean, at least my favorite but arguably one of the very best characters in all of fiction is literally directly based on him. So like, there's definitely a powerful resonance to this.

Okay, archetype. So he bounces out, he bounces, and then Jade Emperor's like, wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait okay, all right, fine, fine, I'll give you the job of guarding the heavenly peach garden and and Woo Kong is like I like peaches. He's like like Goku and Loofy. He's all about eating and drinking and like that's what he does. He likes to eat.

How much crime is going on in this heaven because a lot it's a bureaucus. Okay, yeah, they got like white collar heave and fraud.

That's what I mean.

Why you gotta guard everything is heaven? You got people freeing the horses in the stable.

It's it's it's like a realm. It's not like heaven. And according to this, it's not like you only get there if you're like pure of heart and like whatever. It's okay, you have.

To lend to this realm by escaping reincarnation and achieving Taoist merits. They have a merit system in their philosophical system. It's nothing like Western sticks. I don't know, man, maybe like peaches. Yeah yeah, peach slices.

So he takes the job. He's like cool, I like peaches that I can eat a lot of peaches. He's from the Mountain of fruits and flowers. It's like he likes fruits whatever, So he takes it. And he's like, now they'll respect me as a god. But they didn't, sadly because the Jade emperor called a huge banquet, and who is the only god that didn't get invited? Sun Wukong. Which this I wanted to take a little side note

That's interesting because I also read that the parallel basically, like if you think about it as a parallel to Viking myth, Wukong starts as Loki, yes, absolutely, and he ends his store. Yeah, it transforms into the hero.

Oh that's badass. He's both that's bad ass, dude.

He is very trickstery and very first yes, yes, but then he becomes you know, the a Buddha, not the Buddha, but a Buddha.

Yeah, straight up. He becomes the victorious fighting Buddha.

Yeah.

In the end. Yeah, so he is the only guy that doesn't get invited, and now he's real pissed, real, real, real pisted, so he openly defies Heaven openly again again. But now he's like, bring them, bring the rest, Bring the rest what I want seconds, bring, Bring the ones you didn't bring out the first time. Let's go. But before he does that, he's like, they're setting up for this banquet that means there's a hell of food and drink,

I don't know if you just a quick pause. I don't know if you guys remember this, but on episode thirty three, we talked about symbolism behind the number, and none other than in Buddhist philosophy, there were thirty third gems in the gate to Heaven. There we go, you know, or thirty three gems.

You know, there we go? And uh. This kind of piggybacks off the not locking your doors thing the on the thirty floor. On the thirty third floor, they describe in the story that they leave everything unlocked. All the doors are open, all the windows are open, because you can only get there, like only the deities with the highest spiritual power can get there.

That is insane that that just like played out right in front of us. How he talked about I don't lock my third balcony window, you know, thirty third.

Floor, they don't lock the windows, they don't lock the doors, and you could because you can only get there if you're like the highest spiritual power.

Maybe I wonder if there's like some functuae about keeping your third floor windows and doors open.

I don't know, maybe something to look into.

That's a good point. I'm all about the I've always wanted to like get really into functuay.

It's cool, man like, especially when you get into like because we're we me and Olivia are really into our bedroom being a place for sleep.

Yeah, so there's no TV.

No, I don't And.

We are very deliberate about the furniture placement and having to do with funk shue and where your headboard is in relation to a window, like where the head of your bed is in relation to a window, Where the head of your bed is in relation to a door, like if you sleep on one side, like if the door is on one side of the bed or the other. It's like the way the energy moves to the space. You have one person that sleeps better than the other person. It's really interesting.

Yeah, it is. We looked into some of that stuff when we were setting up in our new apartment. The issue is that it's a two bedroom. One of the bedrooms is much bigger than the other, and we chose the bigger bedroom to be our shared office space. So then like our actual bedroom is much smaller. But I like that because we do the same thing. Where our bedroom is literally just where we go at the very end of the day to go to sleep. There's no TV, there's.

No Yeah, she goes as far now as her phone does not go in the bedroom.

I have to do alarms.

Yeah yeah, well she's got the alarm clock. Yeah well it's one of the new school plays and sounds.

But still using an alarm.

It's honestly, it's sweet, like it'll play damn, I go, don't want to do dude, it plays, It plays whatever noise you want, rain, crashing waves, whatever. I love the crashing waves, so do the light and then in the morning Jenny wants one. The light slowly gets brighter as you get closer to your alarm.

See, I might want to do that and stop using the alarm on my phone because then I would like to keep my phone out of the bedroom.

Yeah, she's gotten super serious about it, and she's like then she gets on me about being on my phone as we're winding.

I bet she sleeps better now.

She does for sure.

And she's into mouth taping and like sleep scores and stuff.

Yeah. I sleep so much better when I read before going to bed rather than like being on my phone.

I've noticed, and this is going to sound like sense, but I have noticed when I stop having any sort of like tea is fine, but like coffee after like two o'clock at the latest, normal coffee, I sleep. I can go to bed if I have coffee past you know too, If I have coffee like three, four, five, whatever, it's like I'm up all night my noon. And that's common sense, right, but not really when when your your schedule is not the same every day.

And see I've just been doing I've been like way different. I cut off caffeine at like seven pm, but I'm not drinking coffee or mons like soda. I'll drink like a soda, but that's light maybe too, Like after work, but it's usually just a soda, like a zero sugar soda. And yeah, normally I would say I'm not really drinking coffee past probably Yeah, you know what, I might have a cup after lunch and that's it. Yeah, I go to lunch, come back around one o'clock.

Helping me a lot like paying attention to that. But yeah, okay, before we I wanted to say this real quick because I was searching. I can't remember exactly what it was, but in that thirty third episode, we talked about some Buddhist symbolism. Maybe it wasn't thirty three gyms on the gates of heaven, but apparently the number of deities and the Vedic religion is thirty three. The second level of heaven and Buddhism is named Trios Strimsa, meaning of the

His name is hang On. I got it here, So the real guy.

Jean Jane, Yes, but his name is that in the story as well. Yeah, he's he's traveling to India because his quest is to receive sacred scrolls. But see the spiritual significance of that is because Buddhism originated in India.

And Indian you know exactly.

It's so cool, that's cool. And then the Vedic texts, which is you know, Hindu, there's thirty three gods. So yeah, talk about the thirty third you know floor. Isn't that crazy?

Like the whole thing where he's like he he eats a bunch of food and drink, he gets drunk. He wanders up to the thirty third floor where it's like all unlocked and whatever. And up in the thirty third floor is where like these gods and deities like they they have their things up there, like there their belongings up there. They're there while they're doing this banquet thing or whatever. So while he's up there, he found he finds Laos's pills of immortality. Laosi the god.

Do you know who was in history? No, it's the founder and founder, the creator of Taoism. Oh, it was a real person, loud see. And the book the Tao. It's written by Louzy.

Well.

He got he was deified.

You know. He got pills up there, and if you take him, you'll turn immortal.

When you buff your status forever. Gas pills, Bro, they got them at the gas station. Bro, taking them, they got them.

A different kind of immortality, Bro. They got.

And monkeys and all kinds of animal, different, different forms of philosophy. Dude in black myth when you boost your stats, Uh, their pills, Dallas pills.

That's awesome the vibe. Yeah yeah. And he also steals she wung, moves peaches of immortality and takes all the wine, all of it, takes it and escapes back to his kingdom to get ready for open rebellion.

You're flasking. The game is a Gordon. You drink rice wine.

There is there is he liked to drink. He liked to drink, which is a little Dionysian, a little you know what I mean, A little baki and if you will, so he takes all this ship, takes all the wine, the pills. He's he's kind of a party animal.

I don't know. Wine feels different to me than everything else.

What do you like physically? It feels different.

Well, yes, but I just mean esoterically it feels and I don't want to get into endorsing things and and.

No, it's different. It is different, like it is different. It's it's definitely different. I mean like it was. It was literally like the nectar of the gods in Greek mythology and like it's think about it. Do Jesus for a turn water to wine? Yeah?

Well, also like meat that's been around since not only like Viking culture, they were making wine and it was there, you know, sacred drink, and I think in Egypt they might have made some drinks with wine. It's it's many cultures had some sacred wine.

It'd be something interesting to look into, because it could it could just be that like wines were the some of the earliest forms of alcohol that were discovered, or it could also be because there's some kind of significance to it. It'd be cool to look into.

Yeah, well I know that me and Olivia went to a wine class last year and learned that there's some vineyards I think it was Spain that pay attention to celestial bodies and where the stars are.

When they plant their vines.

Wow, and that has some sort of there's a there's a fancy term for it, but they they literally do star mapping and zodiacs and like all of this you know, New Age stuff and kind of like infuse that energy into their wine. Really interesting, which which is like it all kind of you know.

But you know the thing though, is that like the earlier part of Wukong's story shows him being uh, you could say maybe not immature, but like monkey mind rebellious. He's he's not he's not awakened yet, he's not enlightened yet, till you know, it's the journey he's becoming awakened. He's becoming enlightened. Yeah, he's brash and violent, and it's allegorical of the the material desires of the flesh, the problems

Yeah, and his ego. He's scrapping with gods, like he's like fighting them all because of his pride and his ego and like, yeah, he's going toe to toe with like the strongest deities in existence just out of pride. Right, He's very brash and ignorant and like cocky and yeah, yeah,

He's the first person you fight in the game.

And he is the first person that Sun Wukong ever fought that matched his energy, matched his like.

Match his freak, He messed his freak.

He's the first person to ever miss his freak. Yeah, Irlang Shin.

Yeah yeah, I remember when he came out, dude, So yeah, he had he was broken.

He had to scrap Rlong and Irlong got him. Rlong captured him and imprisoned him in Laoshe's eight trigram crucible for forty nine days. The crucible is like a huge cauldron with like the primordial flame in it, like the original flame, the hottest flame in all of existence.

So what I'm getting at is like, you don't ever get punished until you get defeated.

Yeah, yeah, that's pretty sick. Absolutely behind that, absolutely yeah.

He did not get he didn't get any punishment until he finally got captured. They put him in this giant crucible, this this cauldron for forty nine days to try to melt him and turn him into an elixir of him more vitality as punishment for eating all those pills and taking all the peaches and all that stuff. They were going to turn him into an elixir of immortal solid plan.

So and the go ahead, well part of The reason he was able to survive the flames was because of his teachings from Subhuti who taught him inner alchemy and chigong, which these are real ancient Taoist practices of well, with inner alchemy, it's what the pills are, the lousy pills.

You know.

Again, lousy created Tallism, and they had a form of inner alchemy where they would make these mixtures and these herbs and certain gems and would crush them up. They would eat them because they believed it had properties to

Yeah, and he survived. He survived, and not only that, he emerged way stronger, like like reinforced by that flame, that like primordial flame.

It's almost like a parallel to Western alchemy.

Yeah, for sure, it definitely is. And they also describe in the story that it didn't burn him and melt him because that flame cannot melt people or deities whose power rivaled Buddha himself. Wow, so like that's implying that already Wukong is like one of the supreme power level deities. Like he's just stupid, stupid strong, and it didn't melt him. He came out stronger, and then yeah, they open it up. He emerges stronger than before. He also emerges. This is

When he's born, he has light beaming from his eyes.

And you know what's crazy, Oh, it's because when he emerges, his eyes are fiery and his pupils are golden.

Don't you remember when you were just watching me play Blackmiths. I was in the Pagoda realm in the third chapter and the eyes were flames.

Yeah, they were red like that, and the enemies were highlighted red. Uh huh. Yeah, he can like see their evil auras with his fiery eyes and golden pupils, which is awesome. He then destroys the crucible, makes his way to the to Heaven's main chamber and squares up with the Jade Emperor himself like god, like the primordial God, and Jade Emperor bitched out what he called Buddha, said, Buddha.

That's what it was. Remember, I said, isn't there somebody above the Jade Buddha?

It's the Buddha, yeahs Bodha.

Yeah, I knew there was one deity above.

Yeah, he's like Buddha, Buddha, he's being bad and whatever. And then the Buddha basically is like tells Wukong pretty much like, hey, listen, man, you're honestly pretty dope. But also you're you're wiling right now, Like I'm gonna have to do something, so let's have a little test if you can escape the palm of my hand. What are you laughing at?

Alan?

It's like when you do something bad but your buddy's the manager. Yeah, right now, skip ity toilet. Yeah, I can't lose my job. I gotta do something here. But that was honestly pretty cool.

Yeah. Yeah, honestly, bro, you're sick as fuck right now, but we're gonna have to punish you. Somehow. So he's like, he puts him in the palm of his hand, and he says if he can, if you can escape the palm of my hand, then you're good. Otherwise you're gonna have like a long punishment. It basically, Wo Kong travels to the edge of the universe.

And he shows up at the five pillars.

The five pillars. He shows up at these five pillars. You know what he does.

It's his fingers. He pees on one of them.

He pisses on one of the pillars.

Yeah, you hear that.

He gets to the edge of the universe, sees these.

Five Buddha says, escape my palm.

Yeah, he sees the five pillars, he pisses. He he intuits in his mind, I'm at the edge of the universe. These five pillars must be like some primordial truth that exists in all realms. And he pees on one of them. He's like, fuck these people.

I love this guy.

Yeah, he pisses on Is that one of his fingers, Yes, yes, the finger of one of the fingers, fingers the five pillars, or Buddha's finger.

But but you get that right. The Buddha encompasses the whole universe.

Yeah, yeah, you know, we'll see.

That's not the part I really can The whole universe is in the palm of the Buddha. You got the whole world, palm.

World. Piss on my fingies, piss on my fingis.

That had to mix it up?

Oh god? Yeah, he pisses on the finger and then Buddha is like, all right, you just piste on my finger. Uh, And he basically puts a mountain on top of Wukong and and locks him up there for five hundred years.

It's what the Mountain of the Five Elements.

Yeah, yeah, he locks him up there for five hundred years, and then you know that's that's like, that's the first like seven or eight chapters of Journey to the West. This is a one hundred chapter book.

It's over a thousand pages. Dude.

Yeah, it is huge.

I feel I feel drawn to reading this now after you just read it for me and I'm just watching it playing out.

That's the beginning.

That's the beginning. Yes, Then after five hundred years, here's where.

I come in. That's not even the journey.

Yeah, that's that's his origin. Then after the five hundred years, he's freed from the Mountain of the Five Elements, and then he's sentenced by the Buddha on a quest. You can no, No, it's Gwan Yin. Yeah, this this Uh, she's like a Taoist deity, like a celestial princess or empress or something, and she sends him on a quest. Helped this monk huang Xiang traveled to India and retrieved

Ah, because this to me sounds like archangel meets uh, what is his name?

Harrison Bergeron? Who?

Huh?

Is that the right book? Harrison and Bergeron? Yeah, hang on, hang on, you're talking about the boy and the heron. I feel like y'all are talking.

About that lumberjack guy that y'all were talking about in that one episode. Remember when we were talking about Paul Bunyan and y'all were saying some other name.

Oh, John Henry yeah, man, Yeah, well I don't yeah, yeah, No, this is a book Harrison bergeron.

This is a dystopian novel where they where everybody in this universe has to be equal.

So they so if I've heard.

Of that if you're super strong you have to wear weights to be equal to the weakest person.

It was more like, and.

They had these headsets that would give people headaches. But they're just getting like, if.

You were too smart in the way you were too smart, you had one of these headsets on and that at random free nine times.

Sorry, nine plus plus nine plus ten, you're stupid. Yeah. So so then the journey actually begins after five hundred years, and it's an allegory about him. You know, at first he was like this monkey mind, rebellious trickster figure, and then he helps this monk huang Xiang go get these sacred scrolls. Right, So on the journey they basically fight like tons of demons, I mean just tons of demons. And there's other characters too, did you see about them?

Yeah, I forget the dragon Horse's name, and.

They're all symbolic of other things.

So they all like join the like bodyguard squad for Yeah, what's his name, Chuang Zanganang.

Yeah, and there's another translation for that too. But so again, the story of this monk xuang Xiang came from like this the five hundreds. Yeah, there's either the five or the six hundreds. I think it was the six hundreds. Yeah, seventh century monk and he he was real, he really made a pilgrimage to India and like if you study this ancient monk, he actually went to India, he got these scrolls, he came back to China and he found it like a pretty significant Buddhist institute, like a monastery.

Yes, okay, it's it's this this monk juan Xiang and he's leaving China to go. But it's based on what Buddha is Like there's going to be demons so protect so Wu Kong and all these other deities need to go with him to protect him on the way.

Yeah, because there's these not great at geography. It just took me a little.

We're making sure you're with us.

So the the actual Journey to the West story is an allegory for the quest for spiritual enlightenment and immortality. And it's about integrating the mind, the body, the spirit, in the will to become a fully realized Buddha. It's about awakening of consciousness.

Right.

So you have all these different characters. You have the pig Pigsy, who symbolizes like your typical uh, you know, gluttony, greed, uh lust, all these like physical desires. You have uh, the human monk Juang Xiang, who symbolizes the heart, the human spirit, overcoming you know, grief and despair and all these different trials. You have Wu Kong, who symbolizes the mind,

Right? Was he an ogre? I think? So? I don't think, So hang on, let me see join you to the West, Sandy, Uh. And then what was the what was the dragon horse's name?

I don't remember his name. I just saw the White Dragon.

Oh okay, yeah, Sandy was like a sand ogre or yeah, yeah, shah Wing, a sand monster, a sand hulk.

Represent since the physical body and its endurance. Unlike the other two disciples, he's not driven by passions or desires, but just strictly duty and loyalty. He's kind of like basically strong endurance, patience. He's common adversity, steady nature. He's like the ability to remain composed in the face of adversity. Ye,

Yeah. So they're having like their individual awakenings and individual journeys of enlightenment. But also the overarching thing is.

It sounds like Wizard of Oz. Yeah, it does. Think of that too.

Ah, good freaking point.

I was literally when he was talking about damn something a minute ago, I was literally thinking, this is like Wizard of Oz.

I was thinking, it's like one piece. They are literally journeying to the west blue.

Really they're going west.

I mean technically they're going east, but to end up at west of the red line. We yeah, uh yeah.

So the cool thing also about this story is it is a syncretic blend of uh Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.

Yeah, were you ready to.

Say something that was a good word syncretic or syncretistic, whichever one suits your fancy. But it's like it's a blend of all these different philosophies. You have these Buddhist monks have you have the Buddha, you know, Ami Taba and all of these different celestial beings of all these realms,

So it's just interesting with more shared well that eventually happened in the East, right, all of the all of the things that were once one kind of separated out into what you said, I don't know.

It's true, but they still do. You can look at Daoist Buddhism, like Daoism they share hindu they share a lot, and they don't they're.

Not I mean, you could climb the Christianity tree and see it.

But they're not like I feel like those cultures are not at odds and they don't necessarily negate one another in any way, whereas when you get into the tree of Christianity, it's all you know.

There's also Jainism and which are similar at least Jainism. It's like these are like offshoots of sex of Buddhism. I could be completely wrong, but I'm pretty sure Jainism was like an offshoot of Buddhism. Buddhism is an offshoot of Hinduism. It comes from Hinduism, right, India.

That's right. I mean, well, yeah, because the Buddha was like technically practicing Hindu Like.

Yeah, I guess he was.

Yeah, So they share a lot. It's very different from Western religion, where it's much more like at odds.

I'm pretty sure you're correct. Jainism Ryan so after being born from a stone and realizing his mortal nature, he seeks out his Taoist master to learn the secrets of immortality. He became a disciple of the immortal Taoist sage Sabuti, who taught him various magical arts, including the seventy two transformations, which allowed Sun Wukong to shape shift into different forms. He learns how to ride clouds and other mystical skills. He practices in alchemy, which is a real ancient Chinese practice.

Yeah, and that his buddy died, right.

Yeah, So Wulkong's like, I don't want to die, right, And he's like, well, I want more. So he starts seeking immortality. His original quest is, you know, he's how can I seek immortality? So the first way he seeks immortality is maybe avoiding the cycle of reincarnation. So he starts, you know, training under the tallist Monk, and then it's the peach Guard and all the other stuff we already talked about, the pills of lousy, striking his name from

Like, that's the that's the story of Sun Wukong.

It's insane, Like I didn't realize that it was actually I thought it was just a story.

Yeah, you know, yeah, I.

Didn't realize like it was actually real spiritual allegory.

There's all another there's another bit of media that has a lot of parallels to this story, and it's one that we both recently watched. Monkey Man.

Monkey Man. Yeah, no, it does.

It's about it, dude. He climbed to the penthouse.

Yeah he did.

And yeah, sorry, yeah, oh sorry, Alex hasn't finished it yet, but yeah, I won't say I won't say much more. He freaking climbed it. There's a ton of parallels. That movie is more focused on Hanuman, right, which is.

I don't know much about Hanuman.

Yeah, it's another monkey.

God.

I think there's probably a ton of parallels. I didn't look specifically into that, to be honest.

Creation and destruction, right, yeah, yeah, which I mean like could definitely represent Woukong, Like it's the Yin yang thing.

It's the the ignorant impulse kind of version versus the enlightened version. It's it's I could see.

Yeah, that movie kind of shows that there was a couple things actually I didn't hit because I was like, dang, you know, you kind of hit the whole story here, and I don't want to rehash the whole thing. But what I didn't talk about yet was the White Dragon Horse. How he symbolizes willpower. He's transformed into a horse. He symbolizes the willpower and the strength needed to carry the burdens of life. He's Juan Jang Steed, and he represents determination, perseverance,

Yeah, you know, we can.

Go higher than those those realms that we can even imagine. Buddha and guanyin combastion and ultimate wisdom, the Buddha represents ultimate truth and enlightenment. His intervention in some Wukong's rebellion and his guidance of Juan Jiang's journey symbolized the guiding force of divine wisdom and overcoming ignorance and achieving spiritual awakening. And then you have guan yin the body Satfa of compassion, which I think a body Saffa as a being that

Yeah, exactly know, that is the end of the cycle according to narcissism, according to a few.

Really right, like what the Egyptians say, once your heart is a you know, as light as a feather, you don't have to reincarnate anymore. So yeah, that's pretty cool. And then yeah, that's basically the symbolism. What dude, I'm telling you, Man, this blew my mind because I've I've been aware of Wukong my whole life, but never looked at it through this lens.

It is deep.

I've looked at it through like media entertainment lens.

So it is one of my very favorite mythologies.

Yeah, I think it makes playing the game that much better. Yeah, when you know some of this stuff, like when you start out as the Peach in the beginning, I didn't even have a thought about that, and then you know, seeing it through this lens, I'm like, oh my god. Yeah, Like I want to replay the game after knowing a lot more of this stuff and like really look and be like how much of this you know?

Yeah, Like one of the first things that I saw because I was watching you play it and when you like respawd, there was a you rep spawned from a little hair. Or another thing was when you summoned clones of yourself, he would like pluck hairs off of himself and the hairs would become his clones. Because then your staff too. Yeah, because in the myth it says that son Wukong has eighty four thousand hairs all over his body, and each of them he can pluck them and transform

That just reminded me of something that the number seventy two was kind of symbolic in The Journey to the West because in an ancient philosophical way of thinking, like Wukong has seventy two transformations. Well, what he's getting at is it's limitless. Basically, it's such a big number, infinite. Yeah, I mean he can transform into anything. Yeah, you know, to us, maybe seventy two is a small number, but.

Yeah, it's like in the Bible when it says seven times seventy exactly, it's like a huge number. It's exaggeration, yeah, but in real reality it really means infinite. Yeah, you know, because it describes in the novel in Journey to the West, like he can take the form of any any object or being in existence.

Dude, he's in the eight trigrams of Laotzi's hell, yes, or something like that. Maybe it's not a cauldron, yeah, the cauldron, yeah, the crucible eight tragram palm.

Yeah, I thought the same thing.

I saw that today.

I was like, Okay, all of Neggie's moves are eight trigrams something.

Isn't it a yin yang in the middle of it? Or am tripping.

Something like that? It might actually be a yin yang. It's it's something like that. But but yes, yes, eight trigrams. I thought the exact same thing, Bro.

Eight trigram palm. I want to see if that's it's been many years since I've seen that. Yeah, since I've seen that technique even. Yeah, it's a yin yang in the center. So they're showing you Misashi Kishimoto. He's sewing you Chinese philosophy. So eight tragram Bro, it's literally a reference to Laosi in the eight trigram cauldron.

Yeah, there's all there's there's more like Journey to the West references than I realized. Sorrow toob with his staff. Yeah, that turns into a monkey, a king, any.

Named whatever that means.

I wonder what I think that means monkey. Maybe I don't know. I could be completely wrong. I don't know.

Japanese, well, I just had a little spoiler. Oh and Japanese mythology, Emma is the king of Buddhist hell, the judge of the after Oh, he judge is right and wrong after a person dies and goes to hell and you get many different types of punishment. That's it's the Japanese Lord of Death.

Yeah. You just look around and you'll see so many things influenced by Journey to the West that you may not have ever known.

He's derived from the Hindu god of the underworld, Yama, which Yama is the name in the story of Sun Wukong.

Remember.

Yeah, yeah, wow, dude, it's like the more you see these connections, it's like, uh, I don't know, man.

It really inspired and is still inspiring so much, thousands of years after being written, thousands and thousands of years after being written, it's still inspiring the stuff that we're watching and playing, and it's just it's really cool.

Yeah.

I thought you guys were gonna sit here and talk about a video game. And I've thoroughly enjoyed this episode.

No, that was that was just one little piece of it, because no, I was just I just didn't I didn't know anything about this when you were talking about I never heard about this.

I enjoyed this guy.

Yeah, he's the coolest man. He's like sounds like it. He's like the og, Like.

Just be careful when you go pe and on pillars. I'm saying, yeah, p and PVC pipes.

Or anything that resembles a pillar, right right, dude, I can're everywhere.

You gotta watch shout. I can't find the official title of this figure, but there's like a spokesperson for the Chinese government. I can't remember where her title was, but I saw the video and.

It's real, dude, the Great Sage.

Yeah, Gwan Yin.

Yeah.

But she was doing like a public press conference and she was just saying, I don't know much about video games, but this new game Black Myth that came out as a testament to the the what was the word she used, It was like basically, it's a testament to the significance of Chinese culture. So, dude, like this game comes out and within days you literally have people in the Chinese government being like, I'm the Great Sage, Equald have Heaven.

Yeah, it's it should It cannot be understated how huge Journey to the West is. It's it's one of the very most famous mythologies of all time and one of the most impactful as we've covered today. Thank you for joining folks.

Yeah, I'll have to find this this lady later, but yeah, I hope you guys enjoyed this one.

I had a lot of fun. I still want to read it, that's my boy. Yes, I would too. I'd like to as well. There are actually a few versions, and many years ago I read like an even older version because in the sixteenth century it was transcribed into a full novel, one hundred chapter novel. But before then it was like a much, much shorter poem. It was like wow, And I read that version many years ago, before that it was passed down orally.

Listen to how this reads, dude, this is just the very beginning. It's beautiful, Like I really want to read this.

Man, I do too. I was thinking about going to the library and seeing if they have a copy.

Well, from what I understand, it's in four different volumes, so you would like physical copy wise, or you could get like I saw today, you could get each of the four volumes for like three bucks apiece on Kendle, you know. But listen to this. Let me find the part where it talks about him being born. It talks about the creation of the universe and how it's like different thousand, multi thousand years cycles, twelve cycles of the cosmic cycle, and that's a pretty cool part. But I

It's gorgeous.

It was written hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

Yeah, it reads.

So it reads like a modern novel.

Yeah, it's actually interesting to read.

It's not like some exactly, it's not like some boring you know, old mythological text that you have to bore through. But it's bro this is like an anime.

It's awesome.

Yeah, it's like reading like Lord of the Rings or something.

Yes, it's an epic. Yeah, it feels like reading Lord of the Rings or fantasy novel.

I definitely want to read it.

Yeah. Same, I want to check out. I still haven't been to the library here, so I want to go.

It's pretty cool.

It's you know, there's a couple I want to I want to go check it out and see if they have it. I'll check it out and read it.

Yeah, I've been to the one downtown. I have to check it out.

I'll have to check it. Wow, dude, it's been a minute.

It's been a minute. But I will actually have to check that one out. Yeah, it's cool. You guys feeling good?

Yeah, dude.

You ready to wrap up this journey to the West.

Yeah, let's wrap it up all right? Bye yard, Bye Piggsy.

Happened in the backyard. Piggy my favorite character, like smiring on the inside of it.

No one knows that.

Wow, let's come for I ever did sigh

At happy