(Some) Stuff About Summer 2024 | Episode 40

So guess who's back hi ari's with us today and yanni's here hi i never left and i'm here you also he has to set it up yeah and a little bit of an announcement before we jump in ari she's decided to abandon it's not it's not for you to tell, ari you say the thing i have decided to abandon no i have decided that i will only be appearing as a guest star for the remainder of the podcast and that's fair that nothing else needs to be said you're leaving me with the dog just

call me a dog oh you're my dad.

So it'll be me and yanni going forward ari will join us every now and again and that's perfectly let's say okay like let's say the three of us go see a movie and we actually really want to talk about it yeah that would be a perfect example where she will come in or we go on a dope trip and we all want to talk about it yeah well or something really exciting happens in her life or we all watch a show together or something like you know there'll be instances where i i pop back up yeah so

it isn't she's not disappearing forever right and she's not like moving out or anything so she can't no because she isn't only 16 but oh yeah i have turned 16 did we record no after you have not recorded since you turned 16 but we have talked about you i'm 16 i know that you guys don't have a car now i have a job now i have two jobs now actually yeah yeah and yeah i went to a different continent which is pretty much what we're going to talk about this episode this is a stuff episode

it's a stuff episode meaning that it's not a movie review not a tv show review we're going to just talk about stuff specifically about summer this summer we're getting to the tail end of it school is starting soon some folks have gone back to to school in other places that.

Are you know in the united states and so i'm gonna talk about what we did this summer we're back with more episodes of dumb dialogue with dad i'm ari i'm yanni i'm dad expect a lot of reviews but also serious things like pineapples why they eat you back.

Pineapples don't eat you bad yes they do how does a pineapple eat you back well you see we also We also talk about vacation, school, and things about growing up.

And I get to spend time with my darling daughters. You're such a dad.

Anyway, we'd like to dive deep into the Marvel Universe, the Harry Potter Universe, and popular Netflix series. Not sponsored. Not yet. But how did you- All of these topics and more can be found on Dumb Dialogue with Dad. Which starts now.

So as we were recording this episode, we figured out that this was going to be very long if we kept it at one episode. So we've actually broken it up into two episodes.

So part one will be what you're listening to now, Japan and Hawaii. I'm sorry, just Japan. And then part two will be Hawaii and Minnesota and just other stuff that we talked about. So this summer, we as a collective family and individually went some places.

How about you start because yours you left america yours is absolutely probably the coolest of all the things that have happened in summer so well before we even get to that let's talk about like leading up into you know after your birthday and get in the car and talk about that a little bit so like like we said i i turned should i talk about like the lead up to going out of the United States of America? Yeah, yeah, yeah, pretty much. Start with your birthday party.

What happened at your birthday party and then lead up to that? So my birthday party was my sweet 16. I invited some friends. We swam in the pool. It was it was great. And I got my car, which did you tell the story of like how y'all didn't do a gag gift? No, no, I didn't. So I had been telling them because I knew I was going to get a car. They had made that very clear. And I just been telling them I'm like, yeah, I don't know what I want. I want four wheels.

And so. Oh, yeah, this. Okay, yeah. We're in the backyard. Me and my friends were all eating in the backyard. Our cousin who was visiting at the time tells me to come here. Everyone else gets up. We're walking. And I'm expecting four tires and a bow. That's what I was expecting because I had quite literally been saying for the past, what, year? Yeah. I just want four wheels. I just needed to run.

I just want four wheels. i have been expecting completely turn there's a ford bronco not just a ford bronco sport yeah sport 2024 yeah in this economy in this economy yeah yeah in this economy you who you telling my parents are crazy people that's that's that is what the guy that sold us the car said he He said, y'all are crazy as to which I said, mm-hmm. So, yeah, we just real quick about that. Initially, mom and I. Whom we love. Whom we love. Had reserved a different vehicle like back in.

February or march it was either february or march we put down reserved a totally different vehicle, and it wasn't going to get here in time so we had to make an executive decision very soon after coming back from lubbock lubbock regionals boring drive yeah yeah no offense to lubbock no offense to lubbockians is that what you call people from lubbock i don't know just calling people from lubbock people from lubbock you lubbock residents There's no hate against you. You are the most boring place.

Specifically the drive to get there from where we live. Yes, but I feel like you'll actually have to go outside and entertain yourselves. Like, what do y'all do? Anyway, let's not talk about fellow Texans in that way.

But yeah, we came back from Lubbock and mom and I had to immediately go and go see you know our local ford dealership because we have been looking all that week for, you okay i lost my phone ah there it is oh it's over there we have been looking online okay what can we do what can we do like this this other vehicle is not gonna get here in time and we found.

What eventually became your your vehicle and mom called she talked to somebody we reserved the time when we got back from lubbock and we and it like the next day we was at the dealership you know to figure that out was it lubbock it had to have been because we didn't go anywhere else for a long time that's true yeah yeah it was lubbock okay so yeah went purchased it left it at the dealership until the day of the party oh yeah that's a fun story as well go ahead so my

actual like birth date is the 13th of may yes my party was the 18th days after yeah something like that so i was supposed to get my license on my birthday like the appointment had been set back in february because you know dps yeah you guys get the stuff like in advance in advance so i took the appointment date did it all by myself and then my birthday rolls around i skipped school at least the first half of school wake up it's gray in the sky like thunderstorm coming yeah you can tell it's

going to rain i had been saying like it's it's gonna rain rain y'all were y'all were trying to be optimist and be like you'll be fine you'll we'll make it then yeah someone was at what two. It was a little, no, a little earlier than two. It seems like a lifetime ago at this point. Something like that. We get there. We get inside the building. You just hear thunder. And at that point, I knew I wasn't going to take my driver's test. I knew they weren't going to let me.

But what they did do is they went ahead and looked at all the paperwork, you know, verified we had everything we needed. And then scheduled an appointment for the next week for you to go back and take the driving test.

Which was very cool because i when when i heard thunder i was just expecting okay i'm not gonna get my license till like july so in between that time was the party from between the 13th and the day that you went the following week to actually take the test was the party in which you found out what you got yeah yeah the party happens i get my my car and mind you i've been working myself up over taking the actual driver's test it's really not that bad at least the one i did was not that

bad yeah but i had been like just working myself up over it you were upset about that the day that you couldn't take i was devastated yeah i was hurt you know the worst part was because like a several few hours after that it was it was sunny yeah the sun came out which is typically something that happens here in texas like if it can rain snow and sun in the same day but yeah It was gorgeous afterwards. But at that point, it was too late. We had already come back home.

The DPS location facility is not close to our house. It's not. It's like 45 minutes away. It's in the middle of nowhere. But I think it's kind of like the middle point for every. Yeah. At least for people that live in the area, it's like a good middle point. No, because it was just, I was devastated. It was on my actual birthday.

So people are telling me, you know, happy birthday, happy birthday. and i'm just i don't want to hear it yeah anything i went to school for the rest of the day my friends are all like oh it's okay you'll you'll you'll take it next week you'll be fine i was just like yeah but i really wanted to take it today you know get my license on my birthday but it was great not really but saturday rolls around had my party all my friends came out we swam in the pool It was great.

Got the car. Got the car. Took the test. There was a shaved ice truck. There was a shaved ice truck. We had a pretty good party. It was a great party. Yeah. I would also like to point out. You need at least a 70 to pass your driver's license test. I got an 88. So I couldn't parallel park for nothing. Still can't. Parallel parking is one of those things that's tough. I talked to everybody who has their license that I know, and they just kind

of said, you want it in the moment when you have to do it. Which is true. I can speak to that as a person that's been driving for a long time. You learn it when you have to. Because, I mean, I was far from where I needed to be.

You what it's like six six and three six inches from the curve something like that i was a good two i was a good ways from that curve guys i was nowhere near the curb but all in all you got your license you was able to drive to school on the last day of school and then left early and left early and now i drive myself to work now you drive yourself to work y'all go to target y'all have gone to eat lunch and you'll be driving the two of you to school i'm going to lunch again Yeah. Okay.

Because we said we wanted to do it again. That's how we started the summer. That's how we're going to end the summer. Are y'all going to make it a tradition? It could be. I wouldn't mind it. I mean, what say do you have? You have a free ride and a person who pays for lunch. Yeah, I need a belt, too. You should pay for lunch next time. I need a belt. That's why I need to go to Target. Yeah, she needs a belt. I forgot to get one.

You need a belt for school? A belt for my pants. For school? In pants. In pants. Not just for school She's gonna wear pants out Okay. You need shoes for school Well I need shoes You need a shirt for school I need clothes To go outside It'd be your own people It'd be your own people. Anyway you should pay for lunch next time Since you paid for it last time She has a job I don't get paid Pay me You have money Pay me You have cash I know you have cash I thought cash was,

No, you can pay for cash. You can use cash to pay for anything. It's still acceptable. We were discussing this, actually, on the way to Target, ironically. Go on. We didn't know. I don't know if this just means we're sheltered or we're stupid, but we didn't know that cash was still, like, an acceptable form of payment for things. I thought it was like, because most people use, like, a card or their phone. You don't see cash being handed out like that for a tip. So I'll tell you,

there are some places that are cashless. Yes. That is true. You see more cashless places. I feel like I'm visiting more places where it's like card, card. And I don't know if the restaurant that y'all went to is cashless. You would have to ask. Y'all would have to ask me and y'all go. We tipped in cash. Well, yes. You're supposed to tip in cash. Tip in cash, yeah. But paying in cash, you would have to ask that question.

What you could do is you pay for it and you just pay her back in cash and then she can deposit the money in her account. There's ways y'all can work around this thing. I just think. Pay me. Do stuff. I do do stuff. Well, you did. Pay me. We'll work out. We'll renegotiate our terms. But yeah, that leads us up to, you know, right, you know, May and then leading up to. June. So June is when I. Nothing happened in June.

So apparently nothing happened in June. June, so I guess I took my trip in July. No, I took it in June. June, what? Man, that was like the first weekend in June, wasn't it? It was like the 8th, 7th or 8th? June 7th, I think. Oh my God, a lot happened in June. Okay, I was joking. In June, the first time I got in the car with her, it was just us two. That was crazy. I couldn't believe it. Yeah. I kept talking about it. And then- Oh yeah? On the way to the restaurant? On the way to the restaurant.

Whole way there, she's just like, you're driving. You're driving, you have a car.

And then i had the banquet oh yeah talk about that banquet oh okay so i think it's like a common common thing in like clubs and sports we're like after like a good after like a sports a good season or just a good year in general you have or you just have it you can have a really bad season and you still have it it's a banquet and we do it my gym we do it and we go to like a hotel tell and we all get dressed up and we all get it's like an awards night yeah yeah and

so like if you have like if you were like a state champion you get a certificate that says that you're a state champion if you're a regional champion get that on your certificate if you were both i was last year you get it on your certificate and you also get a trophy yeah and typically it's for like the end of the season but my sport the kind of gymnastics i do our season is not over.

Until like a like a few weeks after the banquet because you have the banquet and then a few weeks later you actually have the national competition which you qualify for this year yeah so so the season wasn't technically over for y'all that qualify for certain levels yes but if you were like under under level eight your season was over right right but i'm level eight so my season was not over because i qualified yes and a lot of my friends qualified and yeah

it was great yeah yeah Yeah, that was not, I didn't go to that. I don't think me or mom, whom we love, went to the banquet this year. I never go to the banquets. I think I went to one the first time. You've never been to a banquet? I went with y'all to Powerhouse one time. I had to wear something nice. I just remember that. I don't know if it was a banquet, but I just remember we had to wear something nice. I did not like it.

Oh, yeah. So, yeah. So, I mean, that was, and the banquet was before we went anywhere, right?

It was like that week. because she we also saw planet of the apes which we have talked about and that is oh yeah we have an episode that you can listen to about our thoughts about that okay so okay so that rounds out may getting into early june and i want to say that you my dear ari hi left to go to uh on a trip on june 7th so it was yeah june 7th so june 7th through the 70s you're over you got back check point is i was gone for about two weeks i went to japan which i'm

sure you guys have already i thought you were gonna say i'm sure you guys have heard of that place we didn't go into into we didn't go in depth about it but you just told me i went to japan yeah we just said that we that you went to japan so i went to japan it was fantastic the food was great food was bomb the the nightlife and whenever i say nightlife yeah what you mean by that because you said that recently at a doctor's appointment and the

doctor was like dad did you know about the nightlife i'm like i just i trust that she just did the right thing by nightlife i literally mean me and my friends went out at night and shopped and ate okay went to our kids that sounds living their life pretty much at night we're doing stuff we could have done during the day at night time but it was it's just so much better i got my figure at night but it was just it was great i I mean, I hung out with some people who I probably never would have met.

Ever from my school yeah i guess we should say this was a school-ish trip yeah i mean because so the trip was an educational tourist trip into a lot of like temporary yeah so there was an educational component to it ari has a teacher in her school or they have a teacher at their school because y'all ain't gonna be going to the same school freshman that is that facilitates these these trips like every summer and so there were people most of the people that went on the trip were from your school

or associated with your school in some kind of way a parent teachers daughter of the teacher yeah yeah brothers sisters cousins whole family whole families were on this trip which i mean i would never but dang he loved you too i'm just saying like if you're gonna do a family trip like that because if you're with us if you're with ef which educational Educational Foundation.

Educate EF. What does EF stand for? I don't know. Their point is they're the company that we went through for the, that the school went through for the trip. They do, obviously, education. So you have to listen. You have to follow. It's just EF tours, y'all. That's what it is. They just pick two letters. All right. Well. Yep. But you have to follow with the group during like visits and stuff. You can't move at your own pace.

You have to stay with the group. Yeah. So if you're going to do a family trip like that, at that point, just do the family trip. And I'm going to tell you, because we talked about like briefly, this trip has been years, like a couple of years in the making. My freshman year. Yeah. And so we we we paid for this trip over time. And, you know, we we talked about potentially going as a family. We talked about potentially just one parent going.

But ultimately, we decided not to. And after hearing like or after kind of following you as you were going along the trip, you know, seeing the pictures.

She was fine you were fine i think it was better that i was by myself i'm gonna say that too but i also think that i would not have had a good time because it was too structured for me, i've had to travel before in a structured manner like that where you got to be up at a certain time you got to meet at a certain time you have to move from hotel to hotel like i don't i do not i do not like doing it i didn't like when i had to do it in the military i do not like having to do

it now that i'm especially now that i'm out of the military you could forget it i don't want to travel like that it was yeah it was it was very structured and in regimented you have schedules i'm out meet here in 20 minutes like stuff like that and i'm i'm seeing the messages in the group chat on whatsapp and people are not showing up on time and where's such and such why and i'm like man enough i don't i'm i'm glad i didn't go because i would have not i would have i would

have made the best of it but after the fact i'd have been like man i'm not going on on a trip like that again that being said though. I think it was better that you went and experienced it on your own. And Yanni, I hope that there is a trip that you will want to go on. Yeah, the trip could be to Canada and I'd go. No offense to Canada. I want to go to Canada. I want to go somewhere in a different continent. Canada is in North America.

So Yanni has opportunity because she is going to be a freshman to take advantage of a very similar trip. So in the same deal, you can go on your own.

I'm not going and mom ain't going and i'm not going and ari will be in college at that point so well it'll be the summer it'll be summer before her junior year you'll be in college yeah i'm still saying i'd still it's summer yeah but you'd probably be doing your own thing i mean you'd be what like 19 years old so i mean yeah but i want to go to a different continent yeah you want to get a passport stamp like and and i'm

hoping i'm hoping it's south korea because i know that you're in the korean culture just like she's in the japanese culture so i'm hoping it's or scotland or scotland i know that's that's a place that you that you do pretty cool yeah so i talked about the trip now yeah absolutely please go ahead so we will sit back and let you talk about the trip yeah like you said it was very structured it was it was pretty much we got there that night we went to

dinner in like this little mall area you want to talk about the flight there and nothing Nothing eventful happened on the flight there, right?

The flight there, nothing really happened. It was long. And I unfortunately was trapped in the middle seat on an international flight. I don't think you heard me. Say it again for them. I was trapped in the middle seat during it. She is five. I am five foot nine. And I have the bladder of a small child. I had to pee. Both the people next to me, one of whom I ended up talking to and hanging out with during the trip, Thank you.

Was asleep and then i sat with the nurse because i have a peanut allergy yeah i have a peanut allergy and the nurse just wanted to keep an eye on you yeah was also asleep so you you just there i'm just there 14 hours in my in in my body i can feel that i have to go to the restroom and i'm just looking between them like okay who's gonna wake up first who's gonna wake up first and the nurse had told me like if you need to pee wake me up but how do you wake someone up gently on a plane to say can

you move like you know because i'll be i gotta go use it they have to move their legs they can stay asleep yeah they can they can completely stay seated but i just didn't want to like be a bother especially on a 14-hour flight where you wake up your whole sleep could be like that can mess you up really bad yeah because you it's a 14-hour flight you're going to a different time zone all together the plane ate my day it's just yeah yeah i understand

that so you're just and you didn't really you didn't have a choice of where you could sit on the plane like it wasn't like i could go in and say i'll see yeah no you could not be the only thing i could do was get you your vegetarian meals for the now that being said you could move seats to be next to your friends yeah y'all could just work that out internally yeah we could work that in turn all the seniors were like well now college freshmen

but they were coming up to you like hey what's your seat number and i just told them like i can't change seats because i have have special meals so whoever traded seeds with me would have to eat that conscious enough that's a good point to give me my meal that's a good point that meals were nasty but i'm glad you were.

Aware of that whole thing that you know it would have messed up your meals because if i hadn't oh god i'm gonna struggle if i don't i'm stupid no you're smart you'll figure it out if i had traded seeds with someone and they got my meal that one or two things could happen they could have a realized oh this is not for me or b they ate it they ate it and not not realized it actually there's a couple things they ate it threw it away or they just weren't

awake to get the meal because if you were asleep the the flight attendants at least there we're not gonna going there we're not gonna wake you up to give you food because y'all flew on air y'all flew american, from dallas to tokyo yeah or was it japan airlines japan airlines when we that we flew from dallas to tokyo yeah i can't i can't remember okay it's fine but yeah so like there we land it's It's great.

It's awesome. We're all like adrenaline rush, I think, hit us all at once because, you know, we all want to do everything. We want to see the lights. We want to do everything. I get my roommates. We get back to that hotel after dinner, after stopping at the 7-Eleven because their 7-Elevens are fantastic. They're fantastic. Stopped at 7-Eleven. We come back. We like eat some desserts that we got from 7-Eleven. I just remember closing my eyes.

Opening them again because I had to take a shower. So, I mean, I put my butt on the bed and I just closed my eyes and I just jolted myself away because I'm like, shower. Must shower.

Stinky. Like, I just needed to shower. Yeah, you had to get that airplane smell of all your feet.

I didn't wear the hoodie that I wore to, like, throughout the trip until we were leaving back to the airport just because it's, i can't if i wear an outfit like a hoodie or something to the airport it's got it's, airport clothing i cannot put that back on unless it has been washed deep clean i can't do it it's just a psychological thing i guess but i told dad this i was like yeah i don't wear any kind of short sleeve anything on a plane and i i

have adopted that same thing i'll wear a short sleeve shirt but pant i have adopted i'm wearing pants on airplanes now because i said i I don't need my skin touching the seat. Yeah. Unless I have heat stroke. I'm not taking my hoodie off. I haven't always had that philosophy, but I definitely have that philosophy now. And that's how I traveled when we went to the places. Pants. Wear pants. Oh, my God. If you go to the airport, wear close-toe shoes. Yes. Wear socks.

Yeah. Yes. Because, I mean, it's just. There's just food on the floor. There's trash everywhere. Put your dogs away. Japan didn't have trash on the floor, by the way. That was like. I ended up tying a plastic bag around myself because if you had trash, you had to keep it. Did you see somebody else doing that? No, I just did it. That's a good idea. That's just part of the culture there. It's trash cans. They want to keep the streets clean.

There's also history behind it. Terrorist attacks with trash cans and stuff like that. Oh, yeah. So I just tied a bag to my belt loop. And that's how I threw my stuff away. I would just put stuff in a bag. It was one that I owned. No, I was not doing that. Because chances are, I would forget about it. Once again, I'm stupid. You're not stupid. You would have figured it out. You would have figured it out on the fly. Took my shower. I come back out. I'm going to tell my other roommate.

Because me, there was three of us in that room. I had taken a shower. Roommate one had taken a shower. Roommate two had not taken a shower. I come back. I'm like, okay, you can use it. I didn't take that long of a shower. I took a 10-minute shower. I'm desperate to sleep. Come back out. They're both knocked out. Dang. Okay. So I kind of take a very nice, small, relaxing shower instead of... Was the bathroom big? Not really. Again, tall person. Decently sized.

If you were shorter. If you're like 5'4 below, it's a very big accommodating bathroom. So if you're 5'4 below, great for you. I'm not 5'4 below. Well, that's just because I mean, Japanese, they don't take up a lot of space. And they're very aware of their spatial surroundings. Just not being... Americans, we're wasteful. We very much are. We're wasteful when it comes to a lot of things, space included. Yeah, no. Everyone was super nice. Like,

The Japanese people were super nice to me, at least. Yeah. Which was a concern of mine, because I don't know if you've been listening for a long time. This may be a shock to some people, but we are Black. I know. And we didn't just recently turn Black. I know. It's been this way for 16 years. I've been Black. Me personally. We ain't turned Black. Some people don't think I am, but I am. I found friends. We all is Black.

People don't think i'm mixed i'm not you are not you are not you just like our mom whom we love is mixed no she's just light-skinned i've had friends who didn't like know anything about you who hadn't seen you or hadn't seen y'all yeah like my parents when they saw yanni the first time they were like are you mixed no is your sister mixed no y'all fully yes it's just yeah she's just people don't think i mean black folks becoming all kind of different you know shades and and they're all beautiful

but going back to your point of being concerned about how you would be treated you know as one of the few black people aren't now not in your group yeah but just traveling and things like that that is a true concern yeah there was like six six black people i was very I was very scared because you had braids. I was very scared. So I'm not going to touch your hair. No one. Also a concern. It was, it was people on the trip who tried to touch my hair. Oh. It was people on the trip.

I got compliments on my hair from, from some very nice, a nice lady. She gave me some pants. Like I got compliments on my hair. Are you good bro? I'm having to re-situate myself cause I'm, I'm very sore right now. I've been outside most of the day working and I am, I am moving around a lot. So I apologize. Yes. Continue. I got compliments. And then you have people on the trip telling me such a thing. It was crazy. I touch her hair, but I'm allowed to.

Yes. I've counted her braids before. She has. She has sat down like- That's wild. That's wild.

Yeah wow but i mean but but a concern like because you know you travel to a different country and some people are have never seen or have rarely seen you know people outside of media because japan is one of those countries that most of the people there are japanese united states it's a melting pot is a melting pot of all different types of people so you have japanese people you have chinese people you have black people you have white people like and so it's It's just different in the states.

I know we have a lot of international listeners, some of which, you know, you probably have never seen a black person before. But that's a concern that, you know, we tend to have whenever we're traveling to a place that we know like, hey. They generally just see people that look like them. Exactly. And just like, how will we be treated? It's a concern. It's something that crosses our minds when we are in those situations.

It's not to say like we're scared that we're scared or that, you know, people are are racist. It's just it's just a thing of like, well, they will not not not out of ignorance or out of malicious intent, but more so out of just curiosity. How are they going to approach me and treat me? And if that curiosity will come across as curiosity or will it come off as either racism or aggression? Yes, exactly. And then you got to think about how can how do you respond?

Yeah. And then you got. Yes. And then it's like, you know, and it just it could put you in a weird situation. But you didn't have any of that from from from the Japanese people. That's great. And you went to some some small villages. You did. You did. That's why I thought you would have encountered something like that. The most that really happened was I just like this one lady. We were walking down the street, just me and my friends walking down the street.

We're talking. I'm with we're going to call this one. The girl I sent us on the plane who I learned is I think she's Puerto Rican. Okay. Puerto Rican half black. Okay. So we're walking and we just, there's this lady and her kid and she moved her child like away from us. And I was just kind of like, I'm not going to eat it. I'm not going to eat your kid. I don't even look that delicious. And then I was going to tell girl about it. And I was just like, did you see that?

Couldn't even tell her because she tripped on some cones. She ran into cones. She ran into a bike.

She ran into so much stuff she was so she's funny she lost her ability she really didn't she has glasses like me and i have peripheral vision because i watched her i'm like did you see that and i just hear that was funny but yeah no i ate some great food went to a lot of places and like you said it was structured the way it worked was wake up you have to be downstairs at 8 a.m 9 a.m whatever the time whatever the time was that you were given yeah you could have stayed it out that night.

We were given curfews as well. The seniors, now college freshmen, did not follow that curfew. But a lot of them were over the age of 18. 18. Okay. It's like, what can we do? Right. We're never going to see you after this. Right. You're green. You know what to do. Hopefully. Yeah. But you go downstairs. You have everything you need for the day. And we started getting on the bus. We went places.

They would give us like an hour to two hours to explore the area. Yeah. And give us a meeting spot. Okay. It was really a challenge of, do you have good situational awareness? Because you need to be able to locate the meeting spot from wherever you are in the place beyond and it may not be wi-fi in that area so you can't drop a pin and and be like ah you need to.

Landmarks landmarks that's that's how i remembered stuff pictures because you walk as a group to the meeting spot you walk as a group yeah you are told this is the meeting spot this is where you're going to meet in an hour or two hours whatever then you're free i would have taken a picture sure what i did was i whenever we were walking to the place i would look for certain things that i could remember certain markers like we

went to like a scavenger hunt pretty much like i was like okay that store was there that statue was there that light was there just giving myself markers in my head because i remember we first first time really exploring me and my friends we went to like the mall we're just walking and then time comes meeting spot we have 15 minutes to get there and And we're just like, okay. Friend one, she got on her phone trying to use Google Maps. That's not reliable.

That's not reliable enough for me. If I'm not in a car, I can't trust Google Maps. Because if you move, like, to the side when you're holding your phone with Google Maps, that can reorientate the whole map. That can move everything. And now you're on the wrong way. I could not trust that. I was just like, because she's like, wait, I need to load. No, follow me.

I remember that. I remember that. keep going straight ended up one time that she was right like her gps was right but i did not i didn't want to risk it the landmarks thing that you did that's that's just a good strategy that was that's really good strategy in general yeah well just to kind of move things along along, you know like you said you ate great food you know we do have two other trips to talk about those will be quick though i think yeah i wanted to give our the

opportunity to kind of talk about Japan in depth more than what we'll talk about Hawaii and then Minnesota. Yeah, we can talk about it. No, no, no. I want to give you the opportunity. Don't mention any names of companies.

I know. But tell us about your experience flying back from, to from what was it from tokyo to dallas to well we went from kyoto to tokyo yeah to dallas okay talk about your experience of one of those legs of the flight back home you've just arrived in tokyo some dude just had to go talk to japanese tsa okay for trying to bring back alcohol hall yeah being a minor you know you're you're doing good you eat and you hop on a plane 14 hour flight back to the united i was in the aisle this time oh

yeah you got the aisle seat so it wasn't that bad so yeah i could pee freely and i could walk freely i mean at one point i just kind of i was reading the hunger games everyone's favorite book everyone's favorite book series makes me feel so comfortable yeah right we we've sidebar we've seen the movies and like reading the books you know what's gonna happen because you showed us the movies when we were younger we're still over here like oh

my goodness can this one ever find water are they gonna make it out of the arena is peter gonna walk like get so scared for something i know it's gonna happen but you know we're in the plane and you just you're hearing flight attendants walking up and And down the aisles, talking about the passengers. In a negative way. In a negative way on the flight. Because I had the reading light on because I have a hard time sleeping on planes. No matter how tired I am, I can't allow myself to fall asleep.

Not for a considerable amount of time. It's going to be like a 20-minute increment. Something like that, yeah. I wake up. So I'm reading halfway through the book. I hear, man, I wish she turned the light off. Talking about you. Talking about me. And I'm petty. So I continue to have the light on.

I was cautious about it too because i was like man i don't i don't want to turn the light on and the nurse told me oh you're not gonna bother anyone and she turned the light on for me so i would have felt bad turning it off she went through all that effort to turn it on for you because i was worried she was like don't strain your eyes i mean i think i need to get one of those like lights for your like headband light ah okay yeah yeah

she was just like so i just left it on and i was ringing and then i just heard that so i was like okay you know what I need a break, put a little marker where the page I was and just kind of sat and took a minute to really question will Katniss ever find water, really thinking about that I had to pause you know she will you're just like oh my goodness is Brew gonna make it like.

Who's gonna survive this time right then she doesn't nope every time every time you're just like so I was thinking I was just like, just idly and I made sure they knew because they would walk past me just give me the most passive aggressive like smile, and I kept reading I finished the book and then I started drawing so again still need the light and then eventually I was like okay I don't need the light anymore I'm just gonna play on my phone turn the light off and I heard like a small finally,

I'm turning back on. Part of me was like, should I? And the part of me was like, no, I don't really want to. I'm going to go through all that effort. But, you know, we're about halfway through the flight. Mind you, this is Japanese. Some of the people on the flight were Japanese. Yeah. This is their introduction to America. Possibly. Maybe. Yeah. This could have been their first time visiting America. So they. This is how you're going to choose to introduce them to America.

Like. To American people. It's. American people are not that mean, bro. Honestly i'd say american people are overly friendly overly friendly you have the like outliers because people people are always like how do you know someone's american when they're visiting a foreign country because they're super nice yeah like they say thank you and it's usually a shock for people especially in asian countries because people are very straightforward there's making like if you're getting food and it's

like americans say thank you while some people like Like, locals don't. They don't. Yeah. That's how you choose to, like, introduce it. That's it. It just didn't sit right with me. Basically, just the flight crew was just not very professional. Very unprofessional. And it's just made for an unpleasant flight in some degree. I didn't hear this personally. I may have been asleep. I just may not have been paying attention.

But at one point, apparently, one of my friends was sitting next to this guy. Couldn't speak English that well.

So sitting next to this guy and the flight attendant was like do you want chicken or beef chicken or beef just yelling at the guy i remember this story was told to me chicken or beef chicken what do you want and the guy needed a minute to think about it yeah he needs to process the words translate them in his head right he didn't end up getting food because because he was she was trying to rush him no he was trying to rush the guy oh

it was a male flight okay trying to rush to the guy and so my friend just ended up, getting the either chicken or beef I can't remember what she got she said she got but she got the food and just gave it to him yeah cause like, that's crazy yo that's crazy but yeah no so we land that's scummy we land one of the parents like fully like as the flight crew is walking there was one lady super nice love that flight attendant really nice you were like you were surrounded

by bad people yeah on a bad day it's just because you can see that they're all walking together she's just behind them yeah so you know one of the parents on the trip was just like boo as they were walking by.

But we're waiting because we have we're in dallas at this point yeah the dallas fort worth area yeah, yahoo so you know yeehaw we have about a we we have what we think is a half hour layover right it should not be a long layer so we're like let's look at snacks you know we're back in the states.

Tipping oh my goodness it was a shock to have to tip because tipping is not a thing in japan tip in japan it's rude they gave me my money back when i tried but no we're like oh you know 30 minutes we get back to the gate gates can move okay nothing to do i can move you know yeah it happens all the time yeah it's change get there i'm a delay okay okay all right this point let's go get dinner guys so we go get dinner we eat come back there's been another delay okay we

get there i'm at this point i'm calling mom and dad just because like i need somebody to talk to it was the longest monday would you have answered you were at practice oh never mind i'm not you know i'm just calling i'm just talking and i'm talking to mom i see the tv our flight time is coming up our departure time's coming up i see the tv it flashes departure time changes and i just was so defeated just like it just changed again it just changed again so ultimately what was

It was supposed to be an hour and a half layover turned into like a three-ish hour layover. You're so close to home. We are. By the time that the flight took off, could have driven. Three hours. Yeah, I was like, you could just drive. Well, and I'm going to tell you, as you are communicating to me and as I'm kind of watching the flight get delayed and delayed and delayed, I'm just like, it may be just quicker for me to just drive up there to get her from Dallas.

And then me and her just get a hotel room and come back the next day. The thought did cross my mind but then I was like well okay by the time I get there she probably will.

Everybody they would have left and she would just be in the airport by herself so i was just like okay if it if it would have gotten delayed again to where it had been like it would have been pushing into like a four or five hour delay or if it would have gotten delayed to the point where they said okay we got to put y'all in hotels i would have just came up there and just and got you i mean i wouldn't have gotten there until like almost midnight we didn't get

home to almost and we but ultimately we didn't get home until almost midnight anyway but we wouldn't have not been able to come home that same night we would have came home that same then the the next day yeah so we it was just it was just long then we finally get a plane it's a 45 minute flight oh yeah yeah the flight from dallas to san antonio airport is not long it's a very short flight but mind you we're all tired we're all annoyed we're all we're just and y'all got that airport

stank on you we got airports nasty stank on airplane nasty stank on you the hoodie didn't wash I did do laundry in Japan in a bathtub, she did do laundry in a bathtub one night and then you get on the plane and then the bathroom doesn't work, we're in the airport we're lined up to get on the plane and they're just like this plane has no working lavatory so if you need to go go now I look at my friend and we just both went to the bathroom just mad and then she started drinking

a big gulp why would she do that. 45 minutes but like still I mean, but still, but I mean, like, a big go, like, come on. One of my other friends was like, no, the toilet will work. It will work. Yeah, so we get home. We stopped at Whataburger to get me some free food. No, tell what you did when you saw me. I ran and hugged and cried. I was so exhausted. Let me tell you, Ari is not a hugger. Or a crier. Or a crier for the most part. I just.

But, so I'm standing at the carousel, the luggage carousel, just waiting.

And i see people that i know you know i see the counselor i see teachers and stuff like okay so i knew that you had landed because i've been tracking the flight but i knew like okay they're actually getting off the plane and i spotted i think i spotted you before you spotted me but when you spotted me you ran around people made a mad dash for me and hugged me you ain't hugged me like that since you was a young child oh my god it was i don't even know what happened i was

just so the exhaustion because when she came back home i could tell she was delirious, the way she was acting it was not normal people behavior see.

She's telling stories jumping up and down i'm like when i'm the way i'm telling the story now i'm not like animated animated but you were animated when you got back that was delirium and exhaustion it really was i was running on fuse i'm gonna tell you when you ran to me and hugged me, it, it reminded me of when I got back, well, not when I got back, but yes, it reminded me of when I got back from deployment and you were like four years old.

No, you weren't even four yet. You were three. You were about to turn four. And you ran to me. When you ran to me like that, it reminded me of when you ran to me when we came and picked you up from the daycare when I got back from deployment. I was like, wow, what is happening here? Because it just all caught up to you. It caught up to me. I realized in that moment, I can go home. I can sleep in my bed.

I can go to my own bathroom. That works. That works. because we we get in the truck i'm just i'm telling you the whole like story about the flight crew yeah stop at water burger i get some fries and get a coke zero because they made me throw in my coke zero because i forgot i had it because in in japan you can bring liquids as long as it's closed through really yeah you could because they don't they haven't had an event like that they didn't have a 9-11 they haven't had a 9-11 they haven't

had one like when we you were in japan you know how they say like no firearms in the airport here yeah you didn't see a sign like that there was not a drug dog there was nothing like that 9-11 changed a lot of things for the united states when it comes to airports they stretch bro yeah it it really hit you like it's just like this is different it's different in play in other places more lenient it really was because japan has not had a terrorist attack to that extent

not to that now i imagine if you you fly to the uk you because the uk has had uk spain has had a had a terrorist attack in the early 2000s like places like that is probably a little more stringent but japan that makes sense to me also japan's like far off like japan over there i mean it is it it's over there the the most recent missing poster because they were.

Missing persons posters yeah and the fact that posters right posters now yeah it was like from 2003 i think i heard a pot i think i think uh listen to a podcast listen i think i listened to a podcast about that particular case but nonetheless though you made it home you had a great time i i slept and you slept oh you slept for so long you slept big sleep oh my goodness because i was i was waking up in the middle of the night because i think my

body was just like you gotta get up you gotta go we're in the middle of the night i ain't gonna go nowhere and just i couldn't even get my head up off the pillow oh the bus rolled back sad truth was that she had to go somewhere like a week after you not even a week but we'll get to that. So that was my time in Japan. Really enjoyed it. The flight back, you know, could have been better. The flight there was fantastic. You know, great crew, great-ish food.

Great food in Japan, I've said before, but you know, it was a good trip. I'm glad I got the chance to experience it. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity and I'm glad that you guys were cool enough to let me experience it on my own, even though I was the group. So I was on my own with people. Right.

Alone with others, if you will. and so do just due to timing we are going to talk about hawaii and minnesota in our we have recorded all of this together but we'll talk about hawaii minnesota in our next episode so this is a two-parter so with that being said you can find us online um you can go to the website it is the man I'm very tired it is the 3d pod dot pod bean calm that's the website recently did a little updating to it you can follow us on Instagram

and Facebook and threads at dumb dialogue with dad um hit us up on threads man threads has been really popping lately and uh I'm enjoying it it's it's a good It's a good time as opposed to X, the Twitter, Twitter X, X Twitter, whatever you wanna call it. We are not there anymore because it is forever Twitter, not a fun place to be. And that's it. So until you listen to part two of this, stay dumb, come back for part two, where we talk about Hawaii and Minnesota.