What. A. Day. I’m knackered… once again! This day turned out to be exactly what I had in mind and it really felt like all my favourite things came together. Me and my friends started the day off slowly with local breakfast and a casual stroll through a neighbourhood we hadn’t been to before after which I made my way down to Machida for a solo exploration. Even though the city of Machida didn’t have many noteworthy features, I just love exploring places like these. When walking around in those tourist-free spots (‘cos, let’s face it: no sane tourist has a valid reason to travel to Machida over, let’s say, Shibuya) it feels like you really get to grasp what normal life is like in these locations that are so far away from home. The first highlights in Machida for me were the 6 Pokéfuta (remember those manhole covers I was on about a while ago?). You might wonder why those lids are placed in Machida and not in central Tokyo. Well, see, here’s a fun fact: the creator of Pokémon, Satoshi Tajiri, grew up in this place and even based the iconic Pallet Town on Machida! I do have to add that Pallet Town along every other starter town in the Pokémon games has nothing but four houses to offer so I’m yet to find the resemblance between the fictional town and its real life counterpart. Anyway, after some successful shopping I made my way to another football game: Machida Zelvia taking on Tokyo Verdy. I said it before and I will say it again: I can’t get enough of it. This was yet again another wonderful experience. The atmosphere, respect, and joy one witnesses during a Japanese football game is something every other footballing nation should learn from. Simply phenomenal. Can’t beat it for me. Many more exciting things happened today as I was casually living my life in an unknown commuter city on the edge of Tokyo metropolis but having walked 30km took all energy out of me to go into detail on it all. Time to end this day and prepare myself for another one tomorrow. I got to hit the stores again after all.