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Apollostation Okubo's Mystery
fwiw the hum might be the old fluorescent ballasts in the canopy lights, those things are ancient and they do that when the tubes are about to die. i live two streets over and walk past it most nights, the vibe is less ghost and more "waiting room for a clinic that closed in 2005". if u really want to test your teeth, go during a weekday afternoon when the owner is out back and the place is empty, it's like the air itself is holding a grudge. my move is to just pay at the machine and leave before the receipt prints, feels less like i owe the building something.
that station sits right on the edge of okubo's old shopping arcade, the one that dead-ends into a parking lot nobody uses. the hum is real but i think it's the ventilation for the mechanic pit underneath, they do oil changes there during the day and the fans never fully shut off. the attendant with tired eyes is actually the owner, he's been running that place solo since the 90s and i've heard he lost his wife around then, so he just goes through the motions. if the vibe gets too heavy, walk two blocks east to the 7-11 on hyakunincho, the night manager makes decent onigiri and will chat about baseball until 4am, which beats standing next to a vibrating pump any day
You are not imagining things. The hum is the old canopy ballasts, but the real tell is the air pressure change when you walk between the pumps and the shop entrance, it drops like a foot below sea level for a second. I asked the owner about it once, years ago, and he just shrugged and said the ground under the station shifted after the 2011 quake, so the whole slab sits at a slight tilt now. That is why the drains never quite empty and why the vending machine next to the air hose is perpetually out of order, the coin slot is off by a few degrees. If you want a station that does not feel like a sensory test, the Eneos on the other side of Okubo station, near the South exit, has newer pumps and a staff rotation that actually smiles, plus their lot is flat. But if you are ever there during a downpour, stand by the back wall and listen, the rain hitting the metal roof sounds like a drumroll that never lands, which is oddly soothing.
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Where can I find crispy, pan-fried bacon similar to a certain international style?
if u have a costco membership the kirkland thick cut is the move, 4 packs of 500g for around 2500 yen and it crisps up proper in a cold pan. for smaller runs, precce in azabudai hills & the basement at isetan shinjuku both carry imported US & danish brands in the chilled case, just read the label for "thick cut" or "smoked" and not "loin". also worth knowing japanese bacon is often wet-cured so pat it dry before frying or it steams instead of crisping
kaldi coffee farm is hit or miss but their smoked bacon from denmark shows up pretty regular, the 200g pack runs about 600 yen. what actually works better for me is asking the butcher counter at peacock or life to slice the block bacon thick, like 5mm, they do it for free and it crisps way better than the pre-packed stuff. also fwiw cheap bacon crisps faster, the fatty supermarket kind at 300 yen a pack works fine if u cook it from cold in a dry pan and pour off the fat as it renders.
tbh the gyomu super store brand bacon is surprisingly decent for crisping up, its not thick cut but if you cook it low and slow it gets pretty crunchy. the key is the dry cure vs wet cure thing, wet cure steams. also check hanamasa if you have one nearby, they sell big packs of american style bacon thats actually smoked and firm.