I'm going to be answering some of the most frequently asked questions that I get regarding living in Japan

moving to Japan, going to school here, and just things regarding

my experiences after living here for about 15 years now

I hope there's something interesting in this video for you

If you are planning on moving to Japan in the future yourself

or if you're just curious about what life is like here in Japan, so let's get started

I get asked this question all the time

"Is there any way we can live in Japan without teaching English?"

so teaching English is usually the profession of choice

for foreigners that come to live in Japan, just because it's a job that you can get here quite easily

even without any Japanese skill whatsoever

But actually I really recommend trying to get a student visa if you're interested in studying anything even just the Japanese language

You can get into a Japanese school, like a Japanese language school here

you'll get a student visa and you'll be able to live in Japan,

study Japanese and you will have the ability to work part-time if you apply for it

So that's the easiest way that comes to mind

For you guys to be able to live here without having to teach English

It is possible to get jobs in other fields, but in most cases obviously Japanese skill is going to be required

So as for jobs you can get without any Japanese skill

it's pretty limited and most people do start off as an English teacher and kind of branch out from there

after living here for a few years

Probably the second most commonly asked question I get is "Is it possible for a foreigner to get a job in Japan without a degree?"

So as many of you probably know

in most cases

it's required to have a

Bachelor's degree to get a full-time working position here in Japan. As for being able to get a job without a degree

it's actually not getting the job that is the hard part, many places will hire you without having a bachelor's degree

but it's getting the

working visa

which gives you permission to stay in Japan for a long period of time and to work a full-time job

That requires the degree. I do know one person

In all of my experience here in Japan

I do know one person that was able to get a working visa without a degree

But they did have lots of experience in their field

That is one way to get around it

If you have years of experience

In the field of the job that you're applying for, it could be possible to get a visa without that degree

However, if you are from a country that has the working holiday visa

it's very simple to get that visa and you don't need any degree whatsoever

That was the first visa I ever used when I came to Japan and I lived here for a year

But you're only allowed to work part-time on that visa, you can't have a full-time position

But that is how I managed to spend my first year in Japan. I'm very lucky as a Canadian we have that visa

Americans don't have that option, unfortunately

So again

I would suggest that you come over as

a student and kind of get used to living in Japan that way and if you decide you really like it

you could always finish your degree or do a whole degree at

a Japanese university like I did, which was a pretty cool experience

"Best onsens for new travelers coming to Japan in the future." Okay. I really recommend the Hoshino Resort chain

it's a chain of

Onsens all throughout Japan and each one kind of has its own theme. If you guys watched my vlogmas my day one vlogmas

episode was at one of these Hoshino resorts in Aomori

and it was apple themed because Aomori is famous for apples and

just the way they've designed their resorts it, they're just so beautiful

They're so nicely done and it's common to be able to rent a room that has a private bath in the room

So if you have tattoos

Or if you are just uncomfortable bathing with other people,

which I am in most cases, then it's cool that they offer those rooms with the private baths. They can be a little pricey

so it's more of like a splurgy thing that you would probably just do for one night, maybe two nights

but I really do recommend it and I think it's totally worth the money

"Who is Mark and how did you meet?" So you guys might have seen Mark in my videos

He pops in every once in a while probably because he's my one of my only friends up here in Morioka

Mark's one of my good friends we met about

I think it was four years,

three or four years ago now. I actually made a video about the day we met so if you're curious

about how that all happened I'll link that down below, but I was introduced by my previous boss on an English teaching job

I came up here and I went to visit my old school and Mark was a new teacher there

My boss is like oh you guys should hang out, Mark works at a magic bar, and it's really cool

You should go check it out, and we ended up spending the day together and we became friends

So yeah, Mark is one of my good friends. Not my boyfriend, as many of you think

"What's the hardest part about living in Japan?" I don't find too many things that challenging here actualy,

it's quite comfortable to live here. I don't struggle with the language at all

So I don't usually have any problems in that regard

Probably one of the oldest things I really don't like about living in Japan

is how thin the walls are, and how I can hear every single thing

my neighbors are doing it can just be the quietest thing. They can be like coughing or snoring

I hear their phone alarm go off in the morning. I hear every single conversation they have with their partner

So that's one thing that I don't like because I feel really self-conscious about watching movies

I feel like I have to have the volume down super low and I don't like that

So yeah

that would be the one thing. Kinda related to my last answer "Are people in Japanese apartments pretty

respectful as far as noise from neighbors goes or is it pretty much like the rest of the world where it is varies from person

to person?" I would say in general people are really respectful and quiet here because everybody knows that the walls are always so thin

In all my time in Japan,

I've only lived in one apartment that had thick enough walls that I didn't have to be like super careful about making noise

So, yeah, in general people are very respectful about it

But like I said, even though my neighbors aren't being particularly noisy, I can still hear every single thing that's going on

"We all know how much of a cat person you are,

do you think you'll ever get a dog too?"

I've never really had the urge to have a pet dog. If I was ever gonna get a pet, it would be a cat

100% but if for some reason

I felt like I really wanted a dog. There is one breed of dog that I've fallen in love with recently

I watched vlogs from a girl that lives in Vancouver. Her name's Melissa Merk and she has this adorable Aussie

I think the breed is called Aussie. The colors of the dog are just so beautiful. So that would be the dog

I would like to have if I did ever get a dog, but honestly, it probably won't happen

"What villagers are you current looking for in-game?" If you don't play Animal Crossing, this comment doesn't make any sense to you

But this is in reference to Animal Crossing the video game I've been playing a lot recently. I want Lolly

That's all I want in life. If I can get Lolly in my game, I will be forever happy

"You said you want to leave Japan in five years or so, in what country do you see yourself living?"

So yeah, I don't know how long I will stay here in Japan, but I don't want to stay here forever

I know that. I know that I don't want to settle down here and buy a house or anything

So in the future, I would like to move somewhere

where I don't speak the language 'cause I love learning new languages and I just love learning about new cultures, so it would probably

end up being somewhere in Europe. I thought it would be really cool to live in like Germany or Hungary,

Sweden

Honestly any place like that. Somewhere completely different that I haven't experienced before.

"Which has been your favorite video to shoot and why?" I would say

I have lots of fun times with my friends. I love the ones when I'm filming with my friends, but probably my favourite

experience in Japan that like translated into a really pretty video would probably be the Shimanami Kaido

Not many people watched that video and it was such a bummer

It was such a hard one to title because it was all just really about the scenery which isn't really, you know

intriguing or clickbaity in any way, but if you haven't seen that video, please do go watch it

the Shimanami Kaido is

a very beautiful area of Japan that I highly suggest you visit on your next trip here if possible.

"Are the tourist traps like Shinjuku, Skytree, etc worth seeing or are they overrated?" Honestly

all the like super famous touristy spots in Japan, I do think they're worth seeing. I don't find them like overly

touristy or cringy or anything? They're all really nice

And I think they would be worth your time, except for maybe the temple in Asakusa

I feel like they've made it just so touristy and like all the the souvenirs and stuff

they sell up near the temple just aren't really, like, quality

items and they're not things that you would normally see for sale in Japan. So it just feels very fake and like

fabricated

Sensō-ji temple, that's the name

Yeah

I wouldn't really recommend

going there but Asakusa itself is so beautiful and there's so many cool, like, traditional shops and

streets and tea shops and stuff, around that area

So the area itself is awesome, but maybe yes

Sensō-ji temple, not my favorite.

"Are a lot of the prebottled teas unsweetened. And what is your go-to favorite?"

So if you see a tea like this in a convenience store or a vending machine it will

not be sweetened. Green teas are never sweetened here in Japan, which is pretty cool because

overseas, you'll notice that lots of the green teas are sweetened. I feel like it doesn't need it.

You really get used to drinking it without any sweetness and it tastes a lot better

So yeah

Any of these green teas are never sweetened, lots of the black teas even, aren't sweetened. If there is one that has sugar in it

It will be clearly labeled

My go-to favorite at the moment is the soy milk tea that recently came out

I've been waiting for a soy milk tea for years. Milk tea was always my, like, go-to drink

Every time I bought a drink from the combini, or a vending machine

it would be milk tea and ever since I stopped eating dairy

I've really missed milk tea

But they brought it back now in a soy milk version and it tastes just like the original. It's amazing

"How is Morioka during Fall?" Morioka is probably at its peak during Fall

If you are planning to come up and visit the Iwate area I highly suggest you do it in the Fall because the leaves

are just amazing. I'll link a video down below that I did exploring the Hachimantai area,

which is a very mountainous area, near my house. They have hiking trails and the views up there are just spectacular

"Do you plan to get any more tattoos?" I don't have any planned

however, I'm so happy with the last one that I got that I really want to get another one from her

She's just such an amazing artist and even though I don't really have one in mind that I really want

I probably will think of another one to get

Just so I have an excuse to go back to her and get another piece of her art because she's just so freaking cool

"What's the worst thing that's happened to you while living in Japan?"

Okay, this is kind of funny because actually my, like, worst experience in Japan ever, happened during my first trip here, like

ages ago. I think I was 16 or 17 at the time. I was at my home stays' house. We were walking

behind the house. They had a huge

farmland, full of like rice fields and

we were walking through the rice fields and I got stung by a Japanese Hornet, the ones you hear about

and everybody tells you to avoid because it can be deadly and

extremely painful and I've gotten stung by probably every bee, wasp,

hornet, under the moon. Living in Canada, it's very common

to just go outside in bare feet when you're a kid and run around and that resulted in me getting stung by everything

But the Hornet is definitely on a new level of pain. It was crazy

It hurt so freakin much, but the pain quickly

disappeared and turned to like absolute shock and horror as

my homestay mother, like, instructed for me to lie on the ground and

proceeded to suck on my foot.

Didn't see that coming, didn't know what was going on. I didn't speak Japanese at the time so I couldn't ask her

what the hell she was doing. But when it was all over

my homestay sister who spoke a little bit of English

explained to me that the Japanese Hornets can be very dangerous and some people die from their sting

So my mom, my homestay mom,

was trying to suck the poison out of my foot so that I wouldn't have a horrible reaction to it

And I don't know if it's because she did that, or what, but I was fine, like besides the pain,

nothing horrible happened to me. So thank you awesome Japanese homestay mom

That was just like the most memorable

experience ever in Japan. I don't think I'll ever forget that day

"I'm planning a month-long trip to Japan. Once the world has gone back to some form of normality

Would you recommend Morioka as a place to visit?"

Um, yes,

especially if you're gonna be here for a whole month, that gives you plenty of time to explore Tokyo and

even go down to southern Japan for a bit and still have some time to come up here and see the north

I feel like it's always last on everybody's list, but it's so beautiful up here

And especially if you're here during the hot months of the Summer it is so much more comfortable up here

It's about 3 to 4 degrees cooler and less humid

And there's just so many pretty places to see, so yeah highly recommend

you come to Morioka, but not only Morioka, please explore the whole area. There's lots of beautiful

coastlines to see up in northern Japan along Aomori and

Iwate, so see the coastlines, come to Morioka, climb the mountains at Hachimantai. There's tons to see up here

So, yes, definitely, please come.

"What has been the most effective way for you to improve your Japanese language skills?" So I haven't been

studying Japanese for a long time, but back when I was trying to improve my language skills,

like the number one way would be to hang out with Japanese people. So, make some Japanese friends

I was so lucky at the time. I worked at a place that

toured Japanese exchange students around the city

So I met so many Japanese people and we kept in touch afterwards by