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Hey guys!
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I had some free time this afternoon so I asked you guys
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on my Facebook page if there are any questions you wanted to ask me
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um about myself or Japan or just whatever.
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Um I haven't done many of these Q+A videos so
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I get lots of Youtube emails that I don't have time to reply to
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so hopefully I can answer some of those questions in this video
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What is your favourite Japanese snack of all time?
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This is very difficult there are so many good ones to choose from
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but my absolute favourite would probably be Black Thunder
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What's your favourite Pokémon?
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Um this is so hard to choose too
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I really like Raichu
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Um... I like Paras
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which is a really weird choice
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I'm sure you're all thinking
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Um I just really like its voice I think. I think it's really cute
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Where is your favourite place to eat in Tokyo?
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I went to a really delicious vegan place the other day actually
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I think it was called Journey in English
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Um...
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The rest of the name is really weird
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I will put it right here
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Cause I can't remember what it was called
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But that place was so yummy
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even if you're not vegan I think you would love it
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Um I had a hayashi rice dish
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which is kind of like a stew I guess with rice
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and their pancakes were so good
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they had like a cream and a fruit topping
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oh it was so yummy
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Which city in Japan do you like the most and why?
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Hmm...
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I used to live up in Northern Japan in a city called Morioka
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It's in Iwate Prefecture
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Um I really liked it there,
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I think um the main reason is because it's very similar to my hometown, Victoria, in Canada
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Lots of nature, um a little bit cooler weather than you'll find in Tokyo since it's pretty far up north
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and... less people
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definitely less crowded
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but it wasn't like a super countryside town it was kinda a nice balance between city and countryside
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Um I'm gonna say so far my favourite place would probably be Morioka
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Other than the Kanto Region where do you want to take a trip to in Japan
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Um well actually I have never been off of the main island of Honshu
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So I would love to visit Hokkaido or Shikoku or Kyushu
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Um anywhere
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actually
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I've done lots of traveling all up and down the main island
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But so yeah I haven't been off of it
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so I would definitely love to visit any of the other islands
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I think that would be really cool
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Hi Sharla what is your favourite thing about living in Japan and why?
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Ah... This is really hard to pick just one and I'm just gonna say the first thing that comes to my head
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I really like how people in Japan kind of just let you do your own thing
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so if you're walking down the street you won't get lots of people yelling at you or coming up and talking to you
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um unless they wanna practice their English
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I do get that sometimes
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but um what I mean is kind of like in Canada I'll walk down the street here and I'll have guys yelling something at me
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or um if you're sitting at the bus stop strangers will start talking to you
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and sometimes that's cool, like sometimes you know you're in the mood to talk to people
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but other times you just like wanna be by yourself and you don't wanna you know you're not in the mood to talk with random people
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and that doesn't happen often in Japan
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so I really like that
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it's always very um people just mind their own business and they let you do your own thing
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and i just feel a lot more comfortable going outside in Japan because I know that many people won't bother me
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What is your favourite Japanese store?
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I'm assuming they're meaning like clothes for shopping
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in that case I would say probably Spins or Wego
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I can't choose one they're very similar
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um they're both in Harajuku they have very like cute street fashion and I just love both of them
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Do you plan to stay in Japan for as long as you can?
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Also, what sparked your wish to study and get into the Japanese world?
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It would be interesting to hear
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Um... Hmm...
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That's kind- I- hm...
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I do plan on staying in Japan for a while
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I don't know how long that will be, I'm pretty... random
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If all of a sudden I feel like moving to another country one day
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I will do that so I can't really decide on my long term plans yet
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um at the moment I'm really enjoying living in Japan
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I have a job which I will talk about in the future
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Um I wanna make like a proper video about it
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but um long term wise, I'm not sure yet
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And what sparked my wish to study and get into the Japanese world... hm...
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Er... I first started studying Japanese when I was I think 13
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Um I think I mentioned this in a really crappy video that I made a long time ago about like how I started studying Japanese and stuff
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but that video like sucks I don't even want you guys to go watch it
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so um I will say it again
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But I... In Canada you have to choose a third? Third language I guess it is
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We study French
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Um it's mandatory to study French up until grade 8
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and then in grade 9 you can choose another language to study
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you can either continue on with your French or you can choose another one
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And I thought I already have like a basis of French down so I'll move on to another one
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and we had I think Russian, Spanish, er... Japanese
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um German? There might have been German
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No, maybe not
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um anyways we had like 3 or 4 languages to choose from and I just thought Japanese sounded cool
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so I picked it randomly
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And um as I started studying it I really fell in love with the culture and the language was fun to learn
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I wasn't much of a book studier so I got pretty bad grades
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in my Japanese classes actually
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er in high school
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but I still really enjoyed the language and I made lots of Japanese friends
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through um like a Japanese club we that had at school and I just yeah I guess I just fell in love with the culture and the people so
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that's why I stuck with it
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Now this is an interesting one
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Do you wear a mask like a lot of people in Japan do?
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Like in flu season etc? I've never seen you in one
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Um well the reason you haven't seen me in one is because um if I wore one
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in my videos you wouldn't be able to hear me talking cause it really muffles your speech
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but yes I definitely do wear a mask
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There are actually several different reasons that I would wear one
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I wear one when I'm sick um I wear one when I'm going to like a crowded area say like hm... if I'm gonna go to like maybe Shinjuku Eki
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and I go shopping there all day I might wear a mask just so that I don't catch a cold from someone
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And I'll also sometimes wear a mask if I'm not wearing makeup
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I know that's silly but um that's a thing in Japan
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People will wear the masks if they don't have time to do their makeup in the morning and they feel awkward out in public without makeup
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Um which I do because lots of people look at me because I'm different looking I have blonde hair now
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which makes me stand out even a little more than I used to
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so I feel very awkward when I'm out in public and I'm not like, I don't have all my makeup on
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so sometimes I'll wear a mask for that
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How do body mods go over in Japan? Do people look down on them or do people not really care?
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Um... It really depends like what you're doing
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If you work in the fashion scene then you can totally get away with having tonnes of piercings and tattoos and crazy hair colours
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it wouldn't matter at all you see lots of that when you go into like say Harajuku or um even areas in Shibuya
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It depends what you're doing like it's some of the store workers will have tonnes of piercings and tattoos
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and er it doesn't matter because that that's fine for their job
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Um but in general yes they do look down on piercings
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which is why I don't have mine anymore
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I used to have um three in each ear
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ear piercings aren't like err looked down on at all here actually so don't worry if you have tonnes of ear piercings
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that should be fine but I-I ended up taking those out anyways
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I had my tragus and my nose and my lip
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and yes I took them all out because I wanted to get jobs in Japan and it's really hard to do that um when you have piercings
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it just really limits your choice of jobs so that is why I took those out
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I find that really sad because I love piercings and I really want them back
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My job now is very... very... how can I say, not Japanese
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they don't really care what I look like, what I wear, and I don't think they would mind if I had piercings
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so maybe I will put them back in the future