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  • [Chris] We've been in here about four or five minutes we still haven't found the bathroom. [Ryotaro] True.

  • [Chris] Oh for heaven sakes if I break my legs

  • doing this, I'm going to kick you to death with whatever is left of them.

  • Shit!

  • So today we're off to visit the hotel that the Emperor himself stays at when he

  • comes to visit Sendai. We're being taken off on another adventure by Ryotaro

  • although this time he's being worryingly more secretive than usual.

  • [Ryotaro] Hi there. Today you're going to visit the kind of room that Emperor stays whenever he

  • comes to Sendai. Then after that we are going to try some outdoor activities.

  • I know you're being really busy right, so I want to destress yourself

  • and yeah and it's the experience of this week exciting outdoor

  • activities right. And if you want to escape from Sendai, this is the place to be.

  • Yeah all of a sudden it feels like we've just left Japan and driven up into

  • Beverly Hills or something all the houses are huge and the roads are wide.

  • Apparently this whole town has been built by Mitsubishi since the 1970s to

  • be the kind of ideal place to live and well certainly beats my apartment, that's for sure.

  • [Chris] Have you seen how big my apartment is? [Ryotaro] I haven't.

  • [Chris] To see this, is just like, not fair. [Ryotaro] How many rooms have you got? [Chris] Not enough.

  • [Ryotaro] How many chairs have you got?

  • [Chris] What kind of a shit question is that?

  • How many chairs- that is the measurement of success isn't it? "How many chairs you have in your house"

  • [Chris] Now "How many rooms". It's all about the chairs. [Ryotaro] It's all about the chairs.

  • [Chris] I bet they've got a lot of chairs. Too many chairs.

  • [Ryotaro] So Chris this room that we are approaching here is called the Royal Suite.

  • [Chris] Wow, two doors. One door isn't enough. [Ryotaro] And it's got two doors.

  • [Ryotaro] This is most expensive room supposedly. And this is the kind of room that the Emperor would stay.

  • I guess... They didn't really tell me where he would stay. It's kind of a security secret anyways. Yeah.

  • [Chris] Yeah. This is the kind of room- [Ryotaro] This is the kinda room he would stay.

  • [Ryotaro] Ta-da-di-da-laaa~

  • [Ryotaro] Ho-ly! [Chris] Oh my god.

  • [Ryotaro] God! What is this! [Chris] So, so this is the

  • the barrier the entry to like a palace.

  • [Ryotaro] Alright, it's the, it's the - chandelier! [Chris] That's ludicrous.

  • [Chris] This conference room is about the size of my entire apartment. That's depressing.

  • [Chris] Earlier in the car you ask me how many chairs I had, as a measurement of wealth.

  • [Chris] Look at how many chairs this goddamn room has! [Ryotaro] So many!

  • [Chris] 8 chairs there. 2 chairs there. [Ryotaro] 8 chairs! That's already...

  • [Ryotaro] That is already wealthy.

  • [Chris] We come to this beautiful royal suite and all you care about is counting the chairs!

  • Bloody hell.

  • [Ryotaro] What now? Ohhh-ho-ho-ho! [Chris] Oh wow.

  • [Chris] That is... that is... That is quite the bed. [Ryotaro] A huge bed!

  • [Chris] There is king-sized, then there is "royal-sized".

  • [Ryotaro] This is like bigger than a king-size, like twice the king-size, a royal-size.

  • Even if I sleep on this bed I will just sleep on this part.

  • [Chris] The first 1/10th. [Ryotaro] The first 1/10th exactly.

  • [Chris] Been in here about four or five minutes we still haven't found the bathroom. [Ryotaro] True.

  • [Chris] Uhh, it could be down there behind the conference room or it's either behind this door.

  • [Ryotaro] This is a door? Ah it's a door. [Chris] This is a door, or a wardrobe.

  • [Chris] Let's have a look. It's like a nuclear bunker blast door. [Ryotaro] Oh my...

  • [Ryotaro] Look at, look at... again, look at the width of the...

  • [Ryotaro] That-that-that's again, a measurement of the wealth [Chris] Yeah.

  • [Chris] That is one hell of a door. Enough about doors, let's do down...

  • another corridor. The secret bathroom.

  • Now this, is the kind of bathroom I want.

  • [Chris] We've got a shower... [Ryotaro] And... what is that to the right?

  • [Chris] This is... this is a sauna! Wow!

  • [Chris] A sauna, a shower, a jump in jacuzzi bath

  • for the mountain view out that window.

  • [Chris] Best of all though, automatic window shades!

  • This is the future.

  • I think we're in, we're in this the most glamorous bathroom at North Japan

  • [Chris] And all I care about is the automatic window shades. [Ryotaro] And number of chairs.

  • [Chris] And the number of chairs. [Ryotaro] And the width of the door.

  • [Chris] And the width of the door...

  • [Chris] It's the most glamorous hotel room I've ever been to

  • and at least five times the size of the largest hotel room that I've stayed in as well.

  • Compared to the traditional Japanese business hotel.

  • [Ryotaro] And 15 times bigger than your room right? [Chris] 15 times bigger than my house.

  • [Chris] Which is a small apartment.

  • [Ryotaro] You need to be more popular on YouTube, eh.

  • [Chris: Yeah, I need to be more popular on the YouTube. That'll get me my ridiculously large hotel room.

  • Just to give you an idea of how big this hotel room is

  • I'm down one end where the bedroom is

  • and Ryotaro all the way over there in the distance

  • you can kind of make out Ryotaro at the conference room table. Say "Hello."

  • [Ryotaro] Hello World!

  • [Chris] I think you'd burn about a thousand calories a day just by staying at this hotel room

  • and walking around it and I don't know what he's doing...

  • What is, what is going on...

  • I don't... I don't understand just let him, let him get on with that.

  • [Chris] Well... In his last chair. [Ryotaro] Well well.

  • [Ryotaro] So um, so did you enjoy some time? In this room that you can't ever possibly afford?

  • [Chris] I feel both impressed and depressed, both simultaneously.

  • [Ryotaro] Same here, same here.

  • [Ryotaro] So now it's time for outdoor business!

  • [Chris] Outdoor business.

  • [Chris] What does that even mean?

  • [Ryotaro] Outdoor business. That's it.

  • So pretty much in the middle of nowhere. We've just come across this kind of

  • market stand, loaded with vegetables from the garden just behind us.

  • [Ryotaro] But there's no one. [Chris] And there's no one here.

  • [Chris] But their all the food and all the produce is labeled with prices.

  • You can basically just turn up here grab your, what, whatever you got

  • [Chris] What is that a persimmon? [Ryotaro] No it's not persimmon, It's a...

  • [Chris] Persimmon... I really am shit at vegetables. [Ryotaro] Persimmon, how could this be a...

  • [Ryotaro] Zucchini. [Chris] Zucchini.

  • [Ryotaro] You know this right, zucchini? 100 yen, a dollar. [Chris] Yeah. Right.

  • [Chris] What is this? Ow.

  • [Ryotaro] It's goya. [Chris] Goya. It's a vegetable.

  • [Chris] But you can, you turn up here. You grab your, oh my god.

  • You grab your zucchini for 100 yen. Put the money in the box here.

  • And away you go. And it's pretty quite... humbling.

  • To see this you know. If this was in the UK, a bunch of teenagers would

  • rock up on their bicycles and it'd be gone in about 45 seconds.

  • [Chris] It takes a degree of trust to be able to do this. [Ryotaro] Even less.

  • [Chris] Yeah, this sums up the kind of trust you find in Japanese culture.

  • Trust that I wish we had in a lot of other countries.

  • So we've just been cycling through the fields and this is breakfast. Rice balls

  • from the very field that the rice came from from the nice farmers from the local area.

  • It's been an uncharacteristically good morning. When you spend the day with Ryotaro

  • you're guaranteed one thing. Well two things actually: disappointment and

  • near-death experiences and so far, it's actually been alright. Cheeky cycle through a field.

  • [Ryotaro] It's only 10 o'clock and I haven't tried enough yet.

  • And this breakfast is just the beginning of like the end.

  • [Ryotaro] But anyway, I've got something I want to show you. Great scenery is waiting for you.

  • [Ryotaro] Up in the mountains for us [Chris] The beginning of the end.

  • [Chris] That's not what you want to hear when you're eating breakfast in a rice field.

  • Bloody hell

  • [Chris] You real... you really do want to kill me, don't ya? [Ryotaro] *evil laughter*

  • [Ryotaro] No, I never said that ? Did I?

  • [Chris] It's not even 11, 11:00 a.m. in the morning and he's dragged me up a mountain.

  • [Chris] You told me it was a nice view. Yeah it is a nice view, but I didn't know I'd actually be doing something.

  • [Chris] I've never done this before, he's got a, what is it? A paraglider? [Ryotaro] It's paragliding.

  • [Chris] Oh for god's sake. It's not even 11:00 a.m. I haven't had my second coffee and you want me to

  • [Chris] fly. Is it, is it safe? [Ryotaro] Not sure about that because I mean there is, they can like only hold up to a certain weight.

  • [Ryotaro] And how much do you weigh? [Chris] 80 kilograms...

  • [Ryotaro] And I think this is made for Japanese people and you're from the UK.

  • You're gonna be the first UK, person from the UK trying this and you said how much

  • [Ryotaro] you weigh again? [Chris] 80 kilograms.

  • [Ryotaro] And I'm not sure about that... [Chris] Maybe repeat my weight...

  • [Chris] What a... what a dickhead.

  • You can see the paraglider and then you just got the edge of the mountain

  • and then nothingness for like a thousand meters or whatever is so yeah it's a

  • little bit scary 11 a.m., 11 a.m. this is at least a 2, a 2:00pm job.

  • I'm not ready for this.

  • [Chris] Union Jack helmet, right. [Ryotaro] Once you're in the air, and you're just gonna relax and sit back and...

  • and kill yourself.

  • [Chris] Reassuring words. This is it then. 10 past 11.

  • Wish me luck

  • Oh my god.

  • [Ryotaro] *insane laughter*

  • [Chris] I'm also trying not to look down too much right now.

  • [Chris] Ohh....

  • I, we took off before I even knew what was going on.

  • All of a sudden we were up

  • and yeah so sudden and you're supposed to jump in and sit down but for some

  • reason I couldn't get in properly so I felt like I was dangling out the front

  • the whole time but yeah it's very fun very fun. Job well done. Job well done I

  • [Chris] did it and I survived ha ha ha High five. Next challenge? [Ryotaro] Well done, next challenge.

  • [Chris] Next challenge...?

  • Oh for heaven's sake. He really does want to kill me. He really does want to kill me.

  • Ski jump? It's not even 12 o'clock I still haven't my second coffee.

  • If I break my legs doing this I'm going to kick you to death with whatever's left of them.

  • Make no mistake.

  • [Chris] Oh my god. I'm basically wearing a sauna.

  • It's a wetsuit but on a day when it's like 35 degrees,

  • it's not a good thing to do I'm so sweaty and feel like utter

  • just utter shit. But at least I get to watch Ryotaro go first.

  • [Chris] Go! Go! Here we go.

  • [Ryotaro] Yes!

  • [Ryotaro] Oooo!