And because of the pandemic it's been about three years since we last visited.

Every time I visit Japan there's always something different and new and exciting to see.

But this time since it's been about three years there were some changes that I wasn't expecting and I'm going to share the experiences with you before I get into my list.

There is one thing that everyone should know know and do before you land in Japan and that is to download the my S.

O.

S.

App.

This is mandatory for anyone who's visiting Japan regardless if you're a citizen or not.

Now when I landed in Japan I did see that there were several people that did not have this done ahead of time.

So they were they had to step aside to another line would actually provide a chair so they can download the app and get all this information in there.

And the reason why they provide chairs is because it takes quite a time to put all this information.

I think it took me about 20 minutes.

So yeah definitely get this done ahead of time before you actually land in Japan.

The first thing I wasn't expecting or these semi self checkout registers.

I'm not really sure what it's called.

But basically you know in the States there are like self checkout areas where you scan your own items, you bag your own items and then you're out the door.

This is kind of similar, it's not all done by yourself, basically every convenience store I went to whenever I would check out, there was someone at the register who would scan the items, but that's basically all that they did everything else was, there was a register in front of you and you would have to input, you know, if you're gonna pay cash or credit and that's where you put in your money and that's where you get the change and you would also you know, you would have to input information like okay I accept this change basically everything you kind of have to do by yourself in that sense when it comes to the transaction of like taking care of money, but the scanning part we didn't do.

So that's why I kind of said semi self checkout because it's not completely done by yourself.

A lot of them are in english the register, it'll have it in japanese and english.

I did come across them that only had japanese, I'm able to read japanese, but if you aren't, I don't think it will be an issue because again, there's still someone there, so I'm sure they would have um if you weren't able to figure it out.

The second thing that was new, which actually isn't a new concept is that you have to have your own, we don't have to have it, but if you don't have your own eco bags which is what they call it, which is just a shopping bag.

If you don't have your own shopping bag, they will charge you a few.

Normally was like 10 yen.

Now this isn't new, I've been doing this for a while in California when I was living in Hong kong I was doing this and that was 10 years ago and the last time we visited you Japan, I never really had to bring my own shopping bags.

Plastic bags were still free wherever you shot, but this time everywhere I went I was always asked at the register if I wanted an eco bag and yeah and I wasn't familiar with that in Japan because I was so used to just getting the free plastic bag, which is good that they're doing this now because it does help save the environment.

So just be aware that if you don't have a plastic bag, a shopping bag with you, you will most likely get charged feet.

The third thing that actually was expecting this and kind of not masks are still mandatory indoors outdoors, it's not really mandatory if you're not in a crowded space, but even though it's not mandatory outside people still wear masks outside and we're outdoors, I didn't want to wear it most of the time but I felt awkward if I didn't because everyone else was wearing it.

So most of the time when I was outside, I was wearing my mask as well.

The fourth thing that was pretty much everywhere we went was a disinfection station and a temperature screening.

So basically there were two different types of devices when everybody went somewhere.

It was either like the screen that looked like an iphone and you would put your face on it and then it would take your temperature and usually it would do it like within seconds.

The other device that we saw was it would take your temperature for you, put your hand over your wrist over the device and we'll take your temperature that way.

It's a very painless process that usually takes less than five seconds.

But no matter where we went, that was something that we always had to do before we entered the establishment.

And then the last thing that we noticed that we weren't expecting was robots everywhere.

Japan has always been pretty advanced with their technology.

Especially like your policy, you know like if you use the japanese bathroom, like the toilets are pretty high advanced with all these buttons and pretty used to that.

But I wasn't really used to seeing robots everywhere in particular.

There were robots at a lot of the family restaurants we went to.

So we really had no interaction with an actual human server.

And most of most of the restaurants we went to when we, when we sat at a table, there was an ipad there which we, that's where we would order our food from the menu on the ipad and then a cat looking robot would come down with our food and it always got everything right.

It was never wrong.

Our orders always came fast and we never really had to ask for a real human being because everything was seamless.

The process was fast and it was pretty fun.

I just, I've never had a robot server.

So whenever we went to a family restaurant and there was a robot server, we really enjoyed that.

Of course there are still restaurants that don't have robot servers, but the ones that did particularly were the family restaurants that already had them.

Another thing where we noticed robots were at the mall, there was this one robot that was a guy.

So if you needed directions to the bathroom or you know a particular store, you know like in the States, usually there'd just be like a board and then it would display a map on where to go.

But this robot would actually guide you and take you to the location you wanted to go to.

So that was pretty cool.

The last robot that I noticed was when we were at Narita airport there was, it's a robot roaming around and that robot when I looked it up later is basically a security robots that detects unusual activity or smells.

So basically once it detects that it sends information to I guess the security offices and then real security comes out and they investigate the issue.

All right.

So those are the five things I wasn't expecting on my trip to Japan.

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