Name: 21 Things to do When You Arrive in Japan
Uploaded: 2019-11-08T02:19:28.000Z
Duration: 16 min 13 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

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So many things to do when you arrive in Japan. So many choices! The only question

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that remains is...Where do you begin? That was unnecessarily dramatic wasn't it.

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Might alienate new viewers...Roll that script. Wow! It's easy to arrive in Japan and

feel somewhat spoiled for choice on where to start. So it got me thinking

about all the different places and things you can do to kick off your trip.

And I ended up going on Facebook and Twitter and asking viewers: When you come

to Japan, what's the first thing that you want to do? Then after posting it I went

off into town for a bit, just you know, for a stroll where I came across the

greatest PlayStation game that you've probably never heard of. A game known

only as "Let's go bass fishing!" Can you imagine the sheer exhilaration

excitement of catching a digital bass? I mean, fuck! Games consoles are practically

made for simulations like that. Anyway, afterwards I returned home slightly

depressed that I don't own an original PlayStation and thus, can't play "Let's go

bass fishing!" To find that hundreds and hundreds of people have responded to my

questions, and sharing their stories and experiences, hopes and dreams of things

they'd either done or plan to do when arriving in Japan. So today I'm going to

share some of them with you and rate them on a scale of 1 to 10 so that

you can find some ideas and inspirations for your trip when you come here. And near

the end of the video, I'll talk a bit about what I did on my first day five years

ago because I don't think I've ever talked about it actually...So um let's err

let's dive in! When I went to Japan and checked in at my hostel, the staff member

said, "oh I bet you want to sleep now." Instead of sleeping,

I rented a bike and just cruised around for hours. Yeah, screw you hostel staff

with your pitiful assumptions. Who needs bed time when you can cycle across a

bridge? To be fair, cycling is probably the best way to see Japan because pretty

much everyone here cycles. The country is very favorable towards cyclists. Unlike

the UK where drivers actively run over cyclists

for fun. One of the best places to render bike and cycle around in the Tokyo area is

the ancient city of Kamakura on the coastline. Whenever I take people there,

we grab some bikes in the station and just cycle around the back streets and the

temples. But cycling is a great idea and I'll give that an 8 out 10. Go to a

7-eleven and play "onigiri bingo!" A game I made up to try new flavours where I grab

a random flavour without looking what it is, and eat it. Well, if its got food in

it, it's instantly a good idea. If you don't know what onigiri is, it's

basically just a rice ball with different filling in it. All convenience

stores have big sections with onigiri, and my personal favorite flavor is tuna

mayonnaise but there's all sorts. There're fish eggs, salmon, sour plums: avoid that one.

And you can find yourself standing there sometimes for ages, spoiled for choice not

knowing which one to go for. So grabbing one randomly isn't a bad idea.

So give that a 7 out of 10. Grab some real pudding. I only ate pudding in Japan.

Every local pudding here (Singapore) is utter crap. Yeah, real pudding 10 out of 10.

Every, again, every convenience store has a dessert section as well where you can

find everything from yogurts and cakes to kind of traditional Japanese sweets. I

urge you to check it out, if not to eat a dessert, then for research purposes. Sleep.

And then climb Mount Fuji with bottles and bottles of Pocari Sweat.

Naah, it's way too ambitious for your first day. 3 out of 10. Laugh Out

Loud! Sleep? Me and my friend didn't sleep for 4

days when we arrived due to excitement! Alice sleep....Ha ha ha. To which Alice

replied, "ahahahaha...sleep" You rebels. Absolute bloody rebels. Don't know what

they did though. 0 out of 10. Onsen. Definitely. Then I'd go about town and

try to make conversation with the locals. Optimistically happy face but

also anxiously sweating face. Why not make conversation with the locals in the

onsen? After all you'll be sat naked side-by-side in nature's hot tub. It

seems like a pretty good place to start and break the ice with the locals. But if

you don't have a chance to go to an onsen resort out in the countryside,

which i highly do recommend, the next best thing is Onsen World, Ōedo

Onsen World in Odaiba, Tokyo. It's an onsen theme park with an Edo era

styled street and you can wander around in a colorful yukata, eat and drink in

between dipping in the onsen. It's a bit pricey but if you can't get out to the

countryside, I highly recommend it. And you have to go to an onsen whilst in

Japan. 9 out of 10. Kiss the ground because I will have just survived a long

flight with a three-year-old. Then onigiri and a train platform beer. Yeah,

nothing says role model like watching your dad down a beer and a rice ball on

a station platform. That said, I wouldn't expect anything less from somebody who's

nickname is simply "Drinking in Japan." Good thing about Japan of course is it's

okay to drink in public. You could walk down the street or train station

platform with a beer in hand and you don't have to worry. And when friends come

over and visit the first thing we usually do is actually go to the

convenience store buy a few drinks and then just wander around the city for a

few hours. And it's a great way of checking out the city so yeah can't

recommend it enough 9 out 10. My boyfriend and I are going in late September,

and he doesn't know that the first thing we're going to do is a Japanese love

hotel. Hahahah, sly face. Well, providing he doesn't watch this video, your secret is

safe with us. 6 out of 10. Do make sure you get a good love hotel though as it

can be the difference between having a bath with a jacuzzi and a bath with a

cockroach. And unfortunately, I've experienced both. Who knows if

you're especially lucky, you might even get a teddy bear cave, or a questionably

small cage. No doubt it'll be giving my boyfriend's Mum a massive overly

friendly westerner-style bear hug at the airport. Will be meeting his family for

the first time this year in Sapporo. Then going to her Izakaya and EATING

EVERYTHING. Brilliant! I'm not sure what will alienate your boyfriend's mum the

most. The westerner-style bear hug or the sight of watching her son's girlfriend

single-handedly eating everything. But nonetheless, going to an Izakaya is an

amazing idea. No matter where you are in Japan, it's an incredible place to soak

up the atmosphere, the food, the drink and meet the locals all at once. So Izakaya,

going to an Izakaya, 9 out of 10. Try to find the increasingly

dwindling arcade machines where you can play Cho Chabudai Gaeshi. Yeah, you

can't go wrong with an arcade. You can find them in pretty much every shopping

street in Japan. My two favorite games are good old Mario Kart and taiko

drumming game where you beat the shit out of the drum in time with the music.

Unfortunately though, the game Cho Chabudai Gaeshi

has become quite rare, it's pretty hard to find it. The expression literally means

"To flip one's table." And in the game, you play the role of an angry father having

a mental breakdown. As you sit around the dinner table with your family annoying

you more more, you hit the table again and again until eventually you lose it, flip

the table over, and destroy your family in one fell swoop. And then you get to

watch it over and over in slow motion replay. I actually featured it in a

video, one of the first videos I've made because I stumbled across this game and

I was so in awe of the concept. I've never seen anything like it. So visiting