Japanese guy reacts to “12 things you should know before coming to Japan” (Abroad in Japan)

Hey guys, today we're going to be watching

a video from a pretty big channel called

Abroad in Japan, and I will be reacting

to it. And his video that I will be

reacting to today is called 12 Things You

Should Know Before Coming to Japan. And as

someone who lives in Japan, I thought I

could tell you if these things are really

important things that you should know or

not. So let's get right into the video.

Your travel pillow? Oh yes.

Knowledge? What? Cultural knowledge?

Well, I've watched The Last Samurai,

haven't I? Okay, so first of all, I just

want to say his editing is really good,

and I think he has a very good on-camera

presence, which as a YouTuber is a pretty

important thing to have. So let's carry on

with the video. And I've got this, uh,

this guidebook, this Japan travel book.

Oh, you mean the travel guide you'll never

read? How dare you! I'm gonna read it on

the plane. Yes, I like his sense of humor

so much. So funny. Absolute lies.

Save yourself the hassle, guys. In this

video, I sat down with my good friend

Pete, a British radio DJ who visits Japan

once or twice a year, and we discussed 12

things we wish we'd known. Okay, so in

this shot, it's kind of interesting. You

can see he's doing a bit of green screen

trickery. So he's obviously filmed himself

sitting on the couch in the background,

and he has that video playing as a

background, and then he has himself— he's

filmed a new video. He's probably standing

in front of a green screen right now, and

as you can see, he's put himself in front

of the other video where he's sitting on

the sofa, and he's used the green screen

trick to make it look like there's 2 of

him. Very clever. And hopefully at least

one or 2 of those points will save you

from some potential embarrassment or save

you some time. So let's jump in. Wow,

he's actually reading it. Bloody hell.

It's taking a very long time for him to

get into the actual video. I don't know

who this Pete Donaldson is. Oh, this is,

uh, it's not actually like a proper video.

It's more like a podcast that he's made

with his friend Pete Donaldson. There's 2

airports that service Tokyo: Tokyo Haneda

and Tokyo Narita. Okay, so he finally gets

into the video about 1 minute 30 seconds

into the video. It starts. His first thing

that he thinks you should know before

coming to Japan is to avoid Narita

Airport. If possible, fly into Haneda

Airport, which is just 20 minutes from

central Tokyo by monorail. I guess what

he's saying is Narita Airport is very busy

compared to Haneda Airport, which is much

less busy, and I can kind of see his

point, but I don't really feel like it's

that important. Every time I went to

Japan, I either flew into Narita or Kansai

International Airport, and I never had any

problems. With it being too busy or too

many people, so I don't really see why

he's making this his first point.

Haneda's really close, and that's the one

I recommend. It's a brilliant airport.

It's a 20-minute taxi ride into— 20-minute

taxi. I love the way he just casually

throws in 20-minute taxi, as if us normal

people who don't make $50,000 a month from

YouTube just get taxis for 20 minutes

casually. Us normal people who don't make

$50,000 a month on YouTube We get the

train or we walk. We don't get the taxi.

Well, go straight there into Tokyo. 20

minutes. Beautiful. Love it. And then

there's Narita, which takes about 3 hours.

Narita. I love his pronunciation. Doesn't

even try. I hate it. Okay, let's see what

his next point is. Otherwise, this video

is going to go on forever. It's already 4

minutes and we're only on the second

point. Learn the kanji

for male and female. Okay, so his friend

Pete Donaldson recommends that you learn

The kanji for man and female,

in case you need to go to the toilet and

you don't know which is which. This is a

lot of rubbish because 99% of the toilets

in Japan are clearly marked with a big

blue guy or a big red or pink woman for

the women's and men's toilets. So I don't

really feel like this is important to

learn the kanji for male, female. A lot of

rubbish. I think kokonai is quite a good

word to use. Define the domestic I'm

just skipping ahead to try and get to the

next point. Just trying to save you some

time, that's all. Because they do waffle

on quite a bit.

Okay, the third thing they think you need

to know before going to Japan is

communicate with English words, not

phrases. So he's saying if you really have

to communicate with a Japanese person,

don't use really long complicated

sentences because it's just going to

confuse them, and just try and stick to

singular words to make it easy for them to

understand. Yeah, pretty straightforward.

Or just use Google Translate, maybe.

Skipping ahead, let's go to his 4th point.

Beware of women-only train carriages.

Um, yeah, I'd agree with this because

there were a few times when I accidentally

went onto the women's only train carriage.

I didn't realize, and I looked up, looked

around, and noticed everyone around me are

cute Japanese girls, and I thought, wow,

this is pretty nice. But it is kind of

weird. It feels a bit embarrassing because

you feel like you shouldn't actually be in

there and you should leave. But you're not

really going to get in trouble if you do

go in there by accident. No one's going to

come up to you and say, get out, you're

not a woman. Unless they thought I was a

woman. I don't think people think I'm a

woman. Uh, point number 5.

Let's see what they have to say.

About $500 worth of cash on them. If I go

like this, can you make money rain down on

my camera? When it comes to editing this

video, I'll decide whether or not that's

that secret part of that secret. That

overload cash rain sound from the

warranty. Hilarious. Credit cards

often don't work. Japan is still largely a

cash-based society. Credit cards often

can't be used for transactions. Use

convenience store ATMs for withdrawals.

Convenience store. Don't go to a bank.

Don't go looking for banks. Lots of banks

in Japan don't take like MasterCard or

Visa, whatever. Just go to like a 7-Eleven

and those ATMs always do work. There was a

problem when tsunami hit and a lot of cash

got stolen. And I definitely agree with

that. I always went to 7-Eleven or Lawson

to take my money out. Never went to a

bank. Because usually they rejected my

Visa card. With the houses, right?

Because entire houses, entire towns got

washed away by the tsunami in 2011, and a

lot of cash went with it because a lot of

people keep their cash in the house under

their bed. And it kind of shows you the

vulnerability of having cash to some

extent. Um, but yeah, I just can't believe

people carry $500 around with them. Oh

yeah, pickpockets' dream. But luckily

Japan doesn't really have any pickpockets.

I very rarely hear about it. Not really,

no. You can be safe. The first Day in

Japan ever, I had ramen with my friend

Dan. He showed me around, right? And yeah,

everyone was slurping noodles. Just get

going on there. It works because it cools

down. Slurping loudly is a thing. So

you've probably heard this already that

Japanese people slurp when they eat

noodles, and it's normal. It's not

considered to be rude. I personally don't

like doing it, and I eat my noodles very

silently. And Japanese people used to

think it was weird. They would say, "You

really don't make any noise when you eat

noodles, don't you, Daniel?" And I'm like,

"Yeah, because it sounds." Gotta go like

that, but that's what it's like if you go

to a ramen shop anywhere in Japan. It's

okay to slurp. The only time I slurp my

noodles is when I'm by myself. Otherwise,

if I'm in other people's company, I just

feel a bit embarrassed about making that

slurping sound. If you don't slurp, you

find it's actually a little bit tricky to

eat. Usually you find yourself kind of

just kind of scooping them in, and I'm

terrible with chopsticks. Put that in

front of my mouth. It's worse if anything.

And let's not forget that once you finish

your noodles, tipping. In Japan, tipping

hasn't been invented. It's brilliant. It

means you can actually go out for a

reasonably priced meal. Tipping is not

really a thing in Japan, and they would

probably think it's kind of strange if you

try and give them extra money. They

probably would try to refuse you and just

give the money back to you. So don't worry

about tipping. If you do do it, it's just

a little bit awkward because people will

be like, why are you tipping me? What's

going on? It just kind of makes them feel

uncomfortable because it feels like you're

judging their service quality. In Japan,

right, people have to give their 110%

every day at work no matter what they're

doing. Maybe they're a train driver,

maybe they work at a restaurant, maybe

they're flying a plane. I don't know why

those are the 3 professions that came to

mind. People give it their all every day,

and so they don't need to feel like

they're being judged by having a tip.

Okay, what's his next one? Got 4 to go.

My Wi-Fi is really slow. Sorry about

this. Yep, my Wi-Fi is

not moving.

Don't know why it's taking such a long

time to load.

Yeah, so I think I'm gonna have to end the

video here because my internet has failed

to load this stupid video.