Japanese guy reacts to abroad in japan video

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— 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. Um, 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

is really close, and that's the one I

recommend. It's a brilliant airport.

Twenty-minute taxi. Twenty-minute taxi.

Twenty-minute taxi. I love the way he just

casually throws in twenty-minute taxi as

if us normal people who don't make fifty

thousand a month from YouTube just get

taxis for twenty minutes casually. Us

normal people who don't make fifty

thousand a month on YouTube, we get the

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

Well, go straight there into Tokyo.

Twenty minutes. Beautiful. Love it. And

then there's Narita, which takes about

three days. I love this. Doesn't even try.

I hate it. Let's see what his next point

is. Otherwise, this video is going to go

on forever. It's already four minutes,

and we were only on the second point.

Pay. So the gap we get. Too much. Learn

the kanji for male and female. Okay, so

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 to 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. Exactly. Because they do waffle on

for quite a bit. If you don't know the

character for male and female, you're

fucked. 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 on to 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.

Um, about $500 worth of cash on them. If I

go like this, can you make money, um,

rain down on my camera? When it comes to

editing this video, I'll decide whether or

not that sequence warranted an overlay of

cash raining down upon you. Ah, I'm

covered in it again. 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. Go to a

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. Right. Just go to like a

7-Eleven. Yeah. And those ATMs always do

work. Okay. There was a problem when the

tsunami hit. A lot of cash got swept away.

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. Wait,

with the houses, right? Because entire

houses, entire towns got swashed away by

the tsunami in 2011, and a lot of cash

went with it because a lot of people keep

their cash in their 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,

pickpocket's dream. But luckily Japan

doesn't really have any pickpockets. 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 in there, big

old slurp. It works because it cools down

the noodles. 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 disgusting. I'm

gonna 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 scooping them in, and I'm

terrible with chopsticks. Yeah, yeah,

yeah. Just getting them right in the 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. 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— Okay, what's his next one? I've

got 4 to go.

My Wi-Fi is really slow.

Sorry about this.

Yep, my Wi-Fi is not moving.

I 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.