I nearly got married in Japan - the full story

A bit late today. Sun's already gone.

That's not good. I think I slept a bit

too much today. Woke up at 5 PM.

It's getting later and later. I just can't

wake up. I end up getting back from work

at 6 AM, and then I stay up until 8 AM

just on the internet, and I end up waking

up at 5 PM. I only have 4 hours to

do stuff, and then I have to go back to

work. It just feels like I'm at work half

the time and I'm sleeping half the time.

Anyway, that's not what the video is

about. I was thinking about making this

video for a long time, and I was just

thinking if I really wanted to do it or

not. And I think that I do want to do it.

It was a big part of my life. It was

nearly— it nearly changed my life

completely. It was like a big moment.

So I want to talk about the time I nearly

got married. Can you believe I nearly got

married? I'm like the most irresponsible,

immature person in the world. If anyone

who gets married to me, it'll just be a

complete disaster unless, unless we're

very similar in, um, personality-wise.

Anyway, this is how it started. It was my

second time in Japan. I was on the working

holiday visa. And this was about 5

years ago, 2011, November. I had

a— I was researching all year about the

working holiday visa, what I needed to do,

what I needed to get in order to make it

happen. To make it happen, I filled out

all the papers. Me and my family, we went

to London to the Japanese embassy to fill

out the papers, hand it all in.

Everything went fine. They issued me with

the working holiday visa after a few

weeks, and they put it in my passport. I

still got— I still have it in my passport.

I guess I'll show it to you later. And

yeah, I booked my ticket for November. I

was so nervous. I was so nervous. Could I—

would I be able to find a job? Is my

Japanese good enough? Is everything going

to be okay? So I decided to go to

this guest house which is outside of— on

the outskirts of Tokyo in Saitama

Prefecture because

it was really cheap and it's still pretty

close to Tokyo. So I decided to go there.

Um, yeah, I got there in November. It was

kind of crazy at the beginning.

I was just so lost. I didn't know what to

do. I felt like I was in a on a different

planet. I didn't know anyone. There were

so many things I had to get done, like I

had to sort out my alien registration

card. I needed to get my bank account

sorted, my Japanese bank account. And then

I started to look for a job, and it only

took me a week to get a job after looking.

I had a few interviews, and then this

convenience store guy, he phoned me up.

He said, am I available for work still? I

said, yeah, I went for the interview and I

got the job. He just— we just had a little

chat. It was pretty easy. He just gave me

the job straight away. He said my Japanese

was fine, that there'd be no problem.

And I worked there for a few months. And

then after a few months, around Christmas,

this new girl came to the guest house.

Let's just call her Kei for convenience.

I guess it doesn't really matter if I give

you her real name. What are you gonna do,

look it up? She's not on the internet

anyway. So there's this new girl called

Kate, and my group of friends,

we greeted her, introduced ourselves. I

didn't really speak to her much, just

like, I just greeted her. Maybe we spoke

one or two times, but I was too busy with

my own problems. I had all these problems

with my job. I had problems with a

different relationship with this French

girl. Things— everything was just going to

shit. I was getting more and more fed up

with my job. I hated it so much. And after

4 months, I quit my job. I broke up with

the French girlfriend, and I left Japan.

It's just stupid because I was supposed to

be in Japan for a whole year. I was so

looking forward— I was so excited to

staying there for a whole year. I was

like, yes, I can stay in Japan for a whole

year. This is gonna be great. And even

just after 4 months I just felt crushed.

I was so depressed. I hated my job. I

hated my girlfriend. I had no reason— I

didn't want to stay there anymore. I just

left Japan after 4 months, and I didn't

even see that girl, Kei, ever again.

And then fast forward 2 years later. 2

years later, she just suddenly messaged me

on Facebook out of nowhere. She messaged

me saying Hey Daniel, I'm deleting

my Facebook, but I want to keep in touch

with you. So she gave me her email address

and we started emailing every day. This

was about June 2014.

I had just come back from Japan for the

3rd time a few months earlier. I went to

Japan again in 2013 just for 3

months. So I had just come back

from Japan a few months ago, and then I

started talking to Kate every day on

email. We talked about loads of stuff,

and then suddenly I said to her, hey, I'm

thinking of going to Japan again this

year. Could I stay at your place? I know,

it's kind of bold, wasn't it? And

surprisingly, she said, yeah, that's fine,

that's great. She was living on her own in

an apartment in Kyushu, the south of

Japan, the most southern part of Japan,

and I've never been there before. So I

decided to go back to Japan the same year.

I booked my ticket for August. I went and

told my dad I'm going back to Japan. He

was really surprised. He was a bit angry

as well because he really wanted me to,

to start thinking about a career, looking

for a job, not keep going to Japan over

and over again. So I think he was kind of

annoyed by it, but I went anyway. I was a

bit worried because I had already been to

Japan for 3 months that year. I was

worried that they won't let me back into

Japan. They might say something like, not

you again, why are you here so many times?

You've already come here for 90 days and

now you're back for another 90 days? No,

you can't do that, go home. But that

didn't happen. It was okay. I went back to

Japan, and I was able to stay the full 90

days. It's good, that, isn't it? As long

as you have the money, you can keep going

to Japan on the 90-day tourist visa, and

you can just live there and then go to a

different country for a few months, then

go back to Japan, and then they renew—

they renew your 90-day tourist visa.

But I get the feeling that if you keep

trying to do that, they're going to get a

bit suspicious Like, why do you keep

coming to Japan for 90 days and then

leaving and then coming back? They might

suspect that you're working here

illegally. I kind of was working there

illegally because I had like an online

business. I was selling sharpening stones

for knives. I bought them on the Japanese

Amazon and then I sold them on eBay for

double the price back to people in the UK

or Europe, and I made a little bit of

profit. Not really much. I would buy the

sharpening stones for about £20, I'd sell

them for about £40, but then I had to pay

about £10 in eBay fees and postage, so

that left me with about £10 left. So I was

making like a little bit of pocket money

doing that. Anyway, I booked

my ticket for August, which was bloody

expensive. Do you know how expensive plane

tickets to Japan are in the summer? It

cost almost £900. Usually it costs £550

if you go in the winter. So I went in

August, booked my ticket, went to Tokyo,

and I got a transfer plane. I was supposed

to get the transfer plane to Oita Airport,

but it's typical, on that very

day this huge typhoon was there and they

had to close down Oita Airport. So I got

redirected to Kumamoto Airport. Which is

like miles away from Oita. So I had to go

to Kumamoto, which is such a strange

experience because you're used to Japan

being like a huge city, huge buildings

everywhere. But I went to Kumamoto and it

was nothing like that. It was just

mountains and countryside, and it was

so humid and hot because it was summer.

It actually felt like I was in Malaysia.

It was just mountains everywhere, and the

airport was tiny. I got out the airport

and I got on the bus. There was a bus that

took 3 hours, a 3-hour bus journey to get

me to Oita. And it was so scary because it

was the middle of the night. There were

like 2, 2 other passengers and they got

off pretty quickly, so it was just me on

the bus and this bus driver in the middle

of the night. And I was like worrying, oh

no, is he gonna fall asleep at the wheel

and then drive us off the edge of a

mountain? Is he gonna crash? Is he gonna

kidnap me and rape me? But everything's

okay. I kept checking the time. The time

seemed to go so slowly, and I

was worried, like, how do I know when I

get to my, my stop? Is there going to be

like a sign? How do I stop the bus? Do I

have to press a button, or do I just get

off? But luckily, my stop was the very,

very last stop. We got to Oita.

I got off the bus, and I was kind of like

Are we, are we here? Is this the place? I

just got off the bus without saying

anything to the driver, gave him my

ticket, and I was in Oita for the first

time ever. Oita is like this small city

near Beppu, which is an even smaller city,

but that's kind of famous because it has

the international university and the hot

springs. I got off at Oita and

I texted I emailed my— I emailed Kei that

I was meeting, and then she turned up a

few minutes later, and it felt really nice

to see her again. It had been, what, 2 to

3 years since I last saw her,

and she didn't really look that much

different. I remember being very attracted

to her when I first met her all the way

back in 2011. And I really did want to,

like, talk to her more, but I just didn't

get the chance. I didn't really get to see

her much. She was always busy with work,

and she was also in a relationship with

the guesthouse manager. Would you believe

that? So now I know why she kept

coming out of the manager's office. I

wondered why she kept coming out of there.

Now I know. Anyway,

we, we greeted We said hello. It was

really awkward at first, like we didn't

know what to say or do. And then we went

to the pharmacy and I bought a toothbrush

and toothpaste, and then we went to her

place. I unpacked my stuff. She had a

really nice place. It was just a one-room

apartment, but it was pretty big. Also had

a little kitchen. It was very modern and

clean. I really liked it. It was a nice

place to live in, and she set out this bed

for me on the floor. And she said that I

could sleep there, and I said okay. And

then suddenly, before we were about to

sleep, she said, if you want, you can

sleep on my bed and I'll sleep on the

floor. And I was like, okay. So I slept on

her bed, and then we went to sleep— well,

we tried to, but she kept talking. She

kept saying she can't sleep, she was

nervous. So we turned the lights back on,

and then she suddenly said, can I see

pictures of your cats? And then she came

next to me, and then she started touching

me. And then I said, you can come on the

bed if you want. And then, well,

things happened, natural things that

happen between a man and a woman. And then

that was pretty much how we got into a

relationship. It just started from there.

And then we started talking about like

long-term stuff, like she asked

me How can a foreigner stay in Japan

long-term? And I said, well, you need a

working visa, which I can't get because I

don't have a university degree, which is a

requirement to get a working visa in

Japan. And I also said, well, you can also

get a spouse visa if you get married to a

Japanese person. And she kind of

like perked up and she said, So if you get

married, if we get married, you could stay

here forever. I said yeah, and then she

said, what do you think about it? I was so

shocked. So are you suggesting that we get

married? Isn't that a bit soon? I've only

just got here. It's been like not even 2

days. We've known each other for a few

years, but we're not really close.

But I thought to myself, maybe it's not

such a bad idea. We are very attracted to

each other. I have a good feeling about

her. I've always wanted to live in Japan,

and it's not like I have anything back at

home in England. My life's not going

anywhere. So I said,

yeah, let's— why not? Let's just try it

out, see what happens. So we actually

decided to get married just like that.

And, um, we didn't

do anything straight away, like we were

still thinking about it. But a few weeks

later, we actually went to the town hall

and we got the marriage papers. We filled

it all out, we signed it. I had to get a

birth certificate, which I couldn't really

get, and I didn't want to ask my dad

because I didn't want to tell him that I'm

getting married. So I went on to the Get

Your Birth Certificate Online website,

and you can actually pay £20 and they send

you your birth certificate. So I ordered

that, and we signed the marriage papers.

We never actually gave the papers back

because we needed one more piece of paper.

I don't remember what it's called. You

need to— you needed to go to the British

Embassy, and you had to sign this

pledge that you don't have girlfriends or

you're not in another marriage. So you

have to like make a

promise that you're available to get

married, and then they give you a signed

piece of paper. Well, you needed to book

an appointment for that, and the British

Embassy was really fully booked up, so we

couldn't get an appointment soon.

So that was kind of the reason why we

didn't get married, because because we

weren't able to get the documentation

ready soon enough, which in the end, I

guess it kind of saved me because the

relationship, it started out really good.

Everything was perfect. You know how

relationships are at the beginning, it's

all amazing and wonderful, and we did

lots of stuff together. We were very

intimate, but I'm not really the kind of

person who feels comfortable with public

displays of affection, but she was, and

she was very like physical, like touchy,

and I quite liked it. And we went to all

these places and we did a lot of stuff.

And then after about 4 weeks, that's when

things started to go downhill. And this

kind of ties into the story that I told

you before, the whole sexual disease

thing. After about 4 weeks, she suddenly

had these really bad pains, like,

in her— around her stomach, around her

lower stomach. And she would just wake up

in the middle of the night screaming, and

it was terrifying. I didn't know what to

do. I didn't know how I could help her.

And then she decided to go to the

hospital. And then she got back from the

hospital, and they said that it's a

possibility that you have a sexually

transmitted disease and that you should

get yourself checked out and tell your

partners. And I was so worried because we

hadn't been using protection, so if she

had something, then I've got it as well.

And yep, I was starting to get symptoms.

I— when I peed, it felt strange, like

something was gripping my insides, like my

bladder. It was— it felt really

uncomfortable to urinate, and I

started to get these terrible joint pains.

My elbows would swell up like this big.

It swelled up so badly. And my hips and

my knees would be incredibly painful, the

joints. I couldn't even walk. I couldn't—

when I coughed, because I had a bit of a

cold as well, I coughed like, you know

that bone, your pelvis bone? That whole

area was just in so much pain every time I

coughed or I used my stomach muscles to

get up or move. I couldn't walk. When I

wanted to go to the toilet, I had to crawl

across the floor because it was so

painful. And I

had no idea what it was. She was

worried as well. She was like, are you

going to be able to get a job? How are you

going to be able to work if you can't even

walk? I didn't know what to say.

What? She got antibiotics for her

pain, but that didn't really help because

we continued having sex and the disease

kept going backwards and forwards and the

antibiotics couldn't stop it. So we ended

up going to this health clinic in Beppu,

sexual health clinic, and they tested us.

We did blood tests, we did urine tests,

and A few weeks,

I think it was like a week later, we had

to go back to the clinic to get our

results. And they told us,

they told us we both had chlamydia. I was

so shocked. I had never gotten an STD

before, and I just had the kind of

thinking that, oh, it will never happen to

me. It happens to other people, but I'll

be fine. We tested negative on HIV.

Thank God, that was such a worry.

But they told us we both had chlamydia and

they gave us antibiotics and they told us

not to have sex for at least 2 weeks or a

week or use a condom if we had sex.

And, um, yeah,

I said something to her like I was just

amazed at and so surprised. I was like,

we've got chlamydia? It can't have been me

because I haven't had a girlfriend for

years, so it must have been you. And she

kind of took this really badly, like I was

blaming her or accusing her. I wasn't. I

was just very curious as to how it

happened. And then she admitted that she

did have sex with this other guy about 4

weeks before I got to Japan. So yeah, it

And after we took the antibiotics and

things started to get better, the pain

stopped, but I still had the terrible

joint pain. The joint pain lasted for at

least a year, a year and a half later. I

was still getting the joint pains. It was

gradually getting better, but I would

still get terrible pains in my hip joints,

and I couldn't walk. I had to walk like a

limp. Like, like this, like this all the

time. It was so painful.

And yeah, joint pain is a side effect of

getting chlamydia for men. A lot of men

get this even after the virus has been

killed, the, the, um, the infection has

been killed off by the antibiotics. Like,

remnants of the dead infection,

it gets into your joints somehow. And it

causes inflammation. Your body reacts to

the dead virus cells and it inflames your

joints. I told

the doctor in Japan about this, but he

didn't seem to care. He was just like,

oh, it'll be fine, don't worry about it.

It wasn't bloody fine for almost 2 years.

It's finally gotten better. The last time

I had that pain was in this year, maybe

about February. It was— it It only lasted

a day, but I did feel like the tingling

pain in my hip joint. But since then,

it's completely gone, and I'm so thankful.

You don't know how nice it is to be able

to walk without being in pain.

I'm just so thankful that everything

turned out okay. Anyway, things started to

go south with the relationship. She

thought I was like accusing her and

blaming her. My Japanese wasn't perfect.

It was very good, and I usually had like a

very blunt, straightforward way of

speaking just to make things simple. And

to her, that came off as like rude. I

guess it's the same as how the Nepal guy

speaks to me. I find his way of speaking

very blunt and straightforward, and it

comes off as rude and not very friendly.

And she said that, and she would just

start crying all the time. Like, she'd

say, Daniel, you're not— you're not nice.

You're mean, you're not friendly, I don't

like the way you speak. And I got

irritated because, well, it's not my

fault. I'm not Japanese. I don't speak

like a Japanese person. And then she would

just start crying, or she'd get depressed,

or she'd just start sulking in the corner

and she wouldn't talk. And I tried to make

her talk or ask her what's wrong. She'd

just ignore me, and forcing her to talk

would just make things worse. And then the

second incident was my wisdom tooth.

This is just terrible timing. After the

whole chlamydia thing, my wisdom tooth

started to erupt out of my gum. This one

here, it had already started peeking,

but it just had like a growth spurt during

that time, and it came out a lot, and it

cut right through my gum. My whole face

swelled up. Like all this side. Hold on,

I'm gonna pause the video. Face, it all

swelled up. It was like, it was like that.

Seriously, it looked so funny, but it was

so painful. I couldn't open my mouth. I

could open my mouth this much, like I

couldn't eat. I had to suck stuff through

a straw because it was so painful, and the

pain was just there the whole time, like

the robbing, like,

and I was so irritable. I was grumpy, I

was snappy. I would, I would just snap at

her, like, I would shout at her because I

was getting irritated. I didn't want to

hug or kiss or be touched because it was

so bloody painful. And it was like she

didn't understand how much pain I was in,

and I was just getting more and more

irritated. And then she'd start crying And

get upset, and it's so irritating. I mean,

I'm in so much pain, and you're just

crying all the time. Can't you be a bit

sympathetic for me? And I was just getting

so angry. In the end, I had to take

painkillers because I just couldn't bear

it. And this lasted for like two weeks.

It took ages for it to heal. It's

terrible. And then I just realized

that. This girl is just so much hard work.

She's not mature. She cries easily. She's

too emotional. It's just too much hard

work. And we kept getting in arguments

over stupid things. Like, she would see a

photo that I took with my ex-girlfriend,

and she saw it by accident, and then she

just started to cry again, and then she

wouldn't talk to me for the whole day.

And things got so bad that she wanted to

break up. She kicked me out of her

apartment. She told me to leave. So I

packed all my stuff and I left. And I was

thinking about leaving anyway because I

was getting so fed up with the situation.

So I actually— I was actually quite happy

to leave. I got on the bullet train.

I rode the bullet train for like 2 hours

to the nearest city to the airport. But it

was too late to get onto the underground

train for the airport, so I had to wait

outside the train station. That's why I

spent the night homeless.

But she started emailing me. She started

saying she's sorry. She said that she,

a little while after, she ran out the

apartment looking for me. She thought that

I was just hanging around nearby at the

park or something. She said she asked all

these people if they had seen me. And I

felt so sad. I thought— I felt

like I really regretted leaving. I should

have at least stuck around for a bit and

waited. So I ended up going all the way

back to her. I went back on the bullet

train, rode it for another 2 hours,

and then we got back together. This only

lasted a few more weeks, and then the same

thing happened. We argued again.

It was funny, we actually went back to

that city together. She said she wanted to

go on like a trip with me and she wanted

to experience being homeless. So we didn't

actually book a hotel, we stayed in a

karaoke place because in Japan you can do

karaoke from— it's open 24

hours pretty much until 5 AM. So we went

to karaoke, we sang a bit, and then we

slept in the karaoke room. Which is weird.

It was really uncomfortable. You know,

sleeping in a karaoke place is the worst

idea ever because it's so damn noisy.

Everyone's singing and there's always

music playing. It was terrible.

And, um, yeah, after we woke up, we went

like sightseeing, and then she saw that

photo, and then she started sulking. She

was really angry and upset and she

wouldn't talk to me. I kept trying to make

her talk, and then she just like exploded,

started yelling at me on the street, and

everyone was looking. I was so fed up. I

was just like, I'm done, I'm leaving,

fuck this, fuck you. So we went back

to the apartment and I left again. She

kicked me out again. I went to a guest

house in Beppu, not too far away. She said

it'd be better if we just took a break,

stayed apart for a bit. And I did see her

a few times just before the end.

I had booked my ticket to, to go to

Korea, and I was ready to leave.

And yeah, I said, we— I said,

I don't think things are gonna work out.

We should just give up.

It's not gonna work out. I wasn't happy

about the person she is.

I wasn't happy about being in a

relationship with her. And even before all

this trouble happened, our life was so

boring. She would go to work, come home in

the evening. I would make her dinner.

We'd eat and then we'd go to bed. Like,

that was it. There was nothing else. We

wouldn't go on like trips. Because she

was always sleeping. We wouldn't go very

far. Sometimes we'd go for a walk. We

didn't do anything together. We'd watch

like movies sometimes, but she didn't

really seem very interested in Western

movies. She wasn't into tech. She didn't

even have a smartphone. She didn't know—

she didn't have any idea about the

internet, social media, technology. She

wasn't into movies, like nerdy stuff. She

definitely wasn't into video games or

cameras. We just had nothing in common,

and I felt so bored. Like, I wanted to

talk about— I wanted to talk to someone

about my hobbies and my interests, and I

couldn't talk to her about anything

because I know that she wouldn't be

interested in it. And I just felt our

lifestyle was really boring. If we got

married and I got a job, this would be it.

We'd go to work, we'd come home, eat

dinner, go to sleep. The next day we'd

come, we'd go to work, come home, eat

dinner, go to sleep. It would be so

boring. And I just felt like

this isn't going to work. And we decided

to just end it, break up. She took me to

the train station. I got on the bullet

train for the— what, 1, 2, 3, 4— for the

5th time I got on the bullet train, that

same one. She stood outside of the bullet

train. She stood outside of

the bullet train on the platform waiting.

She was just a complete mess. She was

crying. She was, she was just crying

and crying on the platform looking at me,

and I was sitting there looking out the

window. I didn't really feel— I didn't

know what to feel. I felt sad, but at the

same time I felt glad that it was over.

It was just such a chaotic,

nightmarish experience full of pain,

disease, being kicked out, being homeless.

Oh, I was just— I couldn't wait to go back

to my easy lifestyle back in the UK where

it's just me. I can do what I want. I

don't have to put up with emotional women

that just cry all the time.

And that's the story. I think that's

pretty much it. Since then, I haven't

talked to her. I didn't even message her

once. We never— we just stopped

talking to each other. We both know that

it's not going to work out. It would just

be a disaster. And I don't think I would

have been happy in Japan just getting a

crappy kitchen job and then

being stuck with this girl that I had

nothing in common with. It would have just

been big mistake. I think that I really

dodged a bullet there. I would have been

very unhappy. I wouldn't have been able to

see my family. It would have been very

hard to save up money to come back to the

UK to visit. They would have to come and

visit us. And I think

even if we did get married, it wouldn't

have lasted very long. It wouldn't have—

it wouldn't have lasted even a year, I

bet. So that's, that's the story.

I revealed a lot of personal things in

this video, things that I felt

that I shouldn't really tell anyone. I

didn't even tell my dad until very

recently, even about the whole STD thing.

I kind of had to tell him because he was

concerned, like why was I getting all

these joint pains, so I had to tell him

the reason why. I don't really think I've

talked to him about the nearly getting

married thing. I told my mum and my

sister. That's about it. I just found it

too embarrassing. So I was so naive.

It's not so easy to just get married. You

don't just go, okay, let's get married.

It's such a childish thing to do. We

didn't even plan anything. We didn't have

any money. We didn't— I didn't even have a

job. It would have just ended in complete

disaster. It would have been a complete

disaster. So yeah,

that was the story. It's a very personal

story for me, and I do feel glad

that I shared it with you. I don't, I

don't really feel embarrassed about it

that much. It was quite a long time ago,

a few years ago. But it's all history now.

It's just another chapter in my life.

Another, another, another chapter of

fuck-ups in my life.

Oh well. But you learn from these

experiences, don't you? And it gave me

like some interesting stories. I like

having these experiences. But if nothing

happened during my whole life, my life

would have just been really boring. At

least I experienced these things. Some

people, they don't even get to experience

these things, and I just feel kind of

lucky that all that stuff happened. And in

the end, nothing really bad happened to

me. I didn't get some kind of incurable

disease, I didn't get some kind of

disability, or— I'm fine. I'm 100%

healthy now. I don't have any problems

with the joint pains. So I got out of the

whole situation without anything bad

happening in the long term.

Maybe I did become very bitter towards

Japan because of this experience, and I

came— I became very bitter towards,

I don't know, being in a relationship, I

guess, with a very emotional person.

And especially being in a relationship

with someone that you have nothing in

common with. It's something I really want

to avoid. I don't care how attractive she

is. I don't care how rich she is. I don't

care how much she loves me. If we don't

have anything in common, then I'm not

going to be interested because I've had

that experience before and it's terrible.

I don't want to end up like my parents.

My parents have nothing in common and they

don't do anything together. They don't

talk about anything and they're always

like unhappy with each other because they

can't talk about what they're interested

in to each other. And I don't want to end

up like that. I want to be in a

relationship with a girl that I feel like

she's not just the girlfriend or wife,

she's also my best friend.

That's, that's what I kind of learned from

it. I've realized after all that anyway.

This video is going to be like 40 minutes

long, isn't it? And we're losing daylight.

Guess I'll end it here. Yeah,