my first time in japan

Hello and welcome to the video. I never

know how to start off these videos. I

always do these really awkward greetings.

I don't know how to start the video. I

guess I just start talking. Anyway, what

are we doing on this video? I'm going to

show you pictures from the first time I

ever went to Japan. I thought it'd be an

interesting thing to talk about, and yeah,

I could have done this using a camera and

talking to the camera, but I really wanted

to show you the photos that I took.

During that time, and I can't really think

of a better way of doing it than this.

So, and I get to test out my new screen

recording software, Bandicam.

Anyway, let's get started. So this was

about 6 years ago, 2010,

February. It was very, very cold at that

time. I had— what's going on?

What's this? Information audio capture.

Your sound card does not capture the

sound. Please check your record. Why did

this just suddenly pop up? No,

I don't want to visit the online help

page. Go away. How irritating.

What was I saying? I hate being

interrupted like that. I thought the whole

thing just crashed or something. Um,

yeah, at the time I was currently working

at my dad's company. Not the company my

dad owned, but the company that my dad was

working at. He got me a job there, an

office junior job. I worked there for

about 5 months, and I wasn't getting on

with the people there, and I ended up

quitting. And around the same time, my

online girlfriend from Japan, she broke up

with me and left me for another guy. And

then a few weeks later— yeah, I know,

it's kind of thick— thick— quick. Fast

plus quick becomes thick. It was kind of

fast, But I found a new girlfriend,

Japanese, from Japan, Osaka.

So I decided to go to Osaka in 2010,

February, just before Valentine's Day.

How romantic. So this is February 2010,

my very first time in Japan. Let's have a

look at some pictures. So this is the,

uh, the area that I was living in. Looks

very bland, doesn't it? It was very bland.

There wasn't really much there. It was

just residential houses, some shopping

areas, and lots and lots of cars.

You can't really see it in the picture,

but the first thing that really shocked me

about Japan was the amount of people

riding bicycles on the footpath. There

were just so many people riding bicycles.

You can't really see any on the picture,

which is kind of irritating, but You had

to really watch out where you were

walking, otherwise you would just get run

over by a bicycle. Let's go to the next

one because we have a lot of photos to get

through. I don't want this to be like an

hour-long video. Okay, so here we have a

Hot Pocket. In Japan, it's called a kairo.

There's haranai kairo and haru kairo.

Haru means to fix, to paste.

Basically, there's a sticky one and a

non-sticky one. The sticky one you can

like stick to your body or your clothing

so you can heat yourself up. I think

that's what it was. I can't remember

actually. What you did, you had to— you

shake these and then they start warming

up. Some kind of chemical reaction occurs

inside and then it starts to heat up,

which is really cool. They don't sell them

in England for some reason. You go into

shops here in winter and they don't have

these. It would be nice if they did.

They're quite fun, but they don't last for

very long. Like, you shake them up And

then they heat up for several hours and

then they just— they lose the heat.

More pictures of the area I was living in.

Not really exciting. It was very grey most

of the time, very cloudy, overcast.

More pictures. There's Book Off. Book Off

is like one of the biggest bookstores in

Japan. I went there quite a lot. No one

bought books. They just like— they stood

in there. And they stood there reading,

but they wouldn't buy the books. It was

like a library. In the UK, if you did

that, you'd get told off if you just went

into a bookstore and just read the books

for free. They would say, get out of here,

this isn't a library. But in Japan, it's

fine. Everyone does it. You just go in

there and everyone's just standing there

reading books and no one's buying them,

probably. There's a special word for it.

I can't remember. Tachiyomi,

something like that, reading while

standing. It's frowned upon, but everyone

still does it. And this was at some kind

of university. My girlfriend at the time,

she was applying for jobs and going to

seminars, and she dragged me along to this

university, and I had to wait for her. I

just stood by the window taking pictures.

I remember seeing the mountains, and in

the UK we don't really have mountains,

not where I live. And it was just so

fascinating seeing mountains for the first

time for some reason.

More mountains. You can see the reflection

of my camera. More mountains.

Yeah, I was really fascinated by the

mountains. And then after that we went for

lunch. We had— I can't remember what this

is— soba with prawn tempura.

It was okay. Nothing amazing. I don't like

these big wooden spoons. They're kind of

hard to use. And then at nighttime,

we went to the Ferris wheel, the famous

one in Osaka, and I tried to take photos.

The photos didn't come out very well. I

was very disappointed with my camera the

whole time. I had this cheap £80 Samsung

compact camera, and it was just— it was

awful in low light. It was terrible at

night. It was just blurred out the whole

time. Look at this. See, it's just so

blurry. And I didn't know anything about

cameras. I had it on automatic mode. And I

was just so frustrated. There's a picture

of me. Narushisto Ouchi.

The prince of narcissism?

Narcissism? Narcissism? No, it's

narcissism, isn't it? Yeah, my

ex-girlfriend took this. My hair was very

long back then.

That's weird, these photos aren't in

order. It's like

they're not— the next one should be— oh,

it doesn't matter. Then we went to the

zoo. This was after I broke up with that

girlfriend. There was this Korean girl

that I really fancied and we went to the

zoo together. And it was nice.

We held hands. And now we're

jumping back. I don't know why the photos

are out of order. They're not in

chronological time order. This is the,

the first girlfriend. We went to DisneySea

on Valentine's Day. We went all the way—

we flew all the way to Tokyo from Osaka

and we went to Disneyland and DisneySea.

It was freezing cold. DisneySea was really

cool. They had all these ships. It was

like being in an English port, like some

kind of historical place. And there's me!

That's what I looked like 6 years ago.

I had really weird fashion style. Well, I

still do now, but back then my clothes

were really weird. I used to wear these

combat cargo trousers.

My fleeces and my jumpers and my jackets,

they looked like something a 50-year-old

man would wear. I had this silly red

scarf.

In that volcano behind me, there's

actually a roller coaster ride. We rode in

it— we rode it. Some cannons at DisneySea.

Shinjuku. This is my first time in

Shinjuku. There's the famous— not really

famous, but the weird wedge building.

I really like this scene. It was like my

first time in a really big city and It

looked really nice to me. I was on my own,

I think. My girlfriend was doing job

interviews and she just left me alone to

wander around. And then this was

afterwards. She took my picture. I bought

crisps, One Piece Luffy meat-flavoured

crisps. And that's the famous Shinjuku

Tower clock tower. Looks a bit like Big

Ben. It was Chris— was it Christmas? No,

it's February, but they still had

Christmas decorations up.

Uh, I can't remember where this was.

This is Shinjuku. Look at this guy. Oh, I

can't zoom in. How do I zoom in? He

doesn't look like he's having a fun time.

Oh, we have Starbucks Coffee in the

background. This is an interesting place

because before I went to Japan, I used to

watch all these vloggers And there's this

one guy called Kevin Cooney I always used

to watch, and he made a video here. This

didn't used to be Starbucks. It used to

be— I think it used to be cream donuts or

something. Krispy Kreme. And he made a

video because the Japanese people were

just queuing up for hours to buy Krispy

Kreme. It's funny, but it's interesting

being in the same place that someone that

I watched on YouTube for such a long time

was in. Where's this?

I don't even remember. More blurry photos.

Shinjuku again. DisneySea.

Didn't we see this one last time? The

boat. Volcano. More boats. Me again.

My hair used to look different.

My hair used to look very different. Is

this the Titanic? This is DisneySea again.

This is Osaka.

That's me. Wow, do I look very

different? I used to have really long

sideburns for some reason. I used to think

it looked cool.

Look at my sideburns, they're so bloody

long. I just want to cut them.

People kept telling me that my sideburns

were too long. I used to think— I used to

get really irritated because I thought

they looked really cool. Me again. My skin

was terrible back then. I had so many

spots. This is us at IKEA. Korean friend.

It's me playing in IKEA.

An IKEA bedroom. Me hard at

work in an IKEA office.

Japanese girl and a Korean guy. Look at

all the spots I have. This was about the

time when I was just starting to get to

know the people at the guesthouse. The

first 4 weeks I didn't talk to anyone,

and then this girl, she came over to me

and she said— she said that I'm always

eating on my own, would I like to come and

join them? It was really nice of her. She

was one of the first people to speak

to me at the guesthouse. I used to just

sit on my own the whole time. And then we

went to the Asahi Beer Factory with this

Chinese guy and some Korean people. It was

so boring. I have no interest in beer.

This guy was so excited. Look at his face.

He's like, wow, look at all the beer.

There's beer cans everywhere. I'm taking a

video. Look at his camcorder. No one uses

those camcorders these days, do they?

Since 1889, it's 100 years before I was

born. Asahi Beer Factory.

It was interesting and we got free beer at

the end. There's me. Look at my clothes,

they look so stupid. Look at my trousers.

Look at those— look at those guys on the

left, they look so Like businessmen,

posh businessmen on a business trip. Look

at us, we're visiting Kyoto. I think it

was Kyoto. It was my birthday and me and

my girlfriend, we went— I think, was it

Kyoto? I can't remember now. We went

somewhere nice. That was actually the last

time I saw her ever, on my birthday. It's

kind of sad, isn't it? I was carrying her

bag. She made me carry it. I actually

quite like it. My hair is so long.

Me again, I don't know what I'm doing.

Me being bored. This giant crab.

And this is kushikatsu. It's one of my

favorite meals in Japan. Basically just

goes into the restaurant, they have a load

of— they have like a Sorry, I got the

hiccups. They have like a buffet selection

of raw meat and raw vegetables, and then

they give you a bowl of flour— no, not

flour, batter— and breadcrumbs. And then

you just select what meat you want, and

then you put it in the batter and then the

flour, and then you have like a, a big

deep fryer built into the table, and then

you just fry stuff and eat it. It's

amazing. Me wearing an octopus.

Me eating a single piece of corn on a

skewer for some reason.

The aquarium.

That's a nice shot. We went for a bike

Loads of old Japanese women. That's why I

felt so tall in Japan. Everywhere is just

old Japanese women who were really tiny.

We went to some kind of flea market, I

think. My hair looks really weird.

Fiddling with stuff, trying on sunglasses.

Uh, this is IKEA. I had spaghetti and

meatballs or something. Then we went to an

Apple Store. Is that the Beats headphone?

I don't know what that is. Oh,

this is me at the guest house. I was

studying Korean. Look, you can see the K

on the book. I was always studying Korean

at the guest house, and everyone found it

really funny. Like, why did you come to

Japan to study Korean? Why didn't you go

to Korea? And I thought it was funny

because everyone else was studying

Japanese so hard, and I didn't want to be

like everyone else. I wanted to be

different, you know? So I went against

what everyone else was doing and I decided

to study Korean. And I had loads of Korean

friends and a Korean girlfriend, so it

made sense to study Korean. Look at my

hair. It's so majestic.

I don't know. It took me ages to do this

hair. It took me like an hour. I washed

it, then I hair dried it. I blow dried it.

Then I used a hair straightener, hair

iron, then I'd use hairspray to style it.

It took me over an hour to get ready in

the mornings. It was such a pain in the

ass. Me trying on a horse head.

Korean friends. They're all Korean. I

wonder what they're doing now. Bet they've

all forgotten me. I don't think they

really liked me that much. I was kind of

like a spoiled kid. The guy on the right,

he got married to a Japanese woman. He's

living in Japan now, I think. I didn't

really like him much. He was kind of

And then there's that other Korean guy. I

don't think he liked me either. He liked

me at first. He was really friendly. Then

over time, he got more and more cold. It

felt like he was getting fed up with me.

Look at my trousers. Oh, they're terrible.

I used to hate my skinny legs so much that

I would wear really baggy trousers because

I thought that it would hide the

skinniness of my legs, which it kind of

does, but they look really stupid.

Me trying out a really old camera.

Studying Korean again.

Oh, we're preparing for some kind of party

at the guest house, setting up the music.

I wasn't doing anything to help, I was

just standing around like I usually do.

Uh, we're in a Ferris wheel now.

We went to some place by the sea,

as you can see me chucking stuff into the

water. That was 6 years ago. 6 years

later, if you saw my Cornwall videos, I

still do the exact same thing. Every time

I go to the sea, I go right up to the

water and I start throwing stones into it.

I just can't help it. It's a natural thing

for me to do. Oh, the bloody

drums. We went with this Japanese guy and

he was really friendly, and then we saw

these festival guys packing up their

equipment and their drums, and the

Japanese guy was like, hey Daniel, do you

want to have a go on the drums? And I was

like, no, not really. But he was so

insistent. He kept going, go on, have a

go, have a go. And then he just went up to

these guys and went, excuse me, my friend

from England, could he have a go on your

drums? And they were like, yeah, sure,

because Japanese never say no. They're

always really friendly. I didn't really

want to go on the drums, and I hated it.

It was like fun for the first 30 seconds,

and then after that I just got really

bored and tired. And my face, like,

I couldn't smile anymore. I just got

really fed up. And they were grabbing my

arms, trying to show me how to do it

properly. I just wasn't interested. It was

so awkward. And then we took a photo

together, all of us. See, they had

already loaded the drum onto the back of

the lorry, the truck. Look how small the

Japanese trucks are. Ah, I'm choking.

Where's my coffee?

Um, yeah, Japanese cars and trucks are

really small and compact.

I don't know what we're doing. Look at my

bloody sideburns, they're so freaking

long. Looks like I'm scratching

my ass. I like my hair here,

it looks nice, doesn't it?

Me, I didn't even carry a bag or anything.

It was kind of awkward. There were 3 of

us, me and 2 other Korean girls, and the

other one was always like walking off on

her own. The other one was always behind

me taking my photo, and then I didn't know

what to do. Should I try and keep up with

the one in front? That's why it's always

just me and that other girl, because The

other one's taking all the photos. I

didn't really take my photo, not even

once. I wasn't really into taking selfies.

It's me touching a wall for some reason.

Playing with a pigeon. That was my old

phone. I had this flip phone in Japan.

Flip phones, remember when those were a

thing? I look like a statue.

Laughing. That's a nice picture of me.

Look at my legs. Those trousers make my

legs look really weird. They make my knees

look really skinny. It looks like they're

gonna buckle and collapse any moment.

Me looking at the cherry blossom, the

sakura. I like this picture.

It's so romantic. Pigeons, it looks like

they're kissing. And then Japanese people

eating stuff with chopsticks. It's me

going to the toilet.

Me standing. We went to this park, they

had all different country-themed parks,

and this was England. England is イギリス.

United Kingdom of Great Britain. And all

these cosplayers were behind me ruining my

shot. Get out of the English Gardens, you

bloody cosplayers. It's me taking

photos on my flip phone. Look at all the

spots I had. My hair

was so long.

Ugh, my skin.

And then we found this little stray cat

which looks a lot like my cat Mimo.

I really liked it. Me thinking, look at my

sideburns. Ah, I want to cut it so badly.

Yeah, this cat really looked like my cat.

I really liked it.

Me being a ninja,

stroking the cat. I think we're coming to

the end. This was the

country-themed park. I think this was

Holland or Netherlands. Uh, we went to

USJ, Universal Studios Japan,

nearing the end of my 5-month trip to

Japan. I think, I think this was like the

last week or 2. Me and my Korean friends,

we went to Universal Studios for like a

final trip out. It was okay.

I'm not really into riding roller coasters

and stuff, so it was a bit boring for me.

Spider-Man in the background.

Me and my taxi.

Is this Terminator? Oh, this is—

we went on like a roller coaster, a little

one that kind of spanned you round and

round. I felt so sick. I have terrible

motion sickness, and after that, ugh, I

felt terrible. I was in such a bad mood,

and I had all these pimples, really bad

outbreaks. They were so painful, and I

wasn't in a great mood, to be honest. I

was really sad because the whole thing was

going to be over soon.

Captain of the ship.

My face. Uh, this is Nara,

or Nara. It's nearby Kyoto. They have all

these deers that just roam around outside.

It's nice. It's me playing with the deer.

This is by the sea. Mo kushi katsu.

Smiley face. Just a big kitty cat.

Oh, it says tora in the background. I

still remember that kanji. Tora means

tiger.

Me posing.

A big old mammoth.

Taking a selfie. Ah, this is

the guest house. Look at all the people.

I don't know, I think we were having some

kind of party, or was it just like this

every day? It was pretty much like this

every day. There were 3 main groups in the

guest house. There was this group at the

front which were all Japanese. All the

Japanese people just stuck together in

this little Japanese group like a little

bubble. It was really irritating.

Actually, it was really hard to get into

that bubble. It felt like a closed group

for Japanese people only. And then the

people in the middle were like Japanese

people who were really good at English and

really interested in speaking to

foreigners. So they mixed with us.

Taiwanese girl, Canadian guy,

Korean guy, me.

Who else is there? And then in the

back there was like this other group, a

Korean group, like this Korean guy and he

was dating this girl and they were all

like interested in Korea.

So there's like segregation in the guest

house.

I bet none of them remember me. I wonder

what they're all doing. It's me by a

statue. This guy looks almost as miserable

as I do. More kushikatsu.

I really want to eat this again. It's so

good. One antler deer.

It's a nice picture.

It's a nice picture. Look at that woman in

the background.

CC Lemon. Oh, if you ever go to Japan, I

really advise that you do not drink CC

Lemon. It tastes amazing. It's really nice

lemonade, but it has 70 lemons worth of

vitamin C in one bottle. You get so— you

get really bad diarrhea after drinking

that because you have too much vitamin C.

You get really loose stools if you wanted—

maybe that's too much information, but I

had terrible diarrhea after drinking that.

Do not drink CC Lemon.

It was so hot I rolled up my trousers and

instantly they just got covered in

mosquito bites, just straight away.

Oh my God, what's that deer doing? Is he

sucking me off or something? He definitely

found something interesting there.

It looks like I'm enjoying it. I like this

photo. The wind's blowing my hair.

I think this is Kyoto. Look at my legs.

Oh, those trousers are horrible. They just

like billowed out, bagged out at the ends.

They look like bell bottoms. I chucked

those trousers away straight. Soon as I

This is Osaka. They had these weird horse

head mannequins. Mannequins, is that how

you pronounce it?

And this is the last photo I took at the

guest house. This was like the week, a few

days before I left. I was staying at a

place called Kire Uriwari. Bit of a

mouthful.

It's a strange name for a place.

And that's it. That was the last photo.

My very first trip to Japan. I went to a

lot of places. Went to Osaka, Kyoto,

Nara. We also went to Kobe. We saw

some kind of carnival festival.

And a lot of stuff happened for the— I

experienced a lot of things for the first

time. Had a lot of relationships with

different girls, failed relationships,

met a lot of people. This is the first

time I had ever met Korean people,

Chinese people, Americans, Canadians. It

was really eye-opening. I feel

like I changed a lot after that trip. I

grew up a bit. It was a really good

experience. If you're young and you can

afford it, I really would recommend

doing it. Just save up a couple thousand

pounds. It doesn't cost that much. Go to a

guesthouse like I did. The guesthouse cost

about £300 a month for a single room,

and then you might spend around £250 a

month on food and transport, so If you

just go for 2 months, you might need a

couple thousand plus airfares. It's not

super expensive. Just get a job, save up a

couple thousand, and go. You just

experience so much. You meet so many

That was 6

years ago. I can't believe it's been so

long now. Just feels like it wasn't that

long, long ago. All I have now is

photos and memories. There's only one

person that I'm in daily contact with,

nearly daily, the Korean person, Korean

girl. Everyone else, I'm not even friends

with them on Facebook. I deleted most of

them. There's one Japanese girl that I'm

still friends with, a few Canadian guys

I'm still friends with, but I never speak

to. Yeah,

it was fun.

I guess next time I'll do my second trip

to Japan, show you all the photos I took

then, see if my photography skills

improved or not. I got a better camera,

so it was a lot better. My hair looks even

worse. It wasn't good.

So yeah, hope you enjoyed the video.

It got a bit long, didn't it? 30 minutes.

I did try to go through it as fast as I

could. Anyway, time to end the video. See