12 Things We HATE About Japan 🇯🇵 Feat. @CDawgVA

0:00 so this is my 13th year living in Japan and of course I like it here quite a lot i haven't been thrown out yet after a decade that's reassuring but once in a while I need to rant about this country and the not so good things about Japan and to do that with me today I bought a very special friend the greatest thing to leave Wales since the Black Plague it's Sea Dog V you're not responsible for the Black Plague okay i was doing great until I heard that intro there you go oh wonderful all free doing good doing good so uh we got the cycle coming up so this is all free beer no calories no flavor none of the [ __ ] i don't know why we're drinking it it's good it's good it's It's got zero calories and it tastes like somebody spilt a beer in a in a in a can of

0:46 sparkling water but I like it cheers i remember at the end of every day on Cyclophone 3 Connor would like run into the supermarket and get them like off the shelf and then he'd be like "I have something to do now." And you disappear to his room and you just hear like this is just factually incorrect you just can't do without beer and I think Connor was like freezing the beer like mincing up into a powder and snorting why why is it always that you have to slander me within 30 seconds otherwise slender there's nothing wrong with that but but are you you you're dragging me on another Cyclopathon Cyclathon April 13th to April 27th april uh April april April all of April we're going to be cycling you're a maniac well no we're a maniac

1:32 what's the We Are Maniac we're That's a t-shirt there for the cycle what's the route we're doing this time we're going all the way from the most eastern point in Hokkaido all the way to Tokyo that's the first time we've cycled over two islands right yeah so it's going to be pretty Oh my god i'm looking forward to the Hokkaido bit i won't lie it'll be really beautiful cuz the first time we did Hokkaido it's probably the best cycling we did and then I think we'll we'll get to have a similar thing this time so I'm excited well on the last one it was a cool route but we had to go through places like Nagoya and Corbin oh I was sailing so apart from that one trip to Legoland that was that poor kid didn't see a car he pretty wish we we skipped Nagia that day but this time yeah we'll be going through your hometown as well sai and so going all

2:18 the way to Tokyo again where we'll be celebrating the end in uh Mory Tower mory Tower fun have you got any bear spray for this one no cuz Hokkaido day all the bears come alive in my middle of April i realized all I need to do is be faster than you on the bike and you can I was the fastest runner in my school okay you can't keep saying 1998 fastest runner Sutton Balance Primary School you were also the damnest where does that factor into this where does that factor into this but today we're going to have a ram we're going to get out of our system right we like Japan we don't want to be those people who are like I hate everything here i don't know why I came here if you don't like it here you should leave you hear that a lot it was hard to come up with six things we had six things each that I don't like it was genuinely there

3:03 is so many more things that I like about rather than dislike but I do think it's fun to once in a while just poke fun at the things that you don't really like or hope to see change well you've been here almost what 5 years now uh five and a half five and a half years they say kind of like after 5 years you meet the sort of crossroads and you either go left and you fall in love with Japan and your love blossoms thousand generations or you go right and like [ __ ] rubbish that's great i love it it's amazing the more I'm here the more I think uh I can't leave it's so good i mean it is it is better than Wales well isn't it oh wait you're sponsored by the Welsh government now no no no no wales is beautiful wales is beautiful okay anyway we didn't come here to talk about Wales 12 things we dislike strongly about Japan and it kicks off with Connor's

3:48 point what do you got number one number one so picture it you've come to Japan and you're excited to maybe see some of the your Final Fantasy music that you you can't wait to see or perhaps there's an anime artist that you can't wait to go and watch their concert live and when you go and book you're greeted by a lottery system and Japan loves lottery systems they're everywhere it's it's just like But then what's the alternative to that just first come first serve i bid it no you know I mean we you know we have a problem with a lot of scalpers uh in western countries you know people often buy tickets and resell them for a high margin but if you really really really want to get something you can get it well this is the issue with your train the luxury sevenstar train oh

4:34 I've got a team of people in a room right now frantically like working on this and they're like it's a it's a lottery system right the lottery system you say is fine i hate it and it's like the next they're like we can get you on the train in 2077 it's like for [ __ ] sake but it permeates like almost every aspect I think of like Japanese culture where like you go to the convenience store and they have the ichibangui they have a you know some anime or sanrio goods and to get the number one one you have to enter 15 times to maybe get the one you actually want what do we do in the UK for these things then you buy an item if you want it it has a price and you buy it there's so many things that are lottery system here like it's just like to the certain point you're like I want to go to the doctor oh I have to lottery it you're like I'm I'm dying let me through

5:20 but it's in a lot of aspects of Japanese culture so what is one thing that you don't like about Japan dating dating in Japan i The problem with dating in Japan is it's a world of extremes i went on like a second date with a girl and it was practically a wedding rehearsal and I don't know why it is like this like you either get ghosted yeah yeah it is pretty intense or in the case I mean I I dated someone for a few years and our second date it went all right went out for like pasture a gusto living the dream i to be fair if you if you take a date you took it a gusto you don't expect it to really go anywhere this is like the sloppy remains of Ronald McDonald wouldn't even eat he wouldn't even touch it it's the afterthought but I got home that day and I got a message

6:07 it just said in English I know English was a bit catchy like my Japanese to be fair and it was just it just said "Do we become lovers?" Question do we become lones that's how I messaged you actually yeah the second day on fashion do we become lovers and what do you respond to that what do you say i sort of went I kind of went like what does does that mean define lovers i don't think we'd um we'd even kissed at that point or anything like that it was sort of like you have to enter into a contract before your boyfriend and girlfriend and so dating it's always felt like a very extreme kind of thing it doesn't feel organic it sort of jumps to this sort of almost transactional relationship where it's like "Are you lovers are we lovers sign this okay done we're dating now off we go." I mean there's just a lot of cultural pressure on them especially

6:53 women here to get married the Christmas cake thing right you know about the what is it after 25 you won't eat a Christmas cake and so it's said that Japanese women after 25 gross isn't it it's so nasty it's very It's very unfortunate and stupid it's Yeah i mean there's a massive pressure on women to get married here so often after 25 or as they get to 30 there's kind of this this you get this energy of like okay anyone who is financially stable and seems nice let's get married let's just do it like I can tolerate you um and so this way you always hear about Japanese marriages that are a bit unusual or perhaps they don't sleep in the same room or even they have separate partners outside of their marriage it's it's a really kind of bizarre culture i mean it's just it's just always felt like there was never a you know when you when you go on dates here or you talk to people who are

7:39 dating you know you kind of get the impression that love is an afterthought to everything else which is like stability financial stability kids family that stuff always seems more important when you talk to Japanese people i mean I went on another date to uh Coco's the restaurant step above gas depending on how you play your card coco is good is good no one No one hates Coco yeah it's good hamburg steak all around and it felt like I was being interrogated over the state yeah she was like "How much do you earn do you like skiing i need someone who can ski." And it was like going down a checklist of like things like it was it wasn't it was very again it was like a CV like you know I had the same thing i had someone who is like same age as me when I first moved here i must have been what 23 and the first thing they asked me was do you intend to get married right now like in

8:25 terms of like within the next year or two and I was like well I don't really think so and she was like "Well I think we'll just be friends." And and I was like "Okay." To me I was like "That's very embracive but I can almost I almost respect the fact she was like I'm not interested then because that's what I'm looking for." But at the same time I was like "This is a When she heard you over a while I was like but I you know in my head I was like I already kind of showed up and stuff i was like you could have this could have been a text this could have been this could have been told me a little bit earlier i feel like this should have been question number one this is your deal breaker." It was very funny but anyway I know where I wouldn't want to take a girl on a date and that is your next point pachinko pachinko it's got to be one of the worst things about Japan it either it's in the

9:13 you know in Tokyo or Saka it's there it's very loud it's you know it's it's got people lining up out the street to go and gamble and smoke and waste all their money there's It adds nothing I feel like to the city it doesn't add any charm they're all run by these giant faceless companies that just take money gambling's illegal but that's legal for some reason i think my second biggest video is on pachinko oh wow cuz people are so like enamored by what is this thing with ball bearings it's so unusual i went and made this video um with Natsky and I I just couldn't understand the the thrill of the ball bearings go around in circles and it's like brilliant that's where's the fun in that and uh I I I left making this sort of mini documentary about Pinko with more questions than answers but what I will say is it's really depressing in the countryside where they basically like

9:59 run the towns dry people have nothing to do and when I used to live in Saka in Yamagata you you'd be driving through these beautiful areas and you see like super palish town naked anime woman on the side you're like well you'll see these like beacons of hope like that's a that's a busy building in the country so what's that it's got like a tower and it's a beautiful facade and it's just oh it's pachinko again and everyone's there on their weekends blowing their money nazki used to do it and he maintains he made a profit from it which I did I so I didn't believe him but then when we did that pachinko video he'd actually won quite a lot of pachinko balls it's just you know you go to the countryside as well like you said and then it's it's also the the the you see the giant shining light next to the dilapidated local businesses it's like give back it's so tragic you know I remember you

10:44 were in Wakana which is the most northern point in Japan and it looked like a wasteland but then there was the Pinko place was the most popular place there by far after the McDonald's of course i mean that's a pretty good McDonald's i mean it was a pretty good McDonald's they the last McDonald's in Japan before you head to Russia hit yourself up with some samurai mac but yeah it's just depressing shinko is just very depressing it's fun for like a one-off but when you see how it's kind of permeated the culture here and kind of taken over a lot of people's lives it's kind of really depressing the only thing worse than pachinko yeah is point number four noise trucks actually this is a sort of double point because it's a rant not about noise trucks but also YouTubers reacting to my videos ranting about noise trucks i did a video uh back in December and I think I I went on a bit

11:30 of a rant about these noise trucks you know the ones right yeah they're awful where you've got like you've got like political campaigns like Teeshi like they're very loud they're outside train stations they're driving around uh and there's also kind of like really right-wing nationalistic trucks and they're very annoying they're really annoying and I had like a uh like a YouTuber react to it and he sort of went on a tirade about how I was wrong and how the um the noise trucks don't go past your house because they only stay outside of train stations true and I was like I could draw a map on the route the [ __ ] truck used to take deafening me and I kind of got annoyed that like remember a few years ago a lot of YouTubers in Japan were reacting to my video what not to do in Japan it was kind of interesting to hear their thoughts and you know they how dare they

12:16 disagree with me how dare they have a different 10 years um I think it's good you know to call people out about such things sometimes it feels like they're they're doing it just for views rather than anything an important point to make people want the aha moment where like actually this guy doesn't know as much as he's letting on and I think sometimes people are so nitpicky about it and it's like yes okay let's say they do need to park on the station which they don't because I know for a fact they don't it's still not like there aren't houses nearby a station you know uh but you know we've had experiences where we had to we were recording trash one time and they park directly outside our building and we had to stop recording and we had to cancel the the rest of the shoot that day cuz they didn't leave what truck was it politics or nationalistic or It was a political uh campaigning they they were just campaigning right outside our door

13:03 with the mega speakers and we couldn't film anything cuz it was popping up on on the mic which was very frustrating it's like wo is me i don't care but they do stand outside businesses and houses it's not true that they just only stay at stations they go everywhere and it's also so weirdly at odds with every other aspect of Japanese culture about keep your head down be quiet being quiet be respectful and then suddenly it's the free pass with this truck that gets to Blair and and nobody stops for these people nobody listens to them everyone's always walking i've never seen anyone stop and interact with these trucks what are they doing why do we have this rule why is it okay well in that video I had a little section that I ended up cutting out and it was about how the ultra there's cut out ultra nationalist trucks and they're like foreigners should be always sh I had a whole section in there and I

13:49 ended up removing it and but then this reacts was like he's talking about the wrong tracks he's lying and I was like I just cut it out because I don't want to make Japan look bad showing these kind of creepy ultra nationalistic trucks every country has like ultra nationalist so I feel like the truck doesn't Who's who's shocked by that they're supposed to be at least the advertising ones in Shinjuku were were I believe told to stop like they were but now I think the the strategy to be just keep moving and then eventually you won't get told to stop doing it and the worst part is is that one time I got a taxi and I was stuck behind one and so I for about 15 minutes I just heard buy tickets and you're like that's what a CVA twitch sounds

14:34 like yeah true episode punishment for not using public transport that day i was reminded firmly never get attacked take the bloody train now Connor and I might be the most bitter grumpy British men in all of Japan but there is one thing for us that does spark joy japanese confectionary so thank God for this box of delicious treats from today's sponsor Sakura sakura is a monthly Japanese artisan snack box that supports local snack makers with each box packed full with 20 traditional authentic Japanese treats including teas and even Japanese table wear and this month's theme is Moonlit Sakura as Japan welcomes the enchanting sight of cherry blossoms illuminated under the soft glow of the spring moon the box begins with this beautiful booklet sharing the stories behind each and every snack along with the allimportant allergy information and

15:20 the box ends as always in my mouth starting with Oh look at this sakura mochi beautiful fluffy rice cakes packed full of Sakura cherry blossom and somebody's already opened it how could this possibly have happened well definitely wasn't me uh-uh the aroma of Sakura is simply delightful it's like being transported to KJ wonderful next up we have Sakuro Aagashi beautiful crafted sweets that look like little works of art i almost feel a sense of guilt eating something that looks this good but I'm going to do it anyway that is what jelly should taste like dr jelly would be proud it's the perfect treat to go with this refreshing Sakura hibiscus tea served upon this intricately crafted cherry blossom plate from the mountainous region of

16:06 GeU the sweet taste of sophistication and whether you plan on getting a box of Japanese treats for your friends and family or greedily keeping it all for yourself don't forget to use the discount code when grabbing your own box of Sakura Co linked in the description box below well what is next on your hit list i've had my double rant about noise trucks it's a safe thing we're all pretty familiar with it but the work culture in Japan is pretty bad we're very fortunate we don't have to participate in the salaryman lifestyle but uh oftentimes when I you know just I'm like "Oh Teeshi how you doing mate you want to get a drink?" He's like "Sorry I didn't finish work until 12:00 p.m and then I have a friend called Teeshi." I have I have a Tanaka i have a Tanaka i have a Tanaka

16:53 saka that is the John Smith of Japan names if only he was Teeshi Tanaka then it would be the true the true Japanese name but you're right you know it's it's it's you know and then I meet up with them and and it'll be like 9:00 p.m and they'll be [ __ ] miserable cuz they're like I have to wake up at 6:00 a.m and work already and the problem is with a lot of this time is that in Japan they they work so many hours but productivity is often really low you often end up not doing a whole lot of work but you have to look busy you have to do a lot of dumb stuff that isn't helpful for your work meetings that aren't necessary the amount of times that we work with companies that often are like we we must have a call about this schedule a call it's like this could have been two messages on the email but for some reason we had to assemble the Avengers and have a call with 12 people it's just completely unnecessary it's always that

17:39 you have to be present at the workplace the longer you're there the better you look your supervisor will remember oh yes Connor put the hours in he was there till midnight he's the best in the business ridiculous you know Connor sell nothing yeah I've done nothing i've done nothing and when you're a teacher I imagine there's a bit similarities there where there's just a lot demanded of you i could go home at 4:30 which was pretty lucky actually that's pretty good by the standards of a Japanese company or a school but I would stay often till 6 PM yeah and my reward and I wouldn't even do much i would sit there and like you just had to be around right like look at pictures of like Family Mark Chicken on my phone like you're the best Chris Sensei you're you're here an extra 2 hours you're a cut above the rest we'll really consider you for that promotion in 15 years we really will i kind of got in like a

18:26 Twitter spat with somebody about this cuz I sort of said um somebody asked me what it's like to work in Japan and I said I really wouldn't advise if you can I'd advise not working for a Japanese company unless it's run by someone who is more progressive perhaps or a foreign company in Japan's quite good um and somebody was like you don't understand you're a YouTuber you don't understand the way the world works you haven't got a real opinion i was like "Well I mean I've met you know a few thousand people in the last 10 years and I can tell you I've never met anyone working at a Japanese company who's gone oh the work hours are good." Yeah we That's the one thing you've never heard i've never heard someone working for a Japanese company said like "The work life balance is really reasonable." I think it maybe got bit a bit better after CO and then it went back to normal um but back to the office big push to remove remote

19:12 working in Japan again and so it's it's it's been a bit of a shame really because I think remote working was a really good solution to the overworking problem where people at least had you know a bit more agency of their own schedule and was able to you know relax a bit more but sadly I feel like the work life balance hasn't gotten a lot better you know just remember that that work life balance it doesn't really exist to your your company is your life the company is your life that's your identity that's who you are oh bar man i would love another beer non-alcoholic preferably i'm watching my way this one's dry zero oh dry which is better then out of these two i me and most people seem to I think we all say this one i look forward to seeing you spend

19:59 frivolously during the cyclathon only buy all three i'm getting a crate i'm I'm buying the brewery we bought like a bucket of sun cream for the last one you got I got another bucket can you get an all free that you could like pump in for a straw can you drink alcoholic beer as you cycle yeah of course you can there's no alcohol in it h I wonder there's no alcohol in it there's alcohol that takes us to our next point english learning everyone knows this one the English language learning in Japan is abhorrent and with every passing year Japan's actually dropped down the lead table for English proficiency and it's just like I remember when I was a teacher it was just like a joke like learning English am I a joke to you well I remember there was like one student

20:44 who always tried their best i'd be like "Can somebody depressing isn't it can somebody spell penguin on the board for me?" And he'd be like "Yes." And he'd put his hand up and the whole class would bully him and laugh at him and he would write it and he'd write penguins and a penguin and people be like you know what an idiot he just wanted to work at the penguin z um there was quite a famous uh thing that happened not too long ago with Rakiten where the CEO wanted everyone to be able to speak English and he got into a lot of trouble publicly everyone was like how dare you this is Japan we should not need to speak English and so that's often the the the retort to that argument it's like why should we teach them English if this is Japan we should use Japanese m so but I I I understand how people argue that sometimes cuz it's like okay sure

21:30 but you know in in a globalized world I think uh having encouraging people to learn a second language is never a bad thing i think that's a massive fail that we have in the UK as well we oh it's not a Japan problem necessarily we're really bad at like actually getting people to learn another language did I ever show you the textbooks I had to work with like we had uh these textbooks with war stories to try and put people off war and to teach the students vocabulary but the vocabulary just wasn't relevant to their everyday life this one chapter with this elephant called like Trunky the elephant in Cambodia okay and the poor elephant stepped on a landmine got his whole leg blown off and he had like a like a prosthetic leg and I'm just standing in this classroom reading this story and Trunky the elephant stood on a 3.4 four gigatons of TNT got his leg

22:18 blade up oh my god and there's just like And he wore a prosthetic leg for the rest of It's a lovely story that's the English beautiful story right elephant that got a prosthetic leg how old are the kids they're like 15 oh my god at what point in their life are they going to be like "Oh trunk of the elephant's prosthetic leg." Landmines like where is this vocabulary relevant yeah it feels like now at least in Japan that teaching English is more of like a status symbol to your kids it's like "Oh my kid can speak English." Right right they went to an international school we're very wealthy the sad truth is though like if you look at the number of students going overseas in Japan it's actually dropped down right so Japan's proficiency has dropped the number of overseas students has dropped it feels like Japan is sort of turning away from the world i mean it's hard right the the yen is so weak and the minimum wage hasn't gone up at

23:03 all so it almost feels like there are no ways to travel so what's the point of living in English there's no way you're going to use it you can never leave well at least they know about trunky elephant right but now they know about trunky and they know how to say prosthetic leg in English which hopefully you know might be useful one day all right all right next point next point it's smoking japan natki's Natki is only happy about this one colin go [ __ ] yourself i know natki the human chimney we we love him but my god does he smoke like a chimney it's it's you know it's fine i don't mind when people smoke outside i think it's it's their choice i'm not one of those people like you can't smoke it's whatever it's like whatever man do do whatever you want but the one time I hate it is when you go to a restaurant and you're sitting down like what a lovely meal i can't wait to try all the

23:49 flavors because because uh okay I'll find another name ian over there is is is smoking down 15 Malbor packs you're just trying to enjoy your meal with your mates but they're smoking so you're kind of like great well at least I can go to my hotel room and relax head hits the pillow oh my god it's like someone's burned down the hotel room because for some reason they allow smoking in some hotel rooms that's ridiculous and there's nothing worse than when there's only one room left they're like but it's the smoking room and you go in you're like it can't be that bad and you go in and I you know I have an asthma attack i'm like try and breathe in there this shift that Japan has to make people smoke indoors weirdly is is kind of counterintuitive because you often end up having people smoking in areas where you want to sit and lounge and then smoking is often banned on the street or

24:35 designated in certain areas yeah you can't smoke in uh in public in a lot of places and they have like designated areas or they'll have those like uh rooms that are smoking rooms which I also think look really kind of it's it's kind of a shame i wish there was more of a push to kind of push people to smoke less in Japan i don't really mind if people smoke either like I said I just wish that it didn't infringe upon you yeah i wish you didn't have it in in restaurants or I wish they didn't have it in hotels it's like it just kind of feels like what's the point what's the point of this what does this benefit society i will say it has got better it has got better when I first got here like I think every bar and every restaurant you could smoke in there and it was abhorentt and I'm eating my [ __ ] omelette and I just get a mouthful of like smoke it's horrible and again like I I just want to reiterate I don't care if people smoke it's whatever i just wish that they weren't allowed to

25:20 do it in hotels you're not allowed to smoke in here damn there's a no smoking rule japan bar no wonder no wonder Natki ever comes here but talking about smoking if you find yourself smoking too much you might need this the doctors our next point on our list and you actually been to the doctors not that long ago for an operation surgery generally like pretty good in the UK we just tell you to wait 15 years and then maybe see if it's still there but in Japan you do actually get pretty fast medical service problem is sometimes depends on what it is and depends on where you are though a friend of mine recently uh went to the doctors after having something that was a bit coy and it was a bit coy i don't know if co is still a thing or whatever just a throat you know symptoms yeah he had just a throat yes and he came back with a wad of pills have you seen these pills no no

26:08 i know i know the sort of Chinese medicine plastic bag filled with medicine and then the Chinese medicine and then it's not really like fully explained why you've been given both uh but you often get quite a lot of medication as well and well they won't I don't know what half of them are like it's like here's the painkiller and here's the the dragon root mixed with turnip and it's like what is this [ __ ] i don't want Chinese medicine it's 20 [ __ ] 25 i want real medicine a lot of people a lot of people in Japan like to take Chinese medicine which you know is fine if if that's what you feel like is helping you but I kind of you know prefer the normal western medicine the scientifically treat yeah the ones that have been has gone through thorough testing i can make Chinese medicine i'll take this plastic pork [ __ ] mince it up and make you snort it and it's got

26:54 it's got it's got benefits gbelief it's all a bit like you know magical medicine i guess the one thing I don't like is that why is that called medicine and this one's not called medicine yeah if it's medicine and it works shouldn't it be called medicine and these medicine are called comport by the way comport it's also tough as well because you often have to fight quite a lot when you you are let's say you're in severe pain and you you want some strong painkillers uh often the dosage is considered Japanese people who you know maybe you know depends on your weight do you remember like Pete American Pete had appendicitis and he was like give me the morphine now and they're like no morphine death and they he you know he had to sit in a room dying in agony uh whereas my other friend Dave in the UK when he had like appendicitis brewing

27:40 they gave him like morphine and it actually made him the swelling go down and he sort of recovered you really have to fight you really have to fight if you really want some kind of medical assistance and you believe like okay look I can't bear this pain it is unfortunate that you have to like literally plead to to get it you have to beg for your painkillers when I had my surgery recently I I had to like tell them before I we even like booked the surgery i was like I am going to need something special cuz I I am going to freak out and I also have some other health health you know hemophilia and that kind of stuff so there's just so many complications and the one phrase they they often said to me was come on which is like the number one most terrifying phrase you can hear in Japan which means to bear with it or bear with it boy just deal with it and it's like

28:26 I'm [ __ ] dying you're cutting my cutting my ass open please give me give me some painkillers it's it's not what you want to hear when you're when you're you know you're about to be cut open they're like just deal with it and often times with Japanese medical stuff because everyone has insurance here they'll often offer you the insurance solution to the problem which sometimes is very outdated and yeah I had that for my teeth i did some teeth stuff at the dentist clean them they were like "We can use this special laser device that uses microwave radiation to clean your teeth or we can use the poker." And it was like a stick with a knife on it and like this is the insurance one and I was like I'll have special magic laser treatment well as opposed to knife on stick yeah so the dentist always offers me the expensive thing which which you know I just appreciate knowing the

29:12 options you know it's nice to know that I'm like and I can ask them questions like oh what are the benefit of this one what's the benefit of this one but when I went to the doctors they wouldn't even tell me unless I asked them about it right like I had to ask you know why are the stitches the ones that I have to uh get removed manually later why are they not the dissolving ones and they're like "Oh it's expensive." It's stuff like that where you have to ask you have to Did I say And I told you about I don't I'm not a medical expert well I am this doctor and I told you about the time that Charlotte suspected her thyroid was wrong something's going badly wrong she went to the doctor and he did a ultrasound test and he was like "Maybe cancer come back in 6 weeks we'll see what happens." Not good enough and that has always stuck with me that and a few other experiences you have to advocate for yourself here you have to

29:59 push for yourself and what you think is is going on if you're kind of whimsical about it you're like "Oh it'll be fine." It like they you'll be waiting the longest you know so you have to fight it's very frustrating it's frustrating the only thing I will say is Japanese hospitals seem nicer than British hospitals they're cleaner they're I better run no doubt about it i felt so taken care of in my surgery and you know the fact that when I was going through it and I was really worried cuz I'm not good at surgery i'm not good at all this stuff i asked them "Can I listen to music while I'm having surgery can you give me like an extra What did you listen to your eyes i actually watched the penguin you watched the penguin yeah I watched the penguin oh well they took all the And I asked for some uh some like medicine to make me drowsier so I'd be more calm and they were very accommodating with it so I really appreciate everyone I had was so kind and so accommodating and willing to help me when I asked for something but I did

30:45 have to ask we're complaining about this but I still think it's better than the UK it's better than the UK get ready to advocate yourself and get ready to download the Penguin before you have your operation on your back that being said what's the next point what have you got well so we all know that Japan loves their excessive packaging famously on the bananas right here you go yeah so you know when you buy a banana obviously this is a recreation of a banana if you will when you buy a banana from the Kveni it often comes in a plastic wrap which obviously you know if only there was some natural coating which kept the bananas safe they can't be done they can't be it can't be dumb um but that's not the the the one that annoys me the most it's so frustrating because when

31:31 you live here you quickly realize the final boss of living in Japan is trash and getting rid of your trash god forbid you get a big package you just buy too much stuff yes your whole apartment's filled with trash i went around there for a stream the other day and it was just like box city yeah it wasn't box city what's going on in there but boxes aren't bad to get rid of but oftent times you know when you order something from a a Japanese company they take such pride in the packaging it's really beautiful but then you're like you start stretching how the [ __ ] am I going to throw away 15 cardboard boxes and wrappings and and you're like how do I sort this do I do I cut it out like some kind of ravaged animal and then Well do you know with with bottles you're supposed to like take the lid off and pull off all the packaging before you separate make sure you do it boy i do that too that's not too bad but it's like I recently I I had the final boss

32:17 of disposing i So I got my giant You didn't dispose of Joey did you i got I think what do you do with me Conor i think disposing your body would be easier than than getting rid of this thing so I I had ordered my 6ft monkey from my room oh god of course you do and it arrived in a crate how do you dispose of a crate do you know how to dispose of a crate in Japan i have never disposed of a crate though this was a logistical nightmare i think I had like the prime minister on the line he was like "It can't be done we don't do this." I I had to go through so many [ __ ] steps to get rid of this [ __ ] crate how'd you get rid of it i had to call up this company that would come to my house and would and but first I had to measure it precisely and then I had to tell them which kind of wood it was which I didn't know cuz they wanted to know how they could like plywood and and so they came

33:05 to my house and it cost me about uh just under I think 10,000 yen Jesus to get rid of a box and I was like just the logistics of it it's just a hassle it's a hassle in America I go there and they throw glass cans things all in the same trash I'm like oh I can't I can't imagine it but there's just so many much packaging to everything here and there's often such care taken to make sure that it arrives safely and it's it's great but it often feels a bit excessive and you just kind of get stressed out cuz you're like what do I do with all of this stuff i've not seen you so triggered as this point on the list so far it's so frustrating i know how to finish you off now i'll send you a crate full of plastic you send me like a Yeah just send me If you send me a watermelon there'll be like 15 styrofoam 15 layers of cardboard a plastic see-through paper thing it's like ridiculous you're you

33:50 get so annoyed by it when you're working you're like "Just have me the [ __ ] watermelon in my hand i'll eat it." The next wacky weekend will be at the Tokyo Box Factory this is where we make the crates and they're like "No no not again no." Oh god next point next point what's your next point we'll get you out of the packaging Z get me out of it the next point is is a mindset not a package and it is Oh okay do you know IMI im Japanese word imite means ambiguity i think Japan's unofficial national sport is avoiding confrontation oh yeah oh yeah and I think that's cool in some respects i think this living in a country where harmony is prioritized is a wonderful thing but it's also very

34:36 frustrating when you want to get things done i think this is more of an issue if you work in Japan as I do oh yeah oh yeah where like I would wear clothes to to school like t-shirts in times of the year that weren't summer and they were like you seem very cold Chris and I was like well no I'm all right they were like no you're very cold wear a [ __ ] shirt you bastard that's what they're thinking right yeah yeah they're not telling it to you they're telling you every which way into for you to come to the conclusion on your own they always say like muzakashi muzakashi is the word you think it can't be done like they never say like no or like it's always like ah It's difficult and it's like is it is it possible or do you not want to do it what's the reason tell me like why why can we not have a discussion about this if you're wondering where which is the word for difficult where it is on

35:22 the scale of yes or no it's literally just no it's no it's that just means no i I was not a great teacher in my first year my my lesson plans were an abomination and I remember I basically just played games with the students i'd always like ask my uh colleague like what do you think of my lesson plan is it good and they were like "Oh it's different." And I was like "Okay great." Yeah terrible what he what he was literally want to say was "This is awful." And after six months of playing Jeopardy with students about trunking the elephant's foot I uh he one I remember he want he just lost it one day he came to me like "Chris you've been here 6 months i think it's time to stop playing games." And he just sort of snapped because I hadn't picked up he hadn't he hadn't I hadn't picked up on it right that he was

36:08 getting quite angry at me for playing these games i think it's good in the sense that you know I haven't seen I haven't really seen a physical altercation in Japan all all my years cuz you know that you have yeah on the train I saw a man just randomly slap a guy on the fence oh my gosh yeah and screaming at him i don't know why bad lesson planning must have played one too many Jeopardies but I you know I I think that uh the culture of like just not outright calling people out and being too rude is good uh to some extent but also yeah it does make things very frustrating getting things done the one time I was called out it was by a foreign guy and I was apparently I I was I was typing on the bullet train on my laptop and he was like "Sorry man like I'm trying to read a book can you stop typing?" Oh really and I was like "What i don't I don't like riding train i don't like riding trains with you cuz somebody always gets angry." I remember one time Connor and I

36:53 were on a bullet train going to send and you know Connor wasn't talking that loudly because his voice is the voice of a dragon uh I remember somebody the staff came over and they're like "See shut the [ __ ] up please." Yeah anytime it's kind of like just to know I had a sandwich and I hate myself and a pack of banana cake that's what I might say none of these things I say my voice is really deep and it like reverberates it's interesting cuz you talk quite quietly yeah I do talk and when we edit the video we have to like bring Connor's voice up i talk [ __ ] quietly and it's it's a [ __ ] curse it's like I've got the booming touch where everything I touch booms and reverberates we don't want it yeah so when you ride with I don't know what the point is but just don't ride trains you just wanted to slander me that's that's what you

37:39 just wanted to slander that's why I brought you you just wanted to slander me black play slander banana off your butthole that's what this this has devolved to 12 things about 12 [ __ ] reasons I want to hang out with Connor more like what's next what's the last one on your hit list Connor this is a uh this is one I'm sure everyone is aware of and I' I've had to tell people many times the dreaded reservation in Japan the dreaded reservation you have to reserve everything in Japan you do look it's good because you know that if you give yourself enough time which Japanese people do you can plan everything out in advance and get everything you want very seamlessly yeah if you book a restaurant about 5 to seven days ahead oh guaranteed you'll get more or less it if you book it 2 3 days ahead if you turn up on a popular restaurant as well if

38:25 you turn up on the day they will throw you out the window there's nothing worse than I had a a friend I was showing around Japan the other day he didn't he he called me up on a whim and I was like I'll take you out for a drink somewhere every place I went into I the doors open i was like and I was like and they're like get out it's frustrating cuz obviously we have a lot of friends from the UK and friends are America and obviously a lot of viewers and I always hear horror stories about how they want to go to the Pokémon cafe or they want to go watch Sumo or they want to go to this and it's like oh we didn't book far enough in advance and I'll ask them how far you try and book and be like oh 2 weeks i'm like "No no." But for like really popular stuff like think of big tourist attractions you do need to book as far in advance as possible it's kind of sad at times it almost takes away a

39:11 lot of the the improvisation or the spontaneity i miss the sort of spontaneity let's go down the pub and you turn up and there's you know no reservation nonsense drink your s toal fruit you know that being said most izakayas most restaurants you should be fine you know there there'll always be something you can get in but it might not be an amazing experience you know it might be like your bog standard but that's fine but it's just you you need to plan pretty meticulously if you want to have a really successful trip in Japan I'd say well you get to see a lot do everything you want to do you need to think about it so it's the only the only upside is there those to do what you want well those websites are also in English these days it's quite it's a lot easier to sort of book ahead in Japanese until it is until it isn't and then oh my god good [ __ ] luck and then you click the translate button on the

39:56 Japanese website and it turns to this honestly could have been a whole one the Japanese websites Japanese websites could be the whole 12 honestly [ __ ] hell the worst part is if you you know cuz I can't read Japanese you can't read English i can't read anything so I click the translate to English and it [ __ ] breaks the website or then suddenly all the reservation options are gone when I click the English and I'm like what's going on here cuz sometimes some Japanese websites when they're in Japanese they'll be like oh we have five rooms available then you click the English page and then it goes like and loads this horrible web page and goes no pages and you're like oh this hotel does not exist oh okay that's great and it's not because they don't want you there it's because they don't update the English one nearly as often as they would the Japanese one i I went to I showed my parents around Japan recently we went to K it was good times um there was a tempur restaurant that I

40:44 know you and I've been to a few times and I tried to book it first in English cuz I was like I was feeling lazy i was English they don't they don't have reservations and it was like you can book it if you want but you need to put down a £200 deposit and I was like oh my god that's all the money in the one and then I so I was like let's try the Japanese version it was like no reservation don't worry just turn up no money no deposit i kind of understand why apparently a lot of foreign tourists sort of bounce on restaurants and don't actually fulfill the reservation sometimes so I kind of understand that but it does feel like yeah if you can book a restaurant in Japanese try and do it or get your hotel to do it stay oh your hotel will do it too that'll do it as well because you can save a lot of money doing that part 10 reason and that kind of takes us to our last point though which is websites and

41:30 banking in Japan banking is the final boss of everything wrong with Japan it is isn't it it's it's like the accumulation of every aspect of of Japanese bureaucracy and websites that is compiled into the biggest flaming piece of [ __ ] which is banking in Japan you think Dark Souls is difficult tried to [ __ ] transfer £450 tried to get a statement in in 24 hours it's ridiculous now luckily some banks have literally gotten a service now where their whole thing is look we have modern systems like it's like 15 years behind what we have in the UK and America and that's their whole selling point but still my my bank that I'm with if I want a bank statement I have to book a reservation in person to meet with them and then ask them to give me a

42:16 bank statement which then they will mail to me in 2 days wo and it'll be printed out so I have to flick through it like I'm [ __ ] on Goliver's travels going through my my itinerary it's a [ __ ] [ __ ] hole have you ever turned up without your handcore stamp or have you yeah that too that too as well i have so many times i remember I had to I was going on a trip to Canada with Charlotte and I had one day to do something at the bank and I turned up and I had to do something really important and they were like did you bring your stamp and I was like oh I forgot it can I just use my signature and they were like no like they lost their [ __ ] another time I I tried to get around this I was like I've lost my hanko stamp it's just gone and I'm the whole bank like they got like the supervisor the manager the manager's mom everybody came in and they sort of huddled around at the back there was about six to seven members of staff and they were like okay okay team what are

43:01 we going to There's Come on why do we need a stamp yeah if you ever want to send money out of Japan get ready for one of the most intense processes out of your life because you need to to the exact like penny explain what you're doing and why that money is leaving Japan to do an international to do an international bank transfer you need to like summon the devil oh you need to make a pack and like 15 p to the UK and as long as you do it before 3 p.m because they all shut at 3 p.m they all shut at 3 p.m and they're often closed sometimes on weekends or shorter hours so it's like the one time you'd actually want to go you can't bloody go it's just it's a mess and and sometimes they have this great system the older banks some of the newer ones have finally realized that it's not the way where you have two cards you have one that is your cash card which is only used for taking out

43:48 money you cannot pay with this card it is useless and then you have your debit card which cannot be used to take out money from a bank only to pay things like restaurants or why can't we blend it into one if only those one card that could do all of it only debit cards for real if only there were other countries that did this and it seems so antiquated you know we we we figured this out decades ago in other countries why is there a need for two and then there is also um something that older people love here which I feel like younger people don't use so much which is the bank book oh it's a little suits your suits your kind of book right you can take it to an ATM it's kind of a really cool piece of tech and you feed it in it goes in the ATM and it'll it'll add all your transactions it's that's kind of cool tech from like the 80s and they've

44:33 nailed it but it doesn't need to happen super cool 40 years ago but in the UK you just look at your [ __ ] on your phone but in Japan you do get a free packet of tissues sometimes you've got that it's pretty good though is it when you set up your bank you'll get a free packet of tissues very good wipe away the tears when you discover the limitations of banking in Japan but that is the last boss on our list of 12 things about Japan that we are not so enamored about thank you for coming over Conor cheers cheers very good and of course I love Japan he loves Japan i love Japan it's the best before the comments get angry we love Japan if you don't like it leave yeah i think I think when you've you've been here long enough you it's fair to be critical and to be critical of things that you know maybe should change but what we should do is watch Cyclopathon 4 yes april 13th april

45:21 13th april 27th on Twitch on CWVA starting roughly 9:00 a.m jst isn't that right cuz you'll wake up yes i've got like one week to get fit what's the quickest way to get fit uh I'll just take that no calories though wow no calories well more for me do you like my bar do you like my bar if you don't like it you can leave get out all right all right bye bye where you boy bye see you on the cyrophone guys thanks for joining