Hi! I’m Nathan and welcome to Ninja monkey. The place for all things related to Japan.
I give travel tips, insights, create fun related videos and, I’m currently focusing on what’s
going on behind Japan’s closed borders.
So, If you are a potential tourist, student, business person, or any other type of traveller,
you’ve come to the right place! So, join team Ninja monkey if you haven’t already
and make sure the bell notifications are on so that you don’t miss any future videos.
My aim is to put all the readily available information into one easy to follow video!
I do the research so that you don’t have to.
And, as always, all links are included in the video description so that you can do your
own reading if you wish to. Time stamps are also available for you too!
In this week’s video we will be looking at Case numbers in Tokyo and Japan, I’ll
continue to give you an easy-to-follow recap of how the vaccination program is progressing.
Look at some Olympic related news, including a Hotel that’s come under fire for posting
some rather interesting signs. I’ll also look at how this pandemic is affecting or
at least delaying some event led tourism, introduce you to Tokyo’s latest tourist
attraction and answer some viewer comments too!
So, lets get started.
Firstly, I have a brief overview of the Covid situation in Japan, now focusing on Tokyo.
This is for you to have a good idea of how things are progressing in this area.
Amidst cases hitting a 6 month high in Tokyo, with only a week to go before the Olympics
officially start. Over 8,000 international passengers since the start of July have been
screened with three of them testing positive and immediately isolated.
Tokyo reported 1,149 cases on Wednesday, its highest daily number since Jan. 22. That is
out of the total 3,172 cases reported Nationwide out of 64,174 PCR tests done on the same day.
As you probably know, I am a firm believer that vaccination is potentially a way out
of the situation, therefore, keeping an eye on the situation in Japan and immunity will
help guide anyone wanting to make informed decisions in the future. So let’s have a
look at how Japan’s vaccine drive has been doing this week
As of the 15th July, there have now been a total of 65,180,178 vaccinations administered.
To better understand this figure, I will break down this figure even further:
40,156,708 Make up people who have only had one dose and 25,023,470 make up those who
have received both jabs and would therefore be fully inoculated.
Therefore, out of the population of around 126 million people: 31.6% have now received
one dose of the vaccine and 19.7% are fully inoculated with both doses.
It is obvious that the vaccination drive continues to hold steady and increasing with some days
seeing near 1.5 million doses being administered even though there have been some hiccups such
as a shortage of doses with even some cancellations happening.
“The vaccine rollout is proceeding at such a fast pace that some municipalities have
been forced to stop accepting new inoculation appointments or just cancel them. We’re
terribly sorry for the situation” Taro Kono, minister in charge of Japan’s vaccine rollout,
told reporters.
Have any of my viewers been affected by this? Some of my Japanese friends have had their
first dose but their second dose cancelled with no information of when it will become
available to them. Even though the vaccine drive is holding steady its difficult not
to imagine how much better things could be had there not been any of these issues.
It’s currently impossible to get away from the topic of the Olympics. And as athletes
settle into the Olympic village and the opening ceremony so close by it is not surprising
that most Japan or Japan travel related news seems to have an Olympic link.
A few updates ago I mentioned that President Joe Biden would not be attending the opening
ceremony and that there was a possibility that the first lady would attend in his place.
Since then, the first lady Jill Biden has been confirmed as an attendee. This will actually
be the first ladies, first international solo trip since her husband became the president.
Showing continued support for the Olympics from the White House.
"The President supports the Tokyo Olympic Games and the public health measures necessary
to protect athletes, staff, and spectators. He has pride in the US athletes who have trained
for Tokyo Games and will be competing in the best traditions of the Olympic spirit,"
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last week amid news that Japan declared a
state of emergency in Tokyo ahead of the games.
Also related to the Olympics
A Tokyo hotel has had to apologise and has removed signs that originally said "Japanese
only" and "foreigners only" at elevator entries.
Akasaka Excel Hotel Tokyu put up the signs on Friday in response to guidance from Tokyo
2020 organisers to ensure the movements of guests related to the Games were separated
from others staying at the hotel, a hotel official told Reuters on Monday.
"We tried to make it easy to understand but ended up causing misunderstanding."
the official said. He said the signs were removed on Sunday morning and the hotel was
now discussing with its headquarters what expression to use instead.
How do you feel about this team? This is something that I’m really interested in knowing your
thoughts on.
Do you think the signs were offensive or a simple misunderstanding?
What other wording would you suggest, if you feel it needs to be changed?
I was thinking that an elevator sign simply saying ‘Olympic participants’ would probably
do the trick.
I do however worry about the future of tourism in the short term anyway. Once tourists are
allowed in to Japan, do you think we will see similar signs?
Have Japanese people become less trustful of foreigners?
Will tourists be treated differently than before the pandemic?
This is certainly something that I’m going to keep an eye on once tourism does open up.
The last Olympics related story is about the Olympic Committee president making the unfortunate
mistake of referring to the people of Japan as “Chinese”.
In part of a statement where he tries to reassure the public regarding the games being safe
he finishes of by saying:
“For everybody – for the athletes, for all the delegations, and most importantly
also for the Chinese people … Japanese people.”
The mistake was not repeated by English-to-Japanese interpreters at the meeting, but reports by
Japanese media triggered a backlash on social media anyway.
This next story is one that is close to my heart. (laugh) Pokémon go has postponed the
release of a new special edition costumed Pikachu which was originally meant to be released
in Okinawa on July 22nd siting “recent developments".
A Pikachu wearing a kariyushi shirt typical of Okinawa was designed as part of the Pokémon
Air Adventures - a new promotion meant to boost tourism and air travel to the Okinawa
islands, which included a freshly-designed plane with a Pokémon design.
It's unclear if the rest of the promotion will go ahead, or when it might be rescheduled
for.
Ok, So perhaps this story is not for everyone, but it does highlight the changing landscape
of travel and how event tourism is being affected sometimes with cancellations very close to
the actual event.
Pokemon go tourism is something that I am personally interested in, and I hope this
is resolved so that I can finally make my way to Okinawa once Japan opens for everyone!
Any other Pokémon fans in Team Ninja Monkey? I’d love to know!
And for today’s final story and in what could become a new tourist attraction once
borders open. A giant 3D cat is being displayed on a billboard in the area of Shinjuku. The
giant 3D cat sleeps, meows and looks down upon the crowds beneath its paws. Already
attracting fans, I do hope this fixture will be available in the long term so that we can
all get to see it first-hand!
Thanks so much for watching this far and staying tuned.. Every week I like to answer or highlight
a comment, so if you have something you’d like me to answer or just my opinion on then
start sending in the questions and I might select yours to feature!
Viewer OnlyOneNights Says:
From what I understand, tourism/travel accounted for 7.5% of Japan's GDP in 2019. How much
of an impact do you believe this has on the economy while their borders are closed?
I actually answer that question in the comments but I think its worth highlighting and expanding
on. This was my response:
Some industries and shops have been able to adapt and even then I imagine things are tight.
I think the biggest issue will be those who invested in to the Olympics with no return.
Many of which were probably hoping to make something with domestic spectators but even
now this isn’t happening. I think that in the short term (and we are still in the short
term) not a huge impact but eventually the country will start to feel it!
I wanted to add a few things.
People are certainly out of work or have had to change careers as a result of the lack
of tourists.
For example, a Japanese friend of mine that runs a tourist based business in Tokyo has
had to close her business and is now teaching English at an Middle School.
I’ve also read reports of how the landscape of places like Harajuku and Ikebukuro are
changing. Store fronts that used to entice tourists are now gone.
I think that in terms of the economy, Japan will be able to take a hit. My worry however
is in how it is affecting people, especially in the hospitality industry and other tourist
industries.
I do think that on returning to Japan, those first tourists will be greeted with a different
Japan post pandemic. I do think that Japan will quickly bounce back, however it will
be interesting to see if the feel of some tourist locations will be able to survive.
So, anyway thanks so much for watching all the way to the end, If you’ve watched this
far then hopefully it means that you liked the video! So please support me by liking
the video as it tells YouTube that you are interested in this type of content.
As always, lets get a conversation started in the comment section. I do try to respond
to as many as I can! I’d love to know your thoughts!
Till next time . Arigatou, gracias thanks bye!