I'm having an identity crisis about the style of my videos.
This video now is actually about a trip I'm taking tomorrow.
It's bedtime now.
It's a travel video that's a part of an ongoing series of videos I've been making with Odigo travel where I've going around Japan
and showing you places I think good.
And I'll be showing you one of my all time favorite places in Japan, which is a Japan's deepest lake, Tazawa lake in Akita prefecture.
The reason why I'm having an identity crisis is because of the friend who messaged me the other day
criticizing the style of my videos.
He says...
"Your videos aren't bad, but you should use time lapses and drones.
It'll make your videos better.
Use some more upbeat music as well. You know, like the big YouTubers do."
Alright, well, I am.. I do like time lapses and drones
but they're defenetely been overused these days.
I often find travel videos on YouTube more about style over substance these days.
I've seen entire travel videos that are just series of people walking around time lapses trying to look cool
rather than teaching viewers anything of any conceivable value.
Still I'm not better. I like to open-minded.
So the first few minutes of this travel video, I'm gonna try to develop more popular main stream YouTube vlogging style.
and see if it works. Who knows?
This can be it. This can be the day the Abroad in Japan channel changed for the better.
What's up, guys! It's your boy, Chris here.
And today, we're going on a road trip to a lake which is like a big paddle that got out of hand.
Right now, guys, I'm in Akita city.
It's just got this amazing traditional Japanese vibe going on.
Before we begin the road trip, I really wanna show you Akita city.
So let's explore the city together, guys.
Taste spoon!
Oh my god, guys! Monkey basket ball! Look at this monkey!
So we just finished exploring Akita.
And it was loads of fun. Hashtag and retweet "loads of fun"
And we're ready to start a road trip.
So that was the new style of vlogging.
If you think that's better than the usual one, do leave a comment below.
We may use it, going forward
Also recently discovered while filming in the car, that's stabilized like this.
I'm pretty excited.
The possibility are now limitless for car videos.
On to Tarawa lake.
I'm paying for a car pass.
How to pay for a car park ticket in Japan.
Where's my ticket? Shit...
This golden statue here is Tatsuko,
who's been a legend around the spots.
I was gonna recite the story to you and just talk about it but
I'm just gonna read it off my phone coz that's what YouTubers do anyway, they read it and
they pretend like they know, but we just...we don't..we just read it off the internet
Alright: "Long ago, in the village of Tezawa, an extraordinarily beautiful girl by the name of Tatsuko
was born. As she grew, her beauty increased and she became worried about how to preserve her good looks.
So that they would never fade away
For 100 nights she prayed to Kannon,the goddess of mercy, that she would retain her youth.
Kannon eventually decided to answer the girls fervent prayers and appeared before her.
She told Tatsuko to drink of the waters of the lake, and she would be beautiful forever.
After she drank from the water, Tatsuko noticed that she became so thirsty that water no longer quenched her thrist
She realized that she was becoming a dragon, and dejectedly sunk into the lake.
Kinda where the story ends
I suppose the moral of the story is
Don't.....
Don't be beautiful..
And...don't drink from Tezawa Lake
There wasn't really a point to it was it
So I bought some cookies
Akita dog cookies
And I thought that it'd be quite nice, a nice little treat to enjoy, overlooking the lake
And then I realized it's actually a dog that's gone to the toilet, the cookies are based around that kind of joke
And it's kinda put me off now
It comes with a sticker as well
Where is this sticker gonna go?Where am I gonna put this sticker?
It is a beautiful lake though so peaceful, so silent
There's a disturbing amount of fish
I think they've actually seen me and the food, they're all fighting to try and get up onto the rock where I'm eating the bloody dog cookies
This is terrifying
I've never seen so many fish in all my life
Not that great
Still I have a thousand fish and a very good view
Can't really complain really, can I?
Aaah so peaceful!
The lake, so still so calm and I just love the way it's surrounded by all these mountains
There's quite a lot of swan pedal boats around
Although not many people using them
I wouldn't go on by myself, I'm a little bit too old for that now
A bit too mature for...a swan pedal boat
They do look quite fun actually
I haven't been on a pedal boat...
...in about 15 years
I don't know how I know that number but yeah I haven't been on a pedal boat in a long time
I bought this cup of fish food from the Swan Boat salesman
For 100 yen
He said that if I throw it in the lake many fish will come so I'm gonna hold him true to his word
and get rid of the rather unpleasantly smelling fish food
There you go!
They all just went under the boat
Just the worst 100 yen I've ever spent
Look at them, pedaling so efficiently in their swan boat
While I'm not even moving
Bastards! Whenever I get in a boat I feel like I wanna be some kind of pirate. I'm gonna sink them. Take them down
Although I'm a bit more worried about my boat
It's of questionable buoyancy and there's a few thousand dollars worth of cameras that I've brought on here with me
Probably wasn't a good move
It's quite relaxing though
I can't lie
Nah I can lie but I'm just...relaxing
The kind of place I need to come to more often, I'm often the sort of person that gets really stressed about
small minimal rubbish and things and
I need to come to places like Tezawa Lake to just unwind and pedal a swan boat
Oh my god this is a lot of effort
I really can't be bothered to pedal this back
I might just sit here for a bit
It's beautiful
Actually no I'm quite hungry
This video marks the end of my travel series with Odigo
But there's a blog post in the description box below talking about my experiences and my time traveling with Odigo
throughout Japan, over the last few months
And to see more videos from my travel series check out Odigo's YouTube Channel in the link below
Many thanks for watching guys, I'll see you next time!
So we've just finished exploring Akita City together guys, it was lots of fun, hashtag ra....oh fuck it