Hey guys!
It's Kim Dao here, welcome back to my channel!
So today I have a very special guest Sunnydahye with me!
Sunny is visiting me in Japan and she's been here for about 3 weeks now?
She is here for another week, and we thought we'd do a Q&A session together to talk about
Japan and what the difference is living in Japan and just visiting Japan.
So I posted a photo on Instagram and I asked you guys to ask us some questions on anything
about Japan.
So most of you guys wanted to know what was the difference between living and visiting
Japan.
So the questions that we are going to be answering today are more focused on that topic.
So I picked out a few questions and lets just get straight into it!
First question is, is there any difference between actually working and living in Japan,
and staying in Japan for vacation like Sunny?
And which one do you prefer?
Well, I visited and lived in Japan.
For me, when I visit Japan, I don't really think about money that much.
Because when you travel, I mean you save up a lot of money to travel and you're here to
spend, to have a good time.
Now that I live here, I think a lot more about money.
For example if I go shopping, if I see something and I like it, and it's not on sale, I probably
won't buy it.
Because I tell myself if I come back in a few weeks time it's gonna go on sale so I'll
wait.
Different with me because I don't know when I'll be back again.
So Kim was telling me about this skirt I bought yesterday, she was like "omg that's too expensive"
and I was like "I don't know Kim, I'm not gonna be back, I'm not sure when" So I was
like "I'm just going to get it".
She was like "You can wait" but I'm like "Ohhh...I don't know".
When I travel I want to buy as many things as I can because I don't know when I'll be
back in Japan.
But when I live here, everything is accessible and I can buy it anytime I want.
So I only buy it if I really need it.
I guess food as well is different because when you travel you want to eat good food.
You want to experience Japanese food but when you live here, I mean once in a while I like
to treat myself to good food.
But I usually just cook at home to save money.
If you're living here, you don't really go out everyday.
But if you are travelling you want to go out every single day, trying to explore more and
things like that.
Next question is "Hardest parts about Japan?"
I think if you're living here I guess saving money is really hard.
Because in Japan everything is so cute and you just want to buy everything, that's the
problem.
I guess visiting here the hardest part is language.
Yes, I can't speak Japanese so if I don't have Kim, I'll be so lost.
There were many times when I was at the store, and all the staff kept talking to me in Japanese,
and I was like "Kim?Kim?
I have no idea, what's she saying?
What's she saying?"
and Kim would help me translate and everything so I think the main thing will be the language.
So the language barrier.
Definitely if you can't speak Japanese, you can still survive in Japan without any Japanese,
it's just going to be a bit harder.
but you can still do it.
Definitely doable.
And another thing for me is transportation.The subway....
Yeah the trains/subway is really difficult.
I mean, it's actually easy to get used to once you've used it a few times.
But the first time in Japan you get confused.
My first time in Japan I didn't know what I was doing.
I was following my friend around the whole time.
If you use like train apps on your phone it's not too hard to figure out.
It's really handy now.
It's really easy now.
So definitely get a pocket wifi and you can use train apps.
Next question, is it easy to make Japanese friends for foreigners?
It is quite hard..
I only make Japanese friends when I meet other friends and I get introduced to them.
To be honest, I mean it's like that in every country.
I think once you graduate at university it's really hard to make new friends.
Unless if you get people that introduce you.
I do think that it is difficult myself but I know that you can make Japanese friends
through websites and language apps.
I know there's a lot of Japanese people that want to speak English and you may want to
speak Japanese.
You can use those apps to get in touch with people but I've never used them myself.
I do have a lot of Japanese friends but mainly I know them because they came to Australia
before and I met them in Australia.
Next question is what kind of process do you go through in order to reside in Japan?
First of all you need to get a visa.
That's pretty much all you need to get to Japan, you need to get a visa.
There's different types of visas, and the best thing to do is to actually look them
up at your embassy website.
I can't really speak for you because every country is different, and I'm not an immigration
officer so I can't really tell you guys how to get to Japan.
I figured out how to get here just by going to my embassy website and looking at my options
and speaking to the Japanese embassy myself.
It's really not that hard to get here, especially if you've got a university degree, it's not
that hard to get here.
I'm on a holiday visa so every country is also different.
Some people have to apply for the holiday visa to Japan.
But for me, my passport is a Korean passport so I don't have to apply for anything.
It's automatically registered as a 90 day tourist visa.
Before I came here I just double checked incase anything happens.
So when you guys are travelling make sure you guys double check everything.
If you just want to travel for under 90 days then most countries have the tourist visa
exemption.
So you don't need to get a visa.
You just get one when you land, but you have to look it up before you come.
And make sure it's 90 days, it's not 3 months, it's 90 days.
Because if you overstay then you're in trouble and you might get black listed.
You won't be able to enter Japan for like a year or something like that.
Next question is "What do I do if I don't know Japanese and want to live there?"
To be honest, if you want to live here, I mean I would really really recommend you know
Japanese.
I mean it's fine to live here if you don't know Japanese, but it's going to make your
life difficult.
At least an intermediate level of Japanese I'd say.
If you're just travelling here you don't need to know Japanese.
Yeah but I kinda wished that I knew how to say the basic stuff.
There were times when Kim wasn't around and I couldn't communicate.
I was at the cashier and they were asking me something, it was really basic and I didn't
understand.
So I would probably just learn the basics, but if you're just here for a month , I don't
think you need it.
But if you want to live here then definitely, put in some effort to learn Japanese.
Next question "Is it difficult to convert your own country's currency to yen once in
Japan?"
No, it's not very hard but do it in your own country because exchange rates are terrible
in Japan.
I can't stress this more than enough, you have to do it in your own country.
I've told everyone this before and people that didn't listen to me will go exchange
in Japan and they would be so shocked at how bad the rate is.
So definitely please exchange at your own country because your rate will be much better
than Japan.
I exchanged 80% of my money in Indonesia before I came here.
I had my emergency money, but I exchanged it here anyway, and the rate was so bad you
guys.
I lost so much money and I regret doing that.
So make sure guys to exchange it before you come here, because the rate is going to be
really bad and you're going to lose a lot of money.
You don't want to do that.
The last time I exchanged cash in Japan was 3 years ago, I remembered the rate was 100yen
was 94 Australian cents.
And then when I went to exchange it, it was 100yen was 75c.
So it was terrible.
Next question is "Are things expensive there?
If so, how much more expensive than things in America?"
I don't live in America...so I don't know.
I find that a lot of things are overpriced in Japan.
It's cheaper than Australia, but more expensive than America.
Next question is "Do you get lonely or homesick?"
I do sometimes butI'm the type of person that's a bit independent.
I mean back in Australia I was always independent, I go to work and I come home.
It's all good, I do miss everyone back in Australia but it's not so bad.
I've also been really independent.I've been living by myself for almost 5 years now, away
from my parents.
Living here for a month isn't really that bad for me.
I skype with my parents once in a while, and I mean I'm on vacation so it's ok.
Next question is "Do random people assume you are Japanese?"
Yes!
All the time.The thing is if you are Asian in Japan, most of the time they will assume
that you are Japanese.
Unless if they hear you speaking a different language then yeah...
But they will just assume you are Japanese most of the time.
Like it's really hard to tell Asians apart, so yeah, they just assume that we are Japanese.
That's all for this video!
Hopefully it was helpful for you guys!I will be doing these a bit more often so I will
post a photo on my Instagram whenever I'm ready to do a video like this, so make sure
you follow me on my instagram which is linked in the description box below~!
Also follow my friend Sunnydahye I'll link her channel in the description box below as
well!
And please subscribe to her channel, she does a lot of awesome videos and we have done a
lot of collab videos together!
Other than that thank you so much for watching guys and please follow my vlog channel as
well for random Japan vlogs.
And I'll see you guys in the next video!
Byee!!!