Hello world once again, I forcibly detained my family
Look at me sure look at me sure I'm the captain now
What I wanted to know was how your expectations differed from the reality of being in Tokyo being in Japan
Start yeah, but actually before we start let's get a baseline
Obviously. We've watched a lot of life where I'm from video so we have a bit of an idea what to expect so it turns
Out my brother watch unimpressive 9% of our videos my sister-in-law maybe about 10%
You know I think it a little bit was a little bit foreign. That's it folks
That's the video Japan is a bit foreign to the eyes of a North American
As fun as it is constantly interrupting. Let's get into it um
I was really nervous that it was gonna be very crowded
You know like shoulder-to-shoulder people at the airport and the Train
And it wasn't at all actually the airport in Vancouver was worse longer lineups less organized
Less efficient in Vancouver. Yeah when we got here. It was it was organized. It wasn't super crowded
Ironically the day they arrived was the busiest I had ever seen Narita Airport usually it looks more like this
Well we got on the train
We were actually the only people in the compartment to start with and really it never got full at all
I also I think I pictured even the outskirts of Tokyo as being all
Really tall high-rises and everybody's in little apartments, and it's not like that at all all the buildings
Are you know like maybe three levels and they have you know patios, and you know bikes parked outside? It's a lot
lot more comfortable than I thought it was going to be when we flew over we even saw some agricultural areas some fields and
That was a little bit surprising just because I thought it would be a lot more built-up
Just you know based on the size of the island and the population
But but I guess we're 36 hours in and as we get into downtown Tokyo. I think the density will change
Radically from where we are now so yeah, we did do a few big-city things like visit Shinjuku
We also stopped through a shield. Oh man and made a pit stop at Sky Tree, but in general
It's been a very quiet
Not as rushed experience compared to what I thought we'd have coming in I also
Expected that you know the streets would be very crowded
Walking, I worried about really busy trains and feeling claustrophobic
Overall actually everything was quite calm
Yeah, we did stuff like bike riding visiting parks and visiting shrines. I think when you see something on video
It's framed from the producers perspective, right
but when you get out into the real world situation scale can be completely different through through our own eyes and
One great example is the I'm in the restaurant that on video
It really felt a lot larger. I didn't get an understanding of how
Efficient how tiny and compact there were nine seats in the restaurant it was delicious. You can't get that on on video
That smell the heat the humidity
Just the sounds and obviously the food at the end of the day
I knew that they have bet you know toilets that have all sorts of special functions of buttons that
Toilets are really cool, and the seats are heated, and I knew
vaguely that you know Japanese people take a bath every night and that everybody shares the water
But it was really neat experience. I I really like it actually I wish I had a Japanese bathroom now
I also been very surprised by the lights
I've had some trouble actually try to figure out which buttons turn the lights on and off for future reference the switches work like this
off
on and so I've had a few times where I turned the light on really bright in our room while Shawn was sleeping because I
Was trying to hit the like dim one so I could just see the room
I
Didn't expect remote controls for everything to be totally fair the remotes are in Japanese from the light switch to the air
conditioner to the fan in the bathroom to the fan in the room even
The control panel to turn on the hot water and fill the bath is in Japanese
Also, I too scared to use the microwave because I can't read any of the buttons
I wanted to reheat my coffee the other day
But I just was not sure and I didn't want to risk blowing something up
So I didn't bother I think there's a big reliance on technology
And everyday life that
exceeds
my
Expectations of what do you experience in Japan?
And and my expectations were there was gonna be a lot of technology
But it's just really neat on a residential scale how much there is in use on a day to day basis and yet?
There's no dishwasher like
So I'm for me like a dishwasher is like you know it's a very important appliance
and you don't have that, but I think that if I had to make the trade for the
Automatic heating up bathtub. I don't know it would be would be hard trade. I've also noticed
That there's Kleenex everywhere or tissue paper oh?
I don't know nobody seems to have napkins, but even at the restaurant they don't have napkins they don't have paper towels
But there's boxes of tissue everywhere I didn't expect trains and train stations to be quiet places
Where people are not talking or loud?
almost like a library I
Didn't expect as much on the streets like is as much pedestrian and especially cyclists traffic on the streets
I mean we've all seen the iconic scramble crosswalk images
But it goes way beyond that in the residential areas the main motor transportation is either walking
riding your bike
those are the two main ones car traffic is is almost non-existent in the
local commute and then
Walking or biking to the Train. I found it interesting even on the streets
Especially in the residential areas that there was so much bike traffic that the drivers became used to that and they actually
Slowed down they were expecting to see bikes around the corner and pedestrians
So it wasn't the the fast speed like we have in our North American car culture
People going 50 60 I mean the speeds are limited to about 30
km/h in the residential areas for drivers
So you actually really noticed a big Prinze and the roads are very narrow some of them
You couldn't really fit to oncoming cars with really any extra room in there
I really enjoyed biking in Japan actually I am NOT a big cyclists at home
And I get nervous driving
Alongside fast traffic, but here. I don't know if Greg just took us on routes that were really calm
But it was really nice once in a while
we'd have to cross a busy street, but we ended up biking on you know almost empty streets I
Loved biking along the river. I still I'm getting used to the whole you know taboo with shoes
There's a really you know big obsession with floors in Japan and which floors you're allowed to wear shoes on which floors
You're not and even in a fitting room some fitting rooms had like a little platform
And so you took your shoes off in front of the platform, and then you could try things on
But they don't come out of the change room in your socks because that's bad too right your shoes can't go in the change room
And your socks can't go out of the changes
I found situations where it could be really awkward if you didn't conform to the the standard one size of shoe that was brought
Provided to you like in the own sense
They'd have one pair of shoe for the washroom that you would
Remove your shoes or put on the washroom shoes if you were barefoot at that point
I think of a lot of North Americans came over here
They'd have a real hard time getting their toes and you might put it through your own flip-flops along or something
If that's a bit allows. It's totally not a thing don't bring your own slippers
See if I was um if I was going to do this again. I'm traveling with children
I would definitely get some sort of antibacterial spray
Like our host had because most of the bathrooms didn't have soap even some of the nice wort restaurants yeah interesting
Yeah, that a lot some had soap, but a lot of them didn't I'd say at least more than half
And they often don't have some of them have paper towels or dryers
But some of them don't and I noticed a lot of ladies carrying like a little
Hand drying cloth in their purse, and then they would pull it out to use it, so that's very smart
Japan is not always recognized for its nature, but seventy-three percent of the island is mountainous
And the only other developed nations with such a high forest coverage percentage are Finland and Sweden
But even when not out in the wild things like the following can happen when we got to the the a no shima
Island there we went got our picnic lunch and went to the beach because that's what you do
That's where you you had a parent name
Yeah
And then all of a sudden the the hawk started coming down and one of them buzzed me and then
Didn't knock I goes muffin over here
Yeah, she lost her muffin and so Tony you ran for cover under the the underground what's going on
Hawks are attacking us it was scary I mean
this is not seagulls like bugging you for your food on the beach these things were Hawks with talons and
They look like birds of prey they were they were maybe my I was I was really frightened in fact. I avoided
eating for hours, and then we went up started climbing up the
Mountain, but the big hill there with all the shrines and monuments and towards the top people were
Eating ice cream and
We witnessed a hawk come down and grab someone's ice cream and they were very precise didn't get the people they got the ice cream
But besides the Hawks the walk up there was amazing
For me was kind of neat to go to a 7-eleven actually get really good food. I much prefer a sit-down meal for me
That's part of the experience so eating out of convenience stores was not my favorite
But the kids liked it and Shawn liked it
and it was affordable and convenient so
If you travel with kids in Japan you probably will end up doing that the actual experience in the hot springs the own center itself
Is quite unique for a North American?
Because you don't wear any clothes, and that's a little bit interesting and awkward to just get over that initial
uncomfortableness and acceptance and
Change that's completely different. You know I mean in North America you were naked in a change room
Briefly, but you tend to cover up and all that but there's really no hiding in an onsen
I mean every a little your little face towel
You carry around you can cover up, but at the end of the days you just gotta screw it to
let it all hang out and
Just relax cuz everyone's in the same state as you are which is this take it?
I highly recommend that anybody who is it's Japan, try it onsen. It sounds very uncomfortable
Maybe even more so for women
But it really only took like maybe 10 minutes to be comfortable
It's not like everybody who goes to the onsen is a supermodel anyways
It just feels like normal people who want to you know relax. Enjoy the hot water
And it wasn't really a problem. I did notice. I felt like you there was a lot of washing
I did discover that most of the onsens will supply a shower cap right so if you if you go to a non tent
And you don't want to completely you know wash your hair
You can just put on a shower cap tie your hair up the communication was fine
I think that I was able to get by shopping
japanese mall
Pretty good. I only needed some help
Translating when one of the sales people asked me if I wanted it wrapped up as a gift, but otherwise
If I wanted to try something on it was pretty clear where the fitting rooms were
it was a little unusual that you had to put a face mask on like a mesh bag over your face so that your
Makeup or your you know didn't mess up any clothing
But again pretty easy to get used to it's small things, but you notice. There is actually a
friendliness and we're not in that tourist heavy area, but
There there actually was a bit more english on the signs than I thought there was gonna be and
Even for things like the washroom and being very welcoming saying you know please come in
It's free and use the washroom, but north america. It'd be you know no shoes no shirt
No service washrooms are for customers only like all the nose rather than we're welcoming you any last words
my feet hurt! they're asleep from sitting
Crouched like this I
Swear, I wasn't making them said to torture them. I just kind of forgot how painful
It could be to sit on the ground for an hour when you're not used to it, and hey guys
Thank you very much for visiting and enduring of my questions. It was great to see the kids again
For those of you who traveled to japan how was your expectations different than your reality? Thanks for watching. See you next time bye