The squatting toilets are common in most Asian countries. I mean it's the most natural way to use the bathroom. I can understand that the western toilet seems to be more comfortable but at least your bottom won't have to touch the seat if it's dirty or something.
my pet peeve is the addressing system. for a nation who has a very well know reputation of being orderly, it was very hard to find street addresses. Normally locals describe a location based on its door appearance and which stop from a metro stop it is located at.
Yeah the japanese assign street numbers in the order of construction, so they can be pretty disordered if the street has a mix of old and new, and neighboring buildings weren't built sequentially
yes, I heard that the destruction from WWII also made it hard for the government to align addresses across the country. This validates the difficulty they had with sequential construction.
that was the one problem I had. Just the whole chome and then section and subsection. Took me so long to finally figure how to put it in google maps correctly.
In australia generally only rich people use dryers, most people hang up their washing. Same with using the aircon and heater, only rich people leave them on all the time.
Well, like right now it's hot as hell, been between 26C - 32C the last few weeks with really high humidity. It's a sweatfest, so everyone has their A/C up. In the winters where I live it's usually -10C to -40C with horrible wind chills, so that accounts for our Heater use. I can control my A/C & Heat via an app on my phone, it's no effort at all. =P
+Dawn Chatman but i still don't get it. 🤔 i mean i've been growing up without it and i find it quite unnecessary to pay for sth you can get for free and i never had the problem that it was too hot. maybe too cold but there are blankets, hot tea, bath tubs etc plus we have central heating. btw using an extra machine is really bad for your health and the enviornment. even if there is no central heating. i personally would think of other ways, but i guess a lot of that depends on preference and how you've been growing up. ☺️ i just still don't see the good about it. 👐🏼
I KNOW! I moved to the us, and I wonder where the hell I hang stuff, and the lady says, "Just dry it in the machine" and everyone has a dishwasher! I'm so used to doing it by hand!
They're so good, but SO overpriced! I hear that sometimes they just take ones that you can buy from the store and re-sell them from their trucks. I bought one that was 700 yen (~$7) before. So expensive, but so warm and delicious. *^* I'd probably just make mine in the oven haha.
murraymanitos holy molly. That's pretty steep for a potato. Could be worth it though, those things are delicious. So they sell them cooked in stores too?
i just like regular potatoes. deep fried in vegetable oil, and sprinkled with cheese, and maybe 1 or 2 fried eggs, and sprinkle parsley on top of all that. i am hungry, and it's 6 in the morning here.. almost. what do i do? i'm paralysed with indecision, and i don't have nothing to do today. or tomorrow. i am thinking about suicide, but i don't really want to do it. *now... how the hell did i end up talking about that* ? i am thinking back at potatoes now. FELLOWS, how much is a kilo(2 pounds) of potatoes in your region?
That's gone way down due to stricter rules. My first year in Japan until around 2005 it was terrible. I took a flight to Bali and was only one row behind the smoking section. As soon as the light went off those fools were all blazing!!! Cafes and bars were the worst though esp bars.
My pet peeve: it's very hard to find public trash cans and recycling bins!! Oh, and when I traveled last summer restaurants only provided small glasses of water. I was SO thirsty (the HEAT) I had to keep ordering more. In Canada we just get large glasses.
eh??? convenience stores are everywhere -- they all have trash cans... drink machines are everywhere, and they all have bins for the bottles and cans... having bins elsewhere just mean someone has to go around emptying them, and hope that they are not over flowing creating a mess or that people hasnt put food in them to attract animals (both of which were a common problem when i lived in the UK) as for the water -- most restaurants have a pitcher - you can ask them to leave one for your table (which they normally do if their is a group of you)
I wouldn't go to a convenience store to throw away my trash without buying something, by principle. As for the bottle and can bins, well, I couldn't throw away paper or wrappings there. In Canada, I'm used to having well-maintained bins pretty much everywhere (by the bus stops, in the subway and whatnot) so that was different for me. Sometimes restaurants gave us pitchers and sometimes not. I guess we could've asked for them, but we didn't know if that was polite. So we didn't.
LadyZayin - the bins are usually located outside... as for not going in because you feel you'd have to buy something, that comes from your culture -- many japanese go inside to use the toilet, or to use the ATM, or to read magazines and books etc ALL without buying... I understand it's different -- but as they say "when in rome..." :-P
Well, when you don't know about such customs... :P Besides, we weren't always in urban areas with conbini around. As a side note, I read that there used to be way more public bins, but they got rid of them after a terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway.
LadyZayin - in subways and around train stations they did...and also around public parks... some have gradually been brought back... but yeah, most trash cans are either in or just outside convenient stores, or they are only for cans and bottles next to vending machines... Also many supermarkets have hidden recycling areas.
In Japan they actually sell tiny, adorable (roughly microwave-sized?) dish washing machines you can place on your counter and use to wash dishes. You hook a hose from your sink to it and let it drain the water back into the sink. I guess you could wash one meal worth of dishes with it... but I think I would hand wash them, too! Haha.
My friend's dishwasher is complete junk and the leasing office doesn't seem to know how to fix things so he stores clean dishes in there to make up for low cabinet space
Most dishwashers don't even clean that well anyway. Plus line-drying clothes is far more environmentally friendly than any dryer. So I can understand why it's not common to pay for something where the convenience isn't worth it.
I think that the real value of dishwashers come when you have a bigger family. As a single college student, a dishwasher would probably just be a waste of money for me. But, if you get a family with 5+ people, I could definitely see the benefits. ^ ^ Maybe because the birth rate is lower in Japan, dishwashers aren't really a thing?
8:45 It's "Yield" or "Give way" sign. It means you must you give way to other cars on the intersection, but complete stop is not required. It's probably the most common sign in Europe. Stop signs are only in places where you actually must stop completely, but they are very very rare.
Funny thing is - the registered hanko is actually safer than using your signature as the differences are easier to prove (by computer/software - whereas the signature is rarely checked as you'd need a scientist which is far too expansive (google bank-check signature fraud detection to see where I'm getting from - it's insanely expensive to verify!)). But a hanko can, once scanned, simply be compared by computer as it never changes. Human handwriting however changes in cycles over the years and even worse - they are still different depending on the paper, underlay, pen, position, mood, situation and so on).
For some of the things you mentioned, I think it's a difference between western and eastern lifestyle. I'm a first gen Chinese kid who grew up in the U.S. in a Chinese household focused on an eastern lifestyle. There were many cases when what was normal in my household was not the same for my friends: like the way I brush my teeth, not having a dryer and hanging my clothes to dry, keeping the air at 78 degrees and using the fans all over the house, that sort of thing. It is really weird when you live in another place which deviates from your norm, but you just have to change your outlook and realize that their way is what's normal, and that normalcy is based on the person or place. Additionally, I think seals are still being used merely because there's tradition and history behind it. It's something Eastern Asian countries still holds onto, I think. (I found that Taiwan has these requirements too when I visited) And my parents always told me that we never had dryers and dishwashers because they thought it was a waste of electricity and water. Lol And I've found that many older generation Asians felt the same way. Sorry for the long post!
About heating and cooling: My wife, son, and I lived in an old apartment made in the 1970's for 3 years, it had horrible insulation and two aircon units. After a while of turning it off and on whenever we leave the apartment, our electricity bill was insane. Like 50,000 yen ish. We decided that instead of turning off and on, we'd leave it at a reasonable temperature (like 26 in the summer and 20 in the winter) and let the "auto" setting run 24/7. Our electricity bill fell down to 28,000 yen almost immediately without changing anything else major. Now we live in a custom made house with 30 cm of insulation around the whole house and a total aggregate 隙間 size of 0.07cm (meaning if you measure all the cracks that leak air out to the outside and stacked them together. national average for newly built houses is around 0.2 - 0.5 cm. AND we installed central air with two controllers on 2F and 1F, and ducts in all rooms. Running it at 25 C 24/7 on auto mode for about 3 months now... and our bill is about 30,000 per month, BUT we increased floorspace by 3 fold, switched our oven to IH electric (オール電化), hot water heater is also electric, and we added a new dishwasher which we didn't have in the old apartment. So it's hard to tell exactly how much kWh is from the central air, but long story short it was worth it. They were giving us an alternative which was 5 aircon units in 5 rooms, and the halls and bathrooms would (of course) be non-air-controlled. The inital cost was about the same as 5 aircons, and maintenance is harder (because we have to call a specialized person to go into our attic if it breaks) but overall, I am happy with it and would never go back. The only downside is that my son will grow up being used to this... rough awakening one day... lol Also, Hitachi has a really nice washer-dryer unit which dries clothes real fast, and it's only slightly bigger than the run of the mill top loading washer machine. You should think about getting one. (Here's the newer model) Search for "ヒートリサイクル 風アイロン ビッグドラム BD-V9800L" on kakaku (dot) com and it's going for around 120,000-130,000 yen. Very worth it. Clothes feel less starchy than when you hang them up to dry (maybe we just don't know how to hang clothes right)
Interesting. When I did my research for the new house, I quickly learned that Air Conditioning / heating units would be the most cost effective in terms of monthly bills. I've read it's better to leave the air conditioner on than to constantly turn it off and on. Of course, it has to depend on how often you're turning it off and on and how well your house is insulated. Moving into the new house, I was surprised at how my utilities for water, gas, and electricity all significantly dropped from our smaller apartment. Once I have a bit more data, I'll probably make a video about it.
I just spent almost 2 weeks in Japan. I stayed in 4 Airbnb apartments in Osaka and Tokyo. Now this may have been just those apartments but I noticed that the water temperatures fluctuated a lot. Whether it was taking a shower or just washing my hands at the sink. I think it might be related to the in-line water heating that many places in Japan use, as opposed to the water heater tanks we have in America. In America even small apartments will have a water heater with a tank, so the water is always heated to the same temperature.
I snort-laughed when you got in a jab at Fahrenheit- the age old debate here in North America! :D I work in a science lab so we are definitely always rehashing that one. Fantastic work Greg, been a fan since LWIF had less than 100 subs- so excited to see you guys on the rise!
What I noticed the first time I went was the noise. There is noise from piped street music, store music, and other random videos all over the streets and stores and stations. It was a bit too much for my senses, and I was an elementary teacher for 12 years!
I totally get the hand soap thing...we were in Kyoto in late winter vising multiple shrines and the public toilets there and a lot of tourist spots had no hand dryer or paper towels that you can use to dry your hands!!! not ideal on cold day. The other thing if you are not familiar with Japan...how difficult it is to find an international ATM especially in smaller towns...good thing that Japan is quite safe
I'm also Canadian and the thing that bothered me is the lack of snow removal. My experience is limited to Tokyo so I'm sure more northerly areas with higher levels of snowfall have a proper system set in place. I should also note that I don't live in Japan, yet merely go to visit family. Also lack of central air is a bummer.
I've heard it's like that in much of Europe too. I work at a supermarket/food store here in the states, and although the customers come non-stop, a queue/line rarely has more than 2 or 3 people in it.
In the USA, 30 people at a single register, and you'll have 3 clowns in the front shooting the shit with each other. In Japan, if there's more than 3 people waiting, staff around the store will immediately drop what they are doing to assist.
A few of mine from my stay here: 1. So many smokers, everywhere 2. Shortage of recycle bins (aside from pet bottles) 3. No public sitting areas (outside of parks)
Really, smokers everywhere? Outside? Inside of restaurants / places to eat, yeah, that's one's actually an issue with me, not merely a pet peeve. Recycle bins, hmm... Try conbini's or train stations, those will usually have. I bring most stuff home with me to recycle. Public sitting areas, I've never really noticed. But I'm always looking for parks, no matter where I go, so perhaps I don't even notice.
Not in love with the idea of carrying around a handkerchief to use to dry hands after that. Nothing nice than putting a slightly wet hanky in a back pocket after doing that...which I refused to do.
ohhh and to add on a pet peeve, those wax napkins in restaurants. Granted i do love the wet towels they give but I still look for a familiar napkin and the wax napkins were just...weird.
The hanko i like - i find it very useful and quick...thankfully being foreign, if i do forget my hanko they often let me sign (it depends on how important the thing is) The cash thing i'm pretty mixed about it... i find that it is a better way to manage money - i will withdraw X amount for the week etc... rather than keep using my card and hope for the best...plus, when i lived in the UK certain places wouldnt accept card if it was under a certain amount, some places would charge, sometimes a certain card wouldnt be accepted -- it was a lot of hassle... However, for big purchases i prefer using my credit card because this adds security and acts as proof of purchase if i lose the receipt...still japan has a lot more cash machines, so you can quickly run next door to get more cash if needed. Soap -- i think most countries i've been too they don't tend to have soap either - or they are always out, or someone has squirted it everywhere... but i have found a lot of places in japan DO have soap - especially malls and convenient stores... even hand dryers are often found in regularly maintain restrooms (like at malls etc) - it's the smaller, or older places that don't -- plus japan is a culture that often carry hand towels - personally the lack of hand dryers doesnt bother me...saves electricity. -- and if youre at a restaurant they often have a place to wash your hands before your eat. As for paper towels -- i think they should be banned... they create so much waste...so bad for the environment and really not needed. line ups and clouds??? i assume you mean crowds??? But whats the problem -- you dont have to join the line... if i do have to join one i have my phone with me so i can be entertained -- people who dont like waiting are just very impatient :-( OK - now youre talking - loud speaker vehicles are annoying...and those who stand on the corner of a cross road with a loud speaker -- it's so loud and disruptive -- i honestly think they should be banned. Parks -- this depends on where you live and what the community around there agrees upon -- so each park is different...i live right next to a park and every weekend they have dodgeball practice for the kids -- ive seen kids kick a ball around, and ive seen kids playing catch... but because often they only have a mini hedge going around it, theres nothing to stop balls going onto the road or even hitting nearby houses - so some of the stuff is legit and is rightfully banned... Even back in the UK they often ban ball games at parks - instead we have playing fields with areas for sports. For most part though i see these parks for parents to take their small kids, but also it's a community space -- again, the park near me uses it for mini events and even mini fireworks etc. Haha -- oh dear... having a dishwasher would be very nice - that is something i miss... but a cloth dryer -- the fact that japan has good drying weather for most of the year, but also have cool tech like a heater for the bathroom that turns it into a drying room, or they have sunrooms that heat up and are used for drying - i think their way is very Eco... What i hate are the washing machines - they are very outdated and i find they are not as good as the front loading ones --- these are much cheaper back home, but so expensive here. (by the way - you can get conbi washer/dryer...which i have... as for dishwashers, they have surface top ones instead) when i came to japan 7 years ago it used to be around 25/26 that they would turn it on... but after the great east japan earthquake and tsunami everyone was asked to do their bit to reduce the use of electricity -- so many places restricted use and wouldnt turn it on until it got hotter and they would have it set to 28... many still follow this. Where i would we have it on 27 and i can work comfortably... At home im currently just using drying mode -- this time of year it is the humidity that makes it feel hot...but reducing the water in the air it feels cooler - its also more Eco, but not all units have them. I'm from the UK... we have central heating, which is a god send in the winter and i wish japan had it... but we dont have aircon etc in the UK (well...some may, but it's rare) - so for me aircon is a luxury :-) Do you drive in japan??? The roads are clearly marked by the lines -- the thick white line on the road at the junction is a stop line...ones without means you have right of way -- stop signs are not always needed!!! On major roads and junctions they have them... and on minor roads, where they can, they will have them...ive even seen them up in the mountains :-P Regardless - most japanese people dont even pay attention -- i was on a cycle lane that was built because too many pedestrians were getting hit... there are signs everywhere - on posts and the floor, and arrows... we even have a raised area with planted trees to keep the sidewalk and cycle path separate -- BUT you still find people (mostly old people) deciding to walk on the cycle path. :-( TV in japan sucks... they try to add a comical twist on everything, even certain documentary shows - the variety shows are pointless and mostly all the same... and if you want to watch a movie, expect many many many adverts... my pet peeve is actually foreigners in japan - mostly those who complain too much and expect japan to change for them and kinda take the attitude that japan is wrong or stupid for not doing things their way :-( a lot of my pet peeves ive learnt to accept or just become accustomed to... I do hate people on bikes in japan, and the fact that people never look where they are going, the fact that no one seems to look before crossing a road, or that even your japanese friends still wont give you their honest opinion etc..
I literally died when you were like "that's the correct way to measure temperature". I come from the UK where the metric system is really all we know, and when I come across recipes that use cups I get so annoyed because it's not accurate at all in terms of density and volume
I guess it's so that more people could use the bathroom at once. Japan houses are really small and many family members share one bathroom combo so having separate showers and toilet allow like, two family members to use the bathroom at once. And I guess if you're on your period you can pee in the shower when you're in Japan? Just a suggestion haha
Treget Letterwood yeah man, I don't have to pee in the shower, but I need to make this lightning quick charge back and forth BEFORE ANYTHING DRIPS EVERYWHERE
Er yes? What I meant was, you pee in the shower, then you turn the shower on to shower yourself and wash the pee off. What else do you need to do? If anything drips you would have washed it off already with the shower isn't it?
One of my struggles as a [quite blatant by appearance] non-Japanese in Japan is: trying to be courteous when approaching someone walking towards you on the sidewalk. I move over to make way, but so does the Japanese walking towards me (they assume I won't move out of the way because I'm a gaijin); I've even run head-on into people in tight walkways and at busy train stations. I wish there was a sign I could up that says "Though I am gaijin, I assure you I respect your mannerisms and do my best to embrace them." I have noticed that when I am with one of my few Japanese friends, this seems to happen much less often.
Celsius FTW! It's great to get the perspective of someone who is living in Japan. As a tourist, I think most of these we're nothing more than minor inconveniences (if at all) but I think having to deal with them on a permanent basis would get annoying. One thing that did annoy me though is the amount of packaging! Okay, it's nice to have omiyage in pretty paper (and they are quick about it) but it gets a bit ridiculous with bags within bags. Or individually wrapped pieces of fruit... The country is great a recycling but it would be much better to reduce usage.
They really are minor inconveniences. I've actually gotten used to most of them. The one's that bug me more, I'm sure I'll make entire videos about them in the future :-)
One thing that really bothered me was how clean literally everything was UNTIL you go into the train station bathrooms. You could walk on a spotless street, through a liter-less train station, and finally reach the train station bathroom where people miss their aim on the squatting toilets. It makes you just turn around instantly and pee at your hotel instead.
I avoided the squat toilets but all the train station bathrooms i went to were spotless, especially compared to when I flew into toronto and the toilet was unflushed and made me want to vomit.
Doing laundry and having to hang it all to dry, sounds like a real problem if you have a whole familie's laundry to do. Especially since houses/apartments are so small. Where do you hang all those wet clothes to dry where they won't ruin floors etc.? Thanks for the video. I found it very interesting.
That's why you do laundry frequently, almost every day. They hang outside on the balcony. If it's raining you can hang them in the shower room or over the genkan if your genkan is big enough.
Hi Greg! I found your pet peeves a little funny because some of those situations I am very used to here in Mexico. For example, Whenever you go to a gas station bathroom, there usually isn't any hand soap nor paper towels, we are definitely not used to dishwashers and some people do not even have washing machines or dryers, let alone heating and AC. I'm referring mostly to lower class families (which there's a lot). Now, we do have stop signs, but you need to be very careful because usually there's a driver who will not stop, hehe. There's also always some kind of truck or just people selling things passing in front the houses and shouting what they're selling. Anyway, don't think I'm trying to say that your pet peeves are not valid, just that I find them funny because of my personal lifestyle :P I Always enjoy watching your videos on both channels! Come and pay a visit to Mexico sometime in the future!
ThisIsNOTaProperName ah bueno, eso entiendo. mas o menos tirnes razon. aqui no tienes que ser rico, pero no hay en los pueblos. es mas como la gente de "middle class" no son ricos, pero no son tan pobres
I think the only two things that really bothered me when I visited (back in 2011) were smoking in restaurants, and the trains/subways closing at midnight. That second one felt particularly surprising since they don't seem to mind doing the roadworks at night to avoid affecting traffic too much.
Yea those definitely bothered me too. When we went last summer we had to be so careful to not stay out too late, especially if we were really far from our hotel.
I was going to mention the train thing. I was surprised to, since there's so many people up at all hours, you'd think they'd run later. As I've learned, the solution is to stay at a 24-7 type of place, or some type of cheap hotel. Smoking in restaurants sucks!
Hey now! lol No, I totally agree that the US needs to transfer to the metric system and all that. It's really stupid to convert around all that when metric is SO easy. Though, to make life more difficult, we have the vet school at Ohio State. They always use metric, but when everyone graduates they go to places that don't use it. Our new vet is not liking this and I don't blame her!
When I was living in Japan, one of my pet peeves was Japanese kids (and adults) pointing and shouting "Gaijinda!" or "Amerikajinda!" at every foreigner they saw. not all foreigners are from America, and not all foreigners are actually foreign... some grew up in Japan and identify as Japanese inspite of their foreign appearance. Parents don't teach their children any different either. Another thing that annoyed me was no paper in the public bathrooms... yes I get the vast number of foot traffic through a public bathroom on any given day, but seriously other countries provide toilet paper and Japan processes and exports a huge amount of bathroom paper... why not provide it. Oh, on the topic of bathrooms... the treatment of the western bathroom stalls... the number of times I would enter a western stall and see poop all over the seat, the outside of the bowl or the toilet stopped up with brown water... GROSS! Squatters are the toilet stall of preference in Japan for me these days... much cleaner and more hygenic. The general lack of disrespect for foreigners in most facilities (14 years ago now) and putting Japanese people in front of you in line because the clerk was afraid to speak in English and never checked to see if you spoke Japanese first... and then talked about you and spoke to co-workers with disdain of having to serve you until you began speaking in Japanese in front of them and further embarrassing the clerk for having understood what they were saying and receiving no apology for their behavior... just a few of my personal pet peeves of Japan... although I love the country and culture so much.
I'm very exited to go to Japan soon, but it is one of those countries where I would not want to stay for good. I would feel lonely and depressed in a short time, because from what I heard it is super hard to make real friends there, even if you are japanese.
What annoys me a bit is that, as specially in clothing stores, the shop assistants practically jump at you and trying to help you as soon as you look at a piece for longer than 2 seconds. On one hand it's quite nice but since I'm more that kind of person that wants to shop quietly and when I have a question about a piece or want to buy something I look for someone, it is kind of exhausting to me. Plus I'm not a huge fan of going shopping.
You can use your registered hanko for day to day business as well. I also wouldn't say that central air is common in Hokkaido, to the point where I was told that it doesn't get hot enough in Hokkaido for many homes to have AC in the first place. Yeah... Soap. I asked a parent and student group about hand washing after using the bathroom, and they all thought it was the strangest thing. Meanwhile, I was gagging that people in a developed country were culturally opposed to cleaning themselves, especially when Japanese culture itself is religiously concerned with the dirtiness of many bodily functions. Good video.
Our oldest was almost 4 when we first moved to Okinawa and was quite upset when she learned that the truck playing music outside was collecting garbage rather than distributing ice cream! Awesome parks and playgrounds are one of the things we miss the most about Okinawa....we've found very few in Yamaguchi Prefecture to compare. :(
Oh, that's too bad about the garbage truck :-( I will sometimes go on the satellite view Google Maps to find parks to check out. I also run and bike around a lot, so that's another good way to running into parks.
We rely on word of mouth and chance encounters! It was easier in Okinawa because of the Okinawa Hai website (great info if you head that way for a visit).
I was there in April this year (2016) and I actually really LOVED THE fact that there were no paper towels in the bathrooms. Much less waste! What most people do there instead is carry along a little hand towel (washcloth size) and they will dry their hands with that. It's much better for the environment :) speaking of lines, when I was there we saw a looooong line of people outside of a Carl's Jr. The line was about a 1.5 hour wait we heard, which we thought was ridiculous buy people seemed really proud to be in line for so long.
We have that ‘no ball games’ in the Uk as well, usually on greens surrounded by houses not in city parks, unless it’s a royal park in which case they bloody love their regulations
Living in Japan for almost three years now, too, I really did appreciate this video. It's more or less what I have experienced. While you mentioned stop signs, I am as much annoyed by traffic in general. And that includes everything from the pedestrian to busses or lorries. One of the major annoyances are people riding bikes while simultaneously using their phones. I wouldn't know how to do that, but they do exist and they can be a health hazard. The other things, well I guess you simply get used to it... eventually.
In America we have people using their phones while riding their bikes, except they're actually driving cars. Cyclists probably won't kill people at least.
Pet peeves about Japan for me would be: loudness of store clerks (irashaimaseeeeee!!!), small portions of food at restaurants, often cold inside japanese houses in the winter. In general the sound level in Japan is often very high, in shops and restaurant for example, this is quite tiring. All the workers yelling, music in all kinds of shops, including including.
In Canada, a lot of bathrooms in public malls give you options in using paper towels or air drying machine to dry hands, soap dispenser and hand sanitizer can be found in most public space.
People assuming that I don't speak Japanese because I'm white, anko masquerading as chocolate in snacks, people making such a big deal about "oh, no! doing XYZ will make you catch cold!", putting perfectly crisped up things in soup (I mean...what's the point in frying something to perfection if you're going to drown it in liquid and make it soggy)... and ditto to the lack of clothes driers (I wear mostly knits and knits feel nasty dried in the sun). Having said all that, I think I prefer Japan over America. (most of my grievances are pretty trivial.)
I like it when they leave the tempura out of the soup, and then if you want, you can dip it yourself. But if it's been in the soup for a few minutes, yeah, it feels like what's the point.
The Japanese do laundry almost every day so once you get used to it it may not be so bad. Though if it's raining outside it can take a couple days for clothes to dry hanging inside.
I tend to get annoyed a lot with sidewalk traffic. 1. I witness people use their cell phone when walking or biking, meaning that they aren't looking up and may collide with you. 2. There doesn't seem to be a standard "lane" system on sidewalks, so often times I tango with a person coming at me because neither knows what side they are supposed to be on. 3. Cyclists (I myself am one of them), don't alert people nearly enough when they are approaching from behind. Most bikes seem to have a bell, but are rarely used. I assume this is because of the reserved culture not wanting to draw attention, but being alerted of a bikes presence behind you is better than being snuck up on.
The hand soap thing is so real!! I found myself so put off by that while visiting especially because I'm already very paranoid about having clean hands. I was constantly worried about going to the bathroom because I didn't want to be forced to walk with dirty hands till I could find soap again.
The only thing I was inconvenienced by when I visited for a week was you mainly get your change back in coins. I had trouble in the beginning knowing which coins to use and I didn't want to inconvenience people behind me. I ended up having the tiny pocket purse full of coins. I ended up using them and knowing which ones to use by the end of the week but it was a bit annoying.
I visited Japan for 12 days and my biggest pet peeve is everyone's lack of self awareness. they were so engrossed in their phones that they would constantly bump into you or stop in the middle of heavy foot traffic for the bullet train or subway. I ran full body into so many people and they would be so mad and yell at me and I'd say sorry in Japanese. it wouldn't be my fault either cause we are all moving as one and then BAM they stop and smack into them
Wow that sounds really annoying, as a person who doesn't use his phone while walking I do get those sometimes which really really pisses me off that I want to curse
That perspective is interesting. Because I've found the opposite, where Japanese people are more self-aware of their actions than in Canada. Of course, when you're in a busy place with thousands of people crammed into a small space, accidents tend to happen and courtesy can not be as great. I also wonder what places you visited. For example, on my commute video, it was quite crammed, but I felt that everyone kind of knew their place and what they were doing, so it worked out way better than I can imagine a similar thing in Canada would. But yesterday, my wife and I were travelling around to some more touristy places, and we could notice a change in how people acted. Some may have been busy taking photos, some may get lost, and of course there were probably some non-Japanese people who wouldn't know the expected behaviour that would be common sense to Japanese people living in that area.
Oh lord... the inability for any fast food restaurant to provide you with extra anything! I even offered to pay 500 yen (!!!) for extra pickles on my McGrossBurger and was denied. I was dumbfounded, but also chuckled at the quirkiness that is my wife's home country. :)
Just got back to California after a week in Osaka. One of the confounding things to me is the abundance of packaging, wrappers, bags and other containers, coupled with the distinct lack of trashcans.
the lack of trashcans is a biggggggggggg one of mine. especially when you are going out as a family and taking care of your kids! having to hold on to trash all the way home is a pain!
CookieCrumbzz it's actually a pressure dryer, so clothes aren't dried using fired heat like Western dryers. Clothes will still come out moist and need to be hung out a little.
The official Hanko is pretty unique. Think about it - your signature can look pretty different over the years or at odd times and it can also be forged because it's not always the same. A stamp that stays always the same is pretty unique and can't be forged that easily if you compare it under the microscope. I think a unique stamp per person is a good idea, but that's just my 2 cents. ;)
Your signature actually is supposed to stay the same. That's practically the whole purpose of it- something that uniquely identifies things as yours. Not something unreliable that changes. The problem is, people don't practice.
crazy808ish Good point. I guess this cannot be resolved here, because these practices (signature, stamps/Hanko) have been in use for hundreds of years, maybe even thousands. And yet, there has never been any kind of fruitful study on the subject. I think, that the Hanko would be more consistent and remains unchanged over the years, even without any practice. But that's just my two cents. ;)
You bring up a good point, but man did your "thats just my two cents ;)" irk me. pls stop (;~; ) However, even though a hanko is unique, I'm more concerned about the pain that comes from losing it.
Hi Greg! My name is Teresa, from Madrid, Spain. First, I love your channel! Past year we discovered you and your daughter during the preps of our wedding and honey moon to Japan, and you helped us so much to understand that society! In line with your video, something that amazed us is how clean all the cities (including Tokio) are, with no trash cans almost. Also, smoking is prohibited at the street! 😱 Thanks for your videos, I love to watch you comparing american/canadian way of life with japanese. Congrats!
I watched a documentary on JHK tv that stated that 90 percent percent of Japanese prefer to drop their laundry off at a laundromat and have someone at the shop wash and dry their clothes. You don't need to have a washer or dryer in your residence if you always have a laundry service do the job.
Nearly everything you mentioned, are things that make Japan more appealing. XD I hate having to sing my name, so I'm excited to get my hanko! I personally always prefer carrying cash, because it gives me a physical representation of how much money I have. I did that when I was younger, to make sure I always knew how much I had, and therefore I was able to limit myself. Prevents me from rising to temptations, and making sure I don't ever overspend. So, that habit stuck, and I've been thankful for it. Most of this, just seems like things that I'll adjust to fairly easily. I have a pet peeve list that would stretch from here to Pluto, on living in the US. XD
I totally agree with the lack of stop signs!! It's annoying when you're walking, riding your bicycle, and especially when you are driving. Nobody knows when to stop or when to go and it always ends up in confusion and frustration. Ahhhh!!!!! 😤😤😫😫
The lack of trash cans is actually due to the 1995 Sarin Gas Attack on the Tokyo Metro. They thought that trash cans are easy places to conceal dangerous items/weapons such as poison gas. When US presidents visited Japan, they actually sealed up the trash cans.
As an American, I've enjoyed these videos. My impression is that everything is teeny weeny. Little kitchens, little bathrooms, little bedrooms, little toys, little food, tiny cars. A bit too claustrophobic for me. lol
Thanks for the great video! :) 1. Hanko (need two stamps - special one and regular one for mail) 2. Cash only society 3. No soap in bathrooms (some don’t have paper towels or hand dryers) 4. Many lines 5. Loud speakers on videos (ice cream trucks, gas trucks) 6. No-fun parks (signs about not playing ball sports) 7. Dishwashers and clothes dryers are not standard 8. No central air in most places (Hokkaido has central air) 9. Lack of stop signs 10. Variety TV
Thank you for sharing your pet peeves with us. It's good to know not only the good sides but also the small(and big) 'annoying' things in order to make a good decision. It's interesting to me to hear about the differences between Japan and my country, like the lack of a dishwasher or dryer, and according to the comment section ovens. I don't think it would be too annoying or a deal breaker for me, but very good to be aware of it. So thank you very much!
As a British person, I totally related to the line up situation .. We also don't have air conditioning! The rest of these seem a bit strange to me. I love seeing different cultures!!
I'm in the Philippines, we don't use dishwashers also. We have a dryer and washing machine but we only do our laundry once a week and even though we put the clothes in the dryer we still air dry them, they smell good when you air dry them versus when you just put them in the dryer then fold them up. We also use our aircon once or twice a month. Electricity is expensive you know.
My biggest pet peeve: all the porn!!!! like even in a 711!! I couldn't believe it lol And I guess a funny pet peeve is the drunk culture. like seeing businessmen in Armani suits passed out on the sidewalk is so funny lol
My biggest pet peeve in Japan is that you can't talk and drink and eat on the public transportation! In the u.s no one gives a fuck if u drink/ talk/ eat on the bus or subway.
I saw a lot of talking on the train and actually some were drinking alcohol (and we joined them) That was one that surprised me actually. I heard that you can do that but I saw people doing it all over.
I enjoyed the video, Greg. But as random as it is, in this one I couldn't stop thinking "Wow Shin looks so much like him" In Spanish, specially in Venezuela (Where I'm from) we would say "Shin es la fotocopia de su padre" which literally translates into "Shin is the photocopy of his father", in English sounds weird, but I must stress that we say it innocently :) Regards to you, Aiko and Shin!
I can't really recall the last time I actually needed cash 😂 even most vending machines take cards now. I'm always so thrown off when I need cash for something
Just got back from japan and I swear the soap bit really drove me nuts and same without the dryers or napkins. I found myself constantly confused on what to do.
I like how you called them queues, it sounds so much better than lines. You guys really speak English the right way 😂 I have no idea why we stopped talking that way in the America’s.
This is a very informative video! It's good to see the pros and cons of Japan so that I can get an objective view of it before I eventually visit. Keep up the great vids!
You put the aircon on when it gets to 27 degrees? Jesus, we wait until at least 30+ in Sydney. If we turned it on that early I think our power grid would collapse.
My number 1: pet peeve in Japan is their lack of trash bins in public places. It's actually very surprising to me because Japan is very clean, I wonder how Japanese people dispose their little rubbish, take out fast food, etc. 2nd: is that public toilets for people with disability were not as clean as the toilets for normal people. Toilet bowls were always nasty & smelly. Especially the ones located on train stations. 3rd: is, trains specifically in Osaka were too noisy and pretty smelly too. People in Osaka were a bit too loud compared to Tokyo people. 4th: is, food were always served in large amount and there's no lesser option for it. It's actually a good thing if you're an oogui and have a big appetite. But for a small person like me, it is too much & I always feel bad seeing a big amount of food go to waste because... 5th: There's no take out option. You also do not see people sharing food. I mean, if I share with friends, we would definitely get attention for it. But overall, Japan is still a lovely and interesting place. Honest vlogs like this should be the ones people try to see & not just focus on how godly Japan is being portrayed in other nation.
i like the way you send messages across - simple, easy to understand, clear and non-offensive (meaning with consideration of viewers' feelings). ur very professional and I quite enjoy watching :) thank u.
It's more of a language quirk, but often when I'm talking with my Japanese coworkers they'll often tell me "Yes" or some equivalent affirmative after I've asked them a question. But, what they mean is "Yes I've heard your question". Even though I am aware of the nuance, I still find myself assuming they answered my question when they haven't yet. Or like I'll ask them for a solution to a problem or their opinion on something, and all they'll say is "Sou da ne."
I live in the US and own a private home.......we only use our heating and cooling as the temps warrant. The preference is to open the windows to let the fresh air in.
Agreed. So many stores but nowhere to dispose of trash, keeps me hesitant from buying meals to-go (well, that and the complete lack of public sitting areas).
Soo true! I think I once carried a set of pet bottles and my lunchbox for a whole afternoon before finding a single trash can. Gosh that's so annoying...yet the city remains so clean, so props on them for carrying their stuff to their homes or konbinis to drop them.
As for PET bottles almost every vending machine has a can for them. Though a few times they were full so I had to carry my bottle for a few blocks until I found one.
THe thing about the cash is also the same in Germany: You can ALWAYS pay with cash and there are many places especially smaller restaurants or stores that won´t accept plastic money.
I just have to say this... your son really looks like you.
I know I was thinking about that through the whole video
I think aiko looks like him
lol, who else would he look like. some other guy
@lost under the sky, His mum? Or he could've been a thorough mix of both parents. But no, he looks a lot like dad.
Idiot Savant Incarnate I thought he was part Native (Canadian) / Aboriginal?
The squatting toilets are common in most Asian countries. I mean it's the most natural way to use the bathroom. I can understand that the western toilet seems to be more comfortable but at least your bottom won't have to touch the seat if it's dirty or something.
my pet peeve is the addressing system. for a nation who has a very well know reputation of being orderly, it was very hard to find street addresses. Normally locals describe a location based on its door appearance and which stop from a metro stop it is located at.
so true -- landmarks or google map :-P
sometimes my google map showed the street view but not which door in a 20 floor highrise, haha
Yeah the japanese assign street numbers in the order of construction, so they can be pretty disordered if the street has a mix of old and new, and neighboring buildings weren't built sequentially
yes, I heard that the destruction from WWII also made it hard for the government to align addresses across the country. This validates the difficulty they had with sequential construction.
that was the one problem I had. Just the whole chome and then section and subsection. Took me so long to finally figure how to put it in google maps correctly.
In australia generally only rich people use dryers, most people hang up their washing. Same with using the aircon and heater, only rich people leave them on all the time.
Is it because your hydro (electricity) is more expensive, or are the machines more expensive?
+Dawn Chatman i personally don't even understand why you need constant aircon/heater, a clothes drier, etc. it sounds like so much effort to me haha
Well, like right now it's hot as hell, been between 26C - 32C the last few weeks with really high humidity. It's a sweatfest, so everyone has their A/C up. In the winters where I live it's usually -10C to -40C with horrible wind chills, so that accounts for our Heater use. I can control my A/C & Heat via an app on my phone, it's no effort at all. =P
+Dawn Chatman but i still don't get it. 🤔 i mean i've been growing up without it and i find it quite unnecessary to pay for sth you can get for free and i never had the problem that it was too hot. maybe too cold but there are blankets, hot tea, bath tubs etc plus we have central heating. btw using an extra machine is really bad for your health and the enviornment. even if there is no central heating. i personally would think of other ways, but i guess a lot of that depends on preference and how you've been growing up. ☺️ i just still don't see the good about it. 👐🏼
I KNOW! I moved to the us, and I wonder where the hell I hang stuff, and the lady says, "Just dry it in the machine" and everyone has a dishwasher! I'm so used to doing it by hand!
Woah woah woah. They have sweet potato trucks? I'm sold.
They're so good, but SO overpriced! I hear that sometimes they just take ones that you can buy from the store and re-sell them from their trucks. I bought one that was 700 yen (~$7) before. So expensive, but so warm and delicious. *^* I'd probably just make mine in the oven haha.
murraymanitos holy molly. That's pretty steep for a potato. Could be worth it though, those things are delicious. So they sell them cooked in stores too?
+murraymanitos that's really cheap for around where I live
i just like regular potatoes. deep fried in vegetable oil, and sprinkled with cheese, and maybe 1 or 2 fried eggs, and sprinkle parsley on top of all that.
i am hungry, and it's 6 in the morning here.. almost. what do i do?
i'm paralysed with indecision, and i don't have nothing to do today. or tomorrow.
i am thinking about suicide, but i don't really want to do it. *now... how the hell did i end up talking about that* ?
i am thinking back at potatoes now. FELLOWS, how much is a kilo(2 pounds) of potatoes in your region?
it'sMe TheHerpes ...... that...escalated...quickly........
And smoking in restaurants and hotels doesn't bother you? That would have been #1 for me!
Veronika Privat top of the list for me too
ditto
Yep, first on the list for me too! I hate smoke!
That's gone way down due to stricter rules. My first year in Japan until around 2005 it was terrible. I took a flight to Bali and was only one row behind the smoking section. As soon as the light went off those fools were all blazing!!! Cafes and bars were the worst though esp bars.
Same here. East Asia is great except for that!!
My pet peeve: it's very hard to find public trash cans and recycling bins!! Oh, and when I traveled last summer restaurants only provided small glasses of water. I was SO thirsty (the HEAT) I had to keep ordering more. In Canada we just get large glasses.
eh???
convenience stores are everywhere -- they all have trash cans... drink machines are everywhere, and they all have bins for the bottles and cans... having bins elsewhere just mean someone has to go around emptying them, and hope that they are not over flowing creating a mess or that people hasnt put food in them to attract animals (both of which were a common problem when i lived in the UK)
as for the water -- most restaurants have a pitcher - you can ask them to leave one for your table (which they normally do if their is a group of you)
I wouldn't go to a convenience store to throw away my trash without buying something, by principle. As for the bottle and can bins, well, I couldn't throw away paper or wrappings there. In Canada, I'm used to having well-maintained bins pretty much everywhere (by the bus stops, in the subway and whatnot) so that was different for me.
Sometimes restaurants gave us pitchers and sometimes not. I guess we could've asked for them, but we didn't know if that was polite. So we didn't.
LadyZayin - the bins are usually located outside...
as for not going in because you feel you'd have to buy something, that comes from your culture -- many japanese go inside to use the toilet, or to use the ATM, or to read magazines and books etc ALL without buying...
I understand it's different -- but as they say "when in rome..." :-P
Well, when you don't know about such customs... :P Besides, we weren't always in urban areas with conbini around. As a side note, I read that there used to be way more public bins, but they got rid of them after a terrorist attack in the Tokyo subway.
LadyZayin - in subways and around train stations they did...and also around public parks... some have gradually been brought back... but yeah, most trash cans are either in or just outside convenient stores, or they are only for cans and bottles next to vending machines...
Also many supermarkets have hidden recycling areas.
"Not that KKK" Made me giggle.
I've always hand washed my dishes (I live in American) and actually used the dish washer for a place for the dishes to dry haha!
In Japan they actually sell tiny, adorable (roughly microwave-sized?) dish washing machines you can place on your counter and use to wash dishes. You hook a hose from your sink to it and let it drain the water back into the sink. I guess you could wash one meal worth of dishes with it... but I think I would hand wash them, too! Haha.
My friend's dishwasher is complete junk and the leasing office doesn't seem to know how to fix things so he stores clean dishes in there to make up for low cabinet space
Most dishwashers don't even clean that well anyway. Plus line-drying clothes is far more environmentally friendly than any dryer. So I can understand why it's not common to pay for something where the convenience isn't worth it.
I think that the real value of dishwashers come when you have a bigger family. As a single college student, a dishwasher would probably just be a waste of money for me. But, if you get a family with 5+ people, I could definitely see the benefits. ^ ^ Maybe because the birth rate is lower in Japan, dishwashers aren't really a thing?
Sun fades and damages clothing that is why I don't line dry.
8:45 It's "Yield" or "Give way" sign. It means you must you give way to other cars on the intersection, but complete stop is not required. It's probably the most common sign in Europe. Stop signs are only in places where you actually must stop completely, but they are very very rare.
pet peeve: walking into a convenience store looking to grab some plain drinking water...but all they got is like flavored water -______-
Gio Chao so true omg lol.
I had no problem finding water, especially from vending machines. But the conbini was no trouble either.
Funny thing is - the registered hanko is actually safer than using your signature as the differences are easier to prove (by computer/software - whereas the signature is rarely checked as you'd need a scientist which is far too expansive (google bank-check signature fraud detection to see where I'm getting from - it's insanely expensive to verify!)).
But a hanko can, once scanned, simply be compared by computer as it never changes. Human handwriting however changes in cycles over the years and even worse - they are still different depending on the paper, underlay, pen, position, mood, situation and so on).
For some of the things you mentioned, I think it's a difference between western and eastern lifestyle. I'm a first gen Chinese kid who grew up in the U.S. in a Chinese household focused on an eastern lifestyle. There were many cases when what was normal in my household was not the same for my friends: like the way I brush my teeth, not having a dryer and hanging my clothes to dry, keeping the air at 78 degrees and using the fans all over the house, that sort of thing. It is really weird when you live in another place which deviates from your norm, but you just have to change your outlook and realize that their way is what's normal, and that normalcy is based on the person or place.
Additionally, I think seals are still being used merely because there's tradition and history behind it. It's something Eastern Asian countries still holds onto, I think. (I found that Taiwan has these requirements too when I visited) And my parents always told me that we never had dryers and dishwashers because they thought it was a waste of electricity and water. Lol And I've found that many older generation Asians felt the same way. Sorry for the long post!
Stacy Chen I
What did you mean by seals are still being used? What kind of seals?
I think vending machines are predominantly cash-only in most countries?
not America
I've seen vending machines take cards in the States.
Not in europe
I am British and Italian
+Nicolas Rixon so?
About heating and cooling:
My wife, son, and I lived in an old apartment made in the 1970's for 3 years, it had horrible insulation and two aircon units. After a while of turning it off and on whenever we leave the apartment, our electricity bill was insane. Like 50,000 yen ish.
We decided that instead of turning off and on, we'd leave it at a reasonable temperature (like 26 in the summer and 20 in the winter) and let the "auto" setting run 24/7.
Our electricity bill fell down to 28,000 yen almost immediately without changing anything else major.
Now we live in a custom made house with 30 cm of insulation around the whole house and a total aggregate 隙間 size of 0.07cm (meaning if you measure all the cracks that leak air out to the outside and stacked them together. national average for newly built houses is around 0.2 - 0.5 cm. AND we installed central air with two controllers on 2F and 1F, and ducts in all rooms.
Running it at 25 C 24/7 on auto mode for about 3 months now... and our bill is about 30,000 per month, BUT we increased floorspace by 3 fold, switched our oven to IH electric (オール電化), hot water heater is also electric, and we added a new dishwasher which we didn't have in the old apartment. So it's hard to tell exactly how much kWh is from the central air, but long story short it was worth it.
They were giving us an alternative which was 5 aircon units in 5 rooms, and the halls and bathrooms would (of course) be non-air-controlled. The inital cost was about the same as 5 aircons, and maintenance is harder (because we have to call a specialized person to go into our attic if it breaks) but overall, I am happy with it and would never go back.
The only downside is that my son will grow up being used to this... rough awakening one day... lol
Also, Hitachi has a really nice washer-dryer unit which dries clothes real fast, and it's only slightly bigger than the run of the mill top loading washer machine. You should think about getting one. (Here's the newer model)
Search for "ヒートリサイクル 風アイロン ビッグドラム BD-V9800L" on kakaku (dot) com and it's going for around 120,000-130,000 yen. Very worth it. Clothes feel less starchy than when you hang them up to dry (maybe we just don't know how to hang clothes right)
Interesting. When I did my research for the new house, I quickly learned that Air Conditioning / heating units would be the most cost effective in terms of monthly bills. I've read it's better to leave the air conditioner on than to constantly turn it off and on. Of course, it has to depend on how often you're turning it off and on and how well your house is insulated.
Moving into the new house, I was surprised at how my utilities for water, gas, and electricity all significantly dropped from our smaller apartment. Once I have a bit more data, I'll probably make a video about it.
Life Where I'm From X do you like Canada or Japan better
my husband will not be able to handle that 82° issue... lol
I just spent almost 2 weeks in Japan. I stayed in 4 Airbnb apartments in Osaka and Tokyo. Now this may have been just those apartments but I noticed that the water temperatures fluctuated a lot. Whether it was taking a shower or just washing my hands at the sink. I think it might be related to the in-line water heating that many places in Japan use, as opposed to the water heater tanks we have in America. In America even small apartments will have a water heater with a tank, so the water is always heated to the same temperature.
I snort-laughed when you got in a jab at Fahrenheit- the age old debate here in North America! :D I work in a science lab so we are definitely always rehashing that one. Fantastic work Greg, been a fan since LWIF had less than 100 subs- so excited to see you guys on the rise!
What I noticed the first time I went was the noise. There is noise from piped street music, store music, and other random videos all over the streets and stores and stations. It was a bit too much for my senses, and I was an elementary teacher for 12 years!
Loud speaker vehicles? Well, we have a lot here in Indonesia
hahaha lol
Turkey and Macedonia too. Except it's someone yelling without a speaker
Here in Brazil too. He'd have a heart attack if he lived here hahahah
yeap! in romania two :))
and dont forget the mosques, 5 times a day
I totally get the hand soap thing...we were in Kyoto in late winter vising multiple shrines and the public toilets there and a lot of tourist spots had no hand dryer or paper towels that you can use to dry your hands!!! not ideal on cold day. The other thing if you are not familiar with Japan...how difficult it is to find an international ATM especially in smaller towns...good thing that Japan is quite safe
this was great! lighthearted but honest. i would love to see more people do a detail video like this about their country
I'm also Canadian and the thing that bothered me is the lack of snow removal. My experience is limited to Tokyo so I'm sure more northerly areas with higher levels of snowfall have a proper system set in place. I should also note that I don't live in Japan, yet merely go to visit family. Also lack of central air is a bummer.
You ain't lying about the lines. In the USA a food store says "more than 3 in line, we will open a new register" in Japan, put a zero behind that 3...
I've heard it's like that in much of Europe too. I work at a supermarket/food store here in the states, and although the customers come non-stop, a queue/line rarely has more than 2 or 3 people in it.
You've clearly never been to my local Wal-mart.
TieDef accurate
Costco lines are a pain in the ass
In the USA, 30 people at a single register, and you'll have 3 clowns in the front shooting the shit with each other. In Japan, if there's more than 3 people waiting, staff around the store will immediately drop what they are doing to assist.
A few of mine from my stay here:
1. So many smokers, everywhere
2. Shortage of recycle bins (aside from pet bottles)
3. No public sitting areas (outside of parks)
Really, smokers everywhere? Outside? Inside of restaurants / places to eat, yeah, that's one's actually an issue with me, not merely a pet peeve. Recycle bins, hmm... Try conbini's or train stations, those will usually have. I bring most stuff home with me to recycle. Public sitting areas, I've never really noticed. But I'm always looking for parks, no matter where I go, so perhaps I don't even notice.
Yes, I feel like washing my hands with no soap is kinda useless.
Washing with water is WAY better than to not wash at all. Soap just give it that nice edge.
Not in love with the idea of carrying around a handkerchief to use to dry hands after that. Nothing nice than putting a slightly wet hanky in a back pocket after doing that...which I refused to do.
ohhh and to add on a pet peeve, those wax napkins in restaurants. Granted i do love the wet towels they give but I still look for a familiar napkin and the wax napkins were just...weird.
The hanko i like - i find it very useful and quick...thankfully being foreign, if i do forget my hanko they often let me sign (it depends on how important the thing is)
The cash thing i'm pretty mixed about it... i find that it is a better way to manage money - i will withdraw X amount for the week etc... rather than keep using my card and hope for the best...plus, when i lived in the UK certain places wouldnt accept card if it was under a certain amount, some places would charge, sometimes a certain card wouldnt be accepted -- it was a lot of hassle...
However, for big purchases i prefer using my credit card because this adds security and acts as proof of purchase if i lose the receipt...still japan has a lot more cash machines, so you can quickly run next door to get more cash if needed.
Soap -- i think most countries i've been too they don't tend to have soap either - or they are always out, or someone has squirted it everywhere... but i have found a lot of places in japan DO have soap - especially malls and convenient stores... even hand dryers are often found in regularly maintain restrooms (like at malls etc) - it's the smaller, or older places that don't -- plus japan is a culture that often carry hand towels - personally the lack of hand dryers doesnt bother me...saves electricity. -- and if youre at a restaurant they often have a place to wash your hands before your eat.
As for paper towels -- i think they should be banned... they create so much waste...so bad for the environment and really not needed.
line ups and clouds??? i assume you mean crowds???
But whats the problem -- you dont have to join the line... if i do have to join one i have my phone with me so i can be entertained -- people who dont like waiting are just very impatient :-(
OK - now youre talking - loud speaker vehicles are annoying...and those who stand on the corner of a cross road with a loud speaker -- it's so loud and disruptive -- i honestly think they should be banned.
Parks -- this depends on where you live and what the community around there agrees upon -- so each park is different...i live right next to a park and every weekend they have dodgeball practice for the kids -- ive seen kids kick a ball around, and ive seen kids playing catch... but because often they only have a mini hedge going around it, theres nothing to stop balls going onto the road or even hitting nearby houses - so some of the stuff is legit and is rightfully banned...
Even back in the UK they often ban ball games at parks - instead we have playing fields with areas for sports.
For most part though i see these parks for parents to take their small kids, but also it's a community space -- again, the park near me uses it for mini events and even mini fireworks etc.
Haha -- oh dear... having a dishwasher would be very nice - that is something i miss... but a cloth dryer -- the fact that japan has good drying weather for most of the year, but also have cool tech like a heater for the bathroom that turns it into a drying room, or they have sunrooms that heat up and are used for drying - i think their way is very Eco...
What i hate are the washing machines - they are very outdated and i find they are not as good as the front loading ones --- these are much cheaper back home, but so expensive here.
(by the way - you can get conbi washer/dryer...which i have... as for dishwashers, they have surface top ones instead)
when i came to japan 7 years ago it used to be around 25/26 that they would turn it on... but after the great east japan earthquake and tsunami everyone was asked to do their bit to reduce the use of electricity -- so many places restricted use and wouldnt turn it on until it got hotter and they would have it set to 28... many still follow this.
Where i would we have it on 27 and i can work comfortably...
At home im currently just using drying mode -- this time of year it is the humidity that makes it feel hot...but reducing the water in the air it feels cooler - its also more Eco, but not all units have them.
I'm from the UK... we have central heating, which is a god send in the winter and i wish japan had it... but we dont have aircon etc in the UK (well...some may, but it's rare) - so for me aircon is a luxury :-)
Do you drive in japan???
The roads are clearly marked by the lines -- the thick white line on the road at the junction is a stop line...ones without means you have right of way -- stop signs are not always needed!!!
On major roads and junctions they have them... and on minor roads, where they can, they will have them...ive even seen them up in the mountains :-P
Regardless - most japanese people dont even pay attention -- i was on a cycle lane that was built because too many pedestrians were getting hit... there are signs everywhere - on posts and the floor, and arrows... we even have a raised area with planted trees to keep the sidewalk and cycle path separate -- BUT you still find people (mostly old people) deciding to walk on the cycle path. :-(
TV in japan sucks... they try to add a comical twist on everything, even certain documentary shows - the variety shows are pointless and mostly all the same... and if you want to watch a movie, expect many many many adverts...
my pet peeve is actually foreigners in japan - mostly those who complain too much and expect japan to change for them and kinda take the attitude that japan is wrong or stupid for not doing things their way :-(
a lot of my pet peeves ive learnt to accept or just become accustomed to...
I do hate people on bikes in japan, and the fact that people never look where they are going, the fact that no one seems to look before crossing a road, or that even your japanese friends still wont give you their honest opinion etc..
I literally died when you were like "that's the correct way to measure temperature". I come from the UK where the metric system is really all we know, and when I come across recipes that use cups I get so annoyed because it's not accurate at all in terms of density and volume
WHY IS THE SHOWER SEPARATED FROM THE TOILET? sometimes i need to make a quick jump from one place to aother especially if I'm on my period.
I guess it's so that more people could use the bathroom at once. Japan houses are really small and many family members share one bathroom combo so having separate showers and toilet allow like, two family members to use the bathroom at once. And I guess if you're on your period you can pee in the shower when you're in Japan? Just a suggestion haha
Wait, you think the issue a woman on her period could have in the shower is that she needs to pee? O.O
Treget Letterwood yeah man, I don't have to pee in the shower, but I need to make this lightning quick charge back and forth BEFORE ANYTHING DRIPS EVERYWHERE
Er yes? What I meant was, you pee in the shower, then you turn the shower on to shower yourself and wash the pee off. What else do you need to do? If anything drips you would have washed it off already with the shower isn't it?
Treget Letterwood period don't work that way
One of my struggles as a [quite blatant by appearance] non-Japanese in Japan is: trying to be courteous when approaching someone walking towards you on the sidewalk. I move over to make way, but so does the Japanese walking towards me (they assume I won't move out of the way because I'm a gaijin); I've even run head-on into people in tight walkways and at busy train stations. I wish there was a sign I could up that says "Though I am gaijin, I assure you I respect your mannerisms and do my best to embrace them." I have noticed that when I am with one of my few Japanese friends, this seems to happen much less often.
Which way do you break? I go left, and I don't find I often bump into people. In Canada, I would do the opposite.
Lol! So funny. I always wonder why Japan televisions have those reaction box too
Celsius FTW!
It's great to get the perspective of someone who is living in Japan. As a tourist, I think most of these we're nothing more than minor inconveniences (if at all) but I think having to deal with them on a permanent basis would get annoying.
One thing that did annoy me though is the amount of packaging! Okay, it's nice to have omiyage in pretty paper (and they are quick about it) but it gets a bit ridiculous with bags within bags. Or individually wrapped pieces of fruit... The country is great a recycling but it would be much better to reduce usage.
They really are minor inconveniences. I've actually gotten used to most of them. The one's that bug me more, I'm sure I'll make entire videos about them in the future :-)
I don't know if I could live without using a/c. Mine is on almost year round, I live in Florida. It's hot!
Lol where I live there are no ACs the only one I've ever seen was in the school IT suites 😂
Yeah, same here. I also live in Florida. It sucks in the Summer when it's hot.
One thing that really bothered me was how clean literally everything was UNTIL you go into the train station bathrooms. You could walk on a spotless street, through a liter-less train station, and finally reach the train station bathroom where people miss their aim on the squatting toilets. It makes you just turn around instantly and pee at your hotel instead.
I avoided the squat toilets but all the train station bathrooms i went to were spotless, especially compared to when I flew into toronto and the toilet was unflushed and made me want to vomit.
Doing laundry and having to hang it all to dry, sounds like a real problem if you have a whole familie's laundry to do. Especially since houses/apartments are so small. Where do you hang all those wet clothes to dry where they won't ruin floors etc.? Thanks for the video. I found it very interesting.
Kimberly Harting like bedding etc
That's why you do laundry frequently, almost every day. They hang outside on the balcony. If it's raining you can hang them in the shower room or over the genkan if your genkan is big enough.
Hi Greg! I found your pet peeves a little funny because some of those situations I am very used to here in Mexico. For example, Whenever you go to a gas station bathroom, there usually isn't any hand soap nor paper towels, we are definitely not used to dishwashers and some people do not even have washing machines or dryers, let alone heating and AC. I'm referring mostly to lower class families (which there's a lot). Now, we do have stop signs, but you need to be very careful because usually there's a driver who will not stop, hehe. There's also always some kind of truck or just people selling things passing in front the houses and shouting what they're selling. Anyway, don't think I'm trying to say that your pet peeves are not valid, just that I find them funny because of my personal lifestyle :P I Always enjoy watching your videos on both channels! Come and pay a visit to Mexico sometime in the future!
Your Japan sounds a lot like my Mexico, except we don't have AC, period (and or parks)
What part of Mexico? My family is from Sinaloa, and there are plenty of parks around
I meant like the ones he's describing
ThisIsNOTaProperName hmm. Guess it also just depends on where you are in any country. Most people here also have ac.
En el sur el AC es para ricos xD
ThisIsNOTaProperName ah bueno, eso entiendo. mas o menos tirnes razon. aqui no tienes que ser rico, pero no hay en los pueblos. es mas como la gente de "middle class" no son ricos, pero no son tan pobres
I think the only two things that really bothered me when I visited (back in 2011) were smoking in restaurants, and the trains/subways closing at midnight. That second one felt particularly surprising since they don't seem to mind doing the roadworks at night to avoid affecting traffic too much.
Yea those definitely bothered me too. When we went last summer we had to be so careful to not stay out too late, especially if we were really far from our hotel.
I was going to mention the train thing. I was surprised to, since there's so many people up at all hours, you'd think they'd run later. As I've learned, the solution is to stay at a 24-7 type of place, or some type of cheap hotel. Smoking in restaurants sucks!
smoking is the best thing being a smoker myself
yay celcius!!!!!
ps. sassy hahha
Hey now! lol
No, I totally agree that the US needs to transfer to the metric system and all that. It's really stupid to convert around all that when metric is SO easy. Though, to make life more difficult, we have the vet school at Ohio State. They always use metric, but when everyone graduates they go to places that don't use it. Our new vet is not liking this and I don't blame her!
Totally off topic, but I just have to say YAY for OSU! LOL!
one thing I noticed when I went to tokyo, was that some public toilets would have hand sanitizer in the toilet cubicles.
When I was living in Japan, one of my pet peeves was Japanese kids (and adults) pointing and shouting "Gaijinda!" or "Amerikajinda!" at every foreigner they saw. not all foreigners are from America, and not all foreigners are actually foreign... some grew up in Japan and identify as Japanese inspite of their foreign appearance. Parents don't teach their children any different either.
Another thing that annoyed me was no paper in the public bathrooms... yes I get the vast number of foot traffic through a public bathroom on any given day, but seriously other countries provide toilet paper and Japan processes and exports a huge amount of bathroom paper... why not provide it. Oh, on the topic of bathrooms... the treatment of the western bathroom stalls... the number of times I would enter a western stall and see poop all over the seat, the outside of the bowl or the toilet stopped up with brown water... GROSS! Squatters are the toilet stall of preference in Japan for me these days... much cleaner and more hygenic.
The general lack of disrespect for foreigners in most facilities (14 years ago now) and putting Japanese people in front of you in line because the clerk was afraid to speak in English and never checked to see if you spoke Japanese first... and then talked about you and spoke to co-workers with disdain of having to serve you until you began speaking in Japanese in front of them and further embarrassing the clerk for having understood what they were saying and receiving no apology for their behavior...
just a few of my personal pet peeves of Japan... although I love the country and culture so much.
I'm very exited to go to Japan soon, but it is one of those countries where I would not want to stay for good. I would feel lonely and depressed in a short time, because from what I heard it is super hard to make real friends there, even if you are japanese.
What annoys me a bit is that, as specially in clothing stores, the shop assistants practically jump at you and trying to help you as soon as you look at a piece for longer than 2 seconds. On one hand it's quite nice but since I'm more that kind of person that wants to shop quietly and when I have a question about a piece or want to buy something I look for someone, it is kind of exhausting to me. Plus I'm not a huge fan of going shopping.
You can use your registered hanko for day to day business as well. I also wouldn't say that central air is common in Hokkaido, to the point where I was told that it doesn't get hot enough in Hokkaido for many homes to have AC in the first place.
Yeah... Soap. I asked a parent and student group about hand washing after using the bathroom, and they all thought it was the strangest thing. Meanwhile, I was gagging that people in a developed country were culturally opposed to cleaning themselves, especially when Japanese culture itself is religiously concerned with the dirtiness of many bodily functions.
Good video.
Our oldest was almost 4 when we first moved to Okinawa and was quite upset when she learned that the truck playing music outside was collecting garbage rather than distributing ice cream!
Awesome parks and playgrounds are one of the things we miss the most about Okinawa....we've found very few in Yamaguchi Prefecture to compare. :(
Oh, that's too bad about the garbage truck :-(
I will sometimes go on the satellite view Google Maps to find parks to check out. I also run and bike around a lot, so that's another good way to running into parks.
We rely on word of mouth and chance encounters! It was easier in Okinawa because of the Okinawa Hai website (great info if you head that way for a visit).
Oh, and the garbage truck was actual pretty funny. We don't mind laughing at our kids sometime! :)
I was there in April this year (2016) and I actually really LOVED THE fact that there were no paper towels in the bathrooms. Much less waste! What most people do there instead is carry along a little hand towel (washcloth size) and they will dry their hands with that. It's much better for the environment :)
speaking of lines, when I was there we saw a looooong line of people outside of a Carl's Jr. The line was about a 1.5 hour wait we heard, which we thought was ridiculous buy people seemed really proud to be in line for so long.
The no central air drives me nuts too. I wish they would not make the stairs in houses so steep.
My pet peeves are the bathrooms and clothing sizes! The bathrooms and clothes are too small for me ahaha 😂
We have that ‘no ball games’ in the Uk as well, usually on greens surrounded by houses not in city parks, unless it’s a royal park in which case they bloody love their regulations
Living in Japan for almost three years now, too, I really did appreciate this video. It's more or less what I have experienced. While you mentioned stop signs, I am as much annoyed by traffic in general. And that includes everything from the pedestrian to busses or lorries. One of the major annoyances are people riding bikes while simultaneously using their phones. I wouldn't know how to do that, but they do exist and they can be a health hazard. The other things, well I guess you simply get used to it... eventually.
In America we have people using their phones while riding their bikes, except they're actually driving cars. Cyclists probably won't kill people at least.
Pet peeves about Japan for me would be: loudness of store clerks (irashaimaseeeeee!!!), small portions of food at restaurants, often cold inside japanese houses in the winter. In general the sound level in Japan is often very high, in shops and restaurant for example, this is quite tiring. All the workers yelling, music in all kinds of shops, including including.
When I visited Japan I was wondering the same thing about the hand soap in bathroom!!!
no soap??? not even soap bar??? what if you touched something disgusting???
In Canada, a lot of bathrooms in public malls give you options in using paper towels or air drying machine to dry hands, soap dispenser and hand sanitizer can be found in most public space.
the commentators on tv is the weirdest thing for me. wtf japan
ikr
ikr
Watch the first season and first episode of Americas Got Talent and then come back here. :/
People assuming that I don't speak Japanese because I'm white, anko masquerading as chocolate in snacks, people making such a big deal about "oh, no! doing XYZ will make you catch cold!", putting perfectly crisped up things in soup (I mean...what's the point in frying something to perfection if you're going to drown it in liquid and make it soggy)... and ditto to the lack of clothes driers (I wear mostly knits and knits feel nasty dried in the sun).
Having said all that, I think I prefer Japan over America. (most of my grievances are pretty trivial.)
I like it when they leave the tempura out of the soup, and then if you want, you can dip it yourself. But if it's been in the soup for a few minutes, yeah, it feels like what's the point.
I wouldn't mind not having a dishwasher. Dryer however is something that would take some getting used too.
I hear you. My friends family liked to line dry their clothes and they always smelled amazing; like fresh air xD
The Japanese do laundry almost every day so once you get used to it it may not be so bad. Though if it's raining outside it can take a couple days for clothes to dry hanging inside.
I tend to get annoyed a lot with sidewalk traffic. 1. I witness people use their cell phone when walking or biking, meaning that they aren't looking up and may collide with you. 2. There doesn't seem to be a standard "lane" system on sidewalks, so often times I tango with a person coming at me because neither knows what side they are supposed to be on. 3. Cyclists (I myself am one of them), don't alert people nearly enough when they are approaching from behind. Most bikes seem to have a bell, but are rarely used. I assume this is because of the reserved culture not wanting to draw attention, but being alerted of a bikes presence behind you is better than being snuck up on.
The hand soap thing is so real!! I found myself so put off by that while visiting especially because I'm already very paranoid about having clean hands. I was constantly worried about going to the bathroom because I didn't want to be forced to walk with dirty hands till I could find soap again.
The only thing I was inconvenienced by when I visited for a week was you mainly get your change back in coins. I had trouble in the beginning knowing which coins to use and I didn't want to inconvenience people behind me. I ended up having the tiny pocket purse full of coins. I ended up using them and knowing which ones to use by the end of the week but it was a bit annoying.
I visited Japan for 12 days and my biggest pet peeve is everyone's lack of self awareness. they were so engrossed in their phones that they would constantly bump into you or stop in the middle of heavy foot traffic for the bullet train or subway. I ran full body into so many people and they would be so mad and yell at me and I'd say sorry in Japanese. it wouldn't be my fault either cause we are all moving as one and then BAM they stop and smack into them
Wow that sounds really annoying, as a person who doesn't use his phone while walking I do get those sometimes which really really pisses me off that I want to curse
I was in Japan for two weeks and I rarely bumped into people. Strange experience you had there.
NSX-R it was very weird. I'm use to that in Canada. But hey, I learned sorry in Japanese really fast...
You ought to see Thailand
That perspective is interesting. Because I've found the opposite, where Japanese people are more self-aware of their actions than in Canada. Of course, when you're in a busy place with thousands of people crammed into a small space, accidents tend to happen and courtesy can not be as great. I also wonder what places you visited. For example, on my commute video, it was quite crammed, but I felt that everyone kind of knew their place and what they were doing, so it worked out way better than I can imagine a similar thing in Canada would. But yesterday, my wife and I were travelling around to some more touristy places, and we could notice a change in how people acted. Some may have been busy taking photos, some may get lost, and of course there were probably some non-Japanese people who wouldn't know the expected behaviour that would be common sense to Japanese people living in that area.
Oh lord... the inability for any fast food restaurant to provide you with extra anything! I even offered to pay 500 yen (!!!) for extra pickles on my McGrossBurger and was denied. I was dumbfounded, but also chuckled at the quirkiness that is my wife's home country. :)
The lack of rubbish bins on the streets and how overly packaged everything is (it's so much waste :/ )
Just got back to California after a week in Osaka. One of the confounding things to me is the abundance of packaging, wrappers, bags and other containers, coupled with the distinct lack of trashcans.
the lack of trashcans is a biggggggggggg one of mine. especially when you are going out as a family and taking care of your kids! having to hold on to trash all the way home is a pain!
I totally forgot about that one. It would have made the list. If I'm out with the fam, I usually carry a backpack and I put the trash in there.
Maybe they don't have trash cans because because they would have to have 4 of them for every single type of waste?
+rockshot100 from what I've heard it partially has to do with garbage cans used in terrorist attacks such as the sarin gas attack
chrispkreme
No, SERIOUSLY?
Lol this guy is just sooo Canadian, I can't stop smiling. Channel intrigued me, subscribed!
they don't have 2 in 1 washing machines there? like a washing machine that also has a dryer built in
CookieCrumbzz it's actually a pressure dryer, so clothes aren't dried using fired heat like Western dryers. Clothes will still come out moist and need to be hung out a little.
You are right - that IS the real way to do the temperature! Greetings from Croatia! I love your videos!
The official Hanko is pretty unique.
Think about it - your signature can look pretty different over the years or at odd times and it can also be forged because it's not always the same. A stamp that stays always the same is pretty unique and can't be forged that easily if you compare it under the microscope.
I think a unique stamp per person is a good idea, but that's just my 2 cents. ;)
Your signature actually is supposed to stay the same. That's practically the whole purpose of it- something that uniquely identifies things as yours. Not something unreliable that changes. The problem is, people don't practice.
crazy808ish
Good point.
I guess this cannot be resolved here, because these practices (signature, stamps/Hanko) have been in use for hundreds of years, maybe even thousands. And yet, there has never been any kind of fruitful study on the subject.
I think, that the Hanko would be more consistent and remains unchanged over the years, even without any practice.
But that's just my two cents. ;)
You bring up a good point, but man did your "thats just my two cents ;)" irk me. pls stop (;~; )
However, even though a hanko is unique, I'm more concerned about the pain that comes from losing it.
Hi Greg! My name is Teresa, from Madrid, Spain. First, I love your channel! Past year we discovered you and your daughter during the preps of our wedding and honey moon to Japan, and you helped us so much to understand that society!
In line with your video, something that amazed us is how clean all the cities (including Tokio) are, with no trash cans almost. Also, smoking is prohibited at the street! 😱
Thanks for your videos, I love to watch you comparing american/canadian way of life with japanese.
Congrats!
The stop signs in Canada are called Octagonal. The people commenting on topics they know nothing about are called politicians.
I watched a documentary on JHK tv that stated that 90 percent percent of Japanese prefer to drop their laundry off at a laundromat and have someone at the shop wash and dry their clothes. You don't need to have a washer or dryer in your residence if you always have a laundry service do the job.
Nearly everything you mentioned, are things that make Japan more appealing. XD I hate having to sing my name, so I'm excited to get my hanko! I personally always prefer carrying cash, because it gives me a physical representation of how much money I have. I did that when I was younger, to make sure I always knew how much I had, and therefore I was able to limit myself. Prevents me from rising to temptations, and making sure I don't ever overspend. So, that habit stuck, and I've been thankful for it. Most of this, just seems like things that I'll adjust to fairly easily. I have a pet peeve list that would stretch from here to Pluto, on living in the US. XD
I totally agree with the lack of stop signs!! It's annoying when you're walking, riding your bicycle, and especially when you are driving. Nobody knows when to stop or when to go and it always ends up in confusion and frustration.
Ahhhh!!!!! 😤😤😫😫
Lack of trash cans. Enough said
I was waiting for him to say that.
The lack of trash cans is actually due to the 1995 Sarin Gas Attack on the Tokyo Metro. They thought that trash cans are easy places to conceal dangerous items/weapons such as poison gas.
When US presidents visited Japan, they actually sealed up the trash cans.
Regarding the lack of paper towels and hand dryers in bathrooms, it is common for people to carry around their own towel or handkerchief.
As an American, I've enjoyed these videos. My impression is that everything is teeny weeny. Little kitchens, little bathrooms, little bedrooms, little toys, little food, tiny cars. A bit too claustrophobic for me. lol
Thanks for the great video! :)
1. Hanko (need two stamps - special one and regular one for mail)
2. Cash only society
3. No soap in bathrooms (some don’t have paper towels or hand dryers)
4. Many lines
5. Loud speakers on videos (ice cream trucks, gas trucks)
6. No-fun parks (signs about not playing ball sports)
7. Dishwashers and clothes dryers are not standard
8. No central air in most places (Hokkaido has central air)
9. Lack of stop signs
10. Variety TV
Oh I love these pet peeves Greg, I think I'm moving to Japan sooner or later.
Thank you for sharing your pet peeves with us. It's good to know not only the good sides but also the small(and big) 'annoying' things in order to make a good decision. It's interesting to me to hear about the differences between Japan and my country, like the lack of a dishwasher or dryer, and according to the comment section ovens. I don't think it would be too annoying or a deal breaker for me, but very good to be aware of it. So thank you very much!
The dryer part is probably the biggest pet peeve (to me at least). It takes forever for clothes to dry just by hanging them lol
As a British person, I totally related to the line up situation .. We also don't have air conditioning! The rest of these seem a bit strange to me. I love seeing different cultures!!
Sweet potato truck?! *gets excited *
I'm in the Philippines, we don't use dishwashers also. We have a dryer and washing machine but we only do our laundry once a week and even though we put the clothes in the dryer we still air dry them, they smell good when you air dry them versus when you just put them in the dryer then fold them up. We also use our aircon once or twice a month. Electricity is expensive you know.
My biggest pet peeve: all the porn!!!! like even in a 711!! I couldn't believe it lol
And I guess a funny pet peeve is the drunk culture. like seeing businessmen in Armani suits passed out on the sidewalk is so funny lol
What's really bad is when you see a geezer "reading" it on a train or subway and there are kids nearby. Dude, save that for the office, hah hah.
Well it's 112°F outside where I'm at right now, so yeah I tend to use central air a lot. (I keep it 80° in my flat)
My biggest pet peeve in Japan is that you can't talk and drink and eat on the public transportation! In the u.s no one gives a fuck if u drink/ talk/ eat on the bus or subway.
I saw a lot of talking on the train and actually some were drinking alcohol (and we joined them) That was one that surprised me actually. I heard that you can do that but I saw people doing it all over.
I enjoyed the video, Greg. But as random as it is, in this one I couldn't stop thinking "Wow Shin looks so much like him" In Spanish, specially in Venezuela (Where I'm from) we would say "Shin es la fotocopia de su padre" which literally translates into "Shin is the photocopy of his father", in English sounds weird, but I must stress that we say it innocently :) Regards to you, Aiko and Shin!
I can't really recall the last time I actually needed cash 😂 even most vending machines take cards now. I'm always so thrown off when I need cash for something
Just got back from japan and I swear the soap bit really drove me nuts and same without the dryers or napkins. I found myself constantly confused on what to do.
Ha! I had to laugh at the queues peeve. I'm English, it's like a national past time!
Victoria Robertson haha 😂, though I'm Scottish I completely agree with you
Alex Taylor there's nothing wrong with our pastime that was around way before communism better than a crush with people cutting in any day
I like how you called them queues, it sounds so much better than lines. You guys really speak English the right way 😂 I have no idea why we stopped talking that way in the America’s.
English also have herd mentality? :O
Canada loves their line-ups too, at least in Ontario.
Missed an opportunity to put Aiko in the corner reacting to you...
This is a very informative video! It's good to see the pros and cons of Japan so that I can get an objective view of it before I eventually visit. Keep up the great vids!
You put the aircon on when it gets to 27 degrees? Jesus, we wait until at least 30+ in Sydney. If we turned it on that early I think our power grid would collapse.
Mitchell Starrenburg cuz of the humidity. We're dying here in summer😂😂
My number 1: pet peeve in Japan is their lack of trash bins in public places. It's actually very surprising to me because Japan is very clean, I wonder how Japanese people dispose their little rubbish, take out fast food, etc.
2nd: is that public toilets for people with disability were not as clean as the toilets for normal people. Toilet bowls were always nasty & smelly. Especially the ones located on train stations.
3rd: is, trains specifically in Osaka were too noisy and pretty smelly too. People in Osaka were a bit too loud compared to Tokyo people.
4th: is, food were always served in large amount and there's no lesser option for it. It's actually a good thing if you're an oogui and have a big appetite. But for a small person like me, it is too much & I always feel bad seeing a big amount of food go to waste because...
5th: There's no take out option. You also do not see people sharing food. I mean, if I share with friends, we would definitely get attention for it.
But overall, Japan is still a lovely and interesting place. Honest vlogs like this should be the ones people try to see & not just focus on how godly Japan is being portrayed in other nation.
5th: I mean, leftover take out...
THOSE EFFING ANNOUNCER VANS I HATE THEM SO MUCH
i like the way you send messages across - simple, easy to understand, clear and non-offensive (meaning with consideration of viewers' feelings). ur very professional and I quite enjoy watching :) thank u.
Thanks!
It's more of a language quirk, but often when I'm talking with my Japanese coworkers they'll often tell me "Yes" or some equivalent affirmative after I've asked them a question. But, what they mean is "Yes I've heard your question". Even though I am aware of the nuance, I still find myself assuming they answered my question when they haven't yet.
Or like I'll ask them for a solution to a problem or their opinion on something, and all they'll say is "Sou da ne."
I live in the US and own a private home.......we only use our heating and cooling as the temps warrant. The preference is to open the windows to let the fresh air in.
Not enough waste/ waste sorting bins on the streets. Haha.
Agreed. So many stores but nowhere to dispose of trash, keeps me hesitant from buying meals to-go (well, that and the complete lack of public sitting areas).
Soo true! I think I once carried a set of pet bottles and my lunchbox for a whole afternoon before finding a single trash can. Gosh that's so annoying...yet the city remains so clean, so props on them for carrying their stuff to their homes or konbinis to drop them.
That's why you keep the plastic bags from the conbini and use them for the trash you have to carry around.
As for PET bottles almost every vending machine has a can for them. Though a few times they were full so I had to carry my bottle for a few blocks until I found one.
THe thing about the cash is also the same in Germany: You can ALWAYS pay with cash and there are many places especially smaller restaurants or stores that won´t accept plastic money.