Things that still shock me about Japan

Two months ago I moved from Australia to Osaka, Japan to live with my Japanese husband K.
It has been the most amazing couple of months, meeting beautiful people, trying new foods, and adapting to a new culture and language.
But after two months, there are still many things that I haven’t gotten used to yet, and things that puzzle me about my new life.
So I’ve put together a list of things from my everyday life that still shock me about Japan.
It’s only been a short amount of time, but I hope you can either relate or find this list of things entertaining!

I’d love to hear your insights in the comments, and whether you’ve had any similar experiences, either in Japan, or experiencing culture shock somewhere else!

Chapters:
0:00 – Intro
0:20 – Snack 1
1:10 – Thing 1
3:22 – Snack 2
3:32 – Thing 2
5:22 – Snack 3
5:53 – Thing 3
6:32 – Thing 4
7:20 – Snack 4
7:70 – Thing 5
8:43 – Snack 5
9:19 – Snack 6
10:22 – Thing 6
11:05 – Snack 7
11:39 – Thing 7
12:05 – Dessert
13:01 – Thing 8
14:07 – What are your thoughts?
14:24 – What you can expect from my channel + outtakes

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Join me on Instagram: @itssunnyinjapan

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So I’ve been living in Japan for 2 months now and I wanted to talk about the things that still shock me about living here so I’ve gone to the convenience store and I’ve got some food some of these things I have had before some of them I haven’t and I thought I’d

Eat these while I talk about the things that still surprise me about living in Japan let’s get started all right I’m going to start with this Oni it’s called chiman s sardines with Japanese pepper I have had this before and I absolutely love it but I haven’t had it in a long

Time it’s those little chitty man sardines with this Japanese pepper called Sano and oh my God it’s delicious these ones don’t have any seaweed on the outside they’re just rice but the rice sticks together look at this it doesn’t go anywhere so tasty they’re marinated little dried sardines with that Japanese

Pepper which has got this really unique kick to it if you do come to Japan I highly recommend trying anything with s Shaw it’s very different to regular black pepper or like a Chinese type of red pepper very unique with specific things it goes really really well and

These little sardines are one of these things okay the first thing that shocks me has got to be just the convenience of everything convenience stores are probably every foreigners favorite thing which is fair enough because they are genuinely amazing to have a single place where you can withdraw cash send a

Parcel printting copy and you can buy snacks and whole meals for a single person at an affordable price is really the stuff of dreams but that’s only the tip of the iceberg it feels like this whole country is designed to maximize convenience like for example you’ll have

Those little packets of gums and they will have little pieces of paper for when you want to throw away the gum for easy disposal how incredibly efficient and punctual public transport is the fact that I can just tap my phone at the ticket gates at the entrance of a train

Station and there’s absolutely no delay so that everyone can just fly through during peak hour you have no bot neck effect you’ve got vending machines with cold and hot drinks as well as public toilets pretty much on every corner the mandarins don’t have Pips in them and

When you go to a supermarket to select one it has a sweetness scale on each of the different varieties of mandarins so you can choose how sweet you want your Mandarin to be it’s just oh and the fact that you can literally reheat the uro from the living dining area you don’t

Have to go all the way into the bathroom to reheat it you can literally press a button in the kitchen and then it’ll let you know when their water has been reheated so you don’t have to go into the bathroom to check so convenient another thing this is a keep

Cup this is a keep mug I should say and it’s called cat tongue because in Japanese neita or cat tongue refers to somebody that burns their tongue really easily with hot food or hot drinks like me so this mug has been designed so that instead of keeping the drinks at that

Boiling hot temperature just keep cup allegedly lowers the temperature to that Threshold at which people with a cat tongue can handle the hot beverage without burning themselves and it keeps it at that temperature for over an hour obviously I don’t have a thermometer I can’t check but after less than 15

Minutes the liquid in the cup reaches a temperature that is not too hot for me and then it’ll keep it at that which is really nice this is called KOA it’s just a little bit of a more bitter stronger Japanese green tea and this is from the

Warmed section so it’s a warm drink now I love love love starting my day with the green tea number two has got to be the cleanliness of everything and this goes beyond just having like cleaning stuff this is like the fact that you can go to a public restroom the toilets will

Be clean the fact that you can walk down the street and there’s no rubbish anywhere despite the fact that there’s no rubbish bins anywhere I know in a previous video I had some footage of a public restroom and I got a lot of comments about how dirty it was and

People apologizing for that which I just really blew my mind the reason that I was filming was because I had just arrived in Japan and I was just celebrating the fact that you could have a public bathroom at a train station that was that clean like it feels like

The standard for cleanliness is much higher there’s just something very relaxing about how clean public spaces are in Japan you know things like no graffiti on the walls or very little graffiti I don’t think I’ve seen any graffiti since I’ve moved to Japan yet which is pretty insane to be honest

There’s no rubbish on the streets no cigarette butts left in the gutters I genuinely have have no idea how such an amazing culture came about is it something that’s taught in schools like I do understand that there’s a culture of cleaning up after yourselves and cleaning school property so is that

Where that’s derived from or is it just one small aspect of a greater cultural value I don’t know it’s really amazing I I have so much respect for it and I think I speak to many other foreigners when I say when you come and you see that amount of respect for public spaces

It also makes you want to respect the space is more guy that was sitting here he saw some leftover rubbish that somebody else left over there and he picked it up on his way home unfortunately I I imagine the longer I stay here the more it’ll become the norm

And I’ll stop noticing it which is kind of sad to think about but at the moment I’m seeing it everywhere and I’m appreciating it every day so next up is this thing called so it’s dried squid in little sticks like noodles so I guess dried squid noodles would be an accurate way

To describe it these are normally Aiden with alcohol I understand that’s just good this will go super well with mayo like a spicy mayo M yeah so good the next thing has got to be the attention to detail one of the things that is talked about a lot but

Some specific ones that blow my mind on a regular basis have got it to be the manhole covers in Osaka are covered in art displaying local attractions so for example the ones in central Oraka will have the Osaka Castle design on them the ones in the north of Osaka will have

Manhole covers with the Tower of the sun because of the Expo commemorative park in that area the fact that every dish has an allocated Place Chopsticks have an allocated place and although they’re not set in stone it is a form of table etiquette that is often followed in

Restaurants and at home let’s go these soy beans salt flavor um another thing that shocks me every time I leave the house has got to be how narrow some of the streets are and how good drivers are you’ll have cars navigating around each other going down these streets that

Really have no business being two-way streets it stresses me out watching this happen but when I look at the driver’s faces whatever like they’re used to it you know which is very impressive also everyone’s really good at riding bikes like the way that they can navigate around each other without running into

Anyone without making eye contact is while I’m there like wobbling on my bike trying to follow K around while he’s like zooming through these super narrow spaces I never thought I was bad at bike riding like I thought it was pretty average but once I came here I realized

Turns out I don’t know how to write a bik at all anyway this is what they look like they’re just little soybeans that have been roasted with salt oh my God this is so good this is the Cal brand Cal never misses we got such a nice

Crunch while we’re on the topic of streets though why do some streets have open gutters and not the closed ones what’s the logic behind that apart from the traffic coming from the main roads it always shocks me how quiet the streets are and I absolutely love it

Because I get overs stimulated by noises very easily so it’s something I really really appreciate it occurred to me just a couple of some days ago when I heard children’s voices coming from a nearby playground that even among all these apartment complexes you very rarely hear people’s voices walking down the street

I don’t think I’ve seen anyone chatting on the balcony or throwing a house party like I understand that you know when you’re in public spaces or when you’re on the train not to use a loud voice I understand the logic behind that it’s very respectable to the people around

You but I guess my question is when is it okay to be loud are there any situations in which it’s okay to use a big voice apart from children obviously so is it okay to sing in the shower is it okay to throw a barbecue in the

Summer on your balcony or in your backyard in what kind of situations is it appropriate to be allowed anyway this is the big KATU big KATU tat sauce flavor I think I’ve had this before but I can’t recall so I think it’s essentially just supposed to be like Min version of C it

Smells so good Oh my God correction I don’t think I’ve ever had this before it tastes exactly like the deep fried pork cuts of slices this just blowing my mind it’s a very intense flavor you know as Cuts is but it tastes exactly like it how did they do that that’s

Wild I’m super nervous about this one sweet dried plumbs the first time when I came to Japan I had raw fish for the first time I did upset my stomach but that was over 10 years ago and since then I haven’t really had any issues with Japanese food I love love love

Trying new things I love having nut for breakfast and I do find that a lot of the unfamiliar flavors do grow on me the more times I eat something that I’m not used to the more I get used to it pickled plums though haven’t grown on

Me yet I do try and eat them as often as I can because they so good for you but at this point I’m not a huge fan of pickle Plum I think it’s that the flavor I’m not really used to it reminds me of like a like a medicine I used to have

When I was a kid but let’s do it anyway that’s what I look like I’ll give that a two out of 10 but question serious question semi- serious question why do we say that the traffic light is blue when it is in fact green like I understand that the word for green midi

Was invented after the word blue Al was invented and that in the past Al was used to refer to things that were also green including trees however traffic lights were invented after the word for green was therefore this leaves me really confused as to where this concept

Originated from and I have asked my Japanese husband k and he was like yeah good point so every time we’re at a traffic light and somebody goes are I’m just like what so this is one of my favorite things this is called um and this is the m flavor so these are super

Super light I believe they’re a kid snack which is why they’re 12 yen but they’re so tasty I love these so Much inside it’s like a hollow puffed corn stick and the flavor is only on the outside it’s so tasty there’s like I think about 10 different flavors most convenient stores will have like five that you can buy but then you’ve got the less common ones which you can buy like

Donkey hot or something like that but this is my favorite flavor another thing that I feel like is not talked about enough is how freaking hot it is on the trains like it’s winter right now in Japan and you jump on the trains with these big puffy jackets on and inside

The train it’s a bloody saer and I’ve got my mask on and I’m sweating my hair is started frizzing up and I look over at Kate and he’s absolutely fine I don’t know if anybody else feels it I feel like I’m going crazy it makes me nervous

For like summer I really hope they turn the moment to dial down during summer because and lucky last we have this creme brulee so a friend recommended I try this I haven’t had this before and I’m very excited to try it it looks really good this one cost 338 Yen so

This was the most expensive item that I bought the oh Brule yum oh it’s got instructions Well I’ve cracked it so oh yeah that’s so good very creamy though this is definitely not for people that have lactose intolerance so I’ll just have a little bit more I don’t know if I’m eating this right though anyway finally has got to be Lions so back in

Australia if I ever saw a lion I would avoid like the plague people are not really willing to line up for things whereas here it kind of feels like when you see a line outside of a restaurant or event it makes you think oh it must

Be good and this is something I’m still getting used to because they’re very daunting some of them can be extremely long so I guess my question is how long is too long how long is it appropriate to wait in line for something how long would you wait for a ramen restaurant

How long would you wait for an event are these the same but I think it is important to note that the speed at which lines move in Japan is much much faster than any other country I’ve been to one time when we were lining up for an Autumn Illumination in Kyoto I think

It was the longest line I’ve ever seen in my life apart from like Disneyland people had started lining up before the event had opened but once it did open the line was moving incredibly quickly because of the efficiency of the staff organizing the event they look much more

Daunting than they are in Japan which I acknowledge like how do you determine what is an appropriate amount of time to wait in line if you have any insights to any of these things that I’ve been talking about today go crazy in the comments I’m genuinely so curious about

These things they’re so interesting the more I know about these culture and the rules and the social expectations the less likely I am to embarrass myself so it’s very helpful thanks so much for watching my video that’s been my list of things that still shock me about Japan after living here

For for 2 months it’s just 2 months what do I know if you’re still watching you’re an absolute champ and if you liked it please do hit that like button leave a comment about your thoughts and if you have any insights things I should know things I should try at the

Convenience stores and consider subscribing if you like this kind of content I make videos about what it’s like to move to Japan and all the experiences and Impressions that I have about this amazing country so see you in the next video bye to you happy birthday dear