Sendai, Japan: Home Of Wild Shopping! 🇯🇵

Next stop on my math tour of Japan is Sendai! This city of more than a million people is in Miyagi Prefecture and the Tohoku region of Japan. I had a math talk to give at Tohoku University and had some time to explore this interesting city. Tower giant statues, a rat market, and some very confusing stores made for a wonderful experience :). What else can Sendai offer? 😉

#sendai #miyagi #japan

hey everyone I am in the main Tokyo train station right now and I am on my way to Sendai it’s city north of Tokyo it’s like a million people I’ve never heard of it so I’m very curious what’s going to be there and I’m there to give a math talk at tohoku University and probably work with some guy who’s a logician over there and I’m very curious to see what’ll happen and I’m waiting on the bullet train which should leave in a few minutes I think everyone here is just kind of waiting in line as my best guest and I think they’re cleaning inside so this should take me really really really fast to theity I think like an hour and a half which is just like crazy by my standards there something so orderly about the way people are standing in line here waiting for the train in Japan you know in Poland everyone just kind of circles around and pushes their way in made it on time to Sendai this is in Miyagi prefecture which reminds me of Mr Miyagi from Karate Kid wax on wax off wax on wax and I need to find my way to the university I think there’s uh some way down here to get there so hey me with Professor Akama here Yoji Akama so we’re going to the the guest house so we made it to the university successfully uh [Music] need to get to dinner so just a very quickly here’s the room I’ll go over it a bit more later when I get a chance we’re going to a student cafeteria I get to pick a one side dish I don’t think I really what most of these are going with some yogurt thing and then we’re going to get a main meal this is Chinese style yogurt what’s it called it’s onion onion okay A little Jello like almost yeah dinner was good oh I don’t know what that was a pork or beef or whatever hit the spot I needed some protein probably I should know which it was but you know oh well um I’m really kind of tired from not just the trip here but running around Tokyo the past several days and I think I just need to kind of rest tonight go to the grocery store and just catch up on some work so my Talk’s going to be tomorrow and there’s going to be some like people in Reverse mathematics around and some other stuff and I’ll get to meet and talk to some people at the department and I don’t think I’m going to really get to explore the city until like the weekend and good afternoon I’m in a little bit of a rush now I need to get to the university keep working with my contact over there on some stuff we’re discussing and give my talk so this kind of area I don’t know exactly what the name of it is but apparently this is typical architecture for suai where we have this passage with a covered top and the downtown area so I’m staying not too far from there and I have a few things I need to do before I get to the university so the main thing is um credit cards aren’t as widely accepted here as they are in some other places so I cash is King and I need to exchange some dollars for Yen because the university guest house I’m staying at is not accepting any credit cards so I need to give them cash and there’s a bit of a problem where they they aren’t uh they’re like oh the internet is down it’s not going to be back up for a few days and then the shower wasn’t working and then eventually they got that fixed at leas so I don’t know what’s going to happen with all this but I’m going to go exchange the money and I want to walk around a little bit and then we’re going to go to the university I exchanged my Yen and it’s I think it’s only like about 11,000 Yen four nights at this uh University guest house I’m staying in and I had to go to this big bank that Google Maps didn’t even have the right location for and it was super confusing everything was like super serious in there and I um no one spoke English so I had to Google Translate around which made it harder of course and apparently I had to go to some floor and there was some machine I put in all this information and then I got my currency so um I got have to start heading towards the university now it’s like me to get distracted by crazy stuff on the way to work so we have the rat Market giggles and um they’re absolutely not joking when they say this it looks like shady as hell I think it’s a closed down I wonder what happened here to get it closed like maybe cuz yeah this disgusting thing right here Giggles good toy thinking would you buy your kid that sort of toy and they really really beat the point home here like uh there’s another like just sketchy ass rat um I think this could be a good place to try to get a thumbnail because this is so shady like should this be like on the on the right like maybe I’ll stand over here like like rat Market Giggles let’s see if we can even find anything back here cuz it I mean this is probably where they actually uh have the rats that this is named after I did I guess that’s plague you get from the rats I guess not re I don’t know whatever diseases you can can get from these really need to be careful I guess this is the clamp that they put the rats in to make the toys I don’t know what what is this back here what’s going on in Sendai this is a secret place I discovered maybe here it could be some rats over here I don’t know I want to investigate but I really need to go and pay the faculty guest residents and uh get to the university so I can give my talk and do some math so I really need to head out now it’s just like me to run into all the fun stuff when I have to actually be somewhere we have a birdman noodle like yakatori there’s a is Method Man and red man there also and on the other side we have a NPC 24-hour parking I think uh many of you know who the what the internet meme is there and of course course naturally we have a Brazilian jiu-jitsu place right right nearby carpedm Brazilian jiu-jitsu so this is uh probably one of the coolest streets in Senai I mean maybe I’ll have to come back here later my worri is that everything will be closed though I really don’t have time for this there’s a tears of skull I mean that probably and yeah next to the uh cigarettes uh vending machine so um I really need to like Rush quick this place is just going to try to make me look bad to tohoku University by not being there fast enough you go to this office as much as I joke around about these things delaying me I still know how to be places on time and to be early oh my God so I was supposed to pay there you know they told me they don’t take cards so I exchanged my dollars for Yen and then they tell me oh by the way you have to go somewhere like way across town to actually pay which I completely don’t have time for and then they’re just delaying me and delaying me which is is so frustrating so like this place is horrible like the um internet’s down is 2024 they they don’t have working internet it was almost impossible to get hot water in the shower and then they’re delaying me when I have to go and do you know my math talk and all that stuff so I’m uh pretty kind of angry now about this so I’m in an actual rush to get there on time it seems like it should be possible though if I don’t make any mistakes so how often you hit this interval corresponds to how often you see the block one Zer so this is basically just the idea behind this theorem that’s all it is is that you count how many times you hit an interval that corresponds to how many times you see a block my talk is over and it actually went well despite the stress and getting there and I just kind of took a nap and just out just kind of saying what’s going on now it was actually a little tiring and stressful just dealing with all that it turns out it actually was unnecessary because my host here it turned out he actually already paid for the room and rather than me dealing with paying them I was just supposed to like give him back the money or something so it doesn’t uh always go so well and so smoothly you know when you’re actually on these sorts of trips but it was you know just a little miscommunication so I’m just kind of found an area with some lights and just kind of walking around here at the moment and I think tomorrow I’m going to actually finally just go and explore Sendai some because you know all I’ve really done so far is see this creepy rat Market or whatever that was so I think I’m just going to go back and relax and like this is like some nightlife area I think it might actually be good to just explore this a little more thoroughly tomorrow if I’m in the mood to do it [Music] I decided to get up a little early today to go to the world’s ninth tallest statue so this is the Cai dyon and it was the world’s tallest statue when it was built in 1991 and actually I decided to do an entire video so I would take you around a bit more but wait for the next video and you’ll actually get to see all the crazy stuff inside it it’s actually really really really interesting it almost looks like the Death Star from Star Wars in like the part where you know Vader threw Palpatine down that just goes on forever has these this sort of staircase locals uh seem to be a little bit embarrassed or scared of this and it kind of makes sense because uh you know imagine you live in like a neighborhood over there then like every morning you wake up to this like giant statue so it kind of makes sense and so this would definitely be one of the first things I would say to visit in suai but I’m going to go back and probably eat and rest cuz it was actually just exhausting going through this it was getting late and I was hungry so I had to look for a place that was open to eat and here we needed to choose something from when what looks like a vending machine and put in some sort of money and I got I’m not entirely sure what this is I got I had to kind of bend over cuz there’s nowhere to sit and they’re playing Brandy and Monica Boy Is Mine and Usher so I didn’t want to get hit with the copyright but it was it was decent I’m like I said I’m not entirely sure what it was it what it was some sort of like beef and buckwheat noodles and um the only thing I didn’t like and I noticed a lot around here with the food is that there’s a lot more fat times and there is actual lean meat and protein and you know as a uh you know gym goer I’m just kind of used to the lean protein more and really uh gained taste for it so at this point um I want to go and just see this nightlife street again because there’s a lot of really interesting looking stuff there and I want to just you know it’s Saturday night I won’t have a Time chance to do this tomorrow night so let’s go check that area out oh my God this is amazing check this out so we have a store over here named sperm and oh three star sperm okay that’s good uh then we have some clothes up there and I wonder what would a place called sperm be so I looked at the Instagram account and if we go to sperm Sendai it’s like a clothing stained clothing I guess so who would possibly be the owner of such a store I assume is probably Monica Lewinsky I did not have sexual relations with that woman overall there’s of course less to do here than in Tokyo but my high standards of English are starting to be satisfied so we have drug penguin for the nice tomorrow I’m not sure what they’re implying by that maybe nothing think let’s move on hey this is a district called Cookoo and this is kind of like a nightlife maybe little red light district I’m not entirely sure a lot of stuff isn’t totally clear for sure there’s just like a lot of bars you can just go to as normal but this is a escort Cafe it says so I don’t know so we’ll take a a little walk around here just kind of get the vibe for it you know I’m not really like so much in the mood to drink right now you know I think I’m just going to kind of save my energy to go to explore tomorrow and maybe go to to the gym but I just kind of like just the lights and everything sometimes so but I was here just walking around a little bit last night and called a few friends and like I got propositioned like I think it was three times actually so some guy would come up to me he’s like oh what are you looking for I’m like oh nothing just taking a walk and he’s like oh and then keeps pushing it then eventually he’s like oh do you want sex and I’m like I’m I’m just taking a walk and eventually they go away one guy just very directly started asking from the beginning so I mean maybe it’s just that you know I’m clearly foreign I’m not sure if that’s uh what it is it’s advertisement for some Club there’s Mari there’s Asuka and I don’t know exactly what arena I have no idea what this is like in terms of like is this like a strip club some ma thing something else I mean it’s uh a little mysterious and they’re just actually like advertising the specific names on that just thing like in big lights there so it’s it’s kind of just interesting to just see how uh I guess different this is than just walking around a normal nightlife area in um you know back in the US or in Poland and there’s still a little bit of street food so like you can get food pretty late here um go in the side streets there’s still a lot of restaurants like they’re cooking something here I don’t even know what’s in those uh like wood baskets or something I don’t know what that is but apparently like this goes pretty well until late at night I don’t want to go to bed all that late so I think it’s time to go back to the university guest house so it’s time to say good night to cuncho and I’m going to be out for now well after being here for a few days I decided I’m finally going to explore the center of the city and I’m in one of these areas right here has the it’s outside but it has this uh interesting top to it and there’s elevator music playing in the background and I think there just could be a lot of fun exploring the city just little nooks and crannies cuz like I found this right here so the this this to start is a pretty promising you know that looks like a pretty cool event but it gets even better when we go to the side cuz we got uh we got this dude here well check it out he’s got a his tongue sticking out I don’t know what what that guy’s up to we got Ken [Music] haduken we got a I think we all know what that symbol means and it’s all brought to you by the CIA they trying to imitate the whole uh in sync no strings attached uh love yourself I wonder which one is Justin Timberlake here which one’s Lance [Music] Bass oh I made it back to sperm and it’s actually open so for I guess around 4,000 Yen I’m getting this uh lovely sperm shirt to wear around so we go thank you got cards yes yes sperm sperm under Sendai Instagram amazing name I will wear this [Laughter] shirt I have a feeling that they knew what the name of their store meant you know you’re never really sure um so I don’t know when I’m going to wear this maybe in Kyoto but I think generally I’m feeling a lot better today I slept past noon I was a little bit Moody yesterday uh but I needed to rest I got my sperm shirt and let’s continue to explore more oh my God look at that monster crab so I think Cai is more about Giants and monsters than kauwaii stuff so because it’s in Japan I think cute Kawaii bill has to come [Music] back well this is Kawaii this Kawaii this is this uh what’s this nio bus my neighbor tooro I’m forgetting the the names of this but uh yeah I think that’s a depiction of the nio bus so well we can turn off cute Kawaii bill for the moment but if I see some sort of Monster again has to come back [Music] Yoo Taco Ball we’re very slowly making our way to suai station and I want to show you guys something that was actually pointed out by my contact Professor aama here so this is another um mathematically themed Hair Shop there’s another one in posan I don’t think I put it in my videos yet there’s shinsky uh Salon or something where you can get like a fractal like a shinsky triangle on your head and uh this is prove hair so whatever sort of I don’t know if they’re a proof by induction proof by contradiction or what A transfinite induction I guess I have to yeah go in and ask for the trans finite induction haircut that would be pretty cool told that today is some special holiday I think it’s called hom Mator or some doll day it’s March 3rd so that’s why he has some Market here it’s selling a bunch of sweet things like this was here actually right when I arrived in saai I was just in a bit of a rush to get to the university so I didn’t have any chance to to check it out uh strawberries yeah so here I take one this one yeah so 5 okay so five and moments so what what is this uh called name the name of this strawberries ichu chuku ich okay thank you thank you I’ll try it thank you this was 560 Yen for two of these strawberry snacks and I don’t know how well you can see there there’s something else in here other than just the strawberries and I haven’t had any strawberries in a while they’re quite expensive here so I want to see how the snack will be this is like this some bread dough and the strawberry is sweet it’s something kind of like medium sweet in here it’s very unusual and unique I wish I could take some of this back home it’ll spoil by then but there’s still some of the powder it’s pretty good but I can’t really compare this to anything that I’ve had well I think that’s about enough for now I got to save some energy for my trip to Kyoto tomorrow I got to get up pretty early for that so I’m going to head over to this cat cafe and this place looks like it’s going to be pretty amazing so check this out like it’s a no cat no life I mean probably a lot of my viewers would disagree with that but I can uh understand where they’re coming from so let’s go inside I walked in here I have this little Eerie feeling of being watched nope couple little wild animals are watching me right now now hey oh this one’s friendly you has such a fluffy [Music] tailow oh I know that’s a trap my cat the human calculator likes belly rubs but most don’t so I’m going to show you can trust me and I’m not going to rub your belly [Music] hey you can join in the fun too oh this one’s getting protect her possessive of me hey are you following me [Music] [Music] [Music] hey what are you doing these slippers we’re wearing are way too small and very uncomfortable to walk in okay this is it for the night I’m back in the tohoku University guest house and I actually checked the price it’s 2,900 Yen per night which is 77 polish Lotti or only $19.32 so I I really shouldn’t complain that much um I want to show one little peculiarity is that you have to put your shoes in one of these boxes right here and take one of these slippers so I got to take this out put in the box and the slippers I don’t like and I’ll say why in a minute I’ll also show the room as I kind of finish the video so we got to close this and these slippers to me are not comfortable because like the back of my foot is like falling out of it so it’s it’s not nice I think people’s feet here are probably smaller than mine how do I look with the new shirt on so I’ll just show every one the room that you know is for just $19 a night in a city of a million people in Japan and you got a TV I mean there’s nothing really that glamorous um bed it’s okay no magical toilet but just uh I fig everyone would want to see uh kind of hard to get the water to be warm in the shower but it eventually works and boring toilets so anyways tomorrow quite early in the morning I need to go to Tokyo sorry go to Kyoto Tokyo first and then to Kyoto cuz I need to take two different bullet trains and I am really really really not a morning person so I’m going to actually just I usually take my shower in the morning I’m going to go take it now and try to sleep and you know maybe I can sleep in the train so yeah just kind of final thoughts about Cai there really is a lot of stuff that we didn’t see so I know there’s like a castle and there’s a bunch of stuff in nature and all this and um you know I’d be happy to come back here I don’t know winter if I will but definitely see the castle and a bunch of stuff around the city itself I mean it it seems lackluster compared to Tokyo but you know when you start looking in these little areas like I found it to actually be a little bit more interesting than Tokyo so you know you had the giggles rat Market you had the sperm shop you had there were several there other things too I’m even just not remembering it so it’s actually kind of almost comparable to keev Ukraine like I Tokyo kind of disappointed in that sense but here you could kind of find some crazy stuff if you look a little bit more so anyways I have to go to the University of Kyoto this time it’ll be a dynamical system seminar and so I’m going to sign out I have no idea how long the video is already so you know uh like comment subscribe and all that and I’m going to try to get a little bit of sleep at least