After being in Japan for a month (visiting Tsukuba, Tokyo, Sendai, Kyoto, Nagoya, and Hiroshima), I noticed a few things that I really liked in Japan. I definitely don’t have any deep understanding of Japanese culture, so these are just things that stood out to me. I’m sure that I would have a different list if I stayed longer :).
Come around beautiful Nagoya Castle with me and hear about some nice things in Japan 🙂
#japnvlog #nagoya #nagoyacastle
hey everyone I’ve been in Japan for a month now this is my first trip to Japan I don’t know the language I want to emphasize I do not have a deep understanding of Japan by any means so I just kind of want to say uh just based on this one month being in six cities uh Tokyo tukuba sandai Kyoto ngoya and Hiroshima kind of a list of the 10 things that I liked most about Japan or noticed and right now we are by ngoya Castle this dates back to 1612 this is a nice park uh tourist attraction in ngoya and so I want to just uh start off with this list so I have this uh some notes on my phone to read so these aren’t in any particular order and I guess yeah this well this is actually definitely one of the top ones um the convenience stores which are wonderful and I mean this was even worth making its own YouTube short short because they’re great uh they’re open 24 hours you can get all kinds of thing from things from them they’re everywhere um you can get meals uh can get weird magazines to read I mean there’s there’s if you’re bored at 2 a.m. I mean it’s it’s absolutely perfect um using cash so the second Point has to do with cash and I know one of the things you know I’m living in Poland right now and some of this is going to be like contrast to Poland or some other places I’ve traveled or you know when I used to live in the United States and so one of the problems I found say in Poland is if you want to use cash somewhere and you have like a bill that it’s doesn’t even have to be that big of a bill but nobody really wants to make change for you so it’s almost like these um larger bills are almost useless and in Japan nobody cares like you want to pay for some little thing with some giant thing and you need a bunch of change well usually they’ll put it in this like machine that counts it and it just like spits out some exact amount and you know these are at the convenience stores and everywhere and it just works really really well it’s just it’s kind of amazing um so the third point and this is also in like strong contrast to Poland is that the trains are almost always on time and I say almost always because I actually did run into one case where there was an hour and 40 minute delay and I think it had to do with like the train hitting someone or something like that which is you know very unfortunate but otherwise it’s like you could um almost time the atomic clock to the trains I mean it’s it’s really crazy so like I did something here that I never never never would have done in Poland so or you know a lot of other countries as well like Germany’s pretty bad with us too and um so I was getting all going all the way from Sendai to Kyoto to give a talk and I wanted to spend an extra day in Sendai cuz I’m like I I don’t know what’s in this city I’m just kind of curious um so I had like you know four days in Sendai and it was kind of a complicated thing because I had to go from suai to Tokyo and if the train wasn’t on time I would miss the next train that connects to Kyoto but no problem it’s Japan right and then I get to Kyoto with just enough time to make it to my math talk I was speaking at the dynamical system seminar at Kyoto University and like I said in a lot of other places there I would never ever ever consider this cuz you know you can have like these 4our longer delays sometimes say in Poland that’s really not that uncommon you know I’m told that this uh delay that I had it was I think it was on the way from um Kyoto to ngoya I’m just like losing track of you know all the things I’ve done uh that was considered quite rare and let’s take another look at the castle yeah look at that bad boy over there it dates back to 1612 and apparently there there’s something uh there’s a plround here I I’ll read it in a second I guess there’s some sort of like knives or spears or something that like separate the the two of these uh to prevent from Invaders from coming and it looks like there’s a moat I don’t know what they put in the moat like any sort of alligators or I don’t know whatever they put but it’s not full now maybe they drained it because of the weather yeah wall of swords the quarter connecting the main castle tower and the minor Castle tow is mounted with a line of spearheads to Thor Intruders and they’re in Japanese so yeah that’s pretty cool so let’s go to the next Point trains are on time oh yeah the general feel of got lots of people taking pictures cuz you know this is this touristic sort of area so we got to dodge and not get in there too much um so yeah what was was I saying the the next Point um oh yeah yeah so the general feel of this place like and I’m not exaggerating any like it absolutely feels sometimes when you’re walking around like you’re either in some Super Nintendo game or some anime or something like that and especially with all the like weird cuty Kawaii sort of things around and everything it’s like uh yeah it’s it’s it’s something else um and you even you even see like you know all this like Street Fighter 2 stuff around and like it says welcome to Japan and there’s like Mario there and everything so it’s a yeah it’s a it’s kind of nice I like that actually at least a short term um oh yeah and this is something maybe particular for me I know I’m a very nocturnal I have a lot of energy at night and you know zero in the morning and there’s stuff open 24 hours like even some big stores and this used to be the case like pre-co in the United States you know there’d be like 24-hour Walmart 24-hour Kroger whatever sort of grocery store um but I think they do it on a whole another level in Japan yeah also in Ukraine there was a lot of stuff like this too but like a lot of Europe it closes so early and it sucks like I hate that you know I’m I’m I I’d liked I remember I loved grocery shopping at 3:00 a.m. or 4:00 a.m. back in Columbus Ohio you know that that’s that’s that’s my thing so it’s these convenience stores in particular so if you want to go and I know read some weird manga or some weird hentai or something at 7eleven 11 like I’m not joking you know you you you go do this um at 2: or 3:00 a.m. and it’s no problem um and the bathrooms so this is also another thing like actually I would say is maybe one of my major gripes about a lot of places in Europe so there are a lot of these I would call them pay to pee countries you want to go to the bathroom you got to throw down money and I mean to me it’s kind of insulting maybe this is just me being an American but um not only like do you have this they’re also just really hard to reach or find you know maybe after some hour you’re not going to find any bathrooms at all Japan no worries you know it’s not uh Japan is definitely not a pee in the bushes sort of country so you can find bathrooms everywhere and even like the the toilets they can they’re they’re they’re crazy like they they make sound sometimes to like you know if you don’t want to be heard or they um warm they’re warm toilet seats or they have like a shower in it and everything and it’s it’s yeah it’s something magical I mean it’s I’ve heard about this before but actually seeing it myself was was pretty amazing um the other thing is uh involving water so this is another thing I okay it’s it’s good about the United States it’s uh really bad about Europe is that um you know you uh you can get water wherever you want pretty much there water fountains you go to the restaurant you want some water you get it totally free no problem you know I remember in Poland you know once taking my M it’s like right after I moved to Poland I was living in Warsaw and and I went to dinner with my mom and the water I got cost almost as much as the actual meal and I think it cost more than if you were to get something like a beer or something like this so um you know I’m someone I like to drink a lot of water you know why is this so much of a problem so Japan does that very very well so next point it’s cheap so this is something that actually really really surprised me because Japan has this reputation that it’s like super expensive and like there’s nothing you can do and um I don’t know some of these places I hear that are like supposed to be really expensive like I go there and it turns out it’s not that bad like uh Singapore was like this too like I ended up uh going to Singapore and it was uh I didn’t really spend that much money it wasn’t so bad so great um I don’t want to say everything in Japan is cheap I’ll get to that and like the negative side of it but like a food especially it’s really really not that bad maybe some this is just my luck because I was you know here um as a math professor speaking at different universities and going around and had a little assistant so like I was staying at these uh you know guest rooms for the University and I was paying like $19 a night even like these big cities of more than a million um but even then if you don’t want to do that let’s say you don’t have that connection you know there’s still these capsule hotels and they’re actually at least the one I went to was pretty comfortable when it was in Hiroshima and that’s that’s not going to be that much money that’s totally fine um and yeah it’s a restaurants are fairly cheap so it’s not so bad like I think you’ll um when I was in Finland for example it was so much more expensive like that was one of my biggest downsides like in Finland is just uh there was no way to avoid just paying like a bunch of money I’m sure it’s even worse if you go to like Norway or something uh so next good thing oh yeah yeah and this is something actually it’s really important to me so I remember my first real trip like outside of the US and Canada was to uh to Austria let’s let’s let’s let’s just take a little pause in a minute and just see where we are cuz I think we’re re-entering the castle area that’s another building right there so there isn’t I don’t think there’s really like that much stuff here but it’s really just kind of a a nice walk so yeah so the next uh thing what was I talking about is yeah keeping its own identity so I was you know Austria was like to me I was almost 30 years old I’d never been out of the US and Canada and it was you know I’d never seen like a tram before for example you know it was all like based on public transportation and that was something new and exotic to me but I was a bit disappointed because like their music for example was like largely the same as the music in the United States and like they did have their own identity but like a lot of it is very United States influenced and I was actually really happy when I went to India it’s like 5 years ago I was was there I think I went to India and I saw a lot of stuff like they were playing music that was very clearly not from the US uh they had like a whole bunch of stuff that really was their own unique identity and that was great and Japan as well I mean there there is like a specific American influence but I don’t think it’s uh yeah I don’t know it’s it’s its own unique thing here and I think that that’s really really nice um and the last thing you know last but not least there’s no particular order on this has to do to just with the beauty of the country so you have um beautiful nature you have some beautiful like old buildings and stuff I mean you know I like the the architecture on this is pretty cool the nature like some of the stuff I saw in Kyoto was just incredible and also like they just really keep it clean so like for example I have not seen any graffiti anywhere you know some other places um you see tons of graffiti and like you might be mistaken to think that like I actually like this stuff because when I’m exploring like abandoned buildings I’ll point out one that has a lot of you know clearly a lot of work went into but generally speaking I think it’s so that’s a problem you see in some places I this is really bad in Argentina when I was in Buenos Ari so just everything was like bagged up and you know was all this like crappy low effort stuff but it’s still like you’re defacing someone else’s thing um it’s not I don’t think it’s a good thing for the most part unless it’s like some you know some really cool complex of abandoned buildings Japan does doesn’t have that Japan is like super super clean and I think that’s a good thing so we are back around at ngoya Castle and I think I’m going to just end it there those are that’s my list after being here a month so I’ll post the bad list as well you know there are some downsides for sure and I’ll just say you know usual like comment subscribe share all this helps the algorithm and I am am going back tomorrow night to Warsaw so I’m out