my unfiltered thoughts after visiting Japan

my unfiltered thoughts after visiting Japan

Japan. Um, I got so many thoughts. So, so much I want to share. For context, um, first you should know, hi, I’m Camden. Uh, if this is your first time watching an unfiltered video of mine, um, this is what you’re going to get. It’s going to be my raw unfiltered thoughts. Um, somebody who moves to a new country every single month, normally doing travel tips, but this is just like the reflection piece, the like meaningful side of travel. So, I’m going to try to have some sort of structure kind of like three parts. The first I think is ideas of like the expectations of Japan and and what the realities were. Second part I’m going to just touch on some of the things that I found to be the most beautiful and just best parts about the culture. Um and part three is going to be some of the things I kind of worry about for the future. Um so we’re going to kind of unpack a lot and I’ll add chapters so hopefully it’s easy to jump around. But, um, if you have the time and and you want to engage in the comments, it’s always one of my favorite parts of this series is just engaging with with you guys and bouncing ideas around. So, I’m looking forward to that. Uh, I spent time between Tokyo and Kyoto. So, everything is going to be framed from that perspective, which I think is I think those are the two destinations that your average tourist is going to interact with in Japan. So, have that context. But talking about like the expectations and kind of reality, I’ve always found that Japan for some reason is just one of those places that I’m like, I don’t know. I’ve been called to. There’s been like two places where I’m like, I think when I travel to this place, I’m just going to love it. I don’t know why. It’s just a feeling. Maybe you have that too with with other destinations. Um the other place for me was Amsterdam and sure enough it is my favorite place ever. Japan was the other and again it was a place that I that expectation matched and I’ll I’ll dive deeper into that but one of the first things where like expectation kind of didn’t meet reality. I don’t know. I I I I felt misled online. I think you get a perception of what you think a place is going to be like based on, you know, what you see from pictures and other, you know, social media videos and just all kinds of different things, movies. And so much of it is on on track. Like one of the other things is when I think Tokyo, what I thought was it’s going to be hectic. It’s going to be crazy. It’s going to be just an overload of information, right? It’s going to be chaos. And that was true. But something that’s so hard to capture in a photo or video even is is how that chaos is met with restraint, which those two words don’t really go hand inand, right? The culture is so unique in the sense that yes, there is an overload of information, big bright lights in in certain spots, and so much energy and just it’s it’s overwhelming in so many positive and negative ways depending how you look at it, but there’s a restraint element that’s just hard to describe. I don’t know if it’s the culture of like having so much respect for the people around you and how that again just changes the feel of a place, but I’m somebody who I I typically am not your nightlife person. Um I just I’m past the part of life of partying and loud noises and just, you know, tons of people. Not that I can’t appreciate, but it’s not what I seek out. so different walking through one of these cities where you have that overload but at the same time you’re like wait the things that I dislike in my home country which is the US um and many other parts of the world about those nightlife scenes didn’t seem to exist in the same way cuz like there was that restraint which I don’t know I I think it ties back to the culture and there’s something that is just so unique and pleasant about that so it didn’t meet reality because I was prepared to say, “Hey, I got to go experience this. Um, but I’m probably not going to like some of it.” And and I was surprised with how comfortable I was with that. So, I hope that makes sense. Chaos but with restraint. Fascinating, right? Two things that did kind of totally align with with what I expected. You always hear about Japan just being incredibly clean. Holy cow. like it it totally meets that expectation. If anything, it maybe like blows it out of the water, like you just don’t know exactly how clean. And one of the things that was just so fascinating, which I didn’t recognize ahead of time, trash cans just not really a thing. uh they exist obviously, but in terms of like the culture and not making not making your consumption somebody else’s problem, like there are actual signs uh that you could see like in the tips video that are like, “Hey, let’s carry our trash home.” And you see that with the locals, like people aren’t, you know, putting trash in trash cans because you’re just not going to come across them. You’re going to bring stuff home instead. And I think I’m still kind of just like in awe and and digesting what that means and and what that does for a culture. And I don’t know, it’s just fascinating. But the cleanliness like totally met standards. And then the other is the transit. You hear so much about the public transit and I mean again expectations met. If if you’re going to a city like Tokyo and you’re not engaging with the public transit, you’re probably just doing something wrong. Not probably, you are doing something wrong. Like it’s an incredible thing to experience. At the same time, I think my perception going in was, hey, it’s not just Tokyo, it’s the whole country. And that was true, but I will say there was definitely a shift and less public transit available in Kyoto or just it was connected in a different way that was completely different than a spot like Tokyo. Not necessarily a good or bad thing, just extremely different that I didn’t feel like expectations totally met reality in the Kyoto side. But let’s dive into this a little bit and kind of move into the second part, the the culture. Cuz I think all of this kind of boils back down into to one main point for me. I think it’s the relationship to space. How you engage with the space and it’s it’s so unique in the sense that Tokyo, we’ll start here, is just it’s a vertical city, right? Uh you’ve likely never been to a city that is so extreme with yes the city stretches wide like I mean it’s just forever big but it goes up so high and and when you start exploring a building and you see how much is packed into a single building and how that changes how you interact with the space and the lifestyle. It’s it’s fascinating. And also when you’re walking through like a residential area, same things. It’s all built up. So when you’re walking through these areas, it’s it’s just so densely packed, so densely populated that you just pick up on so much more because there’s so much more going on. And part of like the safety culture, which gosh, it’s just incredibly safe. It’s just a magical piece of the culture having that vertical element mashed with the safety and how the transit can get you everywhere and how you engage with those spaces even at night. You’ll often hear me in my videos say, “Hey, I always recommend taking night walks if it’s safe in a place.” And in a place like Tokyo and just Japan in general, I mean, incredibly safe. And I can’t even describe how magical and how different they are because the sounds you hear, the the smells you smell, the things you see, there’s just so much happening on top of you. So much regular real life. Normally when you’re in a city like, I don’t know, coming from the US, you know, I’ve lived in Chicago for a time. I’ve lived in LA. um spent, you know, plenty of time in in New York. A lot of the places that are built like up are not as residential. They’re more business uh oriented. And that is true to a certain degree in in Tokyo, especially in certain pockets, but also the residential aspect goes up in a way that just is is different. So the amount that you can consume, the amount that you get to learn and just the things you experience on on a walk is just fascinating. But then you go to a place like Kyoto and you say, “Wait, how does the space here impact how I engage with things?” And it’s kind of funny. the places that are most densely populated in Kyoto from like a just sheer number of people is kind of the touristy area that totally just oh it’s it was overrated in in my opinion but that also meant that hey you the public transit god I am just all over the place I told you it was going to be unfiltered the public transit is so different in a place like Kyoto that again it just changes how you engage with the space so where the tourists kind of hang out, much less, you know, of a local presence there. Uh the transit doesn’t get you out to the residential areas unless you want to take the bus, which is just different. And yes, you know, the the the metros or trains do get you out there, but there’s just not as many stop points, um connection points as a, you know, as in a place like Tokyo. So, in those places, it’s just like dead silent. It’s so peaceful, again, so magical. And if you do go and walk at the right hours, again, you just you hear so much because it’s such a quiet place. It’s almost like you can hear the conversations going on at the dinner table with each little house that you pass. And there’s I don’t know, there’s just something so magical and peaceful about that. And I’ve just never been to a place that is so extreme, so impacted depending on how the space has been constructed and how much that just changes how you engage with it. Does that make sense? I hope that resonates at least a little bit. And if if you’ve had the opportunity to go to Japan and you can describe it better than I just did, uh please please do. But there’s something so special with that. But let’s jump to like the second point in the culture element that was so special. And this is something that, you know, again, I kind of expected, but I didn’t fully comprehend. And this is something that I think from an American perspective is something that is just like whoa. And that is just like the dedication to craft. the the the dedication is saying, “Hey, I’m not trying to necessarily optimize for output in terms of like quantity. I’m I’m optimizing for quality.” And I recognize that there were probably hopefully it was a point in time in in my home country where that was true. It just doesn’t feel like that’s where we’re at. Um in most of Western society, it seems like we are in a fast consumption model, right? Like you think about, let’s just use fashion for an example, like a place like Sheen, right? Like all these websites where you can order so much and it’s like not intended to be utilized long. Uh an Amazon like shoot. I mean, you can get anything at your doorstep in a couple of hours and you can send it back if you don’t want it. It’s just like everything is just quick quick. the dedication and amount of thought and effort and just like passion that you see people putting into whatever they’re doing in in Japan is something that I expected but just didn’t understand how much of an impact it would have. Um it’s something that really makes you just just think and and appreciate. And we’ll kind of get to the worry part in a in a second, but like a couple examples. I’m a coffee nerd. I I have the privilege of living this weird lifestyle where I’m constantly going to new countries and and I’m trying some of the best coffee all over the world and I’m fortunate to be drinking coffee from people who care about what they’re doing. High quality baristas everywhere. Japan is just different. The amount of detail and focus when pouring a cup of coffee was just something like I had never seen before. Normally, you know, a well-trained barista, they know what they’re doing, right? So, you can still engage. You’re talking up the barista, right? You’ve probably had a similar experience even if it’s not at that like highest level. You engage with the people. And it almost felt like that you shouldn’t talk to the person because you could just tell like you could see it in their eyes. Like the focus on pouring that cup of coffee was just so unlike anything else. Like it seemed like if it wasn’t perfect, there was no point in doing it. And I recognized that that’s not necessarily always like a healthy mentality to go into things with, but at the same time like it it was refreshing and it was like, wow. You know, it makes you think about everything that that you do, right? Even something like this video. Like I’m sitting here thinking, oh gosh, for this to be like the best unfiltered, like should I script all of this out? Should I be really intentional about the topics? And and I I try to be, but also I’m trying to be real. um you know like I I don’t script it right I have like vague points that I want to hit but this really is like that raw like unfiltered you know stuff but I’m constantly thinking about how would I output how much care and attention to detail am I putting into it and and what is that balance what are the tradeoffs um is it for somebody else is it for me and and and that’s something that you like I was constantly thinking about when watching these baristas uh you know just artists really pour a cup of coffee. Are are they doing that for me or are they doing that for them? And does it matter? Like, should that matter? And and do I want them doing it for me or do I want them doing it for them? And it’s just coffee, right? Like, I don’t know. It’s just fascinating to to think about. And it was everything like that. Even something like cleaning. Everywhere in the world, you’re going to see those people who are like the backbones of society who are just doing the things that most of us don’t want to do. Sweeping up the streets, right? Clearing tables, cleaning the things that just are not fun. And even seeing those people, when I got to Japan initially, I I was in Tokyo and, you know, the body’s all screwed up, can’t sleep. So, I’m I’m taking walks at weird hours. when you start to see those people who are kind of cleaning the the streets and I’ve just again never seen a a group of people like an entire culture that is just so dedicated to it, right? It wasn’t just, hey, take this trash and put it here or, you know, sweep this. It was like the the amount of detail, the the how they were using the broom and like really like choking up on it for like maximum control and like really inspecting like am I getting everything clean here? And we’re not talking about like inside cleaning. We’re talking about like the streets, right? There is something about the culture in Japan that is just it’s just special. There’s that dedication, that that focus, that emphasis on whatever you’re going to do, do it well and have passion and care about how you do something. And again, I can see the downsides of that, but I can also see the beauty in that. And I can see how rare that that is in this world. Um, because again, in having the privilege to jump to all these different countries, I’ve never seen it like this. Um, and I want to jump into the the third category, which is like my concern. And this context. I’m going to try not to make this like a history lesson. I’m one of those weird people that like I love looking at statistics and just learning about cultures and what makes a society tick and and function in the way it does and highlevel stuff or broad level whatever I’m trying to say. Japan has a a challenge that they’re going through and they’ve known about this for a while. They have a population decline uh issue. Um a lot of their population is aging. They’re getting to a point where they have a lot of people who are exiting the workforce. It’s putting a lot of strain on the the the younger folks in the workforce. They recognize that as a society, they’re going to get to a point where there’s just not going to be the same population that they’ve historically had. And that that can really a society. And and we see that all around the world in different ways. What’s unique to Japan about this is that in Japan historically, not a ton of of immigration compared to other places, um it’s part of what’s seems to have allowed them to maintain this like beautiful part of their culture is they’ve kept everything inhouse, right? like everybody subscribes to that same group think and and it’s worked. But in recognizing that, hey, you’ve got to make up for that population decline, inevitably, you know, if you can’t get your society to have more kids, you have to start letting other people in. And we’re we’re on the cusp of of seeing that. Um, and again, this is not something that’s happening just this year that you can go back and like look at this for for decades. But my worry is recognizing that for the first time in, you know, ever, Japan is having to rely on foreigners to come in. And a lot of these are are people from the US and people who are coming from places with stronger currencies and view Japan as, you know, this ideal place. You know, it’s it’s safe. It’s a peaceful place to live, high quality of life. You know, somebody like me as an American, like my dollar stretches far there. I have advantages going and and settling down there. I worry about what happens to their culture. I’ve I’ve seen what happens to other cultures around the world when locals start getting pushed out of certain areas and just the challenges of what change inevitably brings. And change is not necessarily a bad thing. um it’s a necessary part of life. But I also recognize that for that population, for a place that seems to be so cohesive in in like the mentality and and what they value, there’s going to be a there’s potential for a big shift that has the potential to really just change that mindset and change that culture. and so much of what all of us as outsiders view as so special in Japan. So I worry about what that looks like. I worry about my role in that, right? You know, I I recognize that like in me going and making my travel tip videos in an effort to make sure that people who are going and traveling can get the most out of their experience. I recognize that like I’m projecting my values into that space and if I have any sort of impact and influence um that’s a scary thing to recognize because I want to be respectful of that culture and I recognize that when it’s happening on this broad scale and all happening so quickly things have the potential to get out of hand in a way that you don’t necessarily want them to. So, I’m not saying that that’s going to happen, but it is a real worry for me. And I I could tell when I was there, you could tell that you’re in that weird period. You could tell that there’s a lot more English being spoken. Um, people used to say or or the perception going was that, hey, you’re going to be put way outside of your comfort zone. Nobody’s going to look like me. Everybody’s going to be, you know, Japanese. That was not my experience. Um, there are a lot of people who look like me there. There are a lot of people from the UK and parts of Europe and parts, you know, of of the world who see the value in Japan and and when you have that mix of culture, which again is a great thing, there’s just inevitably going to be change. And so I I I I worry what that change will bring, how it will change the elements of Japan that we all seem to really love and and value. I’m just curious to see what that’s like. So if you’ve had the opportunity to go to Japan, I’m curious what years you visited um and what things felt like then uh as this video becomes older uh and you travel. I I I hope that people update me and I’ll certainly make updated videos as I continue to travel cuz gosh, I I will absolutely be back. Plan to spend a couple months there um at some point here in the next year or two. Um and also for locals, I’d love to know if I’m on base at all with this. I could be completely off. I’m I’m curious and I and I hope that the pain points that I see potentially on the horizon for you and and and see you already dealing with uh to to some degree. I’m hoping that I’m off base, but I recognize that I have a skewed perspective, especially in only getting to spend, you know, a month in a place. Um I just can’t grasp all of it and, you know, nobody could, right? Um so I’m I’m just I’m curious to learn from you guys. Anyways, I guess my point is I I just hope that there is a balance to be found where we can help Japan and and not just Japan, but any country that goes through these shifts. I want to limit the amount of damage and and and pain that locals experience while still making outsiders feel welcome and and maintaining the things that that we all love about a culture. the the respect, the peacefulness, the safety aspects. Like these are all things that I don’t care where you’re from. If you’re human, you value being safe. You value being respected. Um, and you value that that beauty and and can appreciate when something is is done well. So, I just hope that I and and we and everybody can play some role in in in making that all possible. But anyways, if if you want more videos like this, feel free to subscribe um on my journey. I’m about four years into moving to a new country every single month, which is crazy. Uh constantly putting out new content. Um if you want to watch my actual like Tokyo tips video, you can watch that right here. Kyoto one will be right here. Um, I’m looking forward to engaging with all of you in the comment section. Um, it’s one of my favorite parts is is getting to do this series. I appreciate you guys watching such a jumbled mess of a video. Uh, but I hope it all makes sense. And uh, yeah, Japan, thank you. Um, it’s

These are my unfiltered thoughts after taking a trip Japan. If you enjoy these types of travel topics & want a weekly travel tip from me, feel free to join my newsletter — https://bit.ly/TheTuesdayTravelTip ☕️

Chapters:
0:00 – context
1:25 – expectations vs reality
6:28 – how the cultural impacts you
16:50 – my worry

DISCLAIMER: I only express my opinion based on my experience. Your experience may be different. Links above may include affiliate commission or referrals. I’m part of an affiliate network and I receive compensation from partnering websites. This video is accurate as of the posting date but may not be accurate in the future.