Live from Kyoto, Japan

Live from Kyoto, Japan

going live. Hey friends, I’m Steve and I’m Angela and we are Mid Life Cruising. Welcome, welcome. We will only give a really quick moment for everyone to log in. We’re so glad you’ve decided to join us. We’re coming to you live from Kyoto, Japan. Please let us know, can you hear us and can you see us? Anyone in the comments, just let us know. so we can make sure before we get going. All good sound and sight. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Foggy. Oh, it’s foggy. Wait, Steve’s going to clean the lens and see if that’s it. Did that help any? It’s really early. We haven’t been sleeping. Maybe it’s better to be a little foggy. Oh, better. Oh, very nice. I probably had a finger smudge on there. Probably had a finger smudge on there. Thank you. Thank you so much. So, if you can tell us from where you’re watching. And what time is it? Because it is Monday the 18th here in Kyoto, Japan. We are a day ahead. Um, and it’s 8:00 a.m. So, trying to figure out the time to let everybody know was a little crazy. I’m like, “Okay.” And, uh, as you know, we have a daughter who lives in Denver, and I now message her, I love you, good night, at 12:30 in the afternoon every day. I have a little alarm on my phone. Um, because I’ve just something I’ve always done since she’s left the house is make sure I at least touch base and tell her I love her every day. So, now at 12:30 in the afternoon, every day, I have a little alarm go off. I’m like, “Oh, I have to say good night and love you to Stephanie.” So, I thought that was a lunch reminder. Well, you are usually at lunch during that time. So, a lot of people, if you want to scroll, you’re on your side. Uh, tell us. Uh, we just like doing the where are you from when we are letting people in. Our uh 30-day winner is from Vegas. Oh, yeah. That’s right. Northern Nevada. Brit Winchester. Oh, hey Winchester, Kentucky in the house. And by the way, KFC’s even here all over Japan. Oh, Mexico, the Yucatan. I love it. Flaggler Beach, Florida in the house. Oregon, New Jersey, Tennessee, BC. We were just in BC a couple months ago and it’s gorgeous. Hawaii, Cape Cod, Wisconsin, Louisville, Louisville, South Africa. Oh, you’re going so fast. Uh, let’s see where we were. There’s Big Island. Got to keep up. Keep up. California, Arizona, California, Oregon, Louisiana. Oh, 400 p.m. 7:02 p.m. It’s crazy to think we’re waking up and people are getting ready to go to bed. I saw South Africa there at 1:00 a.m. Oh, well, what are you doing up this late, Tony? Go to bed. Oh, goodness. Uh, Indiana, it’s my home state. Um, and if you are watching us on the replay, if you’ll type in replay. Now, that’s nobody now because you’re all here live, but if you’re watching us on the replay, type replay so we have an idea how many people watch after the fact. So, we’re going to go ahead and get started. And but but first here, Shauna, thanks for reminding us. Would you mind giving us the big thumbs up? What would we do without you guys? What would we do? Thank you, Shauna. Give us a thumbs up. Apparently, it helps the algorithm. Um, we’re going to take questions. You can ask us anything about anything about living on the cruise ship, Japan, whatever. We have a list that we’re going to go through, but if you have a question. Um, and if you do have questions, try to just do one at a time because if there’s several at once, it kind of blows our mind. So, uh, one at a time. Um, first we’re going to talk about the people. What do you want to tell them about the people of Japan? Especially if you’ve never been here before. It’s not something you can until you’re here, you can’t really feel it. the politeness, uh the like super respect, uh just so kind and welcoming and warming and um everything’s incredibly orderly and clean. Uh there’s no trash cans to be found anywhere. So, you have to like put your trash in your own bag. Um we we heard yesterday from our tour guide. He said uh we said, “Why haven’t we seen any dirty cars in Japan?” and we’ve been here what maybe a week now and uh he said the Japanese their favorite hobby is cleaning and I believe it and you can’t even find a trash can. So I come back at the end of the day and have trash all in my purse. Um they’re just very clean and you know can you imagine being in a pack like standing at Disney or somewhere and everybody’s no one’s bumping into you or trying to pass you like I have to check myself like slow down be kind. It’s trying it’s making me trying to, you know, be kinder. Um, and quiet, quiet, quiet. We could be on a train or in a crowded room. We were in IKEA and the food court with 100 people. And I’m like, I feel like I feel like we should be whispering. So, I guess uh Americans have the uh reputation of being loud. And I see why because it’s so quiet. Everything’s quiet. You can walk down any street and go, “Are there people here?” It’s very, very interesting. Very unique culture and amazing all things positive. Very positive. I haven’t seen one other observation I think real quick is I haven’t seen any like old beater cars, no none like no real old in need of repair cars. They just don’t have it. where I think here cars are much more affordable. Although I haven’t been to a car lot, I would bet they’re very affordable and uh small, too. Well, they take care of everything so well. We’ve been in um a lot of taxis or Ubers and they’re just pristine. And I know Rick, cuz we’re here with our good friend Cindy and Rick. Um he can tell if a car is, you know, if it’s a 10 year or 15y old model, but it still looks so new because they take such good care of them. Amazing. I just saw a David man check in. Hey friend, I hope you’re enjoying the cruise. David man in the house. Claudia and I are here on the ship. Uh, yay. Um, they are our 30-day cruise winners. And as you know, we took eight days off the ship, so we’ll be back to see them soon. Um, we wanted to go more um, immersive, so we did three days in Tokyo, and now we’re doing three days in Kyoto. And then we have two more days and we’re heading to Osaka next and then we’re going to rejoin the ship and do all the rest of Japan. Let me look over my list. Um we talked about all that. What did you want to say about bikes? Uh yeah, bikes are really interesting. And if someone here um can tell us there there are bike lanes, but I see a lot of bikes on the sidewalk. And so I’m not sure why. Is it a new thing that’s come about here? A lot of bicyclists, but they seem to be riding on the sidewalks. And so I’ve I just need to ask a local that can uh let us know. But if you know, let me know. Hm. Another very interesting thing we’ve discovered is they have luxury fruit here. Now, you can buy regular fruit and go to any grocery store and buy your fruit at normal prices, but they also sell luxury fruit. So, they may have a luxury cantaloupe for hundreds of dollars or luxury grapes. And everyone’s like, “Oh, the fruit’s so expensive.” I’m like, “That’s the luxury fruit.” There’s regular fruit and luxury fruit. So, we asked, “What’s with the luxury fruit?” And they said, “It’s a special gift. They use that more for gifting. You don’t just go to the store and buy a $100 cantaloupe.” I guess it’s something they do. Um it, you know, it’s part of their culture and luxury fruit is a part of their gift gifting. And then they have stores like just for luxury fruit. They’re like beautifully wrapped. And so, that was a new one. I’d never heard about that. So, that’s been interesting. And we’ll try to show you some and prices in the videos. Um, all these things we’ve been talking about, we’ve been uh filming. So, yes, we have a few questions here jumping in. Do you want to continue there? Um, yeah, you can get the first question queued up. Uh, few more things. It’s hot, hot, hot, hot, hot. Um, I know both Steve and then our friend Cindy who we’re here with, said they’ve never sweated this much in their lives. I mean, I wore a bulletproof vest and polyester for my entire career in central Florida, and it is just as hot here, if not hotter. I think when we go back to the coastal towns of Japan, it won’t be as bad. But when you’re an interior like Tokyo and Kyoto, concrete jungle as well. Hair up, sweat dripping all day. Never bought so many drinks. And we’re from Central Central Florida. It’s been hot. Yeah. One day we’re like, we’re on drink 47. Speaking of drinks, vending machines. Vending machines. They are everywhere and they’re incredibly handy because as she just said, uh we get so thirsty walking around here. But you can buy um iced coffees are a big thing in vending machines. Uh we did of course tons of water. Um we did find some really nice drinks. Uh the peach flavored water, the peach here is amazing. Lemon sparkling. Yeah, all the peaches are amazing. Grapefruit. So, speaking of, because we knew we were starting at 8, we didn’t pay for any of the hotels breakfast cuz they seem a little expensive and then they’re odd. It’s like, “Oh, we have mackerel.” And I’m like, “Okay, wait a minute. If you’re not giving me some eggs and toast.” So, um, egg sandwiches from any convenience store here are very cheap and out of this world. And did you know eggs in Japan, they do they have something they have to process, they have to go through. It’s like by law and it removes salmonella and bacteria. So, well, they eat a lot of raw eggs. They had you could have raw eggs all the time and not worry about that. But anyway, we ran over and got an egg sandwich for breakfast and lattes in cold lattes from 7-Eleven. All right, almost through our list and we’ll answer all your questions. Um, another cool thing is fruit smoothies. Um, you go and you buy a plastic cup full of frozen fruit. This is like in 7-Eleven in any convenience store. And then you pay for it and then you go over to a machine, take the lid off and put it in the machine and it sucks it in and it comes back out as smoothie. Super cool. Again, filming all of these things. And I was going to talk about the upcoming itinerary, which we’ll do later on. And then um because you’ve decided to join us here live, we like to always give you a little bit of uh first insider information. We’re going to rejoin the ship for about 10 days. I’m not sure exactly how many. And then we decided to fly over to Japan when we’re in the little fly to Did I say Japan? Sorry. You’re We’re in here. We’re going to fly to China for 10 days. You can enter China 10 days visa-free. So, there’s a small group of us who are going to do five days in Beijing and five days in Shanghai. U we’ve already booked a trip to the Great Wall. Yeah, that. Excuse me. Um, so we’re going to fly out of Ju in South Korea. South Korea, which is a little island on the southernmost part of South Korea because it’s really close to China. Um, from the very get-go, before we even set sail, they always said, “We’re going to see if we could pull off China.” So, when they announced that we weren’t going, a lot of people were upset, and I get it. I totally, you know, respect people’s feelings. Um, but we kind of knew from the get-go. Um the rule was something about if it was more than 30 years old, the ship would not probably be allowed. And so they were trying a lot of workarounds. They were going to do the best they can. And so recently announced that we couldn’t go. I know a lot of people are upset and I get that. Um so we just decided to do a 10-day trip and we are going to go see China. A little nervous. It’s a little different than Japan. So that’ll be fine, but we’ll be taking you along with us. Okay. to the questions and I’m gonna take a drink real quick. All right. Uh Sue asks, “How many people on board the Villa Ve while in Japan?” I know I can give you this answer. On the way over from Alaska, we were at 270ish. Mhm. Um so that’s where we were there. I don’t know how many. We did have people of course boarding here in Japan. Well, quite a few. Right. So I don’t know the answer, but when we get back, we will get an update. Steve’s going to scroll through. And again, if you have any questions, feel free to ask. I have to lean in because it’s hard to see. I’ve heard washrooms are very different. How so? So, when you walk into any restroom, be it in a hotel room, uh an IKEA, a grocery store, a restaurant, usually your toilet starts singing. It might be a waterfall or birds chirping. It’s a privacy thing. Um, they don’t want to hear other people tinkle, I guess. Um, of course, it’s uh a bedet on steroids. The seats are heated. There’s a million little buttons. And most of the time, I just pray, “Please let there be the flush symbol or the word flush.” Cuz nine times out of 10, I can figure it out. But wow. Um, always spotless. She did come out of the bathroom and say, “I really need to film that, but it would be really awkward.” I don’t know. At some point I need to I just need to put the lid down and go look guys cuz I think you Oh, my hair thing’s falling up. My hair thing just fell off. But see, I got this cute little Japan hair clippy, but out it goes. Okay, so yes, thanks for asking about the washrooms. Gail asks, “Any dogs or cats wandering the streets?” I have not seen one. What a good question. None wandering. I mean, we have seen dogs on leashes. Yes. But none wandering the streets, not one. And it’s interesting because we went to a cat cafe because I love cats. I’m allergic. But I’m like, I can do this cuz you can leave whenever you went. We stayed about 20 minutes and cats like a symbol here. Everywhere you go, there’s cats but not live ones. That’s a good question. I didn’t think about that. Do you see any classic American cars? Where’s Rick when you need him? He’s two rooms down. No, he we I don’t think I’ve seen class. What’s the one that he took a picture of in the one where the big shrine shrine like an old Cadillac Cadillac? Yeah. But it was behind glass. So, you know the So, here’s a little secret about me. I love G Wagons. I mean, obviously, I’ll never have a G Wagon. They’re like 150,000 and up. I’ve seen more G Wagons on the street in Japan than any It’s just amazing. There’s a lot of nice nice cars. A lot of money here. Uh, Jan just got in the room here. Are you on the boat? No, we were in our spacious hotel room. We are in Kyoto, Japan. We took an 8-day trip off of the ship. 3 days Tokyo, 3 days Kyoto to Osaka. So, we’re in Kyoto right now. Um, we always feel more comfortable in a hotel. I mean, the Wi-Fi is pretty decent on the ship. However, we and our friends um geeks on a tour, they do lives from the ship at least once a month, sometimes maybe more often, but they um talk about technology and ship life. Um but they said they’ve been doing lives with no problem, but we always feel more comfortable doing them in the hotel just to be safe. Okay. All right. The language barrier. Yes, the language. Wow. We’ve been using Google Translate a lot. Yeah. Judy asks, “How’s the language bearer?” I use Google Lens to read menus, signs. Yeah, there’s a lot of pictures uh where we’ve been going, I guess, in the touristy areas. Tokyo, a lot of people like in restaurants seem to know English. And speaking of restaurants, where do we keep not that we we we like Japanese food, but we’ve been here for a couple weeks now since the first time. And lately we’ve had a hankering for well we heard that there was great Indian food here in Japan and I was like come on. But I guess there are so many immigrants coming here to work that that has blended into the restaurants and we’ve had some amazing uh meals here. Butter chicken. You know how much Steve loves his butter chickens. Oh my gosh. In more than one place. So good. But we have had you know great Japanese meals. the ramen. Um, had that yesterday. Oh, guasus. Guyas, the dumplings. Yeah, they’re really good. Just fabulous. Fabulous. Judy asks, “Nope, that’s one I just read.” Nancy asks, “How do you plan all your self-guided excursion? It seems to take a ton of research.” Um, I feel like when you get in a small group, like there’s probably a good 20 of us that met maybe twice a week leading up to the Japan trip and everyone would do research and said, “Hey, I found this.” Or put this on our radar or found this. The last two nights there’s been this coolest thing. It’s this lantern release. And we didn’t do it cuz we just can’t handle the nighttime stuff. And it looked amazing. I think we just I always kind of look at get my guide. I look at via um one of my favorite websites is called what’s in port. What’s import.com and I just read the what’s import thing is a very short synopsis of what to do in each port, where to go, must seas, and how to get there kind of thing. Um, so I don’t spend too much time researching, but for Japan, we did a little bit more because we knew we were doing these eight days. So, almost always self-guided. Yes, for Japan, um, we did all tons of walking stuff and if they’re really far, we found like five things that were kind of further away from walking for yesterday. So, then we got with a group and Cindy actually organized this one. We took all the outliers yesterday. I in the last like 24 hours I posted probably three different three of the places we went and so we did hire a private uh tour guide for that and then we split it because there were six of us um and went to all the outlying places and is it getyougu.com perfect what I say get my guide get my guide that’s my guide getyouguide.com valueour.com what’s import GPS my city is a great app. Been to Japan eight times. Don’t be fooled. Once you go to the rural part, it is not clean and great. A EJ, don’t bust our bubble. Uh, we went to Hakadate, which is a small town, and it was just as amazing. So, we’ll see. Small towns. We’ll get there. Luxury fruit. I never heard of that. Yeah, s e neither did we until we got here. The great state of Georgia. It’s 709. No trash cans because of sarin attack. Personal responsibility for cleanliness and strict recycling rules. Makes sense. And oh, we do see recycling bins. Um, within like each hotel, there’s a place to put your water bottles and everything. What is your favorite and least favorite things you’ve eaten so far? Um, as far as Japanese food, I really like the gyozas. I really like them. Um the ramen that we had yesterday, uh I found out found out that I really like the miso soup. So that’s something, you know, new for me. And if you don’t know, some the the broth can either be like porkbased, could be fishbased, fishbased. And one time Cindy and Steve both got a ramen, but it was like a the broth was fishbased. just and it’s hard because that might not be listed. Um we were in a mom and pop place and we’re like yep well it could have been listed but there’s no way in the world we would we Google lens. So are all payments digital or do a lot of places take cash? I would say both. A lot of places take cards. They have a lot of what we would call in the states prepaid credit cards. Um there’s the suka. Yes. I think they say card. S UI CA. You can put cash on it in most convenience stores. All the public transportation use that card. Um, but our credit card’s been fine. We do get cash out. So, we have yen on us for smaller purchases. But it hasn’t been complicated. 7-Eleven has a great ATM. So, one reason older cars are in great condition is because 60% tariff. I I lost it. Where’d you go? Steve’s scrolling while I’m reading. I know it was around here somewhere. We’ve had a lot of comments. All right, let’s I think it was just the explanation of why uh it said 60% tariff. Oh, Stephen can’t scroll when I’m reading. Okay, just go all the way to the bottom and we’ll work our way back up. Okay. The people of Japan so thankful, respectful, and appreciative. Do you feel like you’ll take away any personal changes from Japan on the places you will go? No, the places you will go. Um, I guess it just sort of gives you a a a lot of respect for other people and how the culture is here and maybe just to slow down sometimes. Um, yeah, it’s all about respect here and it’s very encouraging, that’s for sure. How was the bullet train? The stations are insane. You have to be able to really like the first time you go, it’s a little overwhelming because you have to figure out where you’re going cuz some of the train stations are absolutely enormous. The train itself was amazing. It’s super quiet again. I used to like put earbuds in, block. Super quiet, calm, clean. It’s just getting on it was the hard part. Like once you just have to figure that out, Shauna, you’re so sweet. Thank you so much. Okay, Google Maps. We use a lot of Google Maps, I assure you. Butter chicken. That’s right, Karen. Hi from Dallas. Lots of China pics, please. Oh, we will. Digital payment watch or phone are widespread. it a lot of the train stations and other they’re connected with the iPhone so they can tap and pay I guess with that card but it’s not valid on the Android. Okay, we have a question. How do you see the work you do with creating the videos? Does it create a burden or benefit for the adventure you’re on? You go ahead and answer that one, Fran. Um I think it’s just become something that we do. We don’t go really out of the way uh to film stuff, but we just do it as it comes and we have the just naturally like as we’re walking. My big concern was walking through places like Tokyo because sometimes I’ll turn around like where is he? He’s over there filming. So I’m like I don’t want to get lost. But it’s easy because I’m much taller than everyone here. So do they speak much English? I would say in the bigger cities they know a little in restaurants enough to get by, but yeah, pointing and uh the pictures on the menus help a lot. That’s for sure. Um, someone asked, “What was the issue with the fa failing health score?” We got an 81 out of 100. Um, we actually were told beforehand, and I mean a long time ago that round one, you know, we may not make it. Like, we were told this. So, it wasn’t a shock. Um, they had a consultant come aboard and say, “These are the things you need to address.” And they just started working on each one of those, ticking them off, ticking them off, ticking them off, trying to get up to that passing score, which is an 86. So, five points off. Um, out of all we looked through the whole list. Six of the things were improper labels, you know, like a little gotta label this. Um, there was uh like a cake out that was out should have been put away sooner. I mean, there was a lot of little things. I think the thing that um we got trolled about the most was but the water. the water. When we first came aboard and on every cruise ship I’ve ever been on, I’ve never drank out of a sink. Um, they installed before we left Belfast four water filtration systems where we fill our water bottles. Um, so that’s not the water they’re referring to. Um, and before we ever left Belfast, I installed a uh on the shower. Well, he installed it a what is it called? A shower filtration. A shower filter shower head. Um, because I’ve been on 50 Cruises before and I know how harsh the water is on your hair. So, the reason we’re not freaked out about it is whatever it is with the pipelines or things they have to fix, as long as they fix them, we’re okay. Um, as long as we see that they’re, you know, striving to improve, it’s not like, you know, there’s rats in the corner. Like, it’s just not that kind of thing. And what was the thing about the check valves that bothered a lot of people, too, and that was I don’t understand all that. Valves for the water system and labeling of the water system. I think the way the flow goes and so for a 30-year-old ship, they didn’t have that back then and those requirements. Um, so I think slowly but surely they’re bringing it up. One other thing that I do see uh the guys working on is they have I haven’t worked in a restaurant in a really really long time, but they have those lights uh that I guess attract bugs and kill them and then they have a shield that goes over them and then they check them periodically for bugs. Um, and I think one of the writeups was that they found a few bugs in there which I guess it’s doing its job. It’s just they hadn’t checked it. Like it has to be emptied every single day. And now I see them constantly checking it. I’m like, “Yeah, I don’t know. I I mean, I’m not concerned only because I have to have trust and faith that they’re going to take care of the things, but maybe next time around we get an 86. I mean, they come up five points.” You know, I just I’m not freaked out. I’m not living um in a Ritz Carlton. Uh we’re not a luxury cruise wine. We are an affordable cruise line. So, as long as they work on it and strive to improve, we’ll be happy with that because I’ve always said um we feel very thankful and blessed that we can do this. You know, we’re a retired school teacher and a retired cop and we get to travel the world and this is something we never thought in a million years was within our grasp. So, we take it as it comes and just roll with it. And if there was something that I was truly concerned about that would affect my health or anything, we’ll leave. You know, it’s just it is what it is. Thanks for asking, Caleb. Yeah. Someone says, “Pakori sweat.” That’s a um like what we’d say Gatorade. It’s a great electrolike drink here. We have had them. All right. There’s the 60% tariff. One reason older cars are in great condition is because a 60% tariff on all imports plus a 15% domestic. Yeah. So they buy in-house here. They’re they’re like I would say a very large number of all uh Japanese cars here and they they do seem affordable and they’re tiny. Let’s not make any any bones about it. there. We we kided that um to change all four tires here may cost like $100 cuz they’re so tiny. Oh, sometimes when you scroll like just jump. So, I apologize if I miss anything. Comfort is great. Safety of the ship and evacuation plans are the most important. I get it. Thanks, Rudy. The health inspector showed up the first day I was in charge at my cafeteria. I’d love to go to an onen. Yeah, a lot of friends talked about those, but yeah, if you don’t know what an onen is, they’re big public bathous, separate women, men. Um, it’s a very culturally gig accepted, but you take no clothes, no covering with a towel. And everyone’s like, “It’s a great experience.” And so I’m like, and that’s I’m happy for you, but it’s not me. Being from Japan myself, I highly recommend you do two authentic experiences. Go to a karaoke bar and go to an onen. See, I just talk about the onen. I can’t do it. Maybe the karaoke, but thank you. I’m sure the villa wants to pass all inspections. Keep doing you think you’re both Oh, it popped away. Thank you. What’s the exchange rate uh on the American dollar? I know a thousand yen is about 675. So that’s what I kind of use in my head. And then of course Google will tell you anything. So, if I have a question on anything, I also something that’s very interesting that we learned uh early on here is that we primarily use our credit card for everything and then your credit card company will if you set it to it will send you a text or an email instantly instantly on any of your charges. So, if I buy something that’s 25,500 yen, um I use my card and then instantly it would tell me in dollars how much, you know, my card’s been charged for. So, that’s been incredibly healthy. And that’s one way that we uh track our spending. Yes, we’ve been to 7-Elevens about a hundred times. I’ve seen McDonald’s. I’ve seen the signs, but it’s hard to go into McDonald’s when there’s so much amazing food. But I do want to look just to see what’s on their little list there. Hey, Catch a Can Alaska. Love ketch can. So pretty there. Food safety inspections are super picky. The most important thing is to fix the problems that they’re found. I agree. Do the crane from Kate in front of the Tory gates and post me a photo. The Tory gates were amazing. I posted some pictures on Facebook and Instagram just last night. Um there’s like a thou 2,000 tour gates. Definitely go check those pictures out. But we filmed it, of course. I’m still willing to risk Taco Bell with a rating of like 12. Some dude negative 12. Phil would be a pleasure in the 80s. Okay, that’s funny. I remember late night Taco Bell runs in college. Hello from Missouri. You know, Steve was born in Mon. If I ever make it to Japan, I might go broke buying stationery. Oh, they have some really cool stationery stores. They have a lot of the mega stores are unbelievable. And um like the beauty supplies and stuff. Oh my god, it’s it’s just insane. Yes, we’ve been to a Don Kote if you know what that is. But I can’t wait to keep sharing all these videos. We are way behind. We’re doing a live because we can’t keep up. Our next one will be to uh Yokohama. Yokohama. Then we’ll do one on Tokyo. So bear with us. We’ll get caught up. It’s been amazing. Is it hard to get accommodation once you’re off the ship for several days? No, no. And this, how much was this hotel? 60 bucks. 60ish per night. Um, it’s really small, but we’re like, yeah, we’re used to 140 ft. We can do it. I’ll let you go a little bit. One funny thing here, uh, we were doing laundry last night. So, they have a laundry facility, and also in the laundry facility in this like 75 square foot room, they also have, uh, vending machines. But the vending machine that caught my eye was a beer vending machine. So maybe 20 different kinds of beer in a vending machine. In a vending machine in the laundry room, and he’s tried all the locals beers. Um, and by the way, hit that thumbs up button. I see 77 of you have hit the thumbs up for us. Still not sure why, but everyone says you should do that. So if you’ll hit the little thumbs up button from your phone, computer, wherever. I think if you’re on a TV, you have to hit pause or something. I don’t know. But hit that thumbs up for us. Thank you so much. When you go to the Great Wall, some places have a toboggon on wheels to get back down. Sounds interesting. We are actually going with a group from the ship. There’s I don’t know, eight of us. Um and someone that one’s actually with a tour guide. All right. Back. Hello from Spokane. So happy to see you enjoying Japan. Thumbs up given. Thanks, Michelle. Yeah, not a bad rate for a room. Um because our daughter works for Marriott, you know, we’re not used to spending a lot. Yeah, right. So, we’re we’re a bit spoiled. Someone stayed in a capsule hotel. Those are those really tiny. I think someone from the ship did, too. I think I saw someone post Cindy post the other Cindy posted a picture. All right. Have you tried a bento box? Um we were the plan was on the Bola train everyone said get a bento box and we looked at them and every one of them were way too seafoody for me. Yes. But we’ve looked at a lot. Um at the the bottom floor too of almost every high-rise mall which every high-rise here you think is just another building winds up being a mall inside. Like you can have rows and rows and rows of malls. The bottom two basement floors are almost always like food court type places, but not like you would see in a US mall. They’re like little kiosks like you would see at a Dillards instead of it being makeup. It’s a specially food item. So, it’s been really interesting. Like, but they do have a liquor store, too. So, I found some Japan only release uh bourbons, and I’m so happy. Oh, goodness. Yeah, Japan’s been quite amazing. Good question. Is a great wall wheelchair friendly. We will find out. We’ll be there in a couple weeks. Are you adventurous eaters? I am, but hubby is not. Um, I am not. No, I was Rick is. We’re I think I’ve said earlier on, we’re here with our friends Rick and Cindy, and Rick eats everything. I’m like, what is that? I’m thinking for me getting sick. I just don’t want to get sick. Yeah, we’re just not adventurous with that. Lots of vending machines everywhere. And by and by everywhere, I mean like you could be walking through a residential neighborhood and all of a sudden on the side of the road there’s a vending machine. They’re everywhere. Oh, toe box. Oh, there’s cats at the Great Wall. Yay. I like Are you going to Disney? No, we had a lot of people go from the ship or several people went and the pictures looked like the Fourth of July at Disney. I’ve never seen so many people in my life in those photos. That is We have a hard time with big cities and well, especially me. I Well, I mean, we our whole professional lives, we lived 45 minutes from Walt Disney World, so we had season seasonal passes. And I think it’d be great to experience. It’s just the heat. It’s the hottest time of the year. And this is not peak season. Spring and fall are peak season in Japan. cherry blossoms in the spring, gorgeous fall leaves in the autumn. Um, and the guide that we were with yesterday said that this is not peak season because it’s so hot. So, I think those would be better when it’s cooler, but it’s so hot. I can’t imagine standing in lines. And are we going to do any more videos with David, the lucky winner? We would love to. And he’s in the house right now watching with us. Well, he might still. He was he and Claudia were with us at the beginning of the live. I know they’re pulling into a new port today um in Coobe and uh I definitely want to do a because we did kind of a 10 days in. I’d like to do at the end like tell us your thoughts be honest. How do you feel about it? Um so I would love to do a follow-up with them for sure. Lots of vending machines. Oh my gosh, too many. Did we meet Jared and Jordan? Of course we did because they are the reason we’re on the Villa V. They did their very first video about the Villa Ve and a week later we made our purchase. So yes, we are friends with Jared and Jordan and we try to keep up with what they’re doing and check in with them once in a while. But yes, and we had dinner with them one night and they were so tall they were like Steve. I’m like how what? You don’t realize how tall somebody is until you’re in person and I was like Jared and Jared you’re just and then you know Steve’s tall and people don’t birthdays. Yeah. Uh you guys had the same birthday. Was it Jordan? Oh, you’re I can’t remember. One of them have the same birthday, Steve. Oh, well, no. I don’t want to tell them too much. We have so much in common, even some locations of where we lived. That’s all I can say because, you know, I don’t want to tell too many things. Oh, I had whiskey made with water filled filtered through Mount Fuji. Uh, very interesting. Oh, yeah. I saw that he could get in line there and we got to see a glimpse of it when we went by on the bullet train. All right. Remember donkey burger in China? Yeah. I don’t donkey burger. Sue asked, “Will you try a donkey burger in China?” Yeah, I don’t think so. We haven’t really even done too much for China other than booked our flights, booked our hotels, and I think we had two tours for the 10 days booked. That’s as far as I haven’t done any other research. So, that’s where we are with that. Aliss asks, “Have you ever considered hiring out for editing?” Um, well, about once a week we get a random person emailing us, but it wouldn’t be cost effective for us yet because we’re not making that much money. Um, and you have to pay for that editing and it’s just not cost effective. Yeah. You’d have to we’d have to be way higher in views to come out in the right. I’d love to get to that point though. Yeah. Like Yeah. Did you get to see sumo wrestling? Has anyone a group of the group? A group went um Oh, that’s right. He was in a suit. Yeah, a group went. Um we have not. I think that was the How fast is a bullet train? Not as fast as Spain. Was it I don’t know. Was it 180 miles per hour? Did Rick say? I think he did the kilometers to miles for us. We on this train from Tokyo down here to Kyoto. It didn’t have the speed like displayed. In Spain, they they display it, but like while you’re going, but I don’t think here does. Thanks, Michelle. Packing the fifth wheel for a two week vacation. Have fun, Dan. But thank you guys all so much. Um, if you’ve missed any videos, go back and watch them, get caught up. Um, we’re like, uh, we have a few people going, “Your thumbnails are clickbait.” But anytime we do anything positive, just a tour of, we get half of the amount of views. So, it’s really silly. Um, we never want to mislead anyone. Um, but we are doing this to be able to afford to do all this extra stuff. So, just watch those videos for us. Go back and watch the ones you’ve missed. How long are you in Japan? It’s like a month or so. Um, I’ll go to the itinerary. Um, we’re heading south and so I don’t know if that means that it’s going to get warmer and warmer, but I think the big cities, um, well, right now the ship is pulling into Coobe for 3 days and then we have two days in Kochi, Japan. Then we have two days in Hiroshima and two days in the something straight in the Canmon straight. That’s August 25th. And I have not been to these places yet, so please forgive me if I say them incorrectly. Fuka, we have a day there. Two days in Nagasaki. And then we hit South Korea, Ju, but that’s where we fly to Japan uh to China. But then we have more days. Kagoshima, Hosima for two days, Amami for two days, Naha for two days. This is all still Japan. And Ishigaki Island. I don’t know if I’m saying these are right. I’m so sorry. And then we have Taiwan. Taiwan. All these names I can’t pronounce. We have four four days in Taipei. Another port in Taiwan. Then we hit the Philippines. A lot of Philippines. This is called the Japan and Philippines segment. I see you know like Manila and Sub Bay and some island and po Puerto Princessa if you want to say in Spanish. Boho. These are all Philippines. Then in October we’re hitting the northern Marana Islands, Micronesia, Palao, Indonesia. Then early November we hit Australia, Darwin, K, Papa New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Vanowatu, tons of days in Fiji, Wallace, Fortuna, Samoa, French, Polynesia, lots of days there, like 20. Cook Islands, Tonga, and then we do come come back to Australia, do a bunch more there. We do I’m all the way to February. Bunch of New Zealand. So, all these great amazing places coming up. Uh, have you tried a black egg yet? No. Um, I’ve I’ve had a couple like I don’t know if they’re pickled or whatnot um eggs in my ramen and they’ve been they’ve been great. So, by the way, matcha is the biggest thing I’ve seen here. They love their matcha. You can get matcha anything here. But someone said if you want something really good, try the black sesame ice cream. I’m like, what? And I had it and wow, black sesame ice cream is delicious. Um, and everything comes really tiny here, so you don’t feel quite as bad having a sweet treat. If you get a little bag of chips, there might be 10 in it. I’m like, that’s why they’re all so tiny. But black sesame ice cream is amazing. And there’s matcha everything, but I’m not a matcha person. Um, here we go. Do you suffer any jet lag at all or is that not a problem because you’re on a cruise ship? Well, I think as we came from Australia to Japan, it was like Alaska to Japan. Alaska to Japan is one hour back. The next day, one more hour back and then a C day with no time change. And then they do two more and then not and then three more. So, it was a nice slow gradual thing there. Well, we’re getting close to wrapping up here. So, if there’s any last questions, if you haven’t hit the thumbs up yet, hit thumbs up for us. We truly appreciate you all. I’m excited to share the rest of our Japan adventures with you. Um, anytime you watch a video, feel free to comment. I always, uh, respond to those comments. If you have any questions, um, you know, we have a Facebook page, Midlife Cruising, and Instagram. And if I showed you how many people I probably get a message every day on the Facebook page, people who are interested in buying or coming and joining us and I try to answer every time. So if you have anything or just let us know. We’re happy to connect. Does the ship have any renters? Does the ship only have renters and residents? No actual extra cruisers. I think they’re starting to sell smaller. Well, they first they were doing segments only which were 30 to 110 days. Now they have like you can do a I think a less than 30 days. There’s a there’s a rental if you go to villa residences.com villa residences.com there’s a try before you buy section and there’s a just rent a room. So yes, you can rent a room like a regular cruise now. Okay, they, you know, it’s not booking a cruise, it’s they call it renting, but yes, you can do that now. Very nice. Please do some more lives and leave them on the channel in case miss. It’s almost 1:00 a.m. here. We will. And they are all the lives we’ve ever done are there. You just have to go into like a computer to watch and click the live tab. So, if you go to our actual page and it’ll say home videos, one of the sections is called lives. All the lives are still there. We keep them there. So, thanks for that. Love seeing the busiest intersection. Intersection. Shabooya crossing. Busiest intersection in the world. We filmed it. We didn’t go through it, though. Yeah. We just stood on the edge and went, “Nope.” Oh, goodness. Ice cream. Ube. Is that right? I have to try that. Never heard of it. What flavor is that? Yeah. Thank you, Jayen. Thank you so much. Well, I think we’re going to wrap up here. We are going to finish packing up and we are headed to Osaka next on the train. I think we’re going to take the public train today. Uh it’s a little cheaper. Not that it’s a bolt train is only like $15, but this takes a little bit longer, but it’s like $4. So I think we’re going to do the public train. We just have a rolly, so we don’t have much luggage. So we are headed to Osaka next. We appreciate you all. Thank you so much. Thank you, Judy. You’re so kind. We appreciate you guys. Oh, that’s awesome. All right, thank you so much again. Um, anything else, friend? No, I think we’ve covered everything. Uh, we’re ready to head south and sweat. Oh, kinichiwa. We’ve been practicing all these words. We should have said all these uh Japanese words for you. But until next time, bye, friends.

Angela and Steve discuss all things Villa Vie Odyssey…