Discover Japan! Live from Japan this weekend!

We will be discussing about traveling throughout Japan. Due to the weak yen to the dollar exchange rate, it is like the entire nation is on a 25-30% “firesale!” Join me for a YouTube live forum specifically for non-Japanese travelers. Share and learn from our live community.
My sincere apologies for the last LIVE attempt on May 4th that did not broadcast due to technical difficulties which was completely my fault. We have worked out the bugs for this Sunday’s Live*
-Japan: May 19 (Sun) 11:00 AM (JST)
-Hawaii: May 18 (Sat) 4:00 PM (HST)
-Pacific: May 18 (Sat) 7:00 PM (PST)
-Eastern: May 18 (Sat) 10:00 PM (EST)

Please subscribe if you are interested in discovering more about Japan! https://www.youtube.com/@MikeMatsuno/featured

#japantraveler #japanexplorer #japaneseculture

hey everyone this is Mike matsuno greetings from Kyoto um thanks for joining in today I’m going to do a kind of a short live today about um Japan and um The Hope is that people will comment or ask questions that you know maybe I can answer and um you know for those of you who try to get on two weeks ago when I did my first attempted live and it failed I’m very very I’m very very sorry because it was a very simple thing with the software that I had never done it before and so it was all my fault um thank you for um your patience anyway hopefully um if anyone could comment that the sound is okay the audio and the video is okay please in the comments um please let me know just so I have an idea that it’s coming through um also if you would help me out it would be great if you could just write in the comments if um where you from and how many times you’ve been into Japan now I don’t know who is really on or not so I can’t see it until someone comments but anyway today today and I see some people still logging in so maybe it’s taking a little bit of time so thank you for joining the live today um you know I hope that you can write in some comments because the live itself is different from a video um it it needs a kind of a community so if there’s a community of only one then it doesn’t really work right the idea is that people share information among themselves within the comments as well as if I can navigate or facilitate you know Direction that’s really what I would like to do this is not about teaching something or so much about giving so much information because you can get that on regular YouTube videos in fact if that was the case a video might be easier to make than a live but I decided to try this live because I thought there’s a lot of people are interested in knowing about different aspects of Japan and um thank you thank you AR Ender and um so what I wanted to do was set up kind of a forum kind of a discussion Community where people can ask questions among themselves as well as you know share information because honestly and I’m going to tell I’m not a guru and I’m not the expert on Japan but I’ve been in Japan about 30 years so for those of you who don’t know me my name is Mike matsuno I have a man in Japan YouTube channel that talks about Japan so if you’re interested you know the link is below in the description Please Subscribe um and you know I’m fourth generation Japanese American originally from Hawaii and I’ve been in Japan about 30 years I’ve done an as you know I’m old so I have done a lot of things things as far as I’ve studied a graduate school here exchange programs I’ve worked as a intern at a kayak School outdoor school I went to a ski Joe a ski lodge to do uh bartending um you know and of course uh I worked as an English teacher as well as as a salary man which I’m actually doing right now so after 30 years I think I have kind of a common sense Insight so if you’re a foodie and um you want to know like exactly what’s the best tonkatsu in Tokyo or what’s the best takoyaki in Osaka then probably this live is not for you uh but you know if you put the question into the comments there are other people who can help because I’m not a foodie and I don’t know the exact um shops what I’m trying to say is that personally I don’t wait and normally if you find someone that’s somewhere that’s famous or everybody knows about you got to wait 30 minutes hour hour and a half so I never wait for you know food I just go to the next place but there are certain people who really want something really specific and so just last weekend I asked my two good friends Yoshi and kianne who are really Foodies and connoisseurs of food not only in Japan in the world you know they traveled all over the world and I said and they have waited many a time and I said what is the percentage of um times that you have waited that you felt the food was worth waiting for and they told me 50% so it’s a one and two shot so I think that um you know if you want to wait and you you know and you want the bragging rights that you ate at so and so place then yeah wait of course but if you’re more like me and not very patient and you don’t have that maybe that much time in that area or that place or in Japan then you might just want to move on to the next place so again it’s completely up to you and another reason that sometimes if you say tell everyone where the special um Ramen or udong place is suddenly you have so many people going there that it’s people cannot get in so it’s kind of a hard thing to say but anyway if you go onto YouTube and you type in anything like um best tonkatsu in Tokyo or uh best ramen in Kyoto you’re gonna have a lot of videos that come out and that should tell you give you more enough of a hint of where to go and you know the other thing is that a lot of times myself included foreigners cannot tell so much the actual difference between different ramens don’t unless they are chefs or cannoisseur or fruties in that case yes but for most people it’s hard to really distinguish between you know different types of ramen or different types of vong you know um I have never really had any bad Ramen orong or tonkatsu so you know some maybe average um some a little below average but nothing bad so if you are not so particular I think it’s um a great idea to you know it’s up to you you want to wait great and if you don’t basically what I’m saying is that I don’t wait and if you want to wait that’s fine okay um so I was just saying that I’m I’ve been in Japan about 30 years and I do a channel because one of the reasons is that I really really I guess love Japan you know there are many many frustrating Parts about Japan that kind of make me a little bit crazy but on the other hand you know it’s a very safe country um you know people are really kind you know they have this idea of omote Nashi omot Nashi basically means do as much as you can or do everything for the guest that’s their magic word that’s what they supposedly won the Tokyo 2020 Olympics with that speech about otashi but Japan Japan definitely to me has the best service in the entire world you know and second it’s a safe country imagine a country of 127 million people and you know crowded think of Japan Japan’s size do you know the land put them all together the land mass is only the size of California so imagine you have a country the size of the State of California and the United States and you have 127 million people which is about maybe onethird little Le little over onethird of what’s in the United States the population and then you take away 80% because 80 80% is mountainous and uninhabitable so you got 127 people living in 20% of California and that’s why things are very crowded and very tight and very small and you know land is quite hard here so really um Japan you know for that kind of you know tight situation you know for those of you who read the book by James clavo called King Rat where when everything gets too tight The Rats start eating each other fortunately in Japan the opposite has happening is everyone you know works really hard to get along and there’s also the idea of idea of um Island thinking right like I’m from Hawaii and you know you have to get along because there’s no place to run to or you know you live on island you try to get along so there’s also that but again those two points service and safety unbeat and number three which is only recent is this is the best deal in town right now right the Yen last week was between 157 and 160 which basically means if I’m just calculating back a couple of years used to be about 110 to 120 that’s basically a 30% discount on everything everything’s on a fire sale almost like which is really like fortunate right so it’s a great time to come you know it’s a safe country great service and very very reasonable so think about it um are any of you like is there any specific questions that any of you out there who are listening um have and if you are listening on the replay um please write please write that in the comments and I’ll try to get back to everyone as much as possible because I’d like to address certain questions outside of which is the best onment shop I can if if I can at least give you some ideas of what I think not that it’s you know I’m I’m again I’m not the guru but I can give you at least some common sense um insight into Japan okay um other things that people talk about that um you know traveling through Japan um you know where to travel right um there’s like the the Silk Road I call that’s like from Tokyo Osaka Kyoto and some people go to Hiroshima so you know first time I suggests that you know most people do that route you know but it’s the most heavily traveled route so in that way it’s actually quite crowded and so recently you see um the government in Japan try to get PE uh tourists to go to other areas as well as I think for the tourists they prefer to go to places where um you know people there are less people right I was just in Kyoto during cherry blossom season here and wow it was like crazy um so I live 30 minutes outside of Kyoto between n and Kyoto and I go I had a couple videos about Eid Cho where I go for cherry blossoms I’m the only one I’m the only one in the whole Riverbank right like looking at the cherry blossoms and I go wow this is how ohanami cherry blossoms is supposed to be right but if you go to kilo there are more people than Cherry Bloss I mean I’m joking of course but you know there’s so many people so you may want to consider like once you’ve done the silk route or even if you have hav’t done the the silk route yet and you want to have more of a less people around then consider going to outside areas that you know maybe you know not as famous but maybe it’s F it’s not as famous because people haven’t gone there yet right I mean let me give you an example for those of you who have studied Japanese for a long time you may have used like I think 30 years ago I was using a book called nagan Numa and a textbook they don’t even use this anymore it was like right after the War it came out that book talks about different things that we’re studying in Japanese and one of them were called nion s nion are the three great sites in Japan and the three were how many of you know what the three were the three were one was amanohashidate the island um I’m sorry not Island North Kyoto the second was MIMA in Hiroshima and the third was matsushima in Sendai three different places and this this is considered nion San now younger people probably won’t know this in Japan but older people if you ask nion sank you know they they’ll talk about it but when you really compare it now to all the other places that people go you know like I love Mima I went to Sendai just a couple years ago and I’ve been to Amanti twice I think it’s you know it’s it’s nice but I wouldn’t say it’s the three best in Japan so again I think it’s more people haven’t had opportunities to go so maybe you could be the one to discover the new place right so okay thank you only one nights I see a question here do you suggest that firsttime visitors go outside the Golden Triangle of Kyoto Tok no Saka good question it really is up to you if you want to feel just kind of comfortable and get your bearings then I say yeah just do the silk route and get a taste of it and then the next time you come you can choose to go outside or if you’re more adventurous you can dabble it maybe you know a couple days in Tokyo a couple days in Kyoto and then maybe go go wide you know you could go to maybe Hiroshima where a lot of people are starting to go the big news is I see on television and the New York Times had one of the 52 places to go in 2024 is Yamaguchi prefecture now Yamaguchi prefecture is way to the west west of Hiroshima and most people didn’t know about it until the New York Times put it into the paper which is like you know great for Yamaguchi now what happens is that Yamaguchi has really really deep history it’s connected so if you know Japanese history or you study Japanese history before you come Yamaguchi I think would be great because it talks about you know the the the overthrow of the government of the bakufu the the the Sato you know that whole that whole movement that led to the um opening up of Japan you know the samurai against the the the shunet and so lot of that was all from Yamaguchi in fact Hai I think I can’t remember exactly but a large number of prime ministers in Japan have all come from haki which is a small city in in in in West Japan in Yamaguchi I mean people may have heard of hagaki the famous um ceramic wear and that’s you know that you know which is really famous but even I think oh yeah Abbe prime minister Abbe who was you know assassinated um a couple of years ago he’s from shimoi and that’s all in Yamaguchi saw a lot lot of historical history with the movement the the the the overthrow not the overthrow but the change over into opening up Japan and the whole suodai system against the the new modern era happened in Yamaguchi so great place to go but yaguchi is not ready for people to come yet right they’re still getting ready you know they expect maybe another 900,000 maybe next year and you know there’s a couple things that they still are dealing with like um the temple I think it was like the pagoda I can’t remember the name such the r um it’s now being renovated and it won’t be ready until 2025 so if you go um you may want to either wait or if you don’t mind not seeing the pagota then that’s fine now you could see other pagodas in to in Kyoto we have a lot of pagodas here and the three main pagodas are I can’t remember the name but there’s one in kilo and there is huji In N and the third is um the one in Yamaguchi what is interesting about Japan is that they go in Japan likes the number three so you have three um various like I talked about nion s the 31 two three right so you know you have the three s so everything’s in threes the three famous gardens do you know the three famous gardens in Japan I don’t know I can’t remember the name but it’s uh uh kazawa ibaraki and okama you know the three famous night views in in Japan if you want to see the night views the harbor night views it’s Kobe Nagasaki and hakodate so you may want to do a tour that you go and visit all these three although that there in various parts of the country sometimes so again Japan likes three you know three famous um Ceramics three famous you know I just said pagodas so again um only one nights um it’s it’s really up to you as far as V out but maybe for the first time you do the Silk Road and then again the question is do you want to come when it’s super busy or off seon and of course if possible a little bit offseason would be better than hitting like you know they talk about Golden week when the Japanese are moving Sakura season which everybody wants to come but again you it’s it’s really up to you um obon which is the middle of August and then oshogatsu which is New Year those are the three big that the Japanese are moving it’s kind of busy a lot of people have vacation off and everybody’s moving so you know some people discourage people from coming in rainy season and it depends on the year sometimes it does rain quite a bit but other times it doesn’t but I would say something like if I was in Okinawa last last year last year for a month in training and okinawa’s rainy season it’s serious it’s a serious rainy season that every single day we got bombarded like the like like heavy duty rain and winds like the umbrella can barely hold and I was stayed at a hotel that was only like 5 minutes away and just to do that walk was was not I got wet all the time so rainy season not okina but maybe honu and people always say that Hokkaido doesn’t have a rainy season and I don’t know I guess that’s true because it the way the the weather system works so hokido might be a place to go in the rainy season which is June again on the years that it doesn’t rain that much it’s still a little bit um it rains some like during the day like a day like today is kind of Cloudy Outcast today but nothing too much you know you got an umbrella and it’s not like not like in um Okinawa so again that’s up to you um Susan has asked a question what is the best way to learn how to speak Japanese te use when traveling okay it’s a little bit late to start learning however I would definitely suggest that you know it’s like when you travel to any country you try to learn like the main 10 things like right thank you I’m sorry maybe numbers um like where’s the toilet you know like just simple things and of course things like Aras is really makes the Japanese so happy that you’re trying any country that you try to speak the language people feel very very you know happy and touched so I definitely would learn the 10 before you come if possible you know like numbers you know try and learn the the 10 you know basic phrases now before you come if you could learn words like simple sentence patterns like where is like toilet okay toilet bathroom in in America bathroom or restroom they say to or Toto toilet it to toilet and then you put DOA which basically means where’s the toilet that you can put anything in this little box yeah renen where’s Ramen Shop or um to where is to you know so yes I would say like there’s three basic simple phrases that would help you to get around because although people say that Japan is an english- speaking country well they all study it for minimum six years in junior high school and high school if they go all the way through high school and many in the University study for another two maybe four years so some may have between six and 10 years but it doesn’t mean people can actually communicate they have studied written um written Japanese which is mainly about um what do you call grammar and so if you show them they can read you know they can see it you know and then they have an easier time so maybe if you have your phone you know and you you do like a Google translate or something and then you just show them you know I’m going to go here or whatever or it says like I use deep L program and uh some people use Google Translate I use both both are fine and I’ll type it in what I want and then you can just show them like it’s it’s in Japanese so then they can help you so yes I would say learn the basics now some people say well you you can’t get into a deep conversation and sorry unless you really study the language many years before to get there it is hard but it’s okay because the the reverse side of that is when you’re traveling to a new country there’s a lot of excitement about when someone understands what you said right so you ask something in Japanese like toy well do and then they they take you to the toilet and you feel like wow it works and it reinforces and it motivates you to want to study or learn no more right so yes even the simplest you know you know words you know and that’s what I I suggest for everyone you don’t have to speak Japanese fluently but try and the Japanese are always happy now as far as English speakers Japan is very limited you know you compare to a country like let’s say like Thailand for example like Bangkok I’m going to say which is a tourist you know C know a lot more people speak English in Bangkok than like here in maybe Tokyo and so you know it’s like the the youth you know all the Japanese are studying it but remember for them for most of them it’s an academic subject it’s like studying math or or or science English no one’s using it for like communication and there’s a whole another story there about they brought the jet program for those of you who know the jet program is they s um before between five and 10,000 um Americans or from Australia or different places to Japan they work in the junior high schools the high schools now the elementary but really because it’s all about the test and getting into a better Junior High getting into a better High School getting into a better University that the um the the study of is all about the written and not the spoken so in that case I would say Japan is way behind in conversational and commun communicative English so just that keep that in mind again though if you show them a sentence which is kind of sometimes tiresome or takes time A lot of people will understand so again that’s up to you um oh thank you abam um let’s see W me those are good okay I don’t see any more questions if you have any questions please list them down and I’ll try and address as best as I can as I said before I’m not the guru not the expert but I can after 30 years of being in Japan and doing a array of things I can give you at least a common sense um idea now um couple other things I was going to mention was that today I’m not going to go too long itbe 30 40 minutes just because I don’t want to bore you maybe there’s only like I don’t know how many of you are out there but you know like for example there’s Hokkaido and there’s Okinawa there’s honu kushu shikoku I want to tell you a story about a friend when I first came to Japan when I was 23 years old many many moons ago I was traveling with uh Mr Walsh Mr Peter Walsh Mr Walsh was probably about 65 at that time and he was teaching me we’re doing company classes so we would go out and one day me and Mr Walsh are having lunch and he loves Japan you know he he’ been in Japan longer than he had been in the United States and Mr Walsh told me Mike Japan is such a rich and interesting country that you could travel every every a different place every month for your entire lifetime and not see it all so that was his take on it now some people say like you know Japan the houses and things are all very similar and there’s not that much difference but I think the the more deep you go into Japan the more you understand the differences you know some of them are very slight like a Nuance but you know the you know the dialect and the words they use you know the dialect also reflects how people think you know Osaka Ben Osaka dialect versus Tokyo and the different words they use you know um a word like don’t use this word in Japan but like you know there’s the word Baka which means stupid or dumb and there’s the word AO which basically means the same thing but at least to my according to my friends they say that if you use the word AO AO like garlic in Spanish AO um if you use AO in Osaka it’s kind of light you know of course it’s their tone and how you say it also right but he it’s kind of light like oh you silly thing or oh oh you know but if you use the word AO in Tokyo Bak Baka is more light not light but Baka is more neutral but AO is much more strong and people get like upset so it’s a simple thing like that you know like you got little Nuance like that um the way people think you know um I think uh my friend Yoshi was just telling me last week he said um there’s a word called oh it was interesting he there was like one piece of chicken left and then he used the word Eno gatari I can’t remember exact but basically it means that don’t hold back cuz you know like in Japan Eno e n r y o is like a virtue it means that you hesitate or you hold back or you think of someone else before you so the last piece of chicken no one takes because you don’t want to be the one you want somebody else to have it or whatever so in Osaka they have a word that says oh don’t any your or don’t hold back you know for the last piece of chicken or whatever it’s there and Yoshi said that when he said that in Tokyo nobody understood him so there’s also a difference like that yeah so again Nuance is very interesting so yes Japan is still it’s not as diverse as some other countries in different parts but yet there still is a very distinct differences when you go deeper and into it oh another question from uh let’s see oh are we supposed to wear masks in Japan even if it’s not required no you don’t have to wear mask I still wear masks when I go to the company because the train is crowded I do that for you know I during the mask time I was a person who was I never wearing a mask you know I had never wore a mask in Japan for all those years until Corona covid came to Japan and then I finally had to wear mask but now it’s a choice now I live in kilab which is rural Japan so when I go to the supermarket all those people are older because this is an older District I should go outside of the main urban areas that people are older everyone except me is wearing a mask so it’s a little strange I’m older and I’m like them and I’m sure they’re looking at me going who is this guy right how come he doesn’t pay attention to the social norms I don’t know I don’t and since they are wearing a mask I fig I’m safe because they’re wearing a mask right and then but when I go to Osaka or Kyoto City most people are not I would say 30% are wearing 70 are not that’s in Kyoto Osaka would be even less because it’s a more fast moving uh City and when you have younger people of course you’re can to have less people wearing masks so you do not have to wear masks it’s completely up to you I have another friend Kian she wears her mask because of her own choice pretty much wherever G she’s from Hawaii but she she feels like you know she she’s careful so you can put it on or take it off it’s completely up to you um when is the best time to visit Hoka by Ben yako thank you Ben and have you been to the Ice Festival in sapoto so it depends on what you want to see in hoko I’ve made a couple videos some short you may have seen it on my um if you’re interested in watching some of my videos the the link is the URL is down below in the description you can click on that and subscribe but I talked about Hokkaido Hokkaido is probably my favorite place in Japan and it’s because you know and I had lived in Alaska for seven years also I love that outdoor that free you know so how I would end up here in Kyoto a little crowded and things who knows but anyway the best time to go to Hokkaido if you want to eat uh if you want to see the lavender the the purple flowers which are beautiful and the sunflowers and you by then they’re starting to harvest Accord be July uh probably beginning of July through July maybe sometimes even be end of June but July now for those of you who have done tours and a lot of you have I know you may have come to Hokkaido in Fall September usually maybe up to beginning of October if I because it starts to get cold already right that’s the best time for the food because the fish is being harvested salmon you know they’re harvesting food the you know they have grown the farming country is up in Hokkaido they’re harvesting everything so everything’s fresh and good if you want to come to eat and you love Seafood then definitely you come in the fall if you want to see the flowers the lavender and sunflower then you can come in July and if you want to come and see the snow Festival I think it’s the second weekend in February you might want to check that but the second week in February I went two years ago but it was canceled because of covid but I’ve been to the Ice Festival three times I enjoy it it it was to be very very cold now with global warming and weather change sometimes by the second week of February the sculptures or the ice the snow the snow the snow what do you call designs are all starting to melt so again that’s you know kind of Hit or Miss but again it’ll be the second week of February I do recommend it it’s fun it’s kind of of a festival and you know they created that because they were trying to somebody had a great idea that try to generate income how do we generate income for people to come right so what they decided was okay we’re going to do um we’re going to um create an event in the middle of February and you know back what I don’t know how many years ago 30 40 years ago when everything was still really cold during February that the coldest time of the year they started the the yukimatsuri and it’s the self-defense forces the military that helps build all of those snow sculptures and some of the ice ones too the ice the ice sculptures down I think is odori and then there’s snow snow sculptures the other places and it’s it’s really something to see and it generates a lot of income for saporo the only problem though as many of you who have been to the uh yukim Matsuri know it’s expensive because 2 million people come through at that time I think it was 2 million people so imagine your hotels are expensive so you got to book you know kind of and fans and things and you know get the flight up from Tokyo up or somehow or another route but usually that flight too you want to buy it if you’re coming out from outside of Japan all the way through because it’s one of the most expensive routes the Tokyo um saporo route if you’re not using a LCC lowcost carrier if you buy it individually I think there was some data I don’t know if it’s still true but a a couple of years ago where they said that that route for that amount of kilometers of miles was the most expensive route in Japan another expensive route is like Tokyo down to Okinawa also so if you can get it on your main ticket I think it’s cheaper um I haven’t done it the other way so I don’t know okay uh let’s see is there any other questions have you been to neuro or wak okay neuro wakan yes I have been there long long ago in fact just yesterday I met my the three people from this bicycle trip when I was a graduate student at DOA University in Kyoto I rode up my bike around Hokkaido for two months camping and you going along with three others USU titis from Indonesia USU was japanes and lau from Argentina who today is a governor of Katara in Argentina he wasn’t there yesterday but we all got together so yes uh we rode through neodo um and when I broke off from the group I rode up to wakai no the next the following year I I went back again so I went two months and then a month wakanai is the northermost point of um uh Hokkaido and you know it’s just to say I’ve been on the northernmost point take the picture you can see the ocean I wouldn’t say it’s anything that special but if you go during winter there’s certain times when you start to see the Ice Flow come in I heard that’s really neat to see I think I don’t know if you can take a ship out or not so I haven’t been there in the winter I would love to go in the winter again but uh um that’s for wak Ando was a nice Town Hokkaido is really um country but what I want to say about hokido is it’s different from honu the people and the thinking not the thinking but yeah the thinking and the way they move to me is different it’s very subtle but it’s different it’s not this rush rush rush you know walk you know like the fastest walking people in the world they say is um Osaka Osaka is number one in the world for Speed of walking and Tokyo is number two you know in the world you know this is data from 20 years ago I don’t know if it’s still true but um in Hokkaido it’s a much slower Pace even in sapoto a city of two million people when I went to the bank and I was doing stuff everyone’s just kind of nice nice in the sense that it’s not so rushed and it’s not so intense you know like you know I can’t really explain it but I can just tell you that the people people in Hokkaido are more easy not easygo but it’s I just got to say it’s different and one of the reasons is that when I was riding my bike around all those people with that use hosts and hotels and things or whatever most of them were from honu originally they love tokaido and they went up so they have a love for the for the state I mean the the prefecture the island and um they want people to come and then they share this so most people are not from Hokkaido originally unless they’re like second or third generation and there’s a word I think it’s called dosanko which means you are like second or third generation mean you are like a real resident not someone who moved there but um you know the thoseo people are kind of proud and like in Hawaii we use the word Kam that’s kind of similar you know like oh I’m Kam or I’m dosanko so they have this idea of you know people who have uh you know come up and they are now the later generations but is not that populated you know it’s not you know because there’s not that much work outside of Agriculture and maybe fishing and and logging and things so and tourism tourism so I love Hokkaido and that’s that’s the best time to go to um Hokkaido any other questions I don’t see too much more so um just a couple other things I would suggest you know nobody knows about shikoku shikoku is an island and the word shikoku means for countries not countries but four regions so there’s four it’s like a pie divided in four Chicago is probably the most unknown or or um in Japan and I always feel bad for them uh last year when we were in I imab we were cycling the shimanami for those of you who are interested who likes to do bicycling or cycling I would suggest there’s a shimanami kaido the coastal route that’s one way 75 km and you don’t you can go just a little bit or you can go all the way through anyway we couldn’t get a reservation on the Hiroshima side it goes Hiroshima to um shikoku so we’re on the shikoku side and for me the sad part was that shikoku was quite I would say economically depressed you know there’s not much going on in shikoku but it’s still to me like the old Japan you know like the you know because it’s still very underdeveloped mainly agricultural mikang lemons all come from there and there’s something called the oeno it’s the walking of the 88 temples so if you want to do a pilgrimage it’s a Buddhist pilgrimage you don’t have to be Buddhist to do it but you know you can walk the entire route that Co kobal Dai the famous Buddhist monk he created all those temples I think he got the idea of Buddhism from China he came over and they built there is a pilgrimage that you can walk around the entire Island and there’s 88 temples that each each Temple you can get like a a stem and people stay at the temples or you can steal other you know kind of small guest houses if you want um along the way it’s not free you know you have to pay and it’s about 1,500 kilomet so maybe 1,000 miles maybe so not easy it’s kind of hilly takes two months it’s something that I always wanted to do but you know would take two months and think of the cost of let’s say you’re spending 6 7,000 yen a day for food and for um lodging that’s kind of expensive ensive right or you can do it in Parts you can just do you can do whatever you want there are people who ride their bicycle around I think it took a week people who go on the bus but the real way is the idea of a pilgrimage like you walk it and if you want you can get the white robe and they wear like that the Hat you know like the kind of like you see a lot of times the southeast Asia style that kind of hat you got your walking stick and you walk and a lot of times it’s for people who who have suffered something to their lives and they’re trying to to kind of like reflect and deal with it like maybe your child died before you or something like that something really really doesn’t have to be really really bad but something really really tragic and so people do this this route and there are other smaller Buddhist routes to different areas of Japan and I don’t know them all but they are if you can probably go online and and check um you know like right now with with uh YouTube and Google most things you can find quite easily the one thing that’s kind of difficult I would say when you like go to um rural Japan like really rural Japan and it just happened to me over this over last weekend is that their systems like hotels and things are not modern and convenient like in the big cities let me give you an example um I did a shimanami tour for my friends and my friend Joe Lon he’s 802 or 80 82 years old this year his wife and think this is you know people who are a little bit older I’m old too but you know people a little older and then we last year and then Joel after a couple weeks he said to me Mike he wrote me cuz I he said this is the final trip the last time we’re going to meet you know he you know he was my H boss at the Alaska state fair when I was in Alaska when I was young and he said to me Mike um you know I I got to do the shimanami one more time and I’m going like oh okay so he’s coming with six other what seven other people his wife and six other people and I’m going to help them with that but anyway we were making a reservation at the Green Hills Hotel which I had stayed at to shimanami ago and what it is is they have it you know you try to go on booking.com or Agoda or things like that and you cannot it says no rooms available no rooms available so when I called they told me when I called a year ago not a year ago about eight months ago they told me okay 6 months before we’ll open up the rooms on booking.com and all that okay well now it’s 5 months before they leave I mean they come September what happens is so Joe was trying to get on just block block block so finally I thought was strange so I go on and they have an English website I try to book the ticket no no I asked my friend Yoshi Mr Shin travel he’s a great travel um Helper and and he goes on in Japanese and he goes oh you got to go the not on the third party you have to go directly on there so I went on and there’s English translation and I try to book rooms no no availability no avail I said called Yoshi Yoshi I I don’t know what to do and you know I said in my Japanese it’s going to be more confusing my Japanese is not so good anyway he called for me and he said yeah they have openings and so Yoshi booked it for me and the confirmation came back to him now several problems was that the web page I mean the web page in English was confusing and didn’t work second they don’t use email they only use facts believe it or not I was like shock but yeah so places in rural Japan are still at that level you know so again when you’re traveling out into rural Japan you just have to be more mindful that maybe booking.com can’t get you to every place but you got to be a little creative sometimes you know now once you get there everyone’s really really kind and nice everyone except the imab taxi drivers which I did in one of my videos which were the only people in Japan that I met they were not friendly but outside of imab taxi drivers everybody was kind and very helpful a lot of times when you go to places that tourists don’t go and they want tourist to come they’re extra nice because they’re happy that you’re there so it’s great you know you great service people always friendly so that’s another reason to go some somewhere um let’s see um here’s another one is it good to get pocket wifi or E SIM card when traveling to Japan or not necessary I would say yes it’s good to have one or the other um I have not used a eim card because I have a Japan phone but I use a pocket Wi-Fi sometimes when I have people coming to see me and I want to make sure I have enough for everyone to in case of emergency so there’s a place called I use I video and the and the connection is not always that good but still it’s something to have but yes you do want to have it because they’re going to be places that don’t have Wi-Fi Japan is not as as what do you say um it’s not as okay I’m going to give you my opinion so take you at a great of salt technologically everyone thinks Japan is like way ahead you know because they had like the supercomputers and they got like Toyota and they got all that but really daily life like internet internet speed access is still way behind and they’re very limited yet so even like me I I try to get for here this apartment the highest level possible but the system is like this I’m I’m living in an apartment complex a mansion and so the the cable comes in and it’s divided among all the different apartments so you might not get the the the fast that you paid for because it’s automatically divided among all here now if you have a individual house it would be separate so there’re little things like that and you know like universities before covid they were so far behind Japanese universities were like back 20 years and even now I would say they’re still not caught up although you know they want to do all of you know they you know they they talk a lot about doing this these things but so manage your expectations that your hotel will have usually now when you go to rural Japan I don’t know how strong the internet is but most hotels in main city Japans are quite good but again it’s not strong like the United States it’s not powerful like the United States and even when you got a pocket Wi-Fi Easter card sometimes you know like when I’m riding to work I’m going through tunnels or country areas it doesn’t always connect connect up so just so you be mindful of that is that don’t expect the same internet experience that you get like in United States I don’t know about other countries but at least in the United States so very very different now I I’ve heard some foreigners said wow it’s faster here in Japan or as fast America well maybe from their house or somewhere maybe they are getting that but personally I have never been satisfied with the internet access and ability to to to to get internet and then a lot of times if a place will say oh um we have free interet internet here right and then then there’s this process and this is what makes me a little bit crazy is that this process is like you got to jump all these hoops and you know a lot of times it might be in English but it’s in the Japanese English either Google Translation translated it or they translated it and the and the explanation is difficult to follow so it’s like you go through that a lot of times you cannot connect and it’s like so even if it’s in English and this is what you’re going to find out too when you go to the Jr station and you see those lines where you can wait at the counter or you can go outside and you can buy like the shinkansen ticket from the machine now you want to challenge do the machine I never go to the machine because it’s so confusing if there’s a mistake and I get the wrong time or something happens I still got to go back in that line and wait to get to get if I have to change it now some people are very left brain I’m right brain so that’s why two weeks ago I failed on this broadcast but I mean on the live but what I’m saying is that um on those machines it’s in English but the process is Japanese so unless you really understand how it works usually the there’s two or three extra steps you got to do where in America it’ be like one click two clicks boom or one click you’re in in Japan there’s like three or four it’s like jumping hoops so again anything with internet or even like using the machines the the train ticket machines be prepared that if it’s in English it’s going to take extra time and that’s why if you’re following foreigners waiting in line at the machines be prepared to wait longer because it’s it’s I wouldn’t say complicated but it’s confusing that’s just my opinion okay um Anderson said what part of Japan are the best the most popular mountains to climb huh good question you can go online and you can check you know what mountains but the best people are like maybe I don’t know if there’s Facebook groups about mountain climbing in in in English but there are a lot of mountains to climb because 80% is mountainous right and when I was at uh working in Toyama on the in hokiku I went out with the sakubu that’s the mountain climbing Club of the company and they every week or every other week would be climbing some mountain in that area so I I don’t know what the best mountain is but and there I can say the three this is what I heard the three God mountains of the god the god the god mountains are fujian which you said not Fuji Tama Tama which the the mountain CL I did that and everyone said oh it’s easy it wasn’t easy for me if you have experience it might be easy for you and the third is Haku Mount Haku those are the three again everything in Japan a lot of times is in threes so Haku tatama and Fuji are so-called the mountain of the Gods but they have so many other surui and all of these um I think you could just go in and Google that I don’t really know it’ be nice if you had a friend who was uh part of a mountain climbing Club but there are a lot of Japanese who love to climb you know and you know what for me in Japan the purest and the nicest people were the Sak kubu people the people who climb mountains I don’t know why and I think my theory is that these are people who if you climb mountains you cannot be a fake you cannot be an impostor you cannot you know it’s hard it’s super hard so I think that anyone who climbs mountains usually at least in my case 100% were kind humble just good people and so if if you climb mountains and you get into if you make friends with mountain climbing people not the not the just the fakey ones but the real ones I think you find a lot of really really neat people to meet in Japan and I think that goes to my you know my final uh um suggestion is that you want to meet as many people as you can and try to interact because just going and being a tourist is no fun right now my sister always wants to take me along with her because she feels like she wants the deeper story because I speak some Japanese and there is truth to that but on the other hand if you cannot uh speak Japanese and you can only do so much with something like this then you know the next best thing I would suggest is if you have a chance to meet someone who speaks English maybe it’s the hotel um the hotel front desk person that speaks them English and if you can catch them off time you can talk to them a little bit try and find someone because as I said although I said that in Japan there’s very few people who speak well in communicative English they are out there but they’re just spread out so far you know or you could do something like in Kyoto they have something called the volunteer I can’t remember exactly but it’s where University students volunteer to take um guests around foreign guests now this is in in play 5 years ago when I was working at the University and um we had a couple from Finland come and I arranged that for them it was that it was free it was I think he paid for the admission for the the the student and lunch that’s all but you didn’t have to pay anything but they spoke English it was a good chance for them to practice English as well as you could learn more about wherever you were going so there are those kind of volunteer situations now it’s not going to be a professional guide however ever you get an opportunity to learn more about what the average Japanese person is thinking I think that’s what people want right it’s not just to go through the motion and you know think about it anybody going to a country you getting the front desk person maybe the waiter at the restaurant but you’re not really talking you know you know I think when you travel and especially for for people coming to Japan it would be nice if you had opportunities to to mingle or to interact and so if you don’t speak Japanese and the next best is someone who speaks English or or someone like a student who wants to speak English there’s a lot of students who want to practice and if you don’t mind you know working with them you can get a lot out of it too I mean the idea is to create win-win situations right so if you can do that 100% I would say try to get um people to who who who speak some English you know and then the next I guess would be this now as far as philosophical discussions and all you know sometimes you just have to understand that that’s not going to happen but again that would be in any country right um of course you want to have more deeper discussions another thing that you could do if you want to talk about about this is what I do when I go to a country like I was in South Africa once for a conference picked up the English paper read the read the paper oh see there’s a teacher strike you know watch the news they had English news on watched that and then when I went out now in South Africa a lot of them do speak English of course so very different but my my whole thing was that if I could talk about topics that they knew like I said oh I heard you folks have a teacher strike you know how’s that going and a lot they were like oh you know like you you knew so I that also add something like if you know then people are more inclined to maybe talk about different things now the average Japanese usually doesn’t know that much about politics or doesn’t care that much about politics and stuff but there are other things that they are interested like drama or some movie star or whatever or something Scandal I don’t know but anyway I’m I’m just giving you some Food For Thought like you know like you you talk about things that you know you can connect with with people okay so I think pretty I talk kind of long time today I was hoping that I would have more um comments not comments but suggestions or what people are interested in I’m sure a lot of people want to talk about or want to know like what’s the best onen or what’s the best um I don’t know iced coffee or or or sake it’s so wide and if I say something you know it doesn’t mean that it’s it’s the best again I would say go on to YouTube and just type in the food and the thing and usually you have enough videos to say but what I also want to say is that someone like me who’s been in Japan 30 years who doesn’t like to wait and it’s not a foodie almost every place I go it’s fine I’m satisfied right and and occasionally I’ll find some place that’s really cheap and good like last week and even you know before we go to a tatsuya called matsunoya my name is matsuno but it’s no connection matsuno matsuno Y and it’s a fast kind of a fast food tonkatsu place very very cheap the cheapest meal rice and cabbage I mean rice miso soup cabbage and Tatu is 570 Yen at today’s exchange rate in the United States that’s what $4 and um so you know I like it there you can eat as much rice and Misa soup as you want and you find it throughout so something like that I like those places you you know if I want to get in and out fast easy and my two foodie friends Yoshi and Ken really like there so if they say it’s good it must be good because I’m not as you know so there are places like that but again without exploring you know like I go to another place what is it called eeta which is fast food like tempura bows I know like shrimp tempura bow you know a lot is just exploring now a lot of people say well I don’t I don’t know the system and that’s always a challenge right but more and more places are getting those you buy like matsunoya is also the same you put in the money and it’s and they have an English explanation and then you choose but again I was trying to go through the English and the matsunoya so confusing it’s like you know it’s hard to find and so I can’t say they have it in England and you know if there’s people waiting behind you and they’re trying to get in it’s you feel pressure and you feel stress so you know just be mindful that if you’re in that situation maybe go off time so you can take all the time you want or if there’s like what I did once is I had a Japanese person stand next to and I said I want to get this how do I do it and he helped me of course I said it in uh Japanese but even I think you said English you just look at him and go make you know gestures are great in Japan you like like you point to the tatu’s dish you want or something and just go like you know like U you know most Japanese are really really helpful and that’s why I said this is like the best place to travel if you want safety kind people you don’t have to worry about crime very much yes Japan has bad people and there are murders and there are you know there is crime but compared to every place in the world it’s still very maybe the safest country in the world per capita for that many people I think so you know any place even for if you’re taking your family you want to go someplace you don’t have to worry right so let’s say you get off the wrong bus stop or the wrong train stop in in in Japan you don’t have to worry like oh I’m in the wrong neighborhood or whatever right you never have to worry about that if you’re out in a country right and you’re lost you don’t have to worry that someone’s going to rob you or you know kidnap you or whatever and that’s to me a given I think in a society that it should be safe that you don’t have to worry about your things to even just yesterday I had my um my my camera not my C not this but I had my 360 camera and we went to Mino FS I went with the other three two from the hokido business trip the bicycle trip I left my camera on a bench and then I was so you know sometimes I you have two or three cameras you’re trying to figure out which one and then maybe 15 minutes later I’m like okay let’s go I lost the camera I couldn’t find it go so I said to Panic it’s not a cheap insta 360 camera and looking around and my friend tit from Indonesia she went to look and then she found it like four benches down I had left it but again sasuga Japan sasuga means as we can expect from the great Japan sasuga Japan it was there so those are small things but they’re actually really big things too so again highly recommend Japan um try to avoid crowded times if possible um you know even if you come to in a busy time go out early in the morning andless sure tour if you’re on a tour maybe it cannot help but if you can go out at 7 go see kotto at 700 in the morning not all the temples are open yet but you can do the walking around you know do what the main people are not doing you know so that would be my suggestion so where is K an I don’t know oh is that Kad maybe it’s Kad oh Kad if you’re talking about Karan k that’s a friend of ours she’s now in Hawaii she was here in Japan until a couple days ago and she went back she’s the one that Yoshi and Carrie and we had um we had gone to matsunoya and things so any other questions I think that’s pretty much it if I missed it I’m sorry um what do you what do you suggest a tourist does if they leave or misplace an item like you did L okay great question so what happens if you left something on the TR train well right away you would go to that train station person now this is where it takes a little bit Challenge and you might need this if they don’t speak English is you know there’s a word called was mono which means lost in phone and you tell them and then they usually will call like where you’re they’re going to ask you where your train where did you get off what time and they’re going to try and track it I I’ll tell you I’m going to end this one I’ll tell you the story of my situation I used to travel a lot I used to be the International Center Director of Osaka gaku University for a long time 10 years and I used to do a lot of business trips and you when you come back you’re all like jet lagged right so normally I’m always carrying a backpack on one shoulder so I always have one this is kind of like almost like you know that’s your unconscious memory but when I come back from a trip normally I’m bringing back like omag omag is like souvenirs uh from another country so I’m carrying it in this other hat got the backpack and I always did the stupidest thing is that on the train there’s the high rack but you know crowded train so I would put everything on the top there and just ride the train and I would like you know kind of space out jet lag get to my transfer point I grab my backpack forget that I had that because I’m jet legged get on the other trade and start going back going to the going to to the university I go I don’t realize until two stops down and this happened twice now you know on a similar idea where I left my computer and my expensive camera in the I’m sorry in the backpack I’m sorry it was reverse I left the backpack on the um rack and I had the OM just in my mind I’m holding something I panic call my office they call the Train the train then at the end of the line they had the conductor he went out and he checked and fortunately it was there two times now this is really really lucky I’m not saying that that’s what you should be doing I mean of course not in fact you know one of these days it’s not going to be there but two times I had my computer and my um camera and if I lost that everything was in there so yes on the train you go directly to that station that you got off at you return to that station and you tell them and they help you track it now another thing I did and I made a video of this if you’re interested you can look at the video my red Colombia jacket which I love I forgot it on the train I put it on the rack same problem so you probably don’t want to do this is put it on the rack unless you sure you can remember so it was hot took it off put it up there put my backpack normally I put my backpack on the jacket so you can see it you know when you do but for whatever reason I think I have my back I can’t remember but the jacket then I got off the train go oh shoot so I go to the train Master same thing explain to him he calls they call the train oh no no more no more he gives me a number he goes okay this is the lost and found Department you can call tomorrow and see if if they found it or not I said okay really disappointed so go home try to call then nothing next day call nothing so I said okay well I guess you can’t win them all right it’s only a red Columbia jacket although it’s my favorite anyway what happens this three days later I get a call from them cuz I also left my name when I called and they said did you leave a red jacket and I said yes and they said can you describe it and what’s in the pocket I said I had like yellow gloves or something and they go okay come down and pick it up so I go down the next day and pick it up it was there you know so it’s usually this is what I love about Japan people respect other people’s property they’re not going to take it just to take it you know or or because they need it people usually will leave it and not touch other people’s things just like yesterday at the Min know Falls when I left my inst camera way down there for about 15 minutes by itself no one took it and so I have to be more careful because one of these days it’s not going to be there you know and you know it’s not always the Japanese you worry about sometimes I know I don’t want to say it’s the foreigners but sometimes they’re foreigners too who you have to be careful of you know like just in the news uh this past week where this robbery injury kind of uh case where there’s like four places that people were you broken into and two of them were um Vietnamese Nationals actually so it’s not always a Japanese sometimes you have to wor about the foreigners too you know so again be careful but again this is the maybe the safest at least to me the safest country in the world I mean know Korea is also safe and Thailand is quite safe and all but um I think I think Japan is maybe the safest and again I don’t have data for that but with 127 million people wow really really uh safe anyway um if there are any other questions oh one more thing if you drop something along the way uh like you walk in and somehow you lost you can’t go to the C the police box that’s closest to that and they can help you with lost and found also you know like I found keys I found a iPhone here close to my house I always took it and I left it with the cobon people they usually ask for your name and they it’s funny they asked me for my ID and they have to copy my ID I don’t know why it’s like I’ve brought it in I’m not taking it and then and then they ask a really interesting question do you want to do you want to call back back from the person if they come to collect it I guess basically saying do you want a a thank you call from this person and I always say oh no no no need I mean you think if they do it on their own great but it’s not like you want to make it a a requirement that yes have this person call me and thank me I mean that’s the way I’m reading it I could be wrong but that was one of the odd questions that I got when I was at the the the police box was that you know do you want do you want a phone call back if they come and I I’m just didn’t understand exactly but anyway the Japanese Coban uh that’s the police box that you’ll see uh Japanese police are really really nice um everybody’s very usually very helpful recently they don’t come out they used to always be sitting in the front in the desk but there were a couple incidents a couple years back where somebody was coming in and they I don’t know for whatever reason they moved and they stabbed one of the uh H um policemen couple time this happened a couple times and so now they’re more wary there’s usually no one there except the busy um cants and what happens is that they um you ring the bell and then they’ll us should come out you know and you and that’s what I did here and they look at me kind of strangely you know like cuz my Japanese is not so good you know but again anyway um I am for Japan although sometimes it makes me a little crazy because of the systems um you know they’re trying oh there’s one more question here would you be interested in being a tour guide in the future yes and no yes is yeah I don’t mind because I want people to have a great time you know but no it’s like it’s the hard part is that it takes a lot of time and money I think I would do like really high-end tours like somebody who like 10 people you know do like the ultimate tour and then get my friend Yoshi him and me would be taking the tour and at a high the high end and we would design something that no one else could do you know something like I did that in Alaska before when I was taking my relatives from Fred snow and my Homestay father and my mom and dad along but something like that something unique but otherwise I would rather just cheer you on and say uh one more question from Star thank you star final travel pitfalls or things to avoid with traveling in Japan okay last question travel pitfalls don’t catch the train during rush hour that’s seven SP to n on weekday and probably 5 to 7 7:30 on in the evening unless you want that experience I think everybody should do it once if you have time do the rush hour just to see what the average Japanese salary man or salary woman goes through in the morning and if you know if you’re in Tokyo there’s the yot line which is the one that goes in a circle and they all come out so they all come in from the suburbs and they ride this yam line the Yaman line is is busy but not like these lines these lines coming in are way more so if you take any of these lines or even experience a yamanote line that goes around like that I think you would get an experience of just how crazy it is none of these salary men or salary women are riding one hour hour and a half in pack situations and after you do it once I think you have more empathy for like wow maybe I don’t ever want to live in Japan as a salary man right and yeah it’s it’s it’s crazy you’re literally crunched right like that and you know especially during Co time you’re like I’m sure you know that’s why that was a big problem because you know even with a mask on you just you’re like sard the word sushi zume in Japan is like packed like sardines in Japanese they are literally packed so I would say don’t do that another thing is that if you’re going to buy tickets like if you okay Jr pass real pass there’s several different people who say different things about this initially it was cheaper now I heard it went up five times so definitely not worth it even before when it was cheaper unless you were doing a route from Tokyo to Hiroshima and back there you would get your money back but if you’re just going Tokyo Osaka and Tokyo maybe you’d break even maybe you know it wasn’t a big deal it wasn’t any big deal so and people always think wow now I have the you know like the pass I can write all the Jr things right but there’s a lot of places like in Kyoto you want to take kintetsu maybe T that’s private or you want to take hu and the private lines usually are little bit cleaner little bit faster uh if any line is late it’s usually a Jr line because they do all the the far you know routes and things and then they come into the city they’re behind so yes there are like fairies to MIMA you can take the jr1 versus the private one I would say it’s not such a big deal and the reason is that it gives you more flexibility if you don’t have to use Jr as well as I think uh the shinan said they only had you could use Hikari so there’s uh noomi which is the fastest and then Hikari and Kodama they’re like you know super Express Express and reg on the shinan S line the bullet train line the shinan noomi you cannot use the noomi with the rail pass you can only use hiar now that’s not a big deal because it’s only like half an hour difference or something like like that so but if you don’t have to if you don’t have the pass then you could take noomi or you have more flexibility you can change the plan up you know if not you’re kind of being dictated by using you know Jr another problem is people think they’re saving money you are saving money with the Jr pass whether it’s even even when it was cheaper if you’re moving constantly so if you’re going somewhere every you know every day like I had one friend him and his wife they came in and they’re from Tokyo they were going to Nagoya one day and back and then they came to Kyoto and they were moving that’s fine the problem with that is though you cannot stay in a place very long or you have to carry your bags with you to the next place or you just got to go and come back in one day because your hotel is in maybe Tokyo is your base it’s actually to me more of an inconvenience that you are now tied to the to to maximizing your value of the past so if you’re just going like one day here one day here one day here one day here okay great but if you want to go and say three days here and then maybe four days here because the the lenss are one week two weeks three weeks right and the price goes up so again a lot of people think I’m saving money not necessarily especially with the price going up five times as well now again maybe if you’re doing a route from Tokyo to hoshima or to Fukuoka and back but again you got to do that within the time period then maybe it’s okay it’s good to get but if you’re just doing like you know Tokyo Osaka or and then flying out or whatever probably not but again you got to measure it and and it depends on the yen rate so that’s another thing I would say be careful about um also Japanese trains like if you have a group you got to be careful like you know like especially if you do it you know during a busy time that you know it takes time always allow time do not you know some people want to make it like oh I just want to get there just at the time allow yourself 10 15 minutes or even between changes and things allow yourself some time because you have a group it’s confusing you might go to the wrong platform and on and on and on so don’t do that because it stresses you out the idea is to alleviate stress and to make it fun and enjoyable my next live stream I don’t know if you folks like it maybe I’ll do another one maybe in two weeks uh it depends but but again I don’t know maybe maybe there’s only like five people on and maybe it’s not worth doing but I hope you enjoyed this uh or got something out of it I hope more people ask questions or things that they want to know and if I can answer it I’d be happy to give you at least my insight not that it’s correct but I think I’m giving you my insight as someone who’s been in Japan for 30 years um and being American Japanese American and you know and you know there’s a whole another thing about being Japanese American right having this face having the name matsuno um that is different than if I was Caucasian or white and I you know so that’s a whole another um live or video because again how or if you’re Asian-American or Japanese American how you’re treated or how people look at you are going to be different than if you are Vasan or African-American or or or or you look as a for foreign that’s a whole another thing and it’s kind of fun you know you can’t change the way you look so you just accept and you deal the best way you you can’t change the cards that are dealt you can only change how you play those cards right so that’s would be my thing so thank you very much and um I hope to see some of you in Japan or at least cheering you on that you know I hope you’ll come to Japan because I came as a exchange student uh over 40 years ago less around 40 years and um it made a huge huge impact on me and I’m still here you know originally I actually wanted to go to Kenya University of Nairobi to study Swahili and when that program closed because they didn’t have enough people I ended up in Japan I was actually very disappointed because I wanted to go somewhere where I didn’t have people who look like me but even coming here it just blew my mind about like how different it was and how amazing you know and at that time you know 40 years ago Japan was still very very you know there’s no internet you got to do everything by you know hand to hand right but anyway I’m still here love Japan I hope some of you can come and uh thank you for those of you who I know thanks for coming on just to be nice and support me for those of you the first time hope to see you again maybe in two weeks I’ll do another one really appreciate it and um signing off take care and um see you again everybody bye bye