The Chaser Report - Tokyo Tourism Please Sponsor Us

Episode Date: May 23, 2023

Dom has seen the splendours of Heaven in Japan and wants to bring a glimpse of it to you. Imagine a world where trains work, toilets aren't cold, and life is affordable. Truly unfathomable. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Charles, we have a spin-off podcast called Welcome to the Future. People might know. Please subscribe to it, if you wish. Where we review, essentially the future, as we see it, Charles, is of terrifying AI and crappy Bluetooth products. Yes, definitely. But I've just been to the real future.

I've just been to just been to. Japan for a week, a very enjoyable week of checking out Japan. I fully recommend it to everyone who can get there, as long as you can buy tickets during the one day where there's a sale, which is what I did. Because I looked at the airfiz when I got back and hideously expensive. So that's a little taste of the future for you. $600 million to go on a 10-hour flight. But there are some things there that we don't have in Australia yet. I'm hoping that we'll get. But I'm optimistic. This is going to be an entire show about the toilet seats, isn't it? Well, we can start there if you like.

Because the toilets are amazing, and there are some of them in Australia, but it's the Toto Washlet, Charles. There are a few variations on it, but the Toto Corporation invented this toilet that, how can I explain it? Well, firstly, you sit down on it and the seat is warm. It warms the seat for you. And I didn't know how much I wanted a warm toilet seat until I experienced one. Well, I mean, it's been a long tradition, hasn't it?

Remember Tom Brown's school days? Yes. The seat warmer. Yeah, the seat warmer was the junior kid who had to warm up the seat for the seniors. Yeah. I mean, that's obviously a much better tradition. Yes. But if you don't have already access to children to abuse.

Would you say that the warming of the toto has the same human qualities that a personally warmed up seat has? Yeah, you've got me there. See, I thought the Japanese. model was superior. No one gets humiliated in this model, do they? So that's unfortunate. Charles, there's a spray. There's a little spray arm that comes out from the back of the toilet underneath you.

I am. And there's a jet. And there are two modes for the jet. Jet mode one is, there's a button that looks like a pair of buttocks. You press that button and a spray of warm liquid comes, and let's be clear on the direction here, comes from the jet up towards you. Yes. It's in no way like diarrhea, where there's a stream of other warm liquid going the other direction.

No, this cleans you. It's kind of like a spray bidet. It's a biter, yeah, yeah. But it's a fancy pants bidet. You can change the speed and the intensity of the amount and the force. And you're a big fan, aren't you? It's good stuff. I mean, look, this is a debate that...

So did you use toilet paper at all when you're over there? You need to at the end, just to sort of clean up a little bit. But there's also a mode I didn't use, Charles, which is lady mode. In which case, the jet moves further forward. And there's a little pink button that's on the toilet. So, I mean, it's hard to come back to regular non-worn sprayless toilets. Yes. No computer chips in the middle.

But what if you need to give your balls a bit of a wash? Could you use it? You could maybe use the lady mode or maybe there is. Maybe I've gotten confused because the two buttocks, it's just kind of like a number three on its side. Maybe it's buttocks or balls. I don't know. It could well be. So anyway, it's very advanced.

What if you're biologically not suitable for that shape of toilet? That's a very good question. I don't know whether there's sort of physical diversity. But I did see, one of the things they have is there are disabled toilets everywhere. And many, many had this sort of, it's hard to explain. It's kind of like a hand shower spray that could be used for, I think, disabled people to clean themselves. And this was just very, I've never seen that in Australia anywhere. And this was everywhere in Japan, as were kind of baby change stations, it's very useful for us.

And the most useful invention ever. I think I've only seen in one Australian public toilet, which is a little chair off the ground where you can stick your baby while you go to the toilet so that they can't escape. Right. It's absolutely brilliant. It's like a little mini high chair in the toilet cubicle. Because they've got that for babies in Australia. You know, you've got those, you know, tables that fold down.

No, no, but they've got those. But, I mean, inside the cubicle, if you need to go yourself, what do you do with the baby? And they're sitting upright in this tiny, it's kind of like a mini high chair. And, I mean, then the baby has to watch you poo. That's the only downside. That doesn't matter. So that's one little taste of the future. Yeah, that's great.

Okay. So that alone is enough reason to book a trip to Japan. This hasn't been paid for by the Japanese tourist board. But if anyone does want to pay us to go back and do the podcast for a week in Japan, that would be excellent. Can we pitch that? Yeah, let's pitch that. Anyway, so another excellent thing that they have, it's a weird idea, Charles,

but they have convenience stores that are actually convenient. They're on every... I'm not understanding you. No, so imagine it convenient, like a 7-Eleven. Yeah. And they're everywhere. So there's probably one across the street from where you are in any part of Tokyo, pretty much.

Yeah. There's about 10 different chains of a convenience store. But the logic of them is so different. Because the first thing I don't actually understand how this is possible. It's like an alternative universe. They're cheap. Oh.

I know, you go in there and you get, I don't know, a can of coke or something or one of the other Japanese drinks. It's, not the Australian dollars, it's $1.30 or $1.40? Do they not understand what a convenient story is? Yeah, it's weird. Nick, you'll be telling me that they have prices on things. They do, they have prices on things. And I thought it was called $7.11 because it's worth $7 and you pay $11.

Yeah, yeah. But their 711s are just as cheap as everything else. Wow. And they actually also have food. That's nice. I know. They have food that's nice. Yeah, and you can go and get basically what you need for a meal.

Like if you're living by yourself like I used to be. So they're like mini supermarkets. Yeah, that's right. If you, let's say you're a sad person living by yourself like I used to be and you just want to get some food on the way home with no effort. Yes. You're going to a convenience store, pay $5 for a perfectly decent meal you can microwave or whatever. And you're done.

And that's actually, that's genuinely convenient. Look, I don't think what you're describing is the future, Dom. I think you're just describing something that, never happen here. Like, can you imagine city convenience store or night owl? That's true. I wouldn't want to eat food from any Australian convenience store. Yeah.

You would just, like, it's never going to happen. I mean, Australian convenience stores are convenient, but only for stone people. That's basically every single food item in the convenience store. Rich stone people who are going to afford to pay $10 for a pack of twisties. That's something you notice. But then the counterpart to this is, let's say, you want to drink, you want like a can of drink or a can of hot coffee. Oh, yeah?

They have cans of hot coffee, yeah. There are also vending machines everywhere. So if you can't find a convenient store, there's on every street in Tokyo pretty much, there's vending machines just randomly put alfresco outdoors, selling equally cheap drinks. What if you're wanting used women's underwear, though? I've heard this story, but in all my trips to Japan,

I've never seen such a machine. There must be one. Because don't you get worried that, you know, you're buying a drink and that the last thing to be vended from it was some used underwear? I mean, that would be awkward. Yeah. Yeah, because I'm thinking they're quite different markets. Yeah, exactly.

But there are lots of other weird little, you can get cake in a can at a vending machines in Tokyo. How? An aluminium can with cake in it. We didn't manage to track one down. We wanted to try it. Yeah, right. Next trip. None of the medical advice contained in the chase,

should legally be considered medical advice. The Chesa Report. So another thing they have Charles, you're not going to believe this. They have trains that work, that actually run on time. So when... Sorry, you've lost me there. You know how you look on Google Maps or something? And it says a train will arrive at the station at whatever the time.

Yeah, 1135. And that's the one time that it will never arrive. Yeah. In Japan, they actually turn up at the exact moment. Right. And if you just miss it, it's fine because there's another one in three or four minutes. Sorry, I'm just having trouble. You're doing trains. Yeah.

Yeah, they're actually, you go to a station and there's a train there that goes where you need to go and it gets there quickly. It's a weird idea, isn't it? Yeah, I know, yeah. I mean, I must say it was because the culture shock was great. I was put off by their foreign ways. Are you sure you didn't go to Disneyland or something like that? Well, you can get a train to Disneyland in Tokyo. There's a special train with Mickey Mouse ears.

They've thought of everything. But then, Charles, they also have, and this is the most improbable one, they have fast trains that are actually fast. You know how in Australia you'll go from, say, Sydney to Newcastle or Sydney to Canberra, and it'll take somehow on a private piece of track with nothing in the way. It will take longer than going by car. Yes. I don't know how that's possible in Australia.

But in Japan, they have the Shinkansen, the bullet train, which travels at, I don't know, 250 to 300 kilometres per hour and goes very, very fast. The really weird thing is that even though the country is absolutely earthquake prone, there's never been a problem because they have automatic detection built into the trains and whenever they detect tremors, they just shut down automatically. Right. So hang on, they build a whole lot of train networks and then they thought about contingencies like,

oh, well, what if something happens and then designed into the design a solution to those. They did. It's a very strange idea. But they must be closed for track work all the time. Well, that's what I was going to say. On the weekends, I don't know when they do their track work because the Australian way is to just do it every single weekend forever. Yeah, just shut down everything all the time.

I lived in, for those who don't know, Sydney, I lived on the north side of the bridge when I was a kid and that meant that every single weekend. There were no trains. You could. Buses replaced trains on the North Shoreline. Yeah. Yeah, that was a recording that they played.

No, they don't seem to do that. Or if they do, it's late at night. Yeah, it's strange, isn't it? So that's what they have. But the other thing is, Charles, I was there, I sat there for a week. One morning at 4.15 a.m., my phone did this. They have built into all of our phones. Like every Australian phone, presumably on the market.

It is. An automatic feature. that warns you of an emergency. And so, yeah, so, I mean, obviously that was truly terrifying and woke us up. Yes. And the ground did shake a bit and it's genuinely dangerous to visit Tokyo

because they're overdue for a massive earthquake that will kill tens of thousands of people. But the tourism board doesn't want you to mention that. Look, it makes it more exciting, I feel. But all of our phones have this feature to warn us of emergencies. Wow. And it makes that sound, whether it's in silent,

I think even if it's switched off in some scenarios or there are televisions when they're switching. off they turn on to do that and they can immediately notify everybody at an emergency. Wow. Whereas in Australia, this function is built into all of our phones. We don't use it. Well, no, but they would see, don't tell the authorities about that because what they'll do is they'll use it to tell you about the latest horse race or something like that.

They'll use it for the Everest. Well, on election day, they would have gone, do it, do it, do it. Vote people. Refugees, refugees. Yes, that's right. But what an amazing function. And they've designed this system to work, and it's instantaneous. As soon as it detect any sort of seismic trouble,

just sends this thing out to the affected area. Fortunately, in Australia, we don't have any natural disasters. We don't need any kind of early warning system. Anyway, so that's another thing I loved about it. What else can I tell you? Oh, Charles, this is a really good thing. Oh, yeah. You know how the cost of living is horrible at the moment,

and everything's really expensive? Yes, of course. Every single restaurant that we went to in Japan has a lunch special. It's like $10, $11, $12, you get a lunch and a side, a drink. It's, what, so wait, hang on, why do we live here? Why don't we just all move to Japan? I don't, well, because of the earthquakes, I guess. But, no, it's genuinely amazing.

But you'll get warned about the earthquakes. It's fine. It's fine. At least you know that you're about to die in Japan. Which is helpful. And at least that there are working trains. Yeah. So that if you die on a train in Japan, in an earthquake,

at least you'll know that it was going quickly. And that it was on time. Yes, that's right. But the best thing, I think, in the whole of Japan, there are many things I love this. Do they have the Toto toilets on the trains? I don't know. Because you could literally, if you're on a train during an earthquake, it would be like this, eating something from a comedian store, like cake in a can.

A great way to go, wouldn't it? But there are a lot of other things I love about Japan. There's little jazz bars everywhere. There's sumo, which is a great sport. I mean, it's the only sport fat people can play. And as a tubby person myself, I really endorse that. But the best thing and the biggest difference that you notice, I reckon in Japan, is happy drunks.

Oh, yeah, because it's a very hard drinking culture, right? You can buy booze. Oh, really? You can buy a can of beer from a convenience store for the same cost as a Coke for less than $2. Oh, I didn't know this. Yeah, they're incredibly cheap to get. Biru.

Biru. You can go, and there's stronger things in that as well. It's shochu mixes and all these spirit mixes that are very potent. Right. It's very easy to get absolutely smashed on very little money in Japan. But for some reason, unlike Australia, everyone, particularly the bloke's being drunk, doesn't lead to mass violence. I don't know how it happens.

I don't know why it happens. But people will fall asleep on the street waiting for the first train. It's very common. You walk around 2 in the morning and you see lots of businessmen just sleeping on the floor, completely safe. They don't punch on. And you know what that means? What does that mean?

Any Australian who moves there is going to be the king. That's going to go around and bash every one. Yeah, that's great. Awesome. Do you think that maybe they're not, when they get drunk, they're not angry because they live in Japan and the trains run on time and you can get cheap lunches and cheap food and cheap cake in a tin? Well, it's either that or the massive cultural conformity, which is sort of a known issue in Japanese society. It's not perfect. Yeah. But we've got national cultural conformity around being a dick.

We do. And are drinking more. You're getting punch on. Yeah. There you go. So, look, it's a great place. We should all go there and possibly not come back. In fact, my life would be so much more affordable if I lived in Tokyo.

Because you know what else is cheaper? Property. What? Really? Well, it's much smaller. Yeah. But you can at least afford to live there. Okay. You can always visit.

If you can get a Qantasail, that's what I did. Yeah, I think I'll, are there any trains that go there? Give them time. They'll figure it out. Our Gehers from Road. We're part of the Iconoclass Network. Catch you tomorrow. we decide to move to Japan.