Trash Taste Podcast - The Struggles of Life in Japan | Trash Taste #2

Episode Date: June 12, 2020

Joey (TheAnimeMan), Garnt (Gigguk) and Connor (CDawgVA) discuss the process, pros, cons and thoughts on moving to Japan, how to survive here and other stories! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I fell asleep in the bath once with a nosebleed and it was scary waking up to that. You ever fell asleep in the bath? No, that's how people die. No, it was like a shallow bath. You could still die. How are we going to like? Hello and welcome to the Trash Taste Podcast. This is now episode two, hopefully, unless some...

Unless we fucked up somehow. Unless we fucked up somehow. I am your host for the day, Giguck. And joining me is Connor from... Connor from C-Doh. Connor from Connor Dog VA and Joey from the anime man.

Wow, that's a lot more energetic than last time. I know, right? I just like came in nonchalala like, yeah, welcome. Hey, guys, welcome to Trashay podcast. I should be like that because I'm gonna say right now,

apologies if I'm a bit out of it, I'm slightly hung over because it was my birthday celebrations yesterday. How old are you 47? I am, well, in YouTube years, yes, because I've been around since the beginning of YouTube, basically. But no, I've finally hit my dirty 30s.

Oh my God. That's scary, dude. I know. I always forget the huge, like, age gap between us. Yeah. Because between Connor and Gaunt is, what, eight? Seven years? Seven years.

I'm 23, yeah. That's fucking insane. I forget all the time that you are 20. Everyone thinks I'm like 30, especially in Japan. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it's the beard. Yeah, everyone just, beard, you immediately have like four mortgages, a car and two kids. But because it is, or it was Garn's birthday, I got him a gift.

I wonder what this could be. I wonder. It's manga! See, we've just reached that age, you know, where this is just a acceptable gift that you can give anyone. Yeah. So let's do the unboxing, shall we? That's some ASMR unboxing on the podcast. time.

Yeah. And you see, we've already got wine glasses because we had no idea what this could possibly be. But ooh. Oh, fancy. Yeah, it is fancy. So basically at our supermarket,

I'll tell a story while you're opening that. So basically at the supermarket that we all live near, which I'm not going to say. There's like a booze section, like a liquor store section. And I didn't know for the longest time that not only is there a liquor store section,

but there's like a dedicated section to wine. Like a wine. like room, I guess. So I got a, uh, an Italian one, I think. Barolulu? Barolo. I, I can't, I misread this the first.

I was like, Baruto? Like I was like, is this anime wine? Baratow wine. Borozo wine. Yeah. Sounds like a generic Dragon Ball villain. Yeah. Sparola.

Go give us Sparolo. Thank you very much, Joey. Yeah, no worries. I don't know too much about wines, apart from if they're in, um, red or white. Yeah. What colors is it? If they're red or white or if they're one of the 10

from drops of God. I don't think it's that, but Barolo is like, I think it's like pretty well known in Italy, I think. The guy was like, oh yeah, if you want like a well-known Italian wine, like get Barola. So, hey, if anyone's watching this episode

or listening to this episode in your Italian, let us know if you know Barolo. I just don't think of it's like, the fuck is a Barolo. That's what they call Borato in Italy. Actually, it's funny because how I got into wine, because how I got into wine initially was literally drops of God. Because before that, I was like, why does anyone who drink wine?

I just want a cold beer. I don't want to, like, but after reading, you read drops of God once, and you're like, I love wine. Wine's great. I read drops of God on a flight. I think it was, what was the flight? I don't know, it's from like America or somewhere. And I remembered reading drops of God.

And you know when like the little cart comes by? Yeah, yeah. I want to drink and I was like, of course I want wine. I'm a connoisseur of fine taste, of course, why even ask me the question? Yeah, I was about to ask, I hope you were drinking wine on the flight, what you already. So she, you know, she gets out the little bottle of wine,

they crack open, pours it into this plastic cup for me and it was like the most pathetic drink I had because I was sitting there like swirling this plastic cup that like a 10 year old would drink out of it. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, because table wine, we all know table wine on flight It's basically just like grape juice with hand sanitizer in it. Like it's disgusting.

I mean, cause you can't even taste like things that aren't like super salty right on flights anyway. Yeah, yeah, I feel like wine is the worst thing. I feel like it's that point when you're watching something that's super good, like for example, when you're watching Shokkekeg- and like this food looks amazing and you're sitting there with your fucking takeaway convini meal. And you're like, this is kind of like A5B that I'm into now.

It's a five beef that I just imagine hard enough. nothing more orgasmic than Kraft mac and cheese. Oh yeah, let's bore that. It's quite like. From such a height. From such a- Which was another meme that originated from Jobs of God. If, if-

Oh, come on. I'm sorry, okay. I love how you're like tilting that way. I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry. I'm not a waiter. When is the podcast actually gonna start?

The podcast is starting now. Happy birthday. Cheers, thank you very much. Congratulations. So boys, what are we discussing today? What's the topics on our mind? On the topic of, you know, we talked about, because we live quite close together, right?

We live within, you know, walking distance. Yeah, so I guess I think a good topic would be how we, you know, what our experiences are like living here in Japan now that we've all finally moved here because we just moved here, how many months have we been living here now? It's actually like eight. Eight months.

Which is crazy. Really? Yeah, yeah. October. So it's just hit June. So it was like, and this was like, middle or two, it was like seven and a half months, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. And that's, it does not feel like a- No, no. Well, to be fair, the last two months, I might as well have been living in fucking Australia. I have to know, I like, quarantine does things to you. And I hadn't heard anyone speak Japanese, like, about two months except for like that brief moment

where you'd go out to buy groceries and you'd, I just forget that I was living in Japan. Yeah, legit, like, I remember like catching the train for the first time in like two months and I was just like, so the world is full of wonder. I was like, I felt like I was like, cast away, like when he like,

Tom Hanks after castaway when he came back to humanity, like, Wilson, you know. Because I don't, I don't know if you guys have, but yet, but I still haven't gone into Tokyo yet. I went there for, like central Tokyo. Yeah, yeah, I think the first time I went there

was like yesterday and that was, literally just because it was like quarantine was over just on like the day of my birthday. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ooh, this is, this is fate. I'm going to go out and have some nice food. But even now, there's like a lot of places are still closed. Yeah. So it's still not like everything's open yet.

But yeah, it's been a really fast eight months. It hasn't felt like eight months at all. Like I guess my first question to you guys, my first question to you guys is like, what made you decide to move to Japan in the first place? Because you've been here for how many? years now. I've been in four years now. Yeah. I guess for you it's more obvious though. I mean, yeah, because I've spent what, like half my life here and I have family up north and in Tokyo. At least with me, like, I'm pretty sure I've said this in videos before, but like

I was going to move to Japan after I graduated from uni anyway because I, I think this was like back when I had maybe like 20K, 30K subs. So I wasn't doing a full time at all. Yeah. I was in like my second year of university and I was interning at like a Japanese like IT company, which I believe is now like defunct. Like it doesn't exist anymore, I don't think. So glad that internship never went through. Yeah. But yeah, so I was going to move to Japan anyway because like it just makes sense for me because I'm fluent in both English and Japanese, which is such a huge plus here. Like if you know both languages, like you can pretty much get a job anywhere. We'll get to that. Yeah, we'll get to that. And like no one in Australia gives a shit if you

can speak Japanese. Yeah, exactly. Like my dad's work at like a Japanese IT company for like 30 years. He can't speak a word of Japanese. Yeah. It's because no one in the office can speak Japanese, right? But here it's like, if you can speak English,

you can do business with anybody. Yeah, yeah. In or out of Japan. So it just was like a natural process for me to like, okay, I get my paper, I work at like some fucking IT company in Japan and then we're all good. So. Yeah, it's funny because I reckon one of the few industries

where Japanese is, can be super, super important is anime and manga. Yeah, exactly, exactly. You might start your luck there. Yeah, exactly. So like either way, like, it was just a natural, like, path for me to, like, move you. But, you know, instead of, you know,

doing that desk job that I had set my plans on, you know, YouTube for me blew up, like in my third year or uni when I graduated. And so I was just like, all right, I'll, guess I'll do this. Guess I'll do YouTube for as long as I can. And then- You're still doing it.

I'm still doing it. Somehow still doing it. I know, it's crazy. The story of, or I guess like the original plan that was brought up to you guys about moving here, it was like a year ago? Yeah, because I wanted to move here for a while. I remember, like, since we first met each other

and since my first trip to Japan, I was like, I could really see myself living here. This is, and this is not like the typical weeb kind of fantasy. I actually never had that. You know, I was what, like, I remember, back in the day when it was like mid 2000s. Like the weebu dream was to live in Japan and you know.

Working the anime industry. Work in the anime industry. It was just like a fucking dream that nobody had ever proven or, you know. So it was just that weep dream. But I never really wanted that. I was like, you know, I'm happy with a normal career. Yeah. I'd never really fantasize about going to Japan.

But I remember the first time I came here, it was so eye-opening for me because it was like, you know, when you know that feeling when you're like, man, this is, country just works in a lot of ways. And it's to do with my job, so I'm like, this could be a really good opportunity for me. I definitely felt the same thing with how I thought about Japan.

Yeah. I couldn't have cared less about living here. And I thought people were learning the language. At the time, you know, I was like 15, 14, I was like, that's kind of cringe, bro. Yeah. But like now, now that I've actually started to learn it. God, I regret it so much.

I regret that like I didn't learn any because I could have been like a few months ahead at least right of learning the language. I wish I was more weiaboo. Like now that the weibo, now that the cringy weeaboo phase is over, I wish I was that cringy weeaboo because that would give me so much more of an advantage

now that I'm here in Japan. Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, and a part of me, I remember when I used to think that way, like anyone who's learning it, it's just like, wow, it's so sad, you never like actually gonna learn it. But like, to be fair, if you're learning anything, you know, any other kind of language, especially if you only speak one, I think that's like,

good, good on you, like better yourself. you know, like it gives a shit. And I really regret that I thought that everyone, everyone who's learning Japanese because of anime is pathetic. But then again, I was like an edgy teenager, right? And we all think that. And yeah, like you said, I had no intention or want to live here. Yeah.

I was pretty content in the UK. And even when I visited here, I thought, wow, this is an amazing place to come visit, right? But I don't think I were still sold yet on moving here. Because I think, I don't know what you guys, but I really like need friends. And I was like, I need that social interaction. I'm not thinking of every wee, but I do need, like,

to have friends that I like see often, otherwise, like, I really get, like, upset. Like, like, the antithesis of every way of that. Yeah, like, I need to socialize or I really, like, it really starts to take a toll on me. Yeah. And I was just, like, I really, like, worried that I wouldn't be able to, you know,

have a good social circle or meet people. Yeah. I mean, luckily that hasn't been the case, but. Because I guess the big difference for you and me is that I've already, like, Before Japan, I'd already lived in Thailand for three years. So I had experience moving to a different country and finding new friends. And to me, it was like, okay, I'm just starting the process all over again.

And it's just a new adventure, I guess. So it was a lot easier for me to decide, hey, I'm going to move to Japan. I guess the biggest thing that's, you know, made me think is that do I really want to go through this process again? How long do I see myself actually living here? And to me it was like, this is the last big move I'm gonna do before I kind of start to think about staying in one place. Yeah.

Flying to different countries every few months, which is what I was doing before. Yeah, yeah. I don't know how you were doing that for like, yeah. Like it was, because you were, you were going from like Thailand to UK to America. And then just like that right.

It was a constant, it was like I had three offices. I had one in Thailand, one in the UK, and one in America. That's major, Entrepreneur moves right, I have three officers all over the world. Like, when you're like, the traveling just gets to you man. Because I remember, like, you know when you're like at university, you're like, I just want to travel, I want to get out,

I want to experience new things, but you do it every year for about a good four years, and it fucking, it fucking gets you. Yeah, I think I'm definitely starting to phase out of that, like, I love, just any excuse to travel is great, because now I'm really starting to like to test some travel. Remember, like, when travel? traveling to anime cons was exciting and now the thought of having to go on a plane

to get somewhere, like that was, to me, it's a lot harder than it used to be. I guess because it's just, because how it's become, it's always a 10 plus hour flight and that's like the thing that is really drained. But you must sound so, God, I'm so annoyed, we have to travel so hard. It's, I hate to win these cons pay for our travel.

Right. But yeah, I mean, you know, it's, I guess it happens right when you travel a shit ton. I'm sure anyone who has like parents or family friends who work their whole business is to travel, it does become draining pretty quickly. I mean, because it's, it is a job at the end of the thing. Because I, you know, it's people want to travel.

But if you've ever had like a office job, which I did for the BBC and you had to travel to Europe, you have to travel to these places. And it's just hours and hours of traveling for the job. It drains you. No matter where you're traveling to, if you travel there enough, It'll eventually drain you.

There's a massive difference between traveling for pleasure and traveling for business. And I mean like it doesn't seem, it might not seem there's like a huge difference, especially to someone who doesn't travel a lot. But after a while, you're just like, oh man, I have to go on this flight versus,

yay, I get to go on this flight. I think the only time I'm like excited for a flight is when like Netflix drops like a whole show. Yeah, I'm like super hyped for. It's like sweet, like a 10 hours and no one bothered me. Yeah. I haven't watched this, hell yet.

That's like the only time, but the worst is when you get to the app, you're like, fuck, I didn't download anything. Yeah. Oh, God. Oh no, you have to pay for shitty Wi-Fi to scroll on Twitter for 12 hours. Cool, I have to play this Solitaire game for 10 hours that doesn't require any internet. It's like when you sit down for a shit

and you realize your phones are 1% tax-air, you're like, what do I do when this battery runs out? Like another thing is like time differences and adjusting sleep schedule. I got a question for you, because we went through the same kind of flight. How did you find the traveling to the Crunchral Anime Awards?

Because to put things in perspective, we were there for like one day, one, two, two days, right? And we had to travel, how long did you have to travel? 16-ish hours, I think it was for the Crunchral Anime Awards. Yeah, it was 21 hours of traveling. Yeah, because you were in the UK at the time. No, I was in Thailand.

Oh, Thailand, yeah. Which is even worse. Yeah. That was a straw that broke the camel's back. After that, I was like, Right, you know, if I'm traveling too far, I, there's gotta be something, man. I remember hanging out with you after you came back from now,

and you were still pissed off about like, that you had to endure that. And I'm like, all right, well, you know. I just wanna say, cheers cruncher off and not fighting into that. You save me a lot of trouble. No, I mean, it's a great experience. It's a great.

I'm trying to, I'm trying to be brand friendly here. No, no, I'm, thank you. Like brand. Like, I'm not saying the experience is bad. What I'm, the thing that was bad, was me having to adjust immediately to like a 16 hour time difference, and then two days later have to adjust back. Yeah, yeah.

And tried to be in, like, try to be in a working state. Not to mention in between that, you have to go on stage in front of thousands of people and be like, yeah, yeah, just nail this. Don't act like you're sleepy. Yeah, yeah. No pressure. I like, it was fun overall, though I liked networking with people and like meeting other YouTubers you don't get to see often is pretty fun.

But anyway, cycling back to you. the Japan stuff, when in your timeline did you get like, I guess, presented with the idea or the offer of moving? Like, when was that? Do you remember the date? I can't remember the dates. The exact time and location, like roughly. Um, what, when was it for you? Because I, if you remember, I know that you knew, like, the offer had been presented itself to you before me. Um, and I think it must have been like in either like February, March,ish. This is like, I remember it was like three or four months before AX. I know that.

Yeah, when I, I remember it was like at least a year ago when I heard of that. Yeah, yeah. So it was, I think, I guess from the timeline where it came up to me knowing it was possibility to me actually like finishing the move, it was probably like, well, like seven, eight months. Oh yeah. It's been, it's been well over a year for me. Yeah.

Because I knew that you knew before me. So yeah, how it happened for me was I was, I remember I was just. just sitting in a bookwalker meeting and we were just talking about, I can't remember some random stuff about what Book Walker, you know, wants to do in the future. And then the person who I was talking to, which is, can I mention your name, Maylin?

I'm not gonna throw you on the bus. I'm not gonna throw you on the last. I will. So, so, May Lynn, who is basically our manager, all our managers now, she basically just asked me, Have you ever thought about moving to Japan? And that was just kind of a,

this, it just kind of came out of nowhere for me. I didn't know how to react to that. I was like, that's a loaded question. But I mean, I'm not gonna say no, but you know, you know when you like asked the question. And it's obviously for a purpose. Like it's not a hypothetical. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And you're like, oh, this could actually be a thing. And so I went away, I thought about it. And I was like, Yeah, if I'm not gonna do it now, then when in my life am I gonna do it? Yeah, yeah. And then I guess the idea just grew from there from what if like, from it being a hypothetical question

to what needs to happen to be able to bring an antituber to Japan as a job? Yeah, right, right. And so that started my whole process. When did you hear about it? Yeah, I think it was, it must have been around March or February. I'm not 100% sure. And I think I was, I think I was on call with Maylene.

And I think Maline brought it up to me and was basically the same thing. Whereas like the hypothetical point. Do you like Japan? Something like that, right? And I think I was just like, oh, wait, or maybe I was in Japan at the time. It was something, right? Yeah, yeah. The thing where it was like not concrete and it was like, hey, think about it, you know, like, do you want to do it?

And then I think two or three months later it became a bit more serious of like, okay, do you want to do it? I think was that similar thing to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, I think we had time to think about it. And then seriously, they asked us. Yeah, and it went from the, it went from a hypothetical to, oh, oh, this is actually happening. I'm moving to Japan. And this.

Yeah, I don't think I spoke to you about your thoughts on it. Maybe I might have at the time, but I can't remember. But were you like from the first time you got heard or you were given the offer? Were you going to take it or? Yeah, I think I was, I think I was always going to take it, I think, because I had wanted to move to Japan for a while, even if it was for a little bit. Yeah. I hadn't really put much thoughts into how.

long I wanted to stay here, but I was thinking, you're gonna get this chance once in your life. I wanna, like, if I hated it, then I agree. At least, at least I've done it, right? Yeah, yeah. But I was, I was pretty concrete when I got the offer. Yeah, that you're gonna take it. I was more worried about was how it was actually

going to happen or how, what the process. Yeah, I think there's a lot of stuff like that where I guess because we'd only interacted with Bookwalker through Maylene. Yeah. I was, I think maybe we were a bit like skeptical about what goes on in the back end, right? We were like, I don't know what's happening, right?

Yeah. But they're great, by the way. They took care of it's very nice. And maybe will kill me if I say otherwise. It's against the contrary. To say anything negative. But I think the huge advantage for at least you two was the fact that, and I know a lot of people

who don't do this and definitely should, is that you guys visited Japan enough times to like, see you know. I was there for a while, but. Yeah, but like I know a lot of stories of like people who move here just like thinking like, oh, Japan is this like wonderful place. And, you know, like nothing could go wrong and everyone's so friendly. And then they move here and their expectations are just completely rejected. Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of stuff that's different between moving here and living here, visiting and moving here, which we can get into later. Yeah, because for me, I think it goes back to the mentality of I never felt like moving here or I never thought I would, you know, want to move here. because of the fact that I liked anime. I think that's the biggest thing. If you wanna move to Japan, just purely for anime,

you're gonna have a bad time. Throw away the wee-a-boo dream, guys. Like, it's not real. Like, honestly, there's probably worse reasons, but it's pretty one of the worst it was. Yeah, yeah. Like for me, in terms of my exposure to anime, it hasn't actually increased too much

compared to when I was living in Thailand, because there is like a massive anime fandom in Thailand and just like Asia and Germany. So unlike, like, there was, there's a big difference between like, let's say, England to Japan, but from Thailand to Japan, I still have to watch anime online, because I can't watch, you can't watch it on TV because I don't understand it yet.

And even if you did, the schedule of airing is so weird. Yeah, I'm not gonna stay up till 3 a.m. It's so sporadic. Yeah, yeah. Like, it's just not worth it. Exactly. It kind of reminds me of like old cartoons, broadcast schedule, right? Like, it's all over the place, repeats constantly, like, it's weird.

Yeah, anyway. I think when I was presented with the offer, I didn't initially want, I wasn't that keen on it, mainly because I, I didn't really know anything. And I, you know, when someone's like, hey, you want to come here to this country, it's like, okay, I mean, Japan's cool, but I literally don't.

Yeah, I literally don't know anything. Yeah. I think over time, I just, especially when I found out that you were gonna go 100%. I think that was like, all right, well, at least I have, you know, my boys here. So if I do get lonely, be good. But I mean, you know, meeting friends.

wasn't a problem anyway, but I think that's scary. It is, it is, it is, I think that's gonna go into later with like what I think is important to move here. And then it just got to the point where I had nothing better going on. And people gave me so much shit for saying that in my video, by the way. I got- Oh, really? Yeah, I literally said in my video, I said, I just had nothing better going on, that's why I moved here.

And people think that like, I'm being like nonchalant or joking, like I didn't, like, when you're a YouTuber, you don't have anything to do other than YouTube and hang out with your friends and do whatever you need to do to be happy. But I literally had nothing. better going on. So I'm like in my head, there's no reason why I wouldn't take this because it gives me a purpose to, you know, just better myself as a person. I get to learn new things,

get to meet new people. I mean, that's a huge reason why I moved as well is because like, in Australia, like, you know, I, you know, I, you know, I had like great friends, you know, from uni and high school who I would hang out with every now and then, right? And like, you know, I had places to go to. Yeah. But it wasn't exciting anymore for me. Like, it was just routine and like I hate getting into routine with anything, right? So I was like, yeah, I mean, you know, I haven't like, yes, I've spent half my life here technically, but I haven't really like gone out

to like fully explore the country. And even four years later, I'm nowhere near close to exploring this place. Like there are so many more places I wanna go to. I still haven't left Tokyo. It's been like eight months and I haven't left Tokyo. I'm sorry, that road trip that we plan is happening. All right, once the rona is gone, it's happening.

I've left Tokyo once. Yeah. The decision to move to Japan, funnily enough, was probably the easiest part of the process. Really? Oh, yeah. Okay, well, first of all, I mean, you're very lucky.

Yeah. You know, if you're half Japanese and have a Japanese passport, it's gonna be easy to move here. Easy mode, baby. For anyone else who's thinking about moving to Japan, whatever visa you're thinking about coming on, it is going to be a pay.

It's tough. And this year, or this year from, oh, sorry, from April, this year, I believe they changed the rules to make visas more or easier to get because they need more immigrants to work here because the population is getting older. And they allocated 40,000 worker permits.

And in the article, they only managed to allocate 4,000 this year of the 40,000. What? Yeah. Wait, it's 40,000 like per year? For some specific kind of visa for this year. Right, right, right.

And they only managed to do one tenth of that, which is like not a problem because I don't think there's like, And there's not demand to move here. Right, yeah. Probably one of the countries that I think people have most interest in moving to out of a lot of places.

Right, yeah. And it's just, I think that that, if anything, says a lot about how difficult it is to move here. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I can't speak on any other visa processes, but, you know. Everyone I've talked to has had like a difficult process

unless you're just coming here for a tourist visa. Super easy. Super easy. Just walk here, let's just turn up. Or if you're one of those countries that has working holiday visa. Yeah.

Which unfortunately, America does not So sorry. Like if you want advice on how to move here easily, get a working holiday visa. It's probably gonna be- I think those last year and a half. Yeah. Is it a year and a half?

I think it depends on the country. At least Australians have a year and a half. Wow. Right. I don't know about you can, maybe UK has like six months to a year maybe, depends, but. Yeah.

A lot of people who fell out. Yeah. I think the hardest part of the process was finding an apartment. Oh my God. Oh my God. I mean, I'm a Japanese citizen and it was still a pain in the arms

I need to do it. You hear about on YouTube and Twitter and everything like, it's hard, it's hard and then you see some people saying like, yeah, people are over exaggerating. It is, it is 100% hot. It is fucking difficult. Especially if you're a foreigner as well.

You basically play under different rules. Like it's sad to say, like I, you know, and you can't think if you have money, you get an apartment. I think more importantly, especially if you're a YouTuber. Oh my God. Oh, God. Because the hardest thing, at least in Japan,

from my experience about why it's so hard to get a fucking apartment here is because freelancing is not a job here. Yeah. Freelancing, you might as well be unemployed, according to this government's like... The government's like that typical Asian parent. It's like, what? You're not a doctor or an engineer or a lawyer? It's like, you're out of here. You're unemployed, right? You're working part-time.

And that's due to, because they're worried about if you can pay all the rent and what. Yeah. Right. But the thing is, is that they don't even like, you know, at least in like, I don't know about the UK or Thailand, but at least in Australia, you, when you sign up for like an apartment, right, usually the landlord will be like, okay, can I see your bank account? Yeah. Like just to see how much money you have saved up,

you know, regardless of what job you do. We just want to see that you have, you know, money in the bank. And if you do it, then you're like, okay. But here in Japan, they don't check your bank. They check your work status to make sure that there's like a constant flow of money coming in. And it's not just that as well. because if you're not Japanese,

and especially if you can't speak Japanese, most places aren't even going to talk to you or consider you because that was a big problem we had. Because we went through like an agency and we just made a list of about 10 to 20 apartments that we were interested in. And we sent it off and applied. Rejected from all of them.

Jesus Christ. And we had a company as a guarantor. Yeah, yeah. Having the like payments secured wasn't the issue. It was like a lot of the time it was really dumb stuff. Like, can you sort the bins properly? And like stuff like that. It's like, yes, we're not 12 year old.

It's like, it's like the main concern you'll hit all the time is can you sort your trash properly? And it's like, okay, it might be different from where I'm from, but like. I can learn. Yeah, it's like the government councils in the area give you an English manual that tells you how to do it. Like it is tedious and it is a lot more complex

in most places, but it's not like. It's not rocket science. Yeah, it's not like you're having to do like the weirdest stuff imaginable. to this stuff. Like it's basically just rinse your stuff, separate all of it. That's pretty much it.

And I know there's some places in Europe they do it way more thorough that probably don't have this concern when they're lending people. Yeah, right, right, right, right. It's just like- Because it's the least of your concerns. It's, you know, yeah, it's ridiculous.

Yeah, and the thing is that if you'd go through an agency, for example, that specializes in foreigners and people who can't speak Japanese, you're gonna be paying so much more as well. Yeah, you pay a premium for that ability. You pay like a premium for that bill. and that rent. So it's, you either have a fucking difficult time

finding a place and getting past all the barriers or you're just gonna pay a shit ton of money. And those aren't two very good options. The only concern that they often cite, like building managers, et cetera, that I find is like somewhat, all right, that's fair enough is that they're already that you'll run away.

But run away and not pay the rent. But if you have a guarantor, that's the whole fucking point of that problem. Which we did. You can't run away. Yeah, if we run away, you're still getting your money. Like, and the house is vacant. Great, no damage to it.

Like, this is a win-win for the company. I don't understand. Like, we do, you play by their rules in every way. It's because it's just like typical, like, this is like one aspect of like Japanese. It's definitely one of the worst. It's like, work culture that I learned very quickly. It's that like, it doesn't matter what the business is. If they're not 100 million percent sure that this is going to go through, it might as well be zero.

No risk. There's no risk. in any business venture, whether that be paying for rent or like anything. It's like if they're not 100 million percent sure in every possible avenue ever, it's just not happening. And you know, that's ridiculous.

I think that'd be interesting to talk about later on when we get to more of like the stuff that we've experienced here. Yeah. But like was there any part of the visa process applying for it? I'm sure people are wondering, I got a lot of emails, I'm sure you did as well. People asking, hey, how did you get a visa?

Like was it hard? et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. If there's any advice you can give someone who's watching who wants to come to Japan, what would you say

is like the main piece of advice if they want to get a working visa? I mean, I didn't apply for a working visa. Yeah. But so I don't have too much experience. We didn't apply for it. We had immigration lawyers help us. Yeah, we had immigration lawyers help us.

But I mean, I've applied for visas before. And the worst, the most painful part is just waiting. It's, it's... And you're going to be waiting a lot. You're going to be waiting a long time and you're just going to be in this limbo limbo kind of.

kind of... Because we had what, it was like the initial thing where they file for something called a certificate of eligibility, which is basically if the government decides if you can have a visa, which isn't the visa itself,

which already sounds to me like, that sounds like we're adding steps where steps don't need to be. But as you've moved to Japan, you'll learn that's what they love to do. So yeah, we had to wait, what was it, six weeks for that? Six to eight weeks?

Yeah, it could have been six to eight weeks for this piece of paper to arrive, which then they send by post, which makes you feel so uneasy because you're like, they're sending me a piece of paper through the mail that I've waited two months for and you're just like, something's gonna go wrong,

someone's gonna take it. So you get this piece of paper, right? To get this thing, you need to prove that you have a good reason to work in Japan, that you're the job or, you know, because you have to say what your work is. Yeah. They need to check that you are actually like

in that field, et cetera, et cetera. We had to send so much evidence that we were doing valuable work that could. Which I'm sure some people to argue YouTube is it, but you know. At the end of the day, if we bring in money to the government and pay taxes, it's valuable work, right? Yeah, basically just how many companies

we've worked with what work that's notable, that, you know, that, and then why we need to be in Japan. What it felt like was I was applying for a job. Yeah, yeah. It was like, here's all my achievements, here's what I can bring for your country. Please, please. Let me play on your team coach.

Come on, let me. And then, yeah, so we get, that certificate of eligibility, which is, we get that. And then you have to go to the embassy. So you turn that into a visa and then they'll put a visa into your passport. Again, there's more steps because, first of all, if you live in the UK, the only embassy is in London. Now, I would feel bad for someone who lives, like, in the north of Scotland.

I don't think they have an embassy in Scotland. No, no. And in Wales, I had to go all the way from Wales. I mean, luckily, this fast train, doesn't matter. But the point is, one embassy, so you're going to be taking a day trip to get this thing. Worst part is, is that then if you go to the embassy, which you might have to have travel cross country for, you have to wait five days to then actually get the visa,

which is a little thing that is print out and staple in your passports. So you have to go back to the embassy. You have to go back, right? So I just went home because I'm like, I'm not staying in London for five days, but like if you're poor, you know, you haven't got much money and you can't,

you know, the train tickets in the UK are expensive, right? Yeah, yeah. There's a lot of things where it's just like, my God, why are we doing this? But then again, like, realistically, how many people in like the butt-fuck middle of Scotland is going to apply for a visa. I bet there's one person from like the North Island

and like Scotland is like, dude, I had to fly. Fuck that shit. If you want that one person watching, subscribe. And to make matters even more stressful, you lost your post. I did. You lost your puzzle.

This mother, we were meeting up at the embassy to collect our visas. Yeah. And this motherfucker. I lost my passport. When I heard that story, I couldn't fucking believe. Oh my God, that was like one of the worst days.

Like, you can't write that shit. No, it was horrible. Or because you didn't have a fucking backpack. I carry my passport in my jeans pocket, which I'm hearing people are like, oh my God. Oh my God, I'm like, the worst idea. I'm like cringing hearing that man. I'm like, okay, I've traveled like all over the world.

Just having my passport in my pocket. Okay, I have lost it before and you guys know I have. I lost it in America as well. I found it though, luckily. But anyway, so I was going to the train station to pick up, you know, go to the train, go to London. And as my train arrived,

I'm like, I always tap my pockets right, just make sure it's there. I tap my pockets. It's not in there. It's not in there. And I'm like, fuck. And what's running through my head is like all of this like months of work,

I feel bad for the company. They paid for lawyers. Like all these people who have like banked on me coming and I've put so much work into this myself and other people. And I was like having a mental breakdown. I don't think I've ever like had that much of a like quick mental.

breakdown in my life. Yeah. And I, it's to be expected. And it was like gradually getting worse and like the hour I couldn't find it. Yeah. I scoured this train station, a tiny train station in Wales.

It's called like Flint. You can look it up on, it's literally just like a platform. Right. There's nowhere this should have gone where I couldn't have found it, right? Could not find it. Check my car, quickly drove home to find it,

didn't find it. Came back to check again, couldn't find it, going to the police station, literally everything. I could not find that pass. So you have no idea what happened to you. I have no idea what I have my passport. And then eventually it was getting like 3, 4 PM.

And I was like, okay, I'm gonna just call up the British government and tell them, hey, you can just cancel my passport. I wanna apply for another one. And that whole thing was an ordeal. And then my main concern was like, all right, well, I lost my passport. Do I have to restart the whole visa process again?

Yeah. Luckily the embassy were like, no, as long as you have like the certificate, which I didn't lose, great. I could redo it. So I had to scramble to get a new passport and that was the whole thing. And I got one.

within like five days, luckily. And luckily it all went well, but like it was just so stressful on top of like already the stress that I was already at my limit with stress that whole period because of this whole thing. Yeah. And that was just like the full like,

I had a full breakdown that day. That was horrible. And I think I like joked about it on Twitter, but like I was like not okay that day. Oh yeah, no, no, no. And the worst part is right is when you fuck up this badly, you can accept that you fucked up

but it's messaging your friends being like, hey, I'm not gonna be in London in like two hours. They're like, oh, why, what's up? I'm like, I lost my passport. No, because I remember reading that text, because I was waiting for you outside the embassy when you're like,

I get a message from Connor being like, I'm gonna be a bit like 30 minutes late. Little did I know. I was like, all right, all right, I'll get a coffee. And I see the event unfold as he's just texting me. So he goes, yeah, I can't find my passport. I'm just gonna go look for it quickly. And then it just, you like just breaking down every message.

And it just ends with, yeah, I don't think I can come. And I'm still annoyed to the state because I went around, this is a very small town where I lost it. I went around like every shop in that area. I just literally everyone in that area. Hey, if you find this passport, can you call me right away? Because if not, I'm gonna just cancel it today. I still never heard anything.

I like, I was crazy and I don't know how I lost it. So like from your experience to, For anyone who's listening, if there's anything they need to know to make the process easier, what would you guys say? Get a degree. Yeah, degree helps a lot, especially if it's, you know, like. Not an associate's, like a bachelor's degree.

Yeah, I think a lot of their forms didn't recognize associates. I think it actually said, like, specified like bachelor's. I don't think. It's not a thing in the UK, I don't think. Yeah, it's not a thing in Japan, right? It's not a thing in Japan, right? I mean, it is a thing, but like,

it's not like as heavily emphasized on as a bachelor's degree. Yeah. And I saw a lot of people asking like, oh, how do we get it, et cetera? Like you need to like have, especially with a country that strict, you need to have like concrete proof that like you can do something here.

Like you can't just come here on a whim. That you're worth something. Unless you're like extremely, extremely rich and they want your tax money. Like I think that the only other reason, like you need some like good reason. Even then you need a degree for something. Yeah, yeah.

They'll find a way to like, where are you getting this money from, bro? Yeah. And I imagine just having like a, a fair amount of experience in what you're doing and the reason you're coming here will help the time. I mean, I can't talk about most, just what we went through.

Or basically just come here to teach English. That is like the instant like get in button. Yeah, pretty much. So I can speak English and I can teach it somewhat. Then you're like, you're hired. It's probably like not a bad way to, if your goal ultimately is living in Japan forever, it's probably not a bad way to like transition into living here.

No, because I know a lot of friends personally who did start off with teaching English and then gradually moved on to something else. Because like you can gain, by teaching English, you can gain connections in the country and then maybe that transitions to like a normal office job or something like that

working with the company you know but if you just want to get your foot through the door I think teaching English would be the easiest way for anyone to be able to do it but you still need a degree. Yeah, either way you need a degree. But they pretty much accept everyone on that as far as I'm aware as obviously again, if you have a degree.

It doesn't matter how good your high school essays were if you don't have a degree in that late yeah. Which is why I'm so glad to drop out of university Listen to your Asian parents, go to uni if you wanna go to Japan. You guys have all got degrees, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Engineering, baby, let's go.

Oh, really? Yeah, engineering. I never actually have known what, you have an engineering. You have an engineering. Yeah, he has electrical engineering, I have mechanical engineering. Oh, wow, okay.

But he has a master's, I have a fucking master's mother. Yeah, he's not. Look at this boy spending more than four years at uni. I got to the third year, I was like, I can't do it anymore. I can't do this. Yeah, I was like, have I got the required minimum?

Yeah, let me out of here. I don't want to be here for another year day. So like now that you guys have moved to Japan, what would you say are the pros and cons of actually living here? I mean, I want to know from you guys, right? Because, I mean, I've experienced Japan pretty much for half my life.

So I know, like, to me, the pros and cons are just very natural to me. And I feel like you, the most of the cons that we might, me and God might have, you won't ever experience because one, you can speak the language and read it fluently.

Yeah. I don't know, man. There's some, though. I have the face of a foreigner. Yeah, that's true. Like, I'm just gonna say it, there's a lot of discrimination here. But I mean, what country does it, right?

I would say, I like understand it more because growing up in an Asian country, there's definitely discrimination in Asia. It's just very different from what you see in the West, I think. That's the thing, it's not racism. It's more xenophobia. Yeah, yeah, right? And if you guys don't know the,

difference between that. Like, racism is where it's like, oh, you're a different race to me. Yeah. So therefore you are worse than me. And xenophobia is like, oh, you're not from here. Yeah. Therefore you're, I think it comes, because I think it comes more from a place of ignorance. It's just anything because it's just, you know, because you guys didn't open the country for,

I mean, Japan has been a closed island for like the past 2,000 years. Right. So it's like, what do you expect? Exactly. Um, so it, like, it makes sense to me. Um, but like, for example, finding, finding an apartment. That was my first experience with that

where if you didn't, if you're not Japanese and if you didn't speak Japanese, then they were very like scared to even touch you, you know, or even consider you or in that case. Especially when you have a company backing you. In my mind, I was like, I don't see what the problem is here. Like I'm like, I'm like the model tenant here.

I'm single. I don't do any. The poem is we can't write your name in kanji. Yeah, right. That's the problem. Katakana name, ew, gross. But I mean, I have that problem too, because like, even though I am Japanese and I have a Japanese name, the fact that I don't look it is already a huge, like, wall that regular Japanese people find a difficulty in getting over. Because, like, it's really funny as well, because, like, during my intern days as well, like, I had to be, like, the guy to, like, if there was, like, a business partner coming to the office. I had to be the one to, like, get on the phone with them and being like, okay, we're going to, you guys are coming at this time and this day.

I'll come down to like meet you guys and greet you up to the office. Yeah. But when I speak Japanese, I don't have an accent and my name is Japanese. So there were so many times where I would go down to greet them and they'd be like, who the fuck is this? It's like, are you the person on the phone right?

And I was like, yeah, I am. It's like, oh, we thought you were Japanese and I'm like, I am Japanese. And they're like, and it's just, so many of like the older generation especially, they just can't fathom that they just can't fathom that there are these things called hafus. Yeah.

It's just not a thing, it's like you're either Japanese or you're not Japanese. Yeah. Because the way I treat it is that I treat it like exactly the same how I would treat my grandmother or like my grand dad who lived in Thailand in the small village, their entire fucking life knew nothing about the outside world. So they just didn't know, you know.

Yeah. It's the same way with a lot of Japanese people where some of them, especially like older people, I've never interacted with a foreigner or even got to know them or even knows what the outside world is like beyond what they see on the news and what they see on TV, you know what I mean? And you don't want to like input anything

from Japanese TV. No, no, like you don't. My God, some of the stuff they air is like- We're called Trash Tastes Podcast. Like if there's anything trashier than Trash Tastes Podcast, it is fucking Japanese TV. Like it is full of absolute garbage. Yeah.

It's something I wish that like a lot of YouTubers whose channel is focused all about Japan would like speak about a little more because it's not like something you can ignore. Like if you're foreign or even look foreign and live here, you're gonna experience it like totally. Yeah. And I didn't know anything about this

because no YouTubers talk about it or anything. And I feel like it's such an important like topic, especially when you talk about living in Japan. It's gonna be a factor. Like you're gonna be stared out and it's not like you've said It's not a place of hatred or anything. It's just like they don't see those kind of people a lot. I think the problem with a lot of like J-vloggers

that do cover topics like that because like when you live here, you pretty much get to know every J-vlogger. It's just a natural, it's such a small community. So I know pretty much every like notable J-voggy here. And there's been a number of them that I know that have made topics on like the blatant xenophobia here in Japan.

Yeah, yeah. But the problem is I think a lot of those videos aren't taken seriously by the internet because it's seen as like, a privileged problem. It's like you get to live in Japan, you know, so therefore you should just be able to put up with this shit, right?

Because you get to experience all this other cool stuff when, you know, that's not the point of the video, right? Like it's still a problem regardless of how privileged you may seem living here. Like I think the worst thing that happened to me was the time, one time we got the police called on us. Oh yeah. And- Do you want to explain why we got the police call?

We didn't do anything illegal, we just play Mario Party really loud. Yeah. Add like two in the morning. Very drunk. That those are bad. You know, we can't really complain about that.

Okay. So basically we got a noise complaint. So the policeman came and he basically asked Joey, you know, who, who is he with? Yeah. And I remember you saying like, oh, there's, you know, one American, one, you know, British person. And then there's was me who I'm Thai. So he mentioned that I'm with a tie friend. And as soon as he mentioned that he was with a Thai friend.

that he was with a Thai friend, the policeman was like, oh, can we see your Thai friend? Can we see your Thai friend? And I go up there and I start getting grilled about why I'm here. They want to see my passport and everything and they're asking me on my visa. But you showed them your British passport.

No, no, as soon as I was like, oh, I have a British passport though, they were like, okay, you're free to go. It was so missed up. And I was like, oh, what's that? Oh, what the fuck just happened? What was that? It was so messed up.

And the fact that they like only called you. Yeah, yeah. Up there was like, it was like the most multi, like cultural room and probably the entire apartment building. I'm gonna say it now. I wasn't making the noise. You wouldn't like the quiet spot there, if anything.

And it's just, like, that was the first time I'd like ever experience that too and I'm just like, Jesus Christ. Like, they could even be like subtle about it. No, no, no. Yeah. And I'm like, you do know like, this is like not cool, right? Like, but to them it's just, you know.

I think you just, I don't know, I know I get stared out a lot, which is weird for me because obviously coming from like the widest place on earth, I was just like another, you know, just another person. And I never experienced this in my life. Yeah. Which I guess is also strange and also like, this is gonna sound so on.

But you know, okay, in Japan, Not exactly known for the best legal system, if you will. Okay. Normally if you're like arrested or whatever or convicted, charged with a crime, you normally get like, it's like a 98, 99% conviction rate. I don't know where this is going, right. But also like, this is the first time

I've ever been like around police where I'm like, shit, please don't stop me, please don't stop. Like, I guess this is like Connor checking his white privilege for the first time ever, but like, because if the police stop me, right, I can't explain to them why I might, like I don't know what I might do that's wrong, you know what I mean?

Right, right, right. I don't wanna get fucking arrested because like, how do I get myself out of that hole? Right. And yeah, it's just a weird experience for me that I've never felt before, and I'm sure people are like, wow, Connor, really see it as white privilege

for the first time ever in his life. But it's weird though, right? Because that's like stuff that I never considered I'd have to like worry about ever. Right, you have to like kind of experience it, unfortunately, like first hand to like fully understand it, right? And that's the problem is that there are so many,

like, I guess, you know, controversial topics like that concerning being a foreigner living in Japan that I'm sure a lot of J-Vloggers want to talk about, but because from the position that they're talking about it from, it's very difficult to make it- Can't you bring it up like, oh, they hate Chinese people? Right, because it's like, it's also like for someone who's,

for a foreigner who's never lived in Japan, it's very hard to like, swallow and understand, being like, no, that doesn't happen, right? That must be just you. Whereas it's very much a common, occurrence for any like foreigner who lives here, unfortunately. It's unfortunate, but it's, it's just a thing where you move here and you realize there's pretty quickly.

Yeah, pretty quickly that it's, you know, it works differently and people view you differently as well. But I think to me that is, you know, the worst experience I've had about moving to Japan, apart from, okay, can we talk about how slow Japanese businesses work? Yeah. My fucking God. Everyone has this image that Japan, this like super...

Optimized place, like the most optimized system on Earth. They figured it out. Speed running business. Like things just work. You go to a restaurant, you press a button on a tablet, and the food just appears in front of you.

You know, you're like, this is the future. And then you go to a Japanese business and you're like, oh, is that a fax machine? Are you using a fax machine right now? Or just like stuff you never even considered, like a problem or like asking for permission for like the slightest thing on earth. Like it's just like you show a logo or something

in a video, we gotta find permission to do that. It's like just fucking upload it. If it's a problem, they'll tell us, you know? See, but like that's the thing right, is that Japan doesn't understand what, well, no risk as well, but at least with like what we do business wise, Japan doesn't have fair use. No, yeah.

So it's so difficult to get permission for any, like if you ask like, as you said, it's like, can I just, show this logo of your company that is like publicly available to anybody. Yeah. Just like slap it on for like two seconds. I'm not even gonna like mention your name, slap it on.

It has to go through like a hundred layers of the company just to get a simple yes. And that could take like a couple of days if you're lucky. Yeah. Usually a week to maybe a mom. And it's just like, it's a business model where there's like, imagine if every employee was a boss and everyone had to ask for permission constantly.

It's like, you employees, can't make their own decisions. They have to ask their boss, who then asks their boss, and that takes a week. And that's just to see if you can sharpen your pencil, right? Like, we haven't even got to business yet.

Like, we're just trying to figure out what the fuck's happening. It's not even just business. It's just signing up for the, it's everything. Everything moves so slowly. Like, I remember when we'd sign up for a gym membership?

Oh my God. It took us, an hour, right? An hour and a half, an hour and a half to sign up for a fucking, to get a gym card, right? Because, you know, you know, in America or like, basically everywhere

where you get the terms and conditions, right? Fucking scroll through, you click, accept. No, in Japan, you're gonna sit there and you're gonna read every fucking term and you'd agree to every fucking term individually and they're gonna sit there with you to make sure you read it all. Yeah, you're not only a subject

to going through the fine print, which is no longer fine, it's just print. Like, but they're like, let me read it out for you in case you're a fucking illiterate piece of shit. It's like, no, see, that's why like when I see, signed up for the gym membership, because it's all written in Japanese, right? I straight up just said like, I can read it.

I saved myself like an hour of pain of just like listening to this like fucking hour long monologue from this like. Yeah, I think that's because we're far and he was like, he really, really wanted to make sure we understood. And by and mind, these weren't terms and like conditions that were like,

any like social things. It was like literally the bare bones of what a gym needs to make sure you know. Right, yeah, like, you know, don't run on the treadmill if, you know, your legs don't work. like just stuff like don't, basically don't sue us stuff, right? Stuff you wouldn't take for granted.

I remember he was like asking us, our translator, like if we understood every single point. I remember one of them is like, do you understand that on the treadmill, you have to have your hands on the treadmill at all times? And I looked at like our friend Nabi, I was like, is he serious? Like, it's not a joke, right?

He wants me to like, he legally has to save that. I have to agree that I'm gonna put my hands on? Have you ever seen anyone but at like a crippled old man run on the treadmill? Oh yeah. because that's how I run. Just like, free hand. Right.

No one does that. And you literally like, you're signing this agreement and you turn your head to see 10 people on the treadmill, none of them holding their hands and you're like, yes. I agree.

And it's just, it's all bullshit. That's all you do. And this is the stuff that you never experience as a tourist because it's like perfectly separated, the stuff that you experience as a tourist to like the stuff you experience living here. And the moment you do something that is remotely permanent

or reoccurring, and a contract, you better be ready to bring every document that you've ever had in your life and the Hanko, which you'll lose a lot. I'm surprised they didn't ask for like a fucking birth certificate when signing up for the gym, because it's so formal with everything. It's like, who, you don't need to know my life story.

That's the perfect word. Everything in Japan is so formal, and you don't see it as a tourist, because everything, when you hear in Japan on tourism and you're just sightseeing, everything just works, right? You go to a restaurant, it just works. Living here, all the little interesting, and all the little things you take for granted

that should be quick, just takes a million processes when it's just the most unoptimized thing in the world. Yeah. And there's just a lot of things that don't make sense, like in contracts, like I've, going back to paying rent, there's this thing called a key fee. What was it like, what's the technical term? It's like, it's key money, right?

Key money, key money. And, and I mean, you can explain it if you want, go ahead, but it's not what? What can I explain? It's two months of rent, sometimes can be won. So the amount is about two months of rent that you pay to the rent owner to say, thank you for renting me your place.

For free. Like, you don't get it back. This money is literally nothing. It's not a deposit, you just pay two months of rent. Just. Which you also have to pay a deposit. Yeah. On top of the deposit that you have to pay,

just to live. It's basically a dick sucky thing. Like that's what it is. It's like, thank you so much for letting me stay in your apartment. That's what it is. And then it doesn't end there because you then have to pay the rental,

the agency that got you the house. You have to pay a month's rent to them as a fee, which is just stupid because I think in every other country, they take their split from the person renting the house. Like not from you because renting a house shouldn't be, you shouldn't have to pay like six to eight months up front. That's ridiculous. Yeah.

And I think it's the reason why a lot of homeless people here also struggle to get houses because how the fuck are you gonna get six months worth of rent and money. Are you kidding me? Like that's insane. Like you expect, when you look at the rent, you expect like, okay, this is how much I'm gonna pay for the first month.

I pay deposit, like on top, maybe two months. Yeah, maybe like a month or two to deposit. Yeah, yeah, exactly. No, it's like double or triple that. And I'm just like, Jesus Christ, like I just- ridiculous. Yeah, stupid. It's like, yeah, six months worth of rent

in one sitting and you're not gonna get like two months of that back at all. Because they want you to stay in that apartment. They don't want you to leave. Yeah. And I like going around. I like moving, getting a new place, seeing how things, oh, knowing what I like,

and don't like, but now it's pretty much just solidified that I'm not leaving this because I'm gonna charge out the ass if I wanna move. Because it's like a minimum of like two years to like stay in one place too. Yeah, two years, yeah. And even then if you're moving, like the amount, like that you paid in that first month,

that if you split that across two years of rent, you'd be way over paying what you got. I think that's why like, that's one thing right about like, living in Japan that I've personally, I've never understood for the longest time, but I think finally now I do understand is when people say like, man, Japan is such an expensive place.

But like, when you think about it, it's like, no, it's like, because you know, when I think, oh, Japan is such an expensive place, I think like eating out, eating out, like drinking and I'm like, no, it's relatively cheap, but then you think about, you know, six months worth of rent in the first month kind of bullshit.

And I'm like, okay, maybe, yeah, it is a little bit ridiculous and expensive. Yeah, I mean, you can live frugally here. It's, uh, it's not too, to live frugally. Yeah, you can live cheap. It's like not a problem. I mean, Combeini's you can live off.

Yeah, oh my God. We can do a whole episode. That's basically the best thing about Japan, right? Like, no matter where you are, you are in with like a hundred meter radius of everything you need. Like, yeah. No question.

It's, Japan is the only country where the word convenience store actually lives up to its name. Yeah, exactly. It is actually one of the most convenient places that you could end-go. God, I love Combeini so fucking much, man. Like, not even the food, the food's amazing.

Like, you expect this, like if you go to a gas in any country in the world. And you try and convince me to buy something that's been cooked in that building. I would rather like just get salmonella. Like I'm not gonna risk you seeing what they give me. You know what I mean? Like those nasty hot dogs that have been in rotation

for like 20 hours at least. But the one thing that like I thought was just like the most genius thing that Japan does, which I do not understand why every other country doesn't do this, is the fact they just have like a printing machine in there. So no one needs to buy a printer or buying. You can just go to this place that's probably within like, you know,

100 meters of you, 200 meters at most. Max. Yeah, you pay like 10 cents or whatever and you can get a printed A4 copy of whatever you want. Because no one needs to print that much shit, right? I've never needed to print more than like one document a month. And ink's fucking expensive. Right? And it dries as well.

So you might print one thing, it's gone dry. Yeah. And I feel so bad for admitting that I've done this. But in the UK, and university, when we had to have a print set and I was printing a lot of documents, I used to like, the ink was more, expensive to buy on its own than just buying a new printer. So every time I've run out of ink, I bought a new printer. You're serious?

Yeah. Just like $200 you move though. Yeah, no, right? This is the time when university, right, where losing 20 pounds, which is like 30 bucks at the time, it was like a big deal, right? Like I don't, you don't get any money. I can't afford to lose 30 bucks. That's like 10 instant Romans, dude.

Right, that's like like two nights out if I'm good, right? So I would go to like the charity and just like give it to them. And every single like month on cue I'd come in with a printer and just the exact same Amazon basics printer and give it. And I just thought like I can appreciate this so much now that in Japan

if you want to print anything, you don't have to buy a printer, you don't have to fuck around worrying about which ink cartridge match with your printer. You go to the convenience store and you print it off and it's just like, it makes sense. And the best thing is is that like, you know, if you do need to like print out like a document or anything, you just be like, oh, I can do that but you know,

I can also buy like a drink. I can stock up my fridge. It's all there. I can pay my bills. You can pay your bills. You can pay your bills at the convenience store. That's wild to me. I don't anymore because that just takes time.

I did it first. You just do direct-off. It was a novelty of film. Because I think the best and worst part of Japan to me is that it's like a dichotomy. It either works exceedingly well. It's exceedingly optimized. Or it's just 100 processes to do the simplest shit.

There's no middle ground. Nothing here works okay. Yeah, it either works concealingly well or it just doesn't work at all. I think it's normally like a public demand, right? Convenience stores, trains. Everyone is using them 24-7. We want this easy as possible.

Isaac, Arashton, all that. It all works flawlessly. Yeah. I think where it comes into play mostly is with like government agencies, like big companies that have higher-ups that don't want to change things very fastly. And if you thought like companies in the West

don't want to change things, to my God, you are in for like a surprise. Most Japanese companies haven't changed since like the 70s. Because not only do they not wanna change things, even if the person before them dies, they're like, well, they didn't wanna change it. And I really don't wanna like, you know, step on their toes, even though they don't exist anymore.

You know, it's like, we gotta keep everything, the same way it was, it's been working. That's the problem though, is that Japan has such a double-ed sword in terms of like maintaining culture. Yeah, it does. It works in great ways. Yeah, it's very traditional in a lot of ways. Like, man, look, look, I'm looking at a lot of ways.

a Japanese web design? Oh my God. Oh my God, man. I take it for granted how good we had it. Like I didn't realize that I cared about user interface. When I was interning, I was in the web division department because that's what I majored in at uni, right? So I had to like go around fixing basically like clients

like old websites. And like anybody who like ever did anything like HTML or CSS related can relate to this, but like I almost had a stroke when I looked at the source code and I saw a table. And I'm like, that's something we haven't used since like the early 90s. Like no, this is like early 90s type of web design and they're still using it to this day.

I don't think I've seen a single animation on a web page in Japan. No, no. Like there's no graphics at all. It literally looks like the first like Windows iteration. It just, it's tragic. It just looks so fucking clotted. Weirdly enough, the best web design I have seen

is like landing pages for new anime. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. That's the only good websites that I've seen. I'm like, damn. They use JavaScript for this shit, Jesus. Before we move on to the logistics, I want to talk about staying to the pros, how good the fucking food is.

Oh my God. Moving here from England. Oh my God. Where good food is, you either have to pay a lot or you have to cook it yourself. It's everything here tastes good. It's just true, right? You never have a bad experience in Japan with food.

I swear to go. That's like the difference that I tell my parents the most. I'm like in the UK, I don't know about Australia, but when you go to the restaurant, it's not a gamble, but it kind of is, it's like you don't know if it's going to be okay or amazing. And it's always a coin flip. You just don't know. And you have to go to find out.

Oh, no, that's 100% how it works in Australia. Right, yeah, yeah. Because there might just be a restaurant owned by a guy or has no idea what he's doing. It doesn't give a shit about the food. But in Japan, it is like guaranteed no matter where you go, you will get good food. Yeah, you are like never like, you never overcharged either.

Like you always like pay a fair amount. And when you are overcharge, it is like the taste and experience is worth. Exactly, exactly. I remember saying very harsh words to my mom when she used to just, you know, I'm like, how dare you give me this bland food all my life? When this stuff existed, how many times must I have beans and toast, mother? How many times can a man eat beans and toast? I actually still like beans and toast.

Like when the combini food here is better than a lot of the restaurant food you can find in British restaurants I go to, I'm like, man, there's something wrong here, there's something wrong here, man. See, that's the insane thing is that I don't know if it's, I don't know if Japan's the only country that's like this, but it's cheaper to eat out than it is to cook your own food.

It's the same thing in Thailand. I think a lot of Asian countries are like that. Okay, okay. Because at least in Australia, like, Jesus Christ, no one goes to restaurants because it's like, I don't want to gamble if this $25, pasta is gonna be good or not. Like, I'm sorry, I'm like, I'm not that rich.

Yeah. I'd rather just go to the supermarket and just cook a $5 pasta myself. I'm here in Japan and to get like a single lime, a single lime. Yeah, I pay $2.00 for a single fucking lime. What the fuck? I wish, no, I think anyone's mentioned that on YouTube.

People don't tell you how expensive it is to cook here. Yeah, yeah. But I don't know if this is just like, maybe in America it's different. We're not from America and I know the prices for fresh food in America is like ridiculous. Yeah. But in the UK, I don't know about Australia,

in the UK, like buying ingredients is so incredibly cheap. Oh no, same in Australia, yeah. Nobody, eating out is not so much you do it for the food. It's more of like an experience with your friends. No, no, exactly. It's for an event, right? It's a luxury, yeah. You don't do it because like, you know, you have the money.

It's like, you do it for a reason. And you, like, if you speak to someone in the UK, and I know that if you say, like, you eat out every day in the UK, everyone's like, what the fuck's wrong? Yeah, because it like, in the UK, you don't eat out. alone, right? It's very rare to do something like eating out alone. In here, more people eat out alone than cook, you know, because it's just more convenient and it's cheaper as well. Because my God, vegetables here, meats are okay, but vegetables are so expensive and... I don't know

why. Like, and the biggest offender in my mind, limes terrible, peppers. You know, like normal bell peppers? Yeah. In the UK, I distinctly remember in like Aldi or even like Tesco. It's like one pound 29, right, for a pack of three bell peppers, right? That's like, what, $1.60. Yeah. In Japan for like a single bell pepper, which comes with its own packaging, it's like 180 yen.

So if you wanna have three bell peppers. So that's two bucks. That's like six dollars for three bell pap. Are you fucking kidding? Can we talk about the biggest defender though, which is fruits? Oh my God. Oh my God.

Fruits? I like- Okay, they're good, they're good. They're good. They're amazing. But Jesus, talk about overpriced. Yeah, I know like, you know, there are, like Japan has this like weird obsession

when it comes to fruits where it's like, oh, it's from this. You gotta massage it. No, no, no, no. It's like, oh, it's from the specific prefecture that specializes in that fruit. Therefore, if you wanna buy an apple from like, old Morty prefecture, which is like known for the apples,

it's like, you know, a regular apple, like, I don't know about the UK, but at least in Australia, it's like, if you want like a freshly grown, we don't fucking know where apples come from. Good quality, like, you know, homegrown apple, you're right? Like the most you'd pay is maybe like a buck.

Yeah, yeah. I've never paid more than 50 cents for an apple. No, right. I think I'd be shocked if I paid more than like 30 pence. Whereas here, if you want like a specialized branded apple, which is like the only kind of apples they have here for some reason, it's like, oh yeah, 600 yen, please. There's no cheap brand here.

It's all, it's every brand has a certain story. And it's like that, it's like, you know, when you have Asian grandparents or something, everything they feed you has health benefits or something. Yeah, you know, they feed you like this vegetable or this fruit. And you're like, oh, this is really good for eggs. It's not proven, but it's like a wives tale, right? The amount of like fad products they sell here

is like incredible. Right. Like you know, you think that we're in the age of science, right? Like I thought that people like knew that half the shit they see on packaging is bullshit, right? Yeah. Like the amount of like just weight loss things that I've seen here is incredible.

Like put this pad on your belly and it will just magically go because of the gels. And it's like, that's just not how the body works. Like you know what's kind of incredible? as well, like when it comes to like weight loss, like culture here in Japan. Apparently I saw somewhere, and I don't know, don't quote me on this, but I saw a while ago that like Japan is really interesting when it comes to weight loss because we're one of the most healthiest countries in the world.

And yet I think it's something ridiculous, like one in three people diet. It's crazy. And I'm like, you don't need to diet. Because I, and that whole, you know, that whole thing comes from the whole ridiculous standard of beauty here in Japan. Everybody needs to be bulimic, otherwise you're not considered beautiful. Yeah. But going back to the fruit thing, I remember me and Archie went to, like, this new supermarket that opened up near our place.

Yeah. And I wanted to check out the fruit section, because I'm always curious. I'm like, how can we get ripped off anymore? And there were like these packet of, there were these cherries, right? I love eating cherries. There were these packet of, like, cherries from America. Yeah. Which were like, there was like 30 of them in there and it was like 400 yen.

I'm like, okay, a tad expensive, but not too bad. Right next to there, there was a pack of another 30 cherries, but they were from like Ibaraki or like somewhere local. And it was obviously some kind of brand, right? Guess how much these cherries were? Just going off Japan experience, like 30 bucks. Okay, so like 3,000 yen? How much do you think it was?

Like 2,500 yen? 2500, yeah, 2,500 yen, right? 25 bucks. Yeah, think of a 6,500. Oh, Jesus. Oh my God. For 30,000. cherries homegrown.

Okay. Like what? Like, I swear, like, I was really tempted to buy just being like, I swear to God, if one cherry doesn't give me an orgasm, like, it's not worth it. Yeah, yeah, I know right. It's just not worth it. It's good fruit, don't get me wrong. Yeah. But is it worth the fucking premium than I'm paying?

Right. I don't think so. It's stupid. Like, it's already a luxury just to buy regular fruit. Yeah, yeah. Regular non-branded fruit. Exactly. And it's like, who is buying this?

That's my biggest concern. It's like what kind of fruit elitist is like buying these like $60 cherries from like down the road? You know, it's like, who is buying these and being like, yes, I can definitely taste like the homegrown quality in this. It's the fucking elderly. It's the grandmas is like, this is hidden health benefits. This is low GMO. This cherry will fix your erectile dysfunction. This isn't from America. It's homegrown.

Going back to, you know, people who stay thin in Japan, I think one preconception I had is that I would just move to Japan and because Japanese food is so healthy, you just like lose weight automatically. I'd like zero efforts, lose weight automatically. Most restaurants have a menu, surprise, surprise. And if you just pick the unhealthy option, you had the unhealthy option.

Yeah, yeah, you gain just as much. I think the whole preconception is that like, I think especially when it comes from like Americans, Yeah. It's just, it's not so much about like the actual fact that like the food is healthier. And I'm sure like, if you like constantly go eat out of like traditional Japanese restaurants

that serve traditional Japanese food, yes, you're probably getting healthier stuff. Yeah. But I think it just seems healthier, especially when compared to like Americans because the portion sizes are just small. That, yeah. And like the whole convening, all that stuff is definitely not healthy.

Oh no, no, no, no. It's delicious, but it's not healthy. It's all delicious. That's the problem. Everything's delicious, so you just wanna keep eating more and more. Right, right. I think we, like, we mistake it as like a food culture thing

as to why everyone's so thin here, but it's definitely like when you live here, you realize really quickly, it's like a lifestyle thing. Yeah, it's definitely a life. Because they walk so much, most people do exercise unless they're super busy with work and I mean, that's already draining enough. But I've noticed that people don't really like

eat lunch or breakfast much here. It's like a light bite most of the time, unless it's a business meal. Yeah, right, right. That's when they'll eat lunch. But most people, I think, have like an onigiri like a small snack.

Or like a calorie mate. Right. And even then, I think most people are just too exhausted by the time they finish work. They just have something just because they need to. Yeah, and then they go to bad. Where I mean, when you're a YouTuber, like, I eat because I'm bored. And trust me, there is more than enough stuff

to eat here that is like terrible. I'm sure the amount of food they just like are used to eating as well is greatly different to like any like standard of like a Westerner, right? Oh no, like for me, whenever I have like a sweet, like an ice cream. Everything is sweet here.

Yeah, everything. And it's so good. Like I, like, I, Normally I hate sweets. But now when I go to a company, I have to get at least one snack or one sweet. But like the one thing I can't forgive, especially, this is not just Japan,

this is all Asian countries, is sweet bread. Oh, I just think they, I can't, I don't understand it. I can't speak of other Asian countries, but this country's bread is a joke. Oh yeah. This is not, like, I don't know.

It's not bread. Like, half the bread that you can choose, I have not seen a single bread that is like multi-grained bread, like just brown bread, right? Finding anything but white bread, and then sometimes like bread with custard in it? Who the fuck wants bread with custard? Okay, I fuck with bread.

No. I fuck with it because I grew up eating that shit, but... And then there's other stuff, and it's like, in the UK, the one thing that I realize now I took most for granted was just a loaf of bread, right? Like, I feel like the one thing that everyone feels entitled to in the UK is a loaf of bread. Like, it is like the staple.

the house, right? Everyone has a loaf of bread. You just go to like fucking Tesco's, waitros. At most, you can even get the cheaper option. Still a whole loaf of bread for like 80 cents, right? Yeah, 80 cents, 80,m, whatever.

How many loaves of bread, how many slices of bread do you get in the UK? You get like 12, like 12, 10. You get a full load, like this. Yeah, I got, okay, I got it. Japan, you get half the fucking loaves and they've cut it. You get six slices.

You get six slices, but it's not only six slices, it's like a brick of fucking, like, it's not even a slice. It's like it's too thick to make a sandwich out of. It's so thick that the toaster struggles to toast it all the way through. You have to like put that bitch in for like 10 minutes and it's like lightly brown.

I'm just like, I just want toast. Yeah, I think bread has been the thing that I've missed the most. If not that cheese. Like, oh, don't get me starting cheese. You can get good cheese here, but for the same block of cheese in the UK, like a kilogram of cheese, I would do like two, three pounds, right?

So that's like, what, four, five bucks? Here, if I want like 200 grams or four, 500 grams of good, like actual cheese, not that god awful shit they have here. It's like 15 bucks. Like, and I'm not paying that much for cheese because I just can't like in my head. I mean, it's a biggest struggle for me,

like considering that Australia is like known for its cheese. Like all supermarkets in Australia have an aisle specifically. Oh no, no, no, right? Here you have to go to a specific, specialized supermarket for foreign cheese. Yeah. Or it's in a tiny corner of the dairy section.

Yeah, yeah. And it's like the most processed fucking cheese you can ever. They'll have like 10 hundred meters of tofu. Don't you worry about it? They'll have every single tofu imaginable. They'll have like, it's the same tofu, but with like, it's like instead of zero zero zero zero zero zero point one F.

It's one shade white. It's literally like the shit they'll sell. But like cheese, no way. Get that shit out of here. We don't need cheat. You know it's fucked when we have more variations of Nato than we do it. Oh my God.

I mean, not that I'm complaining, but yeah, I don't know how you handle Nato, man. I just grew up with a man, like this. I'm open to things. Yeah. I think I have a really good, like, palette. I can eat anything, but Nato, I don't know what the fuck. I don't wanna be that guy, but it's in a quiet taste.

You can say that again. You know, I feel that I'm pretty international and I'm open to try new things. There's a few things in the world that I just don't get. Nato is one of them. Yeah. I'm sorry to betray my own country.

Durian is another one. I'm sorry guys. See, I've never tried like real during, but I've always wanted to. What are some like, I guess when we're talking about it, what are some misconceptions about Japan that you think you've experienced? Because for me, I know I thought,

for some reason I thought I was gonna eat way more fish by just being, I mean, in comparison, I guess I do eat slightly more fish. But I thought fish was gonna be way more of a factor in my life than it actually is. And I feel like if you want to avoid fish in Japan, it is so easy.

Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that also comes from the whole fact that like because there are more foreigners living here, like they were just like, especially, like, even in between the four years that I've been living here, there are so many more vegetarian and vegan places open now. Like it's incredible, especially in Tokyo. But like, yeah, no, I agree, like, I love me my fish,

don't get me wrong. Same, same. But I'm definitely not going to eat sushi every week, like most of my fans think I am. I can't eat sushi every day. It's like a nice little treat. Right, right. I know what you guys are on about.

If I could eat sushi every week, I would, and I do most. Most, most, most, before pre-quarantine, like, because going to, like, this dollar sushi chain. Yeah. I fucking love it because you get, you get better sushi than you do for paying 30 quid. Oh, yeah. I think, I think sushi. For a fucking dollar.

And it's fucking amazing. And I do eat quite a lot of fish, most because I eat sushi a lot. And when you cook at home, you know, could eat salmon. Oh, yeah, I love fucking salmon, card. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And because there's so much fish, like in the UK, sometimes you could get like meat that's been like, like seasoned already.

Yeah. And you can get like fish in supermarkets here that's already been like pre-seasoned everything. So literally what you're gonna do is open that bad boy up, throw in a pan, and you got an amazing taste of fish. I think so good. I think it's just habit, basically. Yeah, it is.

Yeah, it is. There's so many other shit that you could eat because it's so readily available. Pizza potato, that's the best. Do you know what pizza potato is? Come to the Japan. It's amazing. It's, I fucking scrap-by.

But that's the thing, right? It's like, I think- Sorry, I interrupted you can't. I think, I think most people think that like, oh, we just, you know, all they received is just like sushi is because like, you know, as, as obvious as this is going to sound, Japanese food culture is just so much more than that. Like, it's so much more than fish.

I have consistently had the best Italian food here as opposed to, there would be some. There would be some. There's someone Italian out there. Yeah, he's like, cringing. You know, going to Italy, it's no contest. but compared to the UK where it was literally like, again, it was a coin toss, right?

You'd go to a place and the pasta was like, god-awful. Like it's the saddest carbonara, which, you know, how can you fuck that up? That's like pasta 101, right? You come here and I feel like you just always consistently have like a good experience with every kind of food, right? Right, right. I mean, you know this, Chinese food in the UK is a joke.

We're not gonna get into that. I can spend a lot of talking about Chinese food. Any kind of cuisine you can imagine, except maybe like American like really like dine a portion have yeah like meat like really like ribs and stuff yeah yeah yeah yeah it's hard to get that but you know I'm fine with going to america going back to the UK and having that myself every now and then yeah for the for the overall trade off of all right consistently i get better meals yeah right right right is there anything else that like haven't met your expectations

or haven't met your preconceptions yeah I want to know as like a non like resident right or like you know non-japan this is going to sound dumb as fuck right and I know it's gonna sound dumb, but I, like, I knew things were going to be difficult that I couldn't speak Japanese or read Japanese. More so read than anything. I feel like you can, for some reason, you can be fine not speaking Japanese here,

but if you can't read, like you're in for like a storm of trouble. Yeah. Because there are so many things, and I think you all can agree on this, if Amazon didn't exist here and have English, oh my God. If Amazon didn't have English settings here, I genuinely don't know what I would do.

Because the websites here in Japanese, I don't know if they've done this on purpose or due to the old interface. They do not work well with Google Translate. I mean, it's all going back to that like 90s web. No, no, they don't know how to design their websites. It's not user-friendly. So if you can't speak Japanese or read Japanese,

you're kind of fucked. Yeah, yeah. And the Google Translate does not help. No, it doesn't help. It can help you like feel, like you kind of fill your way through, but you cannot tell what the fuck you're doing. The only reason we've been able to get through it is because we've had friends,

you got a company helping us. It makes it so much easier for all, or yeah, Joey, shout out to Joey. I am that friend. Joey, Joey helped me a lot when I, when we moved here, like, help me out doing all the, I had to go to the town hall with you to fill out your papers.

That's the thing, right? Is that you think, like, in the big population areas, they'd have like a lot of English support, but I think they said, like, if you come on these certain days, like sending up internet, do you remember how much of a hassle that was?

Oh my God. Like, I remember that, uh, uh, A.U, right? They say they have an English location in Shinjuku. That's a fucking lie. No, no, their English location is that they have a tablet which can call a call center

that can translate the person for you, kind of, but not really. But that's the closest you are going to get. That fox? I didn't even get to the guy on the tablet. I just turned up saying, on the website, this says this is the English location. And they were like, no. And I'm like, well, what do I do? How the fuck do I get internet? Yeah, yeah. Help me.

Like, I, luckily, I had a cousin who worked in Japan so she could speak Japanese. She helped me through so much and I don't know what I would do without her. And, you know, same with you. You needed like you. You need a lot of help. You feel like a baby.

Cause she, I genuinely don't know, like, how, there are some foreigners here who can't even speak English. Yeah, I somehow made it here on their own. And I'm like, how the fuck did you do that? Because at least they have a lot of English words, right? And a lot of, a lot of English options sometimes. But if you speak, you can't speak English, fuck, I don't know what.

I don't know how they do. English is hard enough as it is. Yeah. If you can't speak Japanese, then I think you're pretty much fucked. Or if you can't speak- Real positive message coming out of this episode. No, no, no, no, no.

Because that's the thing a lot of people don't talk about, which is how hard it is to live here, actually live here without speaking Japanese. Because coming on, like we said, it's so different living here as, you know, working here and just visiting here as a tourist. Yeah, yeah. There's a world of difference.

And there's so many little things, like for example, registering with the town hall. How the fuck am I supposed to do that if I don't speak Japanese? Because they don't speak English and all the forms were in Japanese. Yeah, the forms they tell you that you need to do that within two weeks

of moving here or also in Japanese. It's simple, just learn Japanese in the two weeks that you hear. The only reason we knew is because the lawyers told us, hey, you've gotta do this. But like, if we didn't know that, I don't know what I was, I would have just carried on limit. You need a dedicated agency

just to help you with all the admin I mean, I can understand the language and I still had to like learn from like my cousins who live here. That's like just how it works. Like, oh shit, I have to go to the town hall and register for like my address and like my health certificate and all of that. Like I yeah, I never had to experience that living in Australia. Yeah, yeah, exactly. I never had to experience that while visiting here, right? So it's just, it's overwhelming and like I, it's like massive kudos to people who don't know Japanese or even don't know English. Yeah. Again, I don't know how the fuck they do it without the help of an agency.

So to clarify, you can live here if you don't speak any Japanese or if you're learning, but I think if you're somehow coming here alone without anyone helping you, it's gonna be hell. Yeah, yeah. Because it was hell enough

with multiple ways of us having help, right? It was just, and I felt so bad for Joey the amount of times I had to ask him for help. I was like, he fucking hates me at this point. Every day I'm coming over with a form. Oh, hey, Joe, what's to say? And then also, like, until you figure this out, right, If you miss a package in the post,

you get a little form through your mailbox that's all in Japanese and you need to figure out how the fuck you're gonna reschedule this thing. Luckily, you know, there's a, like, I found a way eventually, which is like scan the barcode with like whatever thing you have. It'll take it to your website,

use Google translate to translate it. And I hope that the translations are rough enough where you can like figure out what's being said and that's what I do every time now. But for the first week where I didn't know that, every time I missed a package, I was like, hey Joey, can you call them up and tell them, tell them,

I'm gonna be home. There was like a month where like I was calling up these guys more often for his packages than I was for my own packages. I felt so bad but I was like, I need the package, just my fucking desk. And again like, okay, let's trace it back again. And I hate being like nice to a trillion dollar company

like Amazon but without them and like the English, because you can just change it to English, right? And they also, they have support in English, I'd know because I've had to like return items and stuff. Like it's literally, no different from using like Amazon in the UK, except maybe sometimes the translations don't work one for one, but you can pretty much find what you want.

Like you can type it in in English and it comes up. We basically furnished our entire. Yeah, my whole house is Amazon. Using Amazon. Because like they have like a Japanese IKEA, which is called Nuitary, but you know, you have to go to the store, you have to register, you have to put in your address and all that stuff.

It takes like 20 days to deliver anything. Yeah, yeah. How crazy is that? Like if you wanna like their version of like, this IKEA here as well, but it's very expensive. If you buy stuff from Nitori, which is like their version of IKEA, like you said,

it's like, there's a lot, there's a lot of waiting time, like 20 days, I think, for some products. Yeah. And I was like, I can't wait 20 days for a bed. Like, I want to sleep. Like, what do you mean? Let me just sleep on the hard floor. Yeah, what am I gonna do?

And yeah, just, also any advice to someone moving to Japan, please make sure your house has AC before you move in because I didn't and I had to pay, I think it was like 2005. Your previous tenant, like jacked the fucking AC. He fucking gutted the whole place.

He took everything. He took the light bulbs. Who leaves, who takes light bulbs? Oh yeah, that's a frequent occurrence you'll see. Like going into a new apartment, there won't be any lights. Right, right. You have to buy your own lights.

Like, when I move out of a place, I'll leave stuff that I think is like super generic that like you don't need to think about. Like I'll just, you know, I'll leave the bulbs in. If I have like a dormat, I'll just leave the door mat. Like I don't, whatever. They can throw it away if they don't want it. But like, they took everything.

They took everything from me. I moved in with no AC and it was getting really cold. And I think there's one cosplay video where I was like fucking freezing during this video and I was getting like naked for it. And I was like, not only that, but you were in like the coldest room. Yeah, yeah, exactly, the tatami room.

Yeah, the tatami room, which retains no heat. Just like before you move, just like, please, before you move into a parliament, please make sure this AC there. Otherwise that's gonna be a huge cost when you move. So I had to pay $2,000 plus dollars for two AC units. Jesus. And I don't know what I'm gonna do with that

if I ever move back to the UK. Like I guess I could sell it. Right. UK could use AC. But like, okay, let's see you paid for an apartment, right? You paid for the AC in that apartment, right? Like that's part of your bill. Whereas I had to pay $2,000 independently

so that you could argue that my rent has gone up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just like dumb shit like that I didn't consider. No, so okay, one thing that was different for me is how much I think I thought I would go to Akihabra versus how much I actually go to Akihabara. Onsen's too.

Yeah, yeah, because every time we'd visit- We haven't gone since you guys move. I know, I know. It makes me so sad. Like, because I remember, like, when, every time we visited here on holiday, we'd spend half our time there. Or something like that.

Of course. Going to Akihabra. It's the proper weebie experience. Not proud to admit that, but I, it was like, it was like, the, like, imagine every single anime convention shoved into one. It is like a mecca of a week.

It is just the holy land for leaves. But then you move here and you're like, man, Akihabra is not only a long way away, but you can get a lot of shit better online for cheaper if you can figure out Japanese websites, right? Not only that, but there are just like cities that are better for like all round experiences. Like that's why I love like Ikebukuro.

Yeah, yeah. Because with Akihabra, you only go there for anime. Yeah. If you want to do something else, then it's not the best place to go. But if you go to somewhere like Ikebukuro, you can still shop for anime feature You can still go, you know, go down Otomero. Exactly, exactly.

Go to the animate there, which is also in Akihabra. But then you could also go to an Izakiya afterwards or go karaoke or, you know, a lot of other things. It's a lot more varied. There's a lot more variation outside of Akihabra than if you want just. Not to downplay Akihabra, though. It's amazing. Don't like it's, it's great. Every weeb should go to Akihabra.

It's an experience. You'll have a spiritual awakening when you're. But it is crazy, like the first time you go there. It's like, holy shit. What? This is what I dreamed about. Three Sega arcades right next to each other. Why?

It's just kind of like information overload, right? You get blasted with so many lights, with so much shit just around you. You don't know where to go. You can spend an entire fucking day in one store. Oh yeah, like, easily. Because if you want to look for deals right and figures, you gotta pull out the whole shelf, because they hide shit like way in the back. and sometimes you might find that one deal

that is like all you fucking talk about. When I found that one thing for like 20 bucks, yeah. If you wanna get a figuring for like the best price, you gotta like create a like a Google spreadsheet to be like, all right, this store has it for this price, but the store down there has it for 10% cheaper. So you gotta like keep track of everything. And then you ultimately realize that it's cheaper

on on Amazon. It's like it's way best to buy online. Yeah, even Amazon here, like the figures are way cheaper sometimes in the stores, which is like weird. See, because for me like Amazon It was just like a huge revelation because we don't have Amazon in Australia. Yeah, wow.

You don't? No, we don't. Whoa. We have, how does a country function without Amazon? We have eBay and we have like our own version of Amazon called Gumtree, which is just like,

Oh, we have Gumtree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gumtree is where I used to like sell sketchy stuff to like sketchy people. That's like the Craigslist of Amazon though. Yeah, pretty much. But like Gumtree, I'm pretty sure it's an Australian company.

Yeah. And like, so we have Gumtree and eBay and that's it. We don't have Amazon. So like when, you know, back when I was living in Australia and talking to like American, like YouTube of friends who were like, oh yeah, I just got that off Amazon.

I'm just like, yeah, about that. I, uh, they're selling it for three times the price on eBay, does that count? I hated it. So when I moved here, Amazon was just like, whoa, holy shit. It's gonna arrive tomorrow. Yeah, fucking hell, yeah, so that was amazing. Because the thing about Akihabra,

I feel it's more of an experience than actual, you don't go there to actually shop, you go there for like the Akihaber Aki Harbor experience. Oh yeah. Like I remember one of the biggest things that I noticed going to Akihabra is that you can go walk into one shop and you think it's like this single store shop. You're just gonna come in and come out and then it turns out to be seven fucking stories.

Of shops. Yeah, or of shops. And then you waste five hours there because there's so much stuff in this one shop. It's so tightly packed in. Yeah. Oh, by used figures as well. Like their version of used here is a joke. No, everything used to it.

It's immacular. It's immacular. Like I feel bad. bad now because when I use something, it's fucking messy. I have books that have like one single folded page or something that I like placed it down wrong and that's just unusable here.

Yeah, they'll be like damaged goods, looks very used. And I'm like, what the fuck? Used in the UK is like, if it's just barely functioning. Yeah, yeah. It's barely functioning, you know, probably has like an STD. I don't fucking know what it's been through.

Whereas here it's like, have you opened the box? Yeah. Yeah. Which is fucking amazing. amazing how Connor you found probably the only used product in Japan, which was your fridge. Can we talk about that? I'll let you tell the story, but it definitely was not in immaculate shape. You know, we had spent a lot of money on moving, right?

As anyone knows, moving is very expensive. And I'd heard of these like Sayanara sales, as they're called. People who move from Japan, they basically sell all their stuff on. Yeah, Sionara sale, you know. And so they sell all their stuff on Craigslist. And Malene kept telling me, a bookwalker, kept telling me like, dude, just buy all these stuff on Craigslist.

It's like dirt cheap. And I thought, well, you know, it's great idea, Maylene. Well, corner out like this. And, you know, I thought, all right, well, you know, Japanese people are really great with like keeping their stuff immaculate. So, yeah, I order, I speak to someone in Craigslist,

the sauna fridge and a laundry machine. Is it what you call it? Like, what do you call it? Wash a machine. A laundry machine. A laundry machine. A laundry device, McGee. And I bought it for like, it was like 50 bucks, right?

For a fridge in a long, like, it's already right, right. But there was some people who were giving their stuff away for free. Yeah, oh really? Yeah, because they were like, we're gonna get charged by the local council. Oh, yeah, yeah, to get rid of the stuff. So I didn't pay for anything else, not the moving fear or anything.

So you were there in my house when it turned up, yeah, like a guy from like New Zealand. Yeah, he was a Kiwi, yeah, he just turned up and he was like, all right, I'll fuck, yeah, I'll fucking install the, the, uh, the machine. Is that your Kiwi accent? Yeah, I'm fucking, It's just like, I'll fucking install it for you. And so he was like, I'll install for you.

And I think I discussed with the person on Craigslist, they were going to charge for like a tenor for installing. Yeah, right, right. So the guy was like, oh, no, fuck it, mate. And so he installed it. And then I got like, you remember? I got like, like, angry fucking texts of the person off Craigslist. They were like bombarding my phone.

I picked up the phone. And then there was like an Indian woman shouting at me. Being like, why didn't you pay him the $1,000? And I was like, what the fuck? Shut up. Like, I thought it was cool. I'm like, he said it was fine. Where you fucking?

I was having my phone. And I was like, yeah, and so I was like, I was just like, hang up the phone. I was like, yeah, no, he left now. What the fuck you want me to do? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. What am I should do? Stop shouting at me.

I'm like, and I told her message, like, if you send me one more message, shouting at me, I'm blocking you. And then the- Give it out a hard block. Yeah, I was like, I'm gonna block you, don't you fucking dare, and don't at me.

And the guy, the Kiwi called me up and he's like, all right, listen here, she wants some money, I'm gonna come back and get it. And then I was like, I'll just give you the tenor. I don't care, can you just all stop calling me? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I just wanna like, enjoy my evening. Yeah. Sorry, met him at the conbeni, gave him the tenor, and then, you know, went back. Next day, I opened my fridge. There's like five cockroaches in my fridge. It was like, I was like, holy fuck, right? No one that didn't want a foreigner

in their house. Imagine being the only foreigner in your building and that guy has cockroaches. It's like, the cleanest country in the fucking world. I swear to- I'm the asshole who brought cockroaches into this player. So I bought a cockroach, but I fucking tore this fridge apart, right? I literally tore, you know, like the felt that you have on fridges?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I tore all that shit off. I took everything out. I bleached the fuck out of this thing. Like, this, my house must have smelt like a murder scene being cleaned, right? I bleached the hell out of this thing. And it was the most vile thing. Like, you know the felt thing, right?

I was shaking it out and, like, maybe like a hundred cockroaches must have fell out. And I don't even want to know the living conditions of the person who sold me fridge, but fuck you if you ever watch this, you are horrible. Do not sell people your fridges if they are in that condition. Exposed. Like, how can you get cockroaches in the most cleanest country that I've ever been to?

You go on the streets here and you don't see any fucking rubbish. So there were, there are less cockroaches in like the back of like a fucking denies here than they were in your fridge. Like, so that was my first experience buying you used in Japan. Yeah, and it was awful because I just,

I just thought like, God damn it. Like I just got this house and I have cockroaches now. Yeah, yeah. And so I had to like scour my whole apartment just making sure these cockroaches didn't go anywhere. And I, like, months after I kept finding one or two and I'm like, how? I bleached everything.

Like there is no reason these things should be existing. That's cockroaches one-on-one. Once you thought you got rid of the mold, there's still around. So now I got rid of the fridge because I just thought enough is enough. This thing looks disgusting. I threw it out.

Yeah, it wasn't a nice looking fridge anyway. It looked like saying like a homeless man with Steve. Your apartment probably has a cockroach infection that you just put into the- No, no, no, no, it's, I got them. It's somewhere in the building. I got them all those fuckers, I'm just saying.

I spent a lot of time. That's what you think. So before we, we end this episode, I'd like to know, like, especially from you, because I know I experienced this, like, when you announced that you moved to Japan, because I kept mine secret for like a month. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't tell anyone about the process,

any of really told close friends, but like, just kind of dropped it down, like, kind of dropped it down like. I just kind of like made a tweet being like, live in Japan now. Yeah. Everyone's like, what? Like what reaction did you experience

when you tweeted that? I mean, everyone just assumes that I was, you know, I was following that we've dream that we talked about earlier where just like, oh, you're, you're finally being the final form of every web, you're finally in Japan, you're gonna watch so much anime. You're basically Japanese now.

Konishua. Yeah. Yeah. And everyone assumes I could already speak Japanese because I'll move to Japan. Really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. People, people, I think, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, I think a lot of people just rightfully, just, okay, not rightfully, I don't know,

I would never assume if someone moves to a country that they can automatically speak language. But I got so many comments, people being like, but you can't speak Japanese. So like, why would you move there? I'm like, I don't really, it's not really that bug of an issue. Like, I'm gonna learn it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But it did become an issue, and it is an issue, didn't have someone to help us. It is an issue, but like if you have, you know, agency or friends help you. It's not a requirement. If you have Amazon, if you have, Jeff Bezos, shout out, thank you. But yeah, I mean, carry on, yeah, like that all you got?

Like everyone just assumed your, like the webe dream, et cetera. Yeah, I mean, I didn't get too much of like a reaction apart from just everyone was happy for me. Yeah, yeah. Everyone, like, wanted to know how I moved here or like, got a lot of what I went through. Now you know. Yeah, exactly.

Now you know, much of, much of the advice. I can offer isn't too helpful because we were kind of the first of our kind. We were like one of the first, some of the first antitubers to be able to move here for being an annituber, you know. Basically, we got so good at being a weeb. The Japanese government allowed us to continue being weaves and we're being paid. They gave us a visa for being a super fucking weeb. Yeah, pretty much. And that's like a, you know, we're the anomaly.

We're the exception. Yeah. In terms of, I mean, architaneously was you. Yeah, no, no, she was the first. I'm saying like we're one of the first. No, no, of course, of course. Yeah, of course. Yeah, no, it's kind of incredible how,

I mean, I felt the same way with Arki, but with you guys as well, that like, wow, like, Antichub has gotten to that point now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because like, you know, even like three years ago. Yeah, it was fucking unheard of. Yeah, right? It's like, oh yeah, you talk about anime

on the internet for a living. Yeah, good luck staying in your country for the rest of your life, right? But like now it's just like an actual viable, like career option. If you can give back more than you take out, and there's no reason why, I guess a government agency would not wanna have that job there.

Right, yeah, if you're giving more money and you're not doing any harm and you're respectful, like why wouldn't they want you? Yeah, yeah, it's been really humbling to like actually be working here officially doing anime YouTube and it's been really weird, especially talking to people who work in the companies, you know what I mean?

Yeah, it's- Like directly. Yeah, how do you feel like, your careers have been affected after moving here. I mean, I'm, I think mine's like increased dramatically because now I do have access directly to a lot of these like productions. Like I, like, you know, I knew like a lot of people in the industry, quote unquote, while I was living in Australia. Anime industry.

Yeah, yeah. But like, it is a completely different story when you move you. Oh, no, exactly. Because like most of these Japanese companies don't know what the fucking email is. No, no. And they need, they require you to meet in person. Oh no, no, like like, yeah, if you're gonna do business in Japan, you need to have a face-to-face meeting, no email, no fucking Zoom call.

Yeah, no phone, not even a phone call. It's like you need to come to our office and we need to make sure that you're a real person. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So it's, it's, it's, it's all very traditional here. So to do business with any anime company, which is why, you know, things move so slowly is that you have to follow the tradition. You have to do that face-to-face. meeting. They call a meeting for any fucking reason. Yeah, exactly. Somebody sneezed in the office. We need to discuss whether this is a potential anthrax infection. Get HR on the phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, career-wise, I guess for me, the biggest thing is that, like, I just want to experience

something else and also, you know, maybe learn another language. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Although it's painfully difficult to learn Japanese. It is. I just think getting more life skills can only be a plus, right? Like if I continue doing what I was doing in the UK, I was doing a lot of voiceover, which sure I could probably go and maybe go into that when I'm, for some reason, I stopped doing YouTube, but I think I just want to learn more skills in my life. While I'm still young as well, right?

And while I'm still open to doing things and putting myself out there. Yeah, yeah. And I think if anything from my career, definitely like that benefit of hopefully learning more and making new connections with, you know, maybe not the industry. I don't know what I'll go into,

but I mean, we've definitely made connections as well, just from being in a company under... Yeah, not even in the anime industry, just like... No, just not. Lots of industries. You meet people that you never knew that you- A lot of creatives, right?

A lot of cool people. But like, I think the biggest barrier is like the language barrier. Yeah. Yeah, Japanese really needs to fix their difficulty curve because you go from fucking playing animal crossing when you're like, do maternal or nightmare. It's like,

Kada Kana and Hira Gana is like, you're just playing animal crossing and then suddenly you're doing like a no-hit, no hit running Dark Souls or something when Kansji gets in and you're like, what the fuck is going on? This is not the difficulty curve I wanted. And the problem is with like kanji at least, not problem. I mean, it's really

beautiful like the system of writing. I've come to appreciate it more and more. But it's like, if you don't understand a baseline amount, you just can't read anything. Yeah. Because the moment you do, you're like, what's that? Welcome to the past 25 years of my life. Right? Right. And it's like, it's not like, you know, if I was learning French where I can sound it out and maybe like, I just can't like, I'm like, what the fuck is that thing? And then you're like, oh, I know what this kanji is. Turns out the country has five different pronunciations and meanings, and you don't know which one's which, because you just got here.

You just have to know that shit. It's bullshit. That's, I think that's what's the most difficult, right? Is that like, Japan is like an anti-phenetic country, right? Yeah, yeah. You can't split shit out. You just have to know it. And that's why it's so difficult for a lot of people.

I mean, like... So, I mean, I think I, we know a lot of people who can speak Japanese, but I've not even attempted to learn to read Japanese. No, no, no. It is a completely different ballgame. And it's like, you know, like, even like me,

having learned it pretty much my first language. I still struggle with it every now and then. It is like a constant learning process for me. Yeah. And like, thank God that my mom did whip my ass to like learn it when I was little because Jesus Christ, my life has been a million times easier that I can read it and understand it.

It's the one time when she said, you appreciate it when you're older. Yeah. And you did actually appreciate it when you're older. Thanks, mom. Exactly. You helped build my career essentially. Yeah.

Everyone said that with Welsh. Didn't quite pan out. I mean, I appreciate the culture. Sure, but that's about as far as the usefulness goes. But here's the question I want to ask you guys, how long, now that you've experienced living here for what, like eight months now, essentially seven, eight months now, how long do you intend to stay here?

That's a good question. I think I've lived here long enough to know that I don't want to live here forever. Right, right. I think there's just, at least right now and how Japan is, a lot of stuff that I just like don't gel with. Yeah, yeah. I think I can definitely see myself, because I feel like, but a long time though.

Yeah, yeah, because I've lived there for eight months, feels, it's felt like I've lived here for a month. Right, right. I haven't even reached, close to my final form. Is that an anime reference? I know we've hardly talked about anime on this podcast, but yeah, I mean, I still like, I feel like I've,

I want to explore Japan more. I want to learn the language way more proficiently than, than I have now. I want to take advantage of it way more, and I want to experience Japanese cultures more. Because the one thing, I, the one thing, the one thing, the one way, the one target I've set myself, I should say, is being able to like have a conversation with some of the businesses

and going to some of the office parties and actually being able to participate in the conversation, everything like that. That's like my goal when it comes to learning, you know. Yeah, same. I just want to be able to communicate. Yeah. And learn a bit of kanji, right? Learn the basics just so I can like figure out, you know, what the McDonald's menu says.

You know what I mean? Like, yeah, it's, I can definitely see it being like, a second home to me, right? Like a place where maybe I can easily go back to you at months periods. But I think like when I'm like 50 or whatever, I think I'm going to miss the how, because I think I've been, you know,

I've been really ingrained in British culture of like how friendly and open it is. Yeah, yeah. Like that like, yeah. Especially in Wales, you just rock up to a pub and you can speak to anyone there. Yeah.

In the small pubs in Wales. Like I love that. And I kind of miss that a bit. And I think, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'm eight months in.

Maybe in a podcast in a year. We'll talk about it. And our minds will have changed. I want to live here forever, right? Yeah, yeah. I think because right now I feel like a foreigner still. And I think that's probably never going to change, but maybe at some point I'll finally feel like I can call this place home.

Yeah, yeah, it might smooten that a little bit. Probably, I imagine it will, unless I get arrested and convicted of a crime that I was accused of and I'm in prison for a hundred years. But, you know, what's the odds of that? Before we end the podcast, there was like one story I wanted to end on, which is like it completely shattered what my preconceptive.

of moving to Japan would be. And that was at one of the company parties that we attended with Book Walker in Geeks Plus and, you know, Katakawa in general. And it was to do with my fiance, Sydney. Yeah. So what happened was, you know, we went to a company party.

Everyone got pretty merry. And then we went to a bar afterwards, right? Oh, I think I know you're going to say. Yeah. And so we, we, we, It was like a very intimate bar. So it didn't fit a lot of people. Room for like 10, 10 people, maybe.

Yeah, yeah. A good 10 people. And you know, there were a lot of people from the company, some pretty high up from the company, and then we started singing karaoke together. And so Sydney being the drunken little weebu that she is. She's such a weebu.

Unlike us, unlike us, she went through her weave face, right? She went proper, full, cringy weeb face, unlike us. I just, I love, Sydney, I love you if you watch this. Isn't she like kind of the face of like the cringy wee person on video? According to the internet. Sydney's gonna fucking kill me the same.

She had that phase when she went there. So we started singing karaoke and she starts singing the Anna Hanna ending. And me and God were like, fuck, why? Why? What the fuck you're doing? Like you're in front of a lot of important people in the company. And she starts, she starts bailing the fucking Anahana ending. And then the fucking businessman start clapping

and cheering her on. I start singing along. And I'm just sitting there like... We were shocked. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I looked at Connor and I'm like, is this ass-slashy really happens right now? Are we living a 2007 Tumblr post?

Yeah. Like, oh yeah, yeah. So like I moved to Japan and, yeah, I was in an important business meeting, a business party. And then we started singing the Yanahana opening ending even, and then everyone started clapping and cheering and it was amazing.

I'm like, this is so surreal right now. It's literally an a slash happen that happened post, right? It's like, this definitely happened. But it's great, because I feel like when you do sing stuff like that, it's never, they're never like, oh my God, they're trying to be like us. They're like, oh my God, they care about our culture. That's so cool. They really do.

And I guess that's what I want to end on, which is like, I think it's, you know, we started on the good sides and the bad sides of Japan, but I think they really do care about our culture. They really, they really care about learning more, and they are open to foreigners. There's just sometimes a lot of barriers that come between that. And I guess one of the biggest things you can do is learn Japanese, because that's such a, that's...

They love it. They love it. They love it. To them, it's like you've made an effort to learn that culture. I mean, and, you know, likewise, right? Like, if somebody comes over to, like, your country and they can understand your language, like, that's immediately like, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, my respect. If you could speak Welsh in Wales,

like you're immediately loved. Because like, people in Wales, Welsh can't even speak Wales. Welsh people can't even speak Wales, right? Yeah. Like I can imagine it's like one of those, right? Yeah. And I think like you said,

right, all differences aside and all complaints that we have. Like at the end of the day, I don't think I've ever spoken to a person here who's been rude to me. No. And everyone has been super nice. And, you know,

you might get stared at or anything, but that's not a place of like, you know, aggression or anything. They just don't see it often. Yeah. And at the end of the day, they're really, really nice people. No, the positives definitely outweigh the news. Oh, 100%.

Yeah. I mean, I'm just British, right? So to me, it's like 1% one percent, one percent negative, 99% positive. I only see this, right? That's what you're raised is British. Exactly. But overall, it's, it's an amazing country and I'm glad that we got to.

I'm having a great fucking song. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm glad you guys. With the boys? With the boys? With the boys? Get to do this fucking podcast, TTP. Oh my God.

Oh my God. It was a good two episode run then, eh? Yeah. Thank you for tuning into the final episode. Yeah, so I think that's a good place to end it. So thank you very much for tuning in to Trash Taste Podcast, episode two. We didn't have any Twitter questions yet

because episode one hasn't aired as of recording this. But make sure to go follow at Trash Tastastepod on Twitter. Give us your suggestions. Oh, yeah, we have a subreddit as well. You've made it, so we have a subreddit R slash Trash Taste. My username is I came for memes. Don't ask me why.

It's a throwaway account. I had to make something. So if you don't want to use Twitter, you can always hit us up on it. sub-reader, give us like topic suggestions, questions, any of that kind of stuff. Yeah, we're good to get more community involvement. Yeah, exactly.

We can't wait for all this there. Could, because right now it's just us just fucking talking to each other. Like, we don't know what's gonna happen. This is just another fucking Friday night and, yeah, we'll see you in episode three. Thank you for being such a good host, Garn. Oh, thank you very much.

Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday, woo!