For years now whenever I've got into Family Mart

there's something that's always caught my attention. An ominously branded product known only as Baked Sand

and yet I've never actually bought it until today. So I went down the Family Mart to grab it only to discover

They've rebranded it as Pizza Sand which to be fair is marginallmm

Now I know what you're probably thinking a pizza covered in sand sounds absolutely delicious

But I'll be a disappoint you by revealing that this actually means sandwich the word for sandwich

Japanese is SANDO, but because they wanted English branding on the products

they dropped the 'O' to make it sound more English and the end result is

an awkwardly named products that we're about to try, for the first time.

It has been microwaved down the store and it's a little bit soggy.

That's- that's not good. Anyway, here we go.

[Food noises]

No, not bad not to be good either

all I can think about right now is a pizza filled with sand

And so I just don't really buy this again. Just just forget about that.

It's a four out of ten product at best

So today I'm answering questions you guys have sent in about life in Japan

travel food,

Culture will also be reading out comment of the week and hate mail of the week because not everybody is nice

And as always together,

We'll uncover the answers to all the big questions about Japan the good the bad and the ugly. So without further ado lest I be

Would you rather have feet for hands or hands for feet?

Every time for fu-

"They said the giant Japanese Hornets have finally made it to this side of the world and... they're here to stay.

Can you tell us about all those encounters you've had with those beasts? Have you seen one inside your home?

For those of you that aren't familiar with the giant Japanese Hornet? It's an absolute horror show.

Imagine an angry-looking bee, the size of a fist

with a deadly six-millimeter stinger that's been described as being the most painful in the world.

It's a good thing I didn't learn about Hornets in a pamphlet about Japan before I moved here, to be honest

Otherwise, it could have been abroad not in Japan

But I did once have a frightening close encounter with the Hornet, not in my house, fortunately.

But I did have one in my car once which to be fair was equally as bad.

I was driving down the road with windows down on a nice sunny afternoon

the afternoon wind brushing through my hair

and then a hornet came through the window and hit me in the side of the head

and started buzzing around the car

[Humming]

Fortunately, I wasn't in a built-up area

So I hit the brakes, pressed all the buttons, all the windows went down it managed to fly out the car to safety

it was pretty unnerving

It could have ended quite badly if it stung me in the face while I was driving

But they're pretty amazing creatures to witness from afar

and providing you don't get too close to a nest or make any sudden movements when they're nearby, you'll be fine

Do girls ever run up to you and say, "I love you Chris"

You bet they do happens every single day in my imagination

What is one of the most underappreciated?

Dishes that's been featured and what some dishes you'd recommend for people to try at least once when they visit Japan

I'll give you two and the first one is Genghis Khan. No, not the Mongolian ruler but a juicy lamb mutton barbecue dish

I like the dish for two reasons. The first one is it's called Genghis Khan. How cool is that?

Imagine if all dishes were named after a famous historical

Dictator what will you be having today, sir? Yes, I'll have the Colonel Gaddafi with a side dish of ideo me a good choice

sir, thinking apparently the lamb mutton dish is called Genghis Khan is because here in Japan they typically associate Mongolia with lamb and

Mongolia equals Genghis Carlos as simple as that brilliant right fundamentally

It's a bloody delicious dish cooked on an iron grill in a way where all the juices from the meat

Marinate all the vegetables at the bottom of the grill

It's also one of Japan's only dishes involving lamb and it certainly doesn't disappoint

The second thing is a really a dish but a sweet cooled Bon Ton Ahmet literally citrus fruit candy

Or as I like to call them leap of faith sweets because they require

Something of a leap of faith to put them in your mouth given they are wrapped in edible plastic

At least I hope they're edible. Otherwise, this might be a very short video

At first it is undeniably unpleasant. It does just taste like you've stuffed a plastic bag in your mouth

But after about five six seconds the plastic melts away and you get this lovely

Juicy citrus fruit flavor coming through and pour the point out. It's not actually plastic. It's some sort of gelatin made by wizards

Well, there's something quite satisfying about them and you can get them in any supermarket across Japan Genghis Khan would have loved it

Have you ever had an or encounter with a viewer?

I found it's quite common to be recognized in the street

But people just don't know where from or where they've seen me last year

I was in ski G fish market in Tokyo making a video with realtor E and a viewer I think for America came over and

Said way mate. I know you from somewhere and I was like, well, maybe I felt kind of smug because Rialto is standing there

I thought you know it made me look good. And then he said you're on YouTube. Are you making making videos?

Yeah, that's that's me. And then he said wait a minute. Are you Dave in Japan? You're Dave in Japan. Oh

Yeah, yeah, that's me Dave Dave in Japan dude. I love your videos Dave in Japan. Yeah Dave in Japan

That's that's who I am. That's what we do. Terry Otero laughing his head off all the while. I wouldn't have minded

I didn't really mind

I felt kind of funny, but we ought to I bullied me for the rest of the day as we walked around Tsukiji market

Is it embarrassing to ask someone where the love hotel is? No not if you've had a lot to drink

What is your favorite product that you originally only purchased because of bad English. Well, I wouldn't say it's bad English

It's bloody brilliant English. Check this out. This is my new hat and for those of you that seen recent videos

I have started something of a hat collection

I haven't had much today. Haven't really got out much

But when I do get out I buy hats with weird English on like this one that says are you excited less adventure?

special every day

but that hat is so last week because this one is my new favorite hat and it simply says

Factors to protect by might let things take their course an act of Ramage

Let things take their course an act of ravage. Yeah, wait a minute reading that out loud

It does sound a little bit dodgy. Doesn't it? Let things take their course an active ravage

That's the sort of thing you'd hear being read out in a courtroom

I don't feel for where that are in public forget about forget about a hat

If your first tattoo isn't Family Mart chicken, then you're a knob

My first tattoo isn't going to be a piece of Family Mart fried chicken is what it looks far. It's gone

Now it's a well-known fact

There's a lot of animosity between South Korea and Japan

For various historic and geopolitical reasons and just by virtue of being here

Sometimes you get caught up in the crossfire leading to bizarre and incredible nicknames like this one, for example

Hello, Japanese spy, man

never come career forever

Japanese spy man. Finally a title that I can wear with pride. I can never cut it as a British spy, man

I can certainly make it as a Japanese spy, man. Unfortunately, though it simply isn't true

We all know who the real Japanese spy man is with his multilingual skillset

Charismatic persona and uncompromising Lee 20 smile. I've been to South Korea absolutely loved it

And now I'm gonna make a special effort to go again just to spy you and to conduct industrial espionage on an unprecedented scale

What's your favorite train station of why most stations in Japan are all the same

Modern convenient ultimately dull and then there's four curry station, which is dinosaurs

Life-size

Animatronic dinosaurs. It's like a low-budget Jurassic Park

I cycled past Fukui station on journey across Japan and of all the stations I saw on that 2,000 kilometer journey

That was easily the coolest and the reason is the Curie is home to one of the biggest dinosaur

Archaeological sites in the country and the runner-up award goes to Niigata station for having 200 Saki vending machines

Honestly the most fun you could ever have at a train station

Only they could combine the Saki vending machines, but the animatronic dinosaurs to create the world's best station get drunk ride around on a dinosaur

Possibilities would be limitless

When will you get me out of the basement? I didn't eat anything for two weeks now the real crisp broad

You knew the rules, you know, what's gonna happen you only have yourself to blame I

Need to get here

Yeah, wait some Peter Sam

Please

What's the largest animal you think you could single-handedly cling film to a lamppost

Yeah a

porpoise

You always seem uncharacteristically

Positive about Japan in general. Is there anything about the country or culture that really bothers you?

You know what? That's because nothing here does bother me nothing at all because

Oh

There might be one thing

Firstly I don't mind living in an apartment the size of a shoe. I kind of like it. It's kind of cool

it's a simple way of life even in my first apartment where I used my ironing board as valuable kitchen space on account of the

Fact I lacked an actual kitchen. It was kind of fun. It made me feel like I was in a

low-budget

post-apocalyptic movie to be honest and I get the need for small apartments given Japan's population density and walls made of

Cardboard because bricks are vulnerable to earthquakes

but if you are gonna build apartments off

Why is essentially thick paper why not insulate the walls just that little bit better to make them?

Soundproof because I can hear my neighbors on all sides whether it's arguing cooking cleaning fire doing random things

You know, I hate it. Absolutely horrible. It's like a radio that can never be switched off

It's also made me very self-conscious about how noisy I can be in my own apartment

Typically in the evening if I'm watching a film or TV or something

I have to use headphones. So it doesn't feel like a shared cinematic experience

Maybe I've just been unlucky but the two or three apartments I've lived in haven't had great walls

I don't know if you're somebody that lives in Japan do you of this problem? Is it just me? Am I going mad?

Probably certainly being stuck indoors for the last two months has made that problem a whole lot worse

It might not be a japan-only problem

but I do know that if you are gonna pack so many people into such a small space some

Soundproofing or better insulation would make all the difference and make the quality of living here

just a little bit higher, but I don't think

Construction companies are gonna do it just because they make more money if they don't that's all there is to it

That's why hey why is the true meaning of life to get Twitter verified, but I haven't got it

So my life is utterly worthless

Have there been any times that a stranger in Japan has talked about you behind your back not knowing that you understand Japanese

If so, what did they say? I remember in my first year here

I went to a local festival and you know, it's really busy people just sitting there

drinking having fun and I walked past a couple he must have been in their 30s there about a foot away from me and the

going turned to his wife and said I

Should my eyes a foreigner and he said it in a way that clearly he has seen that I didn't know what he'd said

So I spun around and went. Oh, yeah, and he was quite taken aback by this

He dropped his ice cream all over the floor and just sort of sat there in shock and horror, but honestly

That's the only thing I've ever really

encountered people just expressing surprise that there's a foreigner, but you know

Japan is one of the most homogenous countries on earth and it's extremely rare to run into someone in the countryside here that it's not

Japanese so you get used to it pretty quickly and you learn not to get offended by it and the merely I'm equally as guilty

Whenever I see a foreign around here, I also dropped my ice cream in horror and disgust

He look like a fat jake gyllenhaal

Fat Jake, I don't see it

I don't see it at all when I

suspect sometimes that some of my viewers need to wear these

But I'll add it to the list with Elon Musk and Frankie Muniz. And in the meantime, why don't you go fuck yourself?

What are three or four things that no one tells you about Japan they're surprised you when you moved there

alright

So there's three things that I learned about Japan through just being here stuff that nobody told me and the first one is this

Signatures aren't really thing. Japan uses a

Traditional and ultimately flawed method called the Hanko stamp and it comes with this little funky case check that out as cool

Isn't it whenever you do serious paperwork at the Town Hall or deep banking or buy a car?

You need to use your own personal seal when I first got it

I was like, wow, that's cool my own stamp. You can get the ink in there and then stamp things was brilliant

I couldn't stop stamping things. It was so much fun. However, I quickly grew to hate it every time I needed it

I've never actually had it because it's just a bit weird carrying a stamp around with you all day

Well, you've got a perfectly good signature

No only that but if something happens to your stamp, it could be a complete and utter nightmare