This video now is actually about a trip I'm taking tomorrow.

It's bedtime now.

It's a travel video that's a part of an ongoing series of videos I've been making with Odigo travel where I've going around Japan

and showing you places I think good.

And I'll be showing you one of my all time favorite places in Japan, which is a Japan's deepest lake, Tazawa lake in Akita prefecture.

The reason why I'm having an identity crisis is because of the friend who messaged me the other day

criticizing the style of my videos.

He says...

"Your videos aren't bad, but you should use time lapses and drones.

It'll make your videos better.

Use some more upbeat music as well. You know, like the big YouTubers do."

Alright, well, I am.. I do like time lapses and drones

but they're defenetely been overused these days.

I often find travel videos on YouTube more about style over substance these days.

I've seen entire travel videos that are just series of people walking around time lapses trying to look cool

rather than teaching viewers anything of any conceivable value.

Still I'm not better. I like to open-minded.

So the first few minutes of this travel video, I'm gonna try to develop more popular main stream YouTube vlogging style.

and see if it works. Who knows?

This can be it. This can be the day the Abroad in Japan channel changed for the better.

What's up, guys! It's your boy, Chris here.

And today, we're going on a road trip to a lake which is like a big paddle that got out of hand.

Right now, guys, I'm in Akita city.

It's just got this amazing traditional Japanese vibe going on.

Before we begin the road trip, I really wanna show you Akita city.

So let's explore the city together, guys.

Taste spoon!

Oh my god, guys! Monkey basket ball! Look at this monkey!

So we just finished exploring Akita.

And it was loads of fun. Hashtag and retweet "loads of fun"

And we're ready to start a road trip.

So that was the new style of vlogging.

If you think that's better than the usual one, do leave a comment below.

We may use it, going forward

Also recently discovered while filming in the car, that's stabilized like this.

I'm pretty excited.

The possibility are now limitless for car videos.

On to Tarawa lake.

I'm paying for a car pass.

How to pay for a car park ticket in Japan.

Where's my ticket? Shit...

This golden statue here is Tatsuko,

who's been a legend around the spots.

I was gonna recite the story to you and just talk about it but

I'm just gonna read it off my phone coz that's what YouTubers do anyway, they read it and

they pretend like they know, but we just...we don't..we just read it off the internet

Alright: "Long ago, in the village of Tezawa, an extraordinarily beautiful girl by the name of Tatsuko

was born. As she grew, her beauty increased and she became worried about how to preserve her good looks.

So that they would never fade away

For 100 nights she prayed to Kannon,the goddess of mercy, that she would retain her youth.

Kannon eventually decided to answer the girls fervent prayers and appeared before her.

She told Tatsuko to drink of the waters of the lake, and she would be beautiful forever.

After she drank from the water, Tatsuko noticed that she became so thirsty that water no longer quenched her thrist

She realized that she was becoming a dragon, and dejectedly sunk into the lake.

Kinda where the story ends

I suppose the moral of the story is

Don't.....

Don't be beautiful..

And...don't drink from Tezawa Lake

There wasn't really a point to it was it

So I bought some cookies

Akita dog cookies

And I thought that it'd be quite nice, a nice little treat to enjoy, overlooking the lake

And then I realized it's actually a dog that's gone to the toilet, the cookies are based around that kind of joke

And it's kinda put me off now

It comes with a sticker as well

Where is this sticker gonna go?Where am I gonna put this sticker?

It is a beautiful lake though so peaceful, so silent

There's a disturbing amount of fish

I think they've actually seen me and the food, they're all fighting to try and get up onto the rock where I'm eating the bloody dog cookies

This is terrifying

I've never seen so many fish in all my life

Not that great

Still I have a thousand fish and a very good view

Can't really complain really, can I?

Aaah so peaceful!

The lake, so still so calm and I just love the way it's surrounded by all these mountains

There's quite a lot of swan pedal boats around

Although not many people using them

I wouldn't go on by myself, I'm a little bit too old for that now

A bit too mature for...a swan pedal boat

They do look quite fun actually

I haven't been on a pedal boat...

...in about 15 years

I don't know how I know that number but yeah I haven't been on a pedal boat in a long time

I bought this cup of fish food from the Swan Boat salesman

For 100 yen

He said that if I throw it in the lake many fish will come so I'm gonna hold him true to his word

and get rid of the rather unpleasantly smelling fish food

There you go!

They all just went under the boat

Just the worst 100 yen I've ever spent

Look at them, pedaling so efficiently in their swan boat

While I'm not even moving

Bastards! Whenever I get in a boat I feel like I wanna be some kind of pirate. I'm gonna sink them. Take them down

Although I'm a bit more worried about my boat

It's of questionable buoyancy and there's a few thousand dollars worth of cameras that I've brought on here with me

Probably wasn't a good move

It's quite relaxing though

I can't lie

Nah I can lie but I'm just...relaxing

The kind of place I need to come to more often, I'm often the sort of person that gets really stressed about

small minimal rubbish and things and

I need to come to places like Tezawa Lake to just unwind and pedal a swan boat

Oh my god this is a lot of effort

I really can't be bothered to pedal this back

I might just sit here for a bit

It's beautiful

Actually no I'm quite hungry

This video marks the end of my travel series with Odigo

But there's a blog post in the description box below talking about my experiences and my time traveling with Odigo

throughout Japan, over the last few months

And to see more videos from my travel series check out Odigo's YouTube Channel in the link below

Many thanks for watching guys, I'll see you next time!

So we've just finished exploring Akita City together guys, it was lots of fun, hashtag ra....oh fuck it