Tokyo, japan, blah, blah, blah, 36 million people, blah, blah, blah, like a different planet, blah, blah, blah shiny.

Mhm.

What will you do today?

Special life?

I bought this place mat today.

So every morning when I sit down to eat my burnt toast, I can look at this bear and think, yes, why am I going to do today?

Special Life?

It's no secret that I love eccentric japanese english marketing, whether it's an enthusiastic bear or intriguing branding choices on cans of beer like this one I bought today, it's goodbye Asahi.

Super drying curing and hello to gentle gent off the drink of real men gent off.

It sounds like a dance off held by aristocrats.

But while I was often my standard weekly shopping for place mats and gent off, I struck a gold mine in the world of japanese english marketing.

I found myself in the stores music section when I stumbled across an intriguing local punk rock bands.

Now, historically, of course, punk rock bands have pretty provocative names.

I'm thinking the sex pistols, the clash, the damned, but it seems in Japan, punk rock bands go for a completely different angle as I came face to face with a punk rock band known only as the barbecue chickens, the barbecue chickens.

I was pretty delighted at first, after all, it's not every day you hear of a band named after your favorite dish, but then I discovered that the barbecue chickens run the japanese punk rock label known as Pizza of Death Records, Pizza of death.

It sounds like the last thing you order a domino's pizza.

Anyway, brilliant.

Japanese, punk rock bands of side, it is time for another Q and A where I answer your questions you guys have sent in about Japan travel, food, culture as well as talking about my own awkward personal experiences and deepest darkest secrets.

We'll also have comment of the week and hate mail of the week because not everybody is nice.

Now all good Q and A's live and die on the opening questions I believe got something good, something profound and meaningful to kick us off.

What do we got?

What does Japan smell like?

Oh father.

Mhm yeah.

What's your opinion on the japanese spider crab?

I'm never going in to see again.

Ever.

If you could introduce one element of western culture to Japan, what would you choose?

The concept of a work life balance?

Many people are familiar with the word karoshi, which means death row over work and any culture that has to invent a word that means that, well, that's never really a good sign is it, essentially when you get a job in Japan, the line between work and life, It's not so much blood has just rubbed out altogether.

There was a study done in 2018 that showed that workers in Japan take only half of their annual leave 10 days out of 20.

Typose if you do take holiday leave, you'll be seen as letting down your employees, you'll be passed over for that much needed promotion you wanted.

But honestly, it's one of the most stupid practices I've ever seen because people are perpetually stressed and burnt out.

Labor productivity in Japan is the worst of any countries in the G seven being present in the workplace and looking like you're working hard is actually way more important than really being productive.

And certainly if you're coming here to live and work and you want to make a good impression at your company and you want to impress your colleagues, just sit around and pretend to look busy long after your work is finished and you're right at the top in no time at all, you'll be the ceo, trust me, what's the worst name?

You can give a child a spider crab wow, you're thick boy.

Now strawberry cheesecake, got you good.

I don't even like strawberry cheesecake creme brulee and that's where the afternoon or be the one thing you didn't enjoy in the UK but did in Japan, I love knowing that every time I walk into a pub or a bar in Japan and strike up a conversation with a stranger, I don't have to pretend to know what football is in the U.

K.

If you don't like football like me, you are a social outcast, your life is effectively worthless because you can't have a conversation with 50% Of the British population so you can probably imagine my horror when I moved 6000 miles away to a field in North Japan teach english to a school where nearly half the students supported Manchester United football club chris sends their, who is your favorite majesty United football player.

No one get out, you failed the exam.

Honestly you can run from football but you can't hide from it.

What is it about retro that gives off a menacing aura, his face.

What's something you really wish more people would know about Japan?

I tend to find when most people think of Japan they all have the same kind of image crowded trains lots of people crossing this road and everything being weird and alien and you'd be completely forgiven for thinking that because that's how it's portrayed in tv and film right nine out of 10 times Lazy TV shows featuring Japan always start with the presenter walking over shibuya crossing saying the exact same things blah blah blah different planet.

I take my hat off to James may you did a really good series on amazon and the opening shot of that isn't shibuya crossing?

I was absolutely shocked.

It's him standing on a beach in the snow in Hokkaido, nothing even really interesting happening but it was something original, it was something refreshing and it was a really well researched series and I take my hat off to the producers on that show.

They deserve some well earned strawberry cheesecake.

Tokyo isn't Japan in the same way that London isn't the UK or new york isn't the U.

S.

It's in the countryside outside of the cities where you get a real sense of Japan's identity and ultimately where you find the quality of life is undeniably better than Tokyo.

Not everybody in Japan spends their day walking over shibuya crossing.

If a zombie apocalypse hit Japan where in Japan would be the safest and why?

That would have to be Ohkunoshima, also known as Rabbit Island.

The island is fairly isolated in Japan's inland sea.

So secluded in fact that during World War Two they turned it into a chemical weapons facility.

But even if the zombies did get there somehow, the thousands of rabbits that make up the island's population would certainly take care of them.

I mean they certainly gave me a run for my money the last time I was down there.

What is your most prized possession?

My most prized possession is actually a more recent purchase and it is this the original 1989 Nintendo game boy when I was growing up.

This is my first console and I took it around with me everywhere.

And then about 15 years ago I think I sold it for money and I've regretted that decision ever since.

But fortunately Japan's secondhand goods are phenomenally good condition and I brought this for about 8000 yen.

About $80 at super potato.

The retro game store in Akihabara, depending on the condition, you can actually get a cheaper one for example, for 2000 yen less for about $60 you could get another game boy that was stained yellow and looked like it had been dragged through a packet of cheetos.

One of the reasons I got it though.

Nostalgia aside was because of this, the original super Mario land game that was accompanied With the game boy upon release in the 15 years that I played this game I was never ever able to beat.

It was never able to succeed.

It's the sort of game where if you die or if you switch off the console, we have to go all the way back to the start and do it from scratch.

And I remember at the age of 10 I spent two hours playing through it once And I was 80% of the way through when I stepped on a fuckingo MBA I died and I went all the way back to the start and the subsequent anger, distress and psychological damage that did to me is a 10 year old child.

The anger, the resentment, Everything I am, Everything I became was because of this game and now finally, 20 years later in my hands, I'm gonna beat super Mario land once and for all do it right now, give me that's it.

Oh God Well you can ask me, please do a harry potter impression.

Yeah, mm hmm.

Yeah, I'm step mm or get Mr Holley put Oh yeah.

What kind of hotel or accommodation would you recommend the most when visiting Japan, I can't think of many other countries that have as crazy, as wonderful as diverse.

A range of accommodation options as Japan in the UK.

You've got hotel rooms and tents in the rain in Japan, you've got capsule hotel where you get to sleep at a glorified coffin.

Love hotels where you can arrive on your bed in style.

You've got robot hotels where bilingual robot dinosaur will check you into your room and best of all.

Perhaps you've got traditional ends, you can dress up, have the best meal of your life and then boil yourself alive in a hot spring land of the rising sun, more like land of the rising fun.

Yeah, I won't do that again.

Sorry.

My almost three year old has been having trouble adjusting to his new sibling.

Any advice bribe them, bribe them with money, bribe them with incredible gifts or for example, why not buy them up for fox sake t shirt from the abroad in Japan merchandise range.

It's the perfect gift for any discerning two year old, he feels left behind and forgotten at the birth of a new sibling.

No, seriously, do get them a game boy.

They get them into retro video games early and they'll grow up to be the perfect son bought one for my son in my imagination, right this time.

Let's do it.

Can I see, oh fucks go fund yourself.

Chris seems to be fat again.

Oh God, Here we go.

I watched several videos from his early days on Youtube and found out he's already a chubby guy when he first landed in Japan, but he's so young at that time and look quite cute with the boyish roundness of his face.

Now he's slowly turned into around middle aged man of which type you can bump into 100 times on the streets of London.

The contrast makes me feel sad.

Welcome to aging dickhead, it's true.

I look so young and boyish.

Look at that handsome, rugged, youthful face, It definitely doesn't look like I've eaten a bucket of ice cream and smeared butter all over my face.

If any of you watching this are planning to go into the exciting world of logging, I'll give you some useful advice.

One piece of useful advice that is free free of charge whenever you hold the camera down here, right low angle people say he looked fat.

You've been eating too much strawberry cheesecake again, I hate you.

Get out my face, but if you have the camera up here and then, wow, you look thin.

Now it's magic all of a sudden 10% of the comments, wow, you've lost weight.

You look good again.

I like you now and that's because it makes your jawline looks slightly better, right jawline looks better.

That's why people always take videos and photos are up here, but down here, Oh, you're fat and offal now, that is the only thing you need to remember in the world of vlogging.

It's all about the camera angle.

It's not that my weight goes up and down every Tuesday, it's just the camera angle that and the love of barbecue chicken.

Good luck you sir.

Mhm.

After eight years, how has living in Japan changed you as a person?

It's a good question.

I mean, eight years in a complete different culture is inevitably going to change you in some ways.

And I've thought about this quite a bit because look, I've made notes on a note pad, I've come to about six points six key points on how I think I've changed through living in Japan number one, I'd say I'm more mindful of my behavior in public in all my years here, I've never seen a fight or an argument or an altercation in public just because people are way more mindful of how they're affecting the people around them.

There's how loud you're being in public as well.

You don't want to stand out in that way and certainly as a foreigner, you do become a little bit hyper aware of what you're doing and you don't want people looking at you right, because you already stand out a little bit and as well as being more mindful and also more polite.

I think I say excuse me, I said about 500 times a day.

So that's the first point.

I'm more mindful of what I'm doing and how I'm affecting the people around me and I'm more polite for it.

And I think generally it's a good thing but it can be quite stressful as well, always having to be switched on and always having to think about how you're affecting people around you.

Second point is I have a lot more faith in society as a whole.

It sounds weird but simple example.

I go for a walk every night about 10:11 p.m. No matter what I've done during the day, I'll go out for an hour's walk.

I'll do it for my mental and physical health but I'll do it because I have nothing to worry about out there on the streets.

When I lived in the London area, I was a little bit reluctant to do that.

I felt like sure London is not overly dangerous but you still have to be looking over your shoulder affair but you still have to kind of be switched on If you go into a coffee shop here, customers leave their laptops and equipment and wallets and phones on the table when they go to the bathroom.

I remember being in a Starbucks in Hiroshima the first time I was in Hiroshima and I just left my Macbook pro on the fucking table when I went to the bathroom and it was there and I got back it was magic.

I just would not have had the confidence to do that anywhere else.

3rd point, I prefer sleeping on a futon, then I do sleeping on a bed, which is ridiculous.

I never thought that would be a thing, but there's something about sleeping on a futon.

It makes me sleep better.

It took me a while to get accustomed to that.

But for my first three years living here, I did live in a tiny apartment where I had a foot on and every evening I had to get out of the cupboard and unroll it and every morning I had to pack it away and put it back in and I had to because if I didn't there was no living space to sit and eat or just relax.

But quite quickly I found that I fell asleep really well on a foot on I think maybe it's the hard surface, it's quite firm or maybe it's also because the whole floor feels like your bed when you were a foot on right, you can kind of stretch out, you have to worry about falling out.

So maybe that's another factor, I don't know the science behind it.

All I know is photons equal sleep number four, continuing the theme of living in Japan.

I found that I can live quite comfortably in a very small space.

I grew up in quite a small house and I was always conscious of that.

And my aim for the longest time was to have somewhere big that I could live or rent in.

But then I moved here, lived in that tiny space for three years and I actually found it had everything I wanted, everything I needed.

Sure you have times, we think I'd like a bigger kitchen, I'd like not to have to use.

My ironing board is valuable kitchen space, but now I've lived in three different apartments in Japan.

All of them have been very small.