So right now there's a typhoon that's coming here to Japan and we were on a family trip and most of everything has been, has been canceled.

We're eating at a service area.

Can I got the Udon noodles and leo is, is sharing that here.

He has got his own and the service area does a good job of I guess protecting everybody.

Put these plastic plastic guards all around us.

I'm gonna, I'm gonna eat one last kiss and then take you outside and I want to show you the situation.

Talk a little bit about why september might not be the best time to visit Japan, but first we need some tsunami.

This is the last one.

Ah Nice.

That's his first.

Okay.

Mm I see.

He likes it.

Mikey likes it.

No, he doesn't.

That's usual.

No.

Uh, leo boy.

Oh, he did eat it.

Yeah.

All right, let's go outside here them all.

Ah so Japan's service areas are really awesome.

Um, this one is an older one, but you can see it's, it's good enough.

That's good lunch.

Not too far away from, you know, Mia and you can see the hills here.

The typhoon is coming in.

We've been getting warnings on our cellphones.

Everybody's phone has been ringing announcing a level for warning for landslides because there's just been so much rain.

The typhoon 14 came through here a couple of days ago that hit Kyushu very hard and the typhoon 15 is already here.

It's going to be on 24 25 which is impacting Japan's Silver week holiday.

This is like a new holiday where people don't want to take breaks on, on the, during the summer times.

They usually save it until september.

So that's what they're doing.

I'll take you inside of the service area for a second for a look around.

But um, yeah, September might not be the best time to visit Japan mainly because of this typhoon.

It has been nonstop hitting Japan.

It seems like for the second half of September and there's even another one coming in.

A couple of uh hot dogs.

Even typhoon 16 is like on its way in Japan we don't actually name the typhoons after the names like they do in the US, we do it by number even though there are international names nowadays, that's like the international weather service doing that.

Japan still does it by a number and you won't see the japanese news giving typhoons by the names that you see in your international news is they just do it by typhoon 15, Typhoon 16 of 2020 to 17 of 2022.

That's the way it works.

These hot dogs look kind of nasty, although that one could be a snake.

What do you think?

So in Japan typhoons will be hitting anytime from like june, which is rare.

In fact they can hit at any time of the year, but they very rarely hit in the winter most of the time they'll be hitting in september and october and uh we've gotten like two or three already and this is, it seems like it's never ending right now.

It'll be coming in october as well.

So when you do decide to make a trip to Japan, please consider the typhoon season and possibly given an extra day of time, meaning if you're coming back, don't start your work the next day, go back a day early because if your flight is canceled, it gives you some leeway because flights are often suspended in september and october are delayed because of typhoons that especially if you're leaving from Osaka or down in Fukuoka, you're going to get more of them than here.

Up in Tokyo.

But we do get impacted quite a bit.

How you doing?

Is that Brown Donny in the house Z cuisine.

Thank you.

Yo what's up Rondonia always love having you with us.

I'm gonna take you inside for just a little bit and uh we'll we'll go inside of this service area.

Now this one is near Utsunomiya.

So it's very famous for rosa which is Japanese dumplings.

All right, let's go by Connie and leo some time here.

Guess who's in the house, that's right.

W.

R.

X.

Turbo.

This area of Japan is also famous for its strawberries.

So you see strawberries, soft ice cream, look at that.

Oh man, it's not even strawberry season.

But I guess because this place Toshiki is so famous for it, You'll see it everywhere.

So usually you have a gift center.

So lots of Miyagi or gifts that you can buy.

That includes boxes of the local ramen, which is so cool.

In the back there they have Gyoza.

Lots of Gyoza, wow.

It says tsunami.

A gyoza.

It's like a whole refrigerator of rosa, wow, okay.

Yeah, the tsunami is very famous for this.

It's like a lemon milk and you see ice cream and other confections sometimes made from it.

So lemon milk is sweetened.

It's so good.

It's like a tsunami.

A soul food more like Toshiki Prefecture.

I guess here's the eating area.

There's a satellite map of the, maybe they'll show the typhoon coming in.

So they've done a good job of putting plastic shields around this came around 2000 when right before wipe that out, you have to return your tray.

I should return my own tray right here.

So the gyoza that we got, we got from these vending machines here.

So the way that the service area works is pretty cool.

You can select what you want, you get a ticket and then uh you give the ticket to the guy and then they call your number.

Yeah.

Um, if you just look at this map, it looks like chaos.

This is a map of Japan's highway system.

We're on the E four.

So here's E six.

Where's e 4?

I guess it might be this one.

Mm.

This is Tokyo here.

So it can't be as the E six, here's the four up here.

So we're somewhere around here.

Where's Nasa?

Well, we're right here up here.

It'll, it'll tell you if there's any big traffic and so far it looks like coming into Tokyo.

Just these areas here have a lot of traffic, the red areas.

Mhm Okay, look at leo in his high chair, she must great.

So there you go.

It's kind of neat to just walking around there.

There's a lot of, there's a lot of gifts that you can buy and I think I might get a box for some friends back home, but I wanted to show you a lot more of the, of where we were going, the Nasa area of Toshiki, but it just simply wasn't interesting and we kept getting rained out of all the places before I get to the live streams.

Um, I'm very, I'm very um, I know about what happened on yesterday was the day before yesterday.

I know that Japan is open.

All right.

I know that it is this october 11th.

Japan is gonna open.

I know this information.

Uh, I haven't been able to do an update because the timing couldn't have been worse.

We decided to go on this family vacation a couple of months ago.

So the result is that like when the announcer like, wait, I'm about to get into the car, there's no way to do a travel update.

Um, not with your family like this, that's just crazy.

So I'll do one tomorrow and I'm waiting for some more details from mofa actually over the last 24 hours, I've gotten like hundreds of emails.

I haven't counted them all.

It's got to be like 300 emails from people on instagram facebook.

Please don't mail me on facebook.

I really check that.

Um just regular email through the form on only in Japan dot tv and I can't answer your questions.

I don't know how many vaccination shots you'll need.

I don't know if you need to have a health insurance.

I would hope you would have it though because what if you get sick here?

Um, there's a lot of things that you that you should need to think about but they haven't really announced or given the details of it.

So if you book your trip in october for, for coming to Japan, please keep in mind that you might have to do stuff.

But I don't think they're going to have a vaccine mandate meaning you must have had a shot, you just need to get a pcr test before you leave.

So it's like old school Japan um, rules to enter in the country so that I think that's just what it's gonna be.

But if you, if you decided not to get the vaccination at this point, it really doesn't matter whether you're vaccinated or not, but Japan will reward those three vaccination shots which in itself it doesn't really matter because the third one was so long ago, I don't think they're gonna make 1/4 1, a requirement yet, but if you haven't been vaccinated or only have to, then you're required to have a pcr test when you arrive or when you leave, um, there's a way and a system to do it, but october 11th is quite far off.

So to do a travel update as soon as they announce it, it's just basically reiterating the news, let's give it a day or two, I'll do something tomorrow, but I want to give it a day or two or a couple of days to see what kind of policies, what is there reaction to the announcement because I think they just announced it and see what sticks and then they make the rules up afterwards.

I'll tell you right now that a lot of the travel agencies are in chaos because they didn't, a lot of them didn't even expect this.

I think Kishida son met a lot of foreigners when he was in new york and he just decided, you know what, I think it's fair for them and their families to be able to come to Japan anytime I'm gonna do this and he just, he just did it.

I think that's, that seems like what happened because there's, there's utter chaos in the travel world to get ready for this.

Like you're jerking people around dude, but we don't care because it's open now and that's, that's all good news for everybody.

There's no more, there's not much more I can say about that.

This is the car we're driving.

Hey, Kelvin, how you doing?

Always nice to see you here.

See where that um, security samurai is right next to that small car is ours.

This is the yacht is cross.

This is the one that I'm driving today.

Can I was driving a little bit with her dad in the front seat because she gets so, it's so scary when she's driving.

I can't say anything, but I have to say something.

So it just gives her stress.

I don't want to be her teacher.

But it's so stressful to drive with can I?

Because it's like a death wish.

I don't have that wish.

But I figured since her dad's coming, he could sit in the front seat and I'm just gonna keep my trap shut and I'll have a happier marriage.

So I'll be driving from the way back.

But she drove for the last 30 km and it was scary.

You have to, you have to be quiet.

She asks questions and then if I respond, she doesn't want me to respond because it's not, it's, it's like be safe and something.

I don't know.

It's can't win.

So it's better if I sit in the back seat and keep my mouth my trap shut, right?

Live longer.

Live happier.

Let her dad take some of the pressure now it's her, it's her dad's fault now it's not me, Well we're gonna, I'm gonna drive back really slowly.

Don't worry about it.

You can already see here the 25th, the 15th um typhoon is starting to roll in here.

Let her dad do all the talking exactly.

I'll keep my trap shut with leo in the back and we'll just kind of cross our fingers and pray the clouds here are quite low.

This area of Japan is so beautiful too.

If you have never been to Nico or Nasu Nasu is where we went, it's an area we stayed at a resort.

Uh, we're able to take baths in the morning and at night and feel a lot more relaxed.

Um it's, it's really a beautiful, beautiful thing and I think with your family, when you live in Japan you want to spend a night or two, we were gonna spend two nights but we're kind of glad that we only spent one because the traffic has been awful um because everyone is setting the travel at this time, especially when it's cooler now you want to go to the and more.

But yeah, this is Japan and we're waiting for you to come back.

This is what Japan looks like with no tourists, very few tourists, but there would be very few out on here on the roads.

Anyways.

Yeah, so before I sign off here, this is a short live stream.

I want to ask you all, if you have any questions for the um travel update I'm gonna be doing, go to twitter and then you can write, ask me a question just at at mark only in Japan tv or hashtag oh I ask oh I j only in Japan and I'll add your question to the, to the travel update.

I know there's some things I don't, I don't think of and it's really good to have feedback from you guys what you're thinking.

A lot of the questions where do I need health insurance, do I need to have three vaccinations?

Um do I need this?

Do I have to do that?

Can I book the trip now, can I still book a tour?

Why?

Yes.

So all these questions will answer in the next to travel updates which will probably come pretty quickly.

Um but I'm aware of it, I'm lucky that it's not raining right now.

We've been again for those joining us.