Japan is imposing a series of new restrictions, is working on tightening the rules for foreigners.

Japan's borders are about to reopen to foreign tourists for the first time in two years, reporters are finally opening and I, I'm giving away a trip to Japan, this is real by the way, it's not Clickbait or whatever would make this not real, the headline summary of us, I'm gonna be giving away one round trip flight from pretty much anywhere in the world to right here in Japan.

Now this could be for you or if you already live in Japan and for example, you just always wanted to bring your mom here, that could also be an option oh and as an added bonus for when you get here or for those of you already here, I've secretly spent the last 2.5 years setting up what just might be the most extensive Japan scavenger hunt ever, ranging all the way from Hokkaido down to Kyushu, we're gonna have a fun day today, you may even want to watch this one twice when I was a kid coming to Japan was one of those giant unattainable dreams, one that felt like it was perpetually out of reach.

You see, I didn't have money growing up, I don't come from one of those families or what one of those circles and so I worked, in fact when I was seven years old, I got my first part time job ever helping out a family member deliver newspapers and eventually I was able to save up for that first trip to Japan, okay if I'm being completely honest, my very first trip to Japan, I had to borrow money from a friend so I could push myself to a measly $10 a day budget for my time here and so that I can bring this old Sony handy cam and try to capture as many memories as possible one product And that $10 a day budget definitely came with its own struggles and difficulties.

But that trip, that very first trip was life changing.

It was the trip that showed me that this is the place that I wanted to live and inspired me to go back home and do everything in my power to save up and eventually move here.

So I went back home and I was so motivated to save up that I failed everyone waking hour of every day was some kind of part time job.

I worked night stocking shelves at walmart, I worked at bingo hall, I work restaurant, I did deliveries and eventually after something like two years I was able to save up just enough to move to Japan completely dirt broke and move into the tiniest apartment smaller than anything that I have ever shown on this channel right now, we're just sitting in my room.

I got a very japanese room.

In fact it was four talk to me about seven square meters ish, which means it was equal to or likely smaller than this space right here.

I wish I could show it but the building is long gone but I was happy.

I didn't own anything and I didn't really plan on spending that much time at home.

But I was in Japan and flash forward to now.

I'm here and I've been very fortunate to be here in Japan while the borders were closed and while the world was struggling through some very difficult times over the past two plus years, it became very clear early on in the pandemic that people were going to need some kind of break or escape from everything that was going on.

And so I even started the Tokyo lens explorer channel for live streams and long form content in the hopes of being able to bring people out into nature and let them out of their homes.

Things had to change though.

You see avoiding people and crowds became the goal of every piece of content and with the ever present reality of masks absolutely everywhere.

I wanted the content that I made to give a little bit of a break from that wherever I could.

And so I rented cars.

I drove absolutely everywhere, seeking out quiet or abandoned places or even shooting videos at four o'clock in the morning so that we could have places completely and entirely to ourselves.

Full confession.

It was exhausting.

I am not naturally a morning person, but I got to see experience and share Japan in ways that I never in my wildest dreams imagine I'd be able to, Orson Welles has this quote that I cherish.

He says the enemy of art is the absence of limitations and I relate to this because in the process of all of this, this channel Tokyo lens has really started to become what it is today.

And so many of you have tagged along and I have so much love for that.

During this time we've managed to not only hit 100 K but we've also crossed half a million and it just keeps going and this is my chance to do and give something special to you because the pandemic took a lot from a lot of people.

There are people who are supposed to work here, study here.

People who had their first trip saved up for their honeymoon, whatever it is and now may not be able to come, may not have the resources to do that anymore.

And I know there are definitely people sitting there wondering when they're gonna be able to visit Japan when they'll be able to go back to Japan when they'll be able to bring their families to Japan or any slew of things that I may not have even ever considered each one of these is honestly equal in its own way.

But it is for this reason that I want to give away a flight to Japan and just for clarification, no sponsors, no big companies backing this low key wish there was but you've got to start somewhere.

And I also kind of like the purity of it just being us.

But because it's just us, it means it's gonna be flight only no hotels or transportation also it'll be economy flight.

I have not yet ever flown business class in Japan so we'll be sticking with it.

You know what, let's set an impossible goal.

Let's say if this channel crosses the one million subscriber threshold before I announce the winner because it will take a little bit of time, then I will double it.

I'll pick two winners in the way to round trip flights to Japan.

So if you are new or if you always watch but just never have click that subscribe button, this is your opportunity right now.

I don't think we're going to cross that threshold so quickly.

But if we do, I will give away two flights.

So I will be picking the winner or potentially winners based entirely on what I see in the comments section I read every single comment.

In fact, if you're new and you've ever just wanted to have a bit of a chat, I spend the first little while of every single video release just hanging out in the comments chatting with everybody who's kind enough to comment or people who do binge watches of old episodes and leave me a trail of comments along the way or re watches so that they can find the hidden easter eggs that reveal the locations of our scavenger hunt?

Because they are hidden in the video again as they leave their little trail of comments.

It gives us a chance to get to know each other and I love that.

So let's take a look at how you can win and pay very careful attention to this because everything from here talks about either how to participate, how you can increase your chances of winning or how you can increase your chances of even more flights being given away.

And we also have to talk about that scavenger hunt because I keep mentioning and I just haven't gotten there yet.

Two things I want to very clear right out of the gate number one, there's no purchase required.

You don't need to register for anything basically if you have the ability to leave a Youtube comment on this video, you have the ability to participate and potentially win.

And second from the date that I choose the winner, you have one year in which to redeem that flight.

Otherwise it becomes invalidated and I just throw it to somebody else potentially.

Those are the rules, I'm looking at how to participate in how to increase your chances of winning first.

You need to be subscribed and second this is really big.

You need to leave a comment on this video and you need to let me know what the bare minimum A where you are like geographically B is the flight for you.

Is it for a friend.

Is it for a family member.

Is it for a giant inflatable panda that you've always wanted to travel with you when you anticipate that it's going to take up an entire seat, no judgment on my part.

And finally, why?

Why do you want this flight?

Why do you want whoever it is you're bringing?

Also, I have to read each and every one of these individually.

So simplicity is truly key here and I don't want you to feel like just because you don't have the saddest or most impactful story that you don't have to, there's no discrimination.

Everybody has their own reasons for wanting to come and I'm not basing who wins off of who has the saddest or most impactful story who has lost the most.

I just want to hear why you want to come And that's it.

The longer it takes me to read all these, the longer it's gonna take me to pick a winner pro tip.

If the comments this long or if you have to write a second comment, you've probably written too much.

It might, it might just be overkill now.

It's gonna take me a while to get through all these comments that buys you a little bit of time to potentially increase your chances of being selected?

There are three main ways to do that.

Number one is have been a regular viewer and commenter up until this point, I will already recognize you all know your name and avatar.

Hi, how you doing?

Hope you're well.

But if you're new or you haven't commented up into this point, you can either leave a comment on the release of every new video, something significant that way.

I can get to know you along the way or since I only release a couple of videos a month, you can go back and binge watch old videos and leave me a trail of comments along the way I roll see all of them and it gives me a chance once again to get to know you and for you to stand out just a little bit more.

Now, once I've read through all of these comments, I'm going to hand pick a winner sometime before the end of this year and announce it.

Now this little bit of time gap this buffer allows us to stay safe and kind of see how things with the border are actually gonna play out.

I don't imagine that they would flip flop and close up the border again.

But I also could not have predicted that they would leave the border closed for two years.

So at this point really it's it's anybody's game.

So I mentioned the Japan wide scavenger hunt that I'm stupidly excited about as well as the potential of more flights to be given away.

So let's start with the whole more flights thing.

So I have a tiny secret goal or sneaky goal, let's call it a sneaky goal inside of all of this.

I'm hoping that this will encourage at least one other cree gator company or better yet sponsored to do a giveaway of their own.

If you stop and think about it right now, I'm giving away one economy flight with no hotel that is quite literally as close to zero as it gets any lower.

Would literally be zero if they have the resources it would not be that hard to one up me.

And if we can inspire one more person or company to do a giveaway we have quite literally doubled the number of flights being given away.

Again, it's it's that close to zero.

And so all I ask from you is that you share this absolutely everywhere that you possibly can and don't stop talking about it.

I am starting low and simple for a reason.

By the way, there's this thing called Cunningham's long Cunningham's law says the best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to post a question but to post the wrong answer.

People love jumping in and correcting and one upping and everything like that.

And it's the exact same principle.

I want people to look at this single, I could, I could beat that, I could do that, I could totally one up that I have a company that could do.

So that is the basic principle.

just make it really easy for anyone to one up Me, all you need to do is share this by the way is If you saw the video of my Amazon shop here in where he sat for 43 or something years, I have all of his other stuff back there and we went out at night and completely disassembled the shop and brought it out to my studio so excited to start putting that together.

But we have a scavenger hunt to talk about and again, the word here is stupidly excited.

Also for the flight give away, I'm gonna leave a list of all those things that you can do to increase your chances of potentially winning over over on my website at its Tokyo lens dot com.

And bonus points if you follow me over on instagram or tiktok twitter any of those social media if you have them.

But as for the giveaway over the past two years, while I've been traveling all over Japan, I have been secretly embedding and hiding these stickers in weirdly obvious places across the country.

More often than not with approval.

These are literally everywhere from Hokkaido all the way down to Kyushu and a lot of them and their locations are shown really obscurely or hidden or in the background of my videos so you can re watch old videos and find where they are now right now, I'm putting no time limit on this.

But if you go and you find what you need to do is get a selfie with yourself and this sticker, the 1st 20 people to find one sticker and send it to me, well one on one, we'll have a little bit of a consultation call a little bit of a hang out, whatever it may be, if you find one sticker, dM me or email it to me along with a selfie of yourself so I can see the location and where you're at with it and boom now if you happen to find two stickers, two stickers will get you some free Tokyo lens merch.

Now these are spread very far between across Japan so the likelihood of any one person finding more than two feels realistically pretty small.

But if you happen to find a third one, if you happen to find three and send me selfies proving that I actually, I haven't even thought of a prize for that yet to be honest, I'll tell you what, you get the first two prizes combined and during our talk will decide on one more prize for you and I'm going to limit that to 10 people.

Again, they are spread all throughout Japan so they may be somewhat challenging to fi but that's part of the fun of it.

This scavenger hunt has actually been set up and ready to go for some time Now I've hinted at it a couple times over on my livestream channel, Tokyo lens explore which by the way, if you're into live streams long form content, that is yet another place that we can connect and hang out just cleaning up my solar power and backup battery by the way, which I never use for backup.

I use it for everything all the time because I can charge it via solar power.

Yeah, I also need to start shooting these videos a lot earlier.

So that's not basically nighttime by the time I finished.

But that should be everything attention to detail is gonna be key on this one as well as connection.

But I really hope that this video can not only give a little something to look forward to in a bit of fun but hopefully make the difference or have a bit of an impact for one person, possibly, possibly more.

I almost didn't want to wrap up this video like there's so many things to be excited about.

But above all else, I am genuinely just so incredibly psyched that the borders are opening again that we're gonna have a chance to spend some time together that I can invite family out and they can come and visit me for the first time in years.

You know, I low key also considers saying that if my Patreon ever hits 1000 members that I'll give away another free flight over on Patreon, we'll leave it right there.

I don't want to add any more information to the video for regular viewers.

You guys know, I love you cannot wait to see all of you down in the comments for new people.

Welcome to the Adventure and you guys know I will see you again real soon.

So, for those of you who got this secret ending, leave me a single emoji in the second line of your comment down below.