talk about the things we wish we knew about Japan before we moved here. Hopefully they're

helpful. Hopefully we're not just stupid people. Here's something that I really wish I had

known... This happened on my first trip to Japan, so I was 17 years old. Didn't really

speak Japanese. I had like not even the basics down. I knew a few words like ringo and orenji.

Your fruits. Seriously, it was bad. But we were shopping and the people at the store

would be like "irrashaimase!" when you go into the store. And I figured they were like

saying hi to me, because in Canada you'll go to the store and they'll be like "Hi, how

are you?" or something. So I was like, oh I guess they're saying hi, I'll say it back.

So they'd be like "Irrashaimase" "Oh, irrashaimase!" I'd say it back to them. So any of you guys

who speak Japanese know how idiotic that is. Nobody that was with me told me I shouldn't

be doing that so I did it several times. And then finally my Japanese teacher who was with

us saw me doing it. He was like "NONONONONO they're WELCOMING you to the STORE. You don't

say it back." And yeah, that was so embarrassing. I felt like such an idiot. So when you go

to stores in Japan they will say "Irrashaimase" and it means "welcome to the store" and it's

not something that you say back to them. The typical response is to just like ignore them.

Or you could like nod to them and acknowledge that they're there but most people will just

completely ignore it. It's just something that happens, it's something that they do,

and it's not rude to not say anything back and not acknowledge them. Yeah, and I was

surprised by that in the beginning because I felt rude not acknowledging them. Yeah,

right? Because in America... I still feel kind of uncomfortable with it. Yeah, I'm always

used to saying hi back, or thank you for welcoming me or whatever. But here you ignore them.

I still will usually at least smile. I had no idea that Japan was so hot in the summer.

I was not prepared for the weather here. I don't know why, but when I studied Japan in

Canada we never talked about the weather. From some reason I guess I just kind of assumed

it was nothing too extreme. I wish I had known that so I could have brought some proper clothing.

Because it was so hot! It's the humidity. It's so humid in the summer. Literally I would

walk out my dorm to go to class and within a couple minutes I would be drenched in sweat.

Yep. Not even a couple minutes, like 20 seconds. It's ridiculous. A lot of places turn on the

air conditioning really high so once you've been in there for more than 5 minutes then

you can start to get like really cold. So even though it's hot you can see I brought

a jacket with me to Tokyo. Your hair will be a frizzy, humid mess. And if you're not

used to that then you don't know how to deal with it. Because in Canada my hair is always

smooth and I never have any problems, then all of a sudden in Japan... I have to be so

careful that I have to put oils and products in it so that it doesn't frizz out in the

humidity. All the Japanese people will be walking around with perfect hair because they're

acclimated to the weather. And then my hair's just like POOOFSHT everywhere. Do bring products

that you know work for you. You can get stuff here but you'll never know how it's going

to turn out. And sometimes it can be really expensive, or sometimes they don't have the

thing you want. Especially for me, lots of different acne medicine they don't sell here.

You can get it online but they're importing it from America online, so... It's a lot more

expensive. Bring as many beauty-related products with you as possible. Probably the stuff in

your own country is going to fit your skin type. You're used to it, you know what works

for you. Hair oils, a lot cheaper in America. Every time I go back to Canada I will bring

definitely bras and underwear, because the sizes are a lot smaller here. And also shoes.

My feet are a little too big for Japanese shoe sizes. How about you? I have a size 7.5

in America for women, and I'm at the largest commonly found size here, which is 24.5cm.

I'm 8. Even like bra sizes, yeah. Bras, yeah. We won't go into details but just know that

you can't get probably over like a B cup. And it's not like it's the cups that are the

problem, it's that the band around the rib cage is really small. I guess nobody has a

large rib cage here. They do have really small rib cages. Yeah, and I have an abnormally

large rib cage so even in Canada I need like a big size. But here it's just not going to

happen. When I first came to Japan I noticed that they didn't have a Wal-mart level store,

which is like very low end. And they don't have one large cheap center like that. That

has everything. There are cheap stores, like cheap furniture stores and cheap clothing

stores, but there's no like one place that has it all. Right. And because we're used

to finding lots of stores that just have it in one place, I thought that you couldn't

really get cheap stuff in Japan. But you can, you just have to know where to look. So you

need to know the names of the cheap stores specifically so you can go there. So for like

furniture stores there's Nitori, which is a very cheap furniture store. There's the

catalog Nissen, which is reasonable. They have IKEA here in some cities. For clothing

they have really cheap stores like Shimamura. It's not like super cool or anything but sometimes

you can find cute stuff there. And they have of course thrift stores here. YES and the

thrift stores are amazing! I think I just spat in the camera in excitement. The thrift

stores here are amazing. They are. The clothes at thrift stores here are trendy so they're

not like really old, like in America--I'm sure it's similar in Canada. Yeah, they accept

everything. So you'll get like sweaty tshirts with holes in it. It's like why would you

try to sell this? Everything has shoulder pads because it's from the 80s. Oh yeah, yeah.

But no, the thrift stores here are really good. And there are two types: there's the

ones that resell brand stuff so they're kind of expensive, but don't be fooled because

they have the really cheap thrift stores, too. Yeah, there's both. I could just live

off of thrift stores here. I don't need anything else. That's what I do. This is a little abstract

but I wish I had mentally prepared for how inflexible some companies can be here. I talked

about this a little bit before kind of, in my shouganai video. Where sometimes you just

have to accept things the way they are. Shouganai, that's the way it is. Things that we're used

to in America like the customer is always right--and not even being a dick about it,

but just like things that we take for granted like people giving you extra sauce packets.

Oh my god that does not happen here. EVER. Do not ask for a sauce packet. They'll look

at you like you're crazy and they won't know how to handle the situation. I just started

ordering pizza here because I was missing pizza from not eating it for so long, and

I like putting crushed red pepper on my pizza. And in America you get like five crushed red

pepper packets or you can ask for more, and if you ask the worker will literally just

put his hand in and grab a giant handful and put it in your bag. And here I asked for ONE

extra crushed red pepper packet. It's a packet this big and they're like... No. We can't

do that. I was like, it costs you company like 2 yen! Not even. Why can't I have more

crushed red pepper?! It's like can I pay extra for one...? Um... no... I don't think that's

on the menu... AHHHH. Yeah, they're not very flexible dealing with things that aren't on

the menu. Or if you want extra of something or you want something taken out of your burger

or something. You want to customize your order. I don't think you can really do that. No.

When I first met Jun's family we went out to Gasuto. And I got a burger there and it

came with onions. And I was like, "I don't really like onions. Can we ask them not to

put onions on it?" And Jun had to talk it over with his mom. He was like, "Can we....

can we do this?" and they were both like, "I don't think you can do that." And I was

like, "Well, can we just try? Why don't we just ask?" And so they're like "Okay." And

they ask the waiter. The waiter was like, "Um... okay. I'll... try." And then when it

came it just had the onions on it. They didn't say anything about it. They were just like

"Nope. Here's your burger. This is the way it comes on the menu." You just get things

on the menu. And you can take stuff off if you want yourself. That's just how it is here.

But I also feel bad asking because you can tell the workers get stressed out because

they're not used to people asking. They panic. They're like, "I don't know, I need to ask

the manager!!" Like, it's just a crushed red pepper packet! You don't have to ask the manager!

I just want a packet of pepper! I feel really bad about it. So be prepared. Be mentally

prepared. Use a card for the train. Using the IC card is so easy, so I really wish I

had known about that. It took me like 3 years of living in Japan to realize that it was

so much easier to use a card. I don't know why but I was always buying the tickets. So

the problem is when you buy the tickets you have to look at the map, you have to see where

you're going and how much it'll cost. You have to calculate how much it'll cost and

then you have to buy that amount of ticket. So it's kind of a pain in the ass. But if

you have the card, you can fill it up with money and have, say, 2000 yen on your card

and then you can just BEEP. You don't really have to look at how much your trip's going

to cost. It'll automatically just take off how much money from your card that your trip

costs. So it saves you time. There are a bunch of different brands of cards. There's like

PASMO, SUICA... PASMO and SUICA are the two in Tokyo. I think you guys have some different

ones down in Nagoya. Oh, we do, I don't know. I use one I got in Tokyo. So I don't know

the names. SUICA and PASMO are the main ones. Some of them work differently. The one in

Nagoya has a point system. You build up points and then you get a discount at the end of...

something like that. But anyway it's cheaper to use a card and it's so much more convenient.

And I feel uncool using tickets now because everyone else uses a card. And they just walk

through like BEEP BEEP BEEP. I'm always surprised when I see someone using a ticket. And I dig

through my wallet and take out a ticket and I gotta put it in the machine and pick it

up. Even if you're just here for a trip, even if you're not moving here, get a card. I think

it costs 500 yen (a deposit) to make a new card. But it's so worth it. I'm sure there

are tons of things. We'll probably be able to think of more stuff later. Yeah. Do another

video on this. Part 2. There's lots of stuff we didn't know. But for now that's some of

the stuff we wish we had known before we got here. So I hope it'll be helpful for you guys!

Thank you for watching! Again, check out Sharla's channel if you're not subscribed to Sharla!

Thanks for watching! Bye!