17 Things We Wish We Knew BEFORE Visiting JAPAN 🇯🇵

Lloyd & Mandy

We just finished one of the most incredible trips we’ve ever taken… 🇯🇵  Before visiting Japan, we had so many expectations — expensive, confusing, hard to navigate — but the reality completely surprised us.  In this video, we’re sharing 17 things we wish we knew before travelling to Japan, from hidden cultural rules to surprising costs, food, transport, and things that honestly shocked us.  If you’re planning a trip to Japan, this will save you time, money, and a few awkward moments 😅  💳 Wise travel money card - Click the link for your first transfer fee FREE up to $1000 OR a FREE Travel Card - https://wise.com/invite/dic/amandar1452  Subscribe for weekly travel videos: https://www.youtube.com/@LloydandMandy  Check out our vlog channel - https://www.youtube.com/@lloydandmandyunfiltered  GET IN TOUCH: 🌏 Email: lloydandmandyenbom@gmail.com 📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lloydandmandy/ 💻 Our Website: https://www.lloydandmandy.com/  Our Favourite Travel Vlog Camera - Insta360GoUltra: https://www.insta360.com/sal/go-ultra?utm_term=INRSGS0QJR0   TRAVEL INSURANCE THAT WE USE AND RECOMMEND: 🏥 Reliable Travel Insurance: https://www.safetywing.com/a/lloydandmandy  💳 Wise trave

Transcript

00:00Okay, we just finished the most incredible trip in Japan. There was a lot of things that surprised us about

00:05the trip

00:06So in this video we want to share with you 17 things we wish we knew before traveling to Japan

00:21In my opinion probably the biggest surprise

00:24Was that we had the impression that Japan was really expensive and that was not the case at all

00:31Aside from accommodation which hotels can get quite expensive

00:34Everything else was super affordable like food drinks even going out to nice restaurants like ramen joints sushi places

00:44Going out to get a beer buying things from convenience stores

00:48Everything was super cheap catching the train everything was cheap

00:52The only thing that is on the expensive side is the accommodation, but even that's not too bad

00:58We were really blown away by how affordable absolutely everything else is even we went snowboarding in Hakuba

01:05And a day pass was like 40 bucks to go snowboarding, which is absolutely unheard of

01:10Yeah, in other parts of the world, it's usually closer to $200

01:13So that was a very pleasant surprise

01:16So Japan is known for being super tidy

01:18But one thing that we were kind of surprised by was there was no trash cans literally anywhere like if

01:24you if you have your own trash

01:26You're expected to pretty much take it home with you and dispose of it then

01:30If there are trash cans available, they're all different compartments and everything needs to be organized exactly as it's stated

01:38We didn't really know this at the beginning and we were in an RV for the majority of our trip,

01:42so

01:43We were having a little bit more rubbish than usual, so that was sort of a challenge we had to

01:48get over

01:48But we did figure it out in the end, but it's just something to get used to for sure

01:52Okay, the first night we landed in Japan

01:55We stayed at a hotel and there was a convenience store inside the hotel

02:00We had the best dinner from this convenience store followed by the best breakfast

02:05Followed by the best lunch the next day we ate at convenience stores pretty much any chance we could like

02:13if we're on the run

02:13Going to a convenience store there is like nothing else in the world and it's because they put so much

02:19effort into their food there

02:20The food quality is amazing you can get ramen you can get like katsu curries amazing desserts and again

02:28super affordable and super easy so if you wanted to go on a holiday in japan and

02:33You worried about having to go out to eat a lot and maybe

02:37Blowing your budget or you're just not into that sort of thing you want to keep things simple

02:41You can eat at a convenience store literally every meal which is kind of what we do

02:45So one good thing for us because we are traveling with a toddler as well as we were in an

02:50rv

02:51Bathroom accessibility so that's not really the case in a lot of other places that we traveled to

02:56But in japan there was a bathroom everywhere and they weren't just a casual public bathroom

03:01They were had heated seats. They had bidets

03:04There was usually like a

03:06Area that had like a special seat for your baby so you can seat them there so you can have

03:11your time in the bathroom

03:13It was awesome and that was pretty much

03:15Everywhere it was super handy

03:17So traveling with a baby was a lot easier than pretty much anywhere else that we've been

03:21I saw one bathroom that wasn't like the best but it was like

03:26The same standard as everywhere else every other bathroom was absolutely epic. Yeah, okay

03:31So there are these kind of strange places in japan they're everywhere and it's basically an internet cafe slash restaurant

03:41slash

03:43library

03:44Library

03:44With showers shower. Yeah, um, it's kind of an all-in-one thing

03:50I don't know if it's just meant for people who are doing van life

03:53Although it's really convenient if you are doing van life, but we saw a lot of other people in there

03:57So basically people just go in there's usually a gym near it as well. They can go to the gym.

04:02They can shower they can use the bathrooms

04:05You can stay there overnight

04:07So you're like you can rent a room a private room for like 12 hours and use as much internet

04:12as you want

04:13You can play games you can read books you can have a meal and it's really affordable and it's just

04:18like this

04:18I don't know how to even explain it. Um

04:21An all-in-one sort of hangout where you've got everything you need and when you're traveling you need something

04:28like that

04:29Just to like catch up on stuff. I'm pretty sure it had laundry added as there was laundry there as

04:33well

04:33So it's just really easy for yeah traveling with all the necessities that you kind of need

04:38It was nice to know that that was there and it was affordable to go to as well

04:42Yeah, maybe people like in japan they don't have access to like fast internet or whatever

04:47And they just want to go and be around other people maybe as well that could be it but

04:50Doing van life that made it super simple also speaking of van life

04:55We're going off of this because we experienced it through an rv

04:59But there's these things called michi no eki's which are roadside stations

05:03Which were a godsend to us while we were doing this and it would just be great if you were

05:07doing any sort of road trip across japan

05:10It's got bathrooms. Usually it's got

05:13Restaurants sometimes like little grocery stores and things there's usually beautiful views of them

05:18One of the first ones that we stayed at had incredible views of mount fuji

05:22It felt like you should have had to pay to stay at it

05:24But it was completely free and it's completely legal

05:27To park there overnight as long as you're not setting up a full camp or anything like that

05:32But maybe if you're doing like a longer road trip and you are inclined to sleep in your car

05:36It's a great option and there are a lot of people doing that

05:40Mine's gotta get the baby

05:41Okay

05:41And if you're wondering why we seem distracted it's because we're

05:44In the middle of a playground and we're watching lila at the same time as we're

05:48recording this

05:49Reality

05:50My eyes keep veering over here i'm just making sure she's all good

05:54Okay, so tipping in japan is pretty much frowned upon actually it's not expected

06:01And a lot of the time it's actually rejected

06:04People in japan seem to take their jobs really seriously and they offer

06:08Amazing service if you go to a restaurant the service is 10 out of 10

06:12And they don't expect anything on top of the bill which is quite surprising

06:17Because a lot of times the service and the food is so good that you want to tip like you

06:22feel inclined to

06:23But yeah, they refuse it. They'll even send it back

06:26Lloyd said that one of his friends tried to and he got chased down the street

06:29Yeah to give the money back so they just

06:31Have a very honorable culture and they do their job

06:35With like a lot of pride so they don't expect anything in return

06:39They just do their job because that's their job and we really like that

06:42So we were sleeping in an rv like I said on in roadside stations

06:48Just like free camping

06:49We felt incredibly safe like out of anywhere that we've done van life. We've done north america. We've

06:56Been all over australia. We've been all over sleeping in you know camping and in vans and things

07:01This is the safest we've ever felt and the most that our needs have ever been met doing it as

07:07well

07:07We felt so safe doing it even with a baby

07:10Just walking down the street you just feel incredibly safe. So yeah, probably the safest place we've ever traveled to

07:16The train systems there are

07:19Unbelievable first of all never even a minute late if a train says it's coming at 1201 it is going

07:26to be there at 1201

07:27There's trains that run every five minutes if you want to go somewhere and the train systems pretty much

07:33Connect all of japan as far as we could tell like there was a train that went straight to mount

07:39fuji

07:39There was a train that went all the way to hakuba valley, which is like the big ski resort. They're

07:44affordable

07:45They're extremely clean. They're even easy for foreigners to catch everything's in japanese, but it's also in english as well

07:53Don't get me wrong when you're at tokyo central station

07:56It can be quite overwhelming because it's so busy and confusing. We've been to a lot of countries in the

08:01world

08:01We have never experienced anything like that ever

08:04The train system is incredible. Yeah, so eating and walking is sort of frowned upon in japan

08:10They just sort of view it as like messy so you won't really see anyone walking around like eating a

08:16sandwich or anything like that

08:17You sit down you eat and then clean up after yourself and then you move on

08:21We didn't know that and then we were kind of like racking our brains afterwards being like did we do

08:26that at all?

08:27And then I think I did I think we did do it

08:29So yeah, just to keep in mind so you don't have anyone giving you weird looks or being like you're

08:33gross

08:35That's the other thing about japan is they won't tell you that you're being rude necessarily because that's considered rude

08:41so they kind of

08:43Leave it up to you to figure it out for yourself

08:45Like they might stare at you or something, but they're not going to come up to you and just be

08:49like hey, don't do that

08:50Because they're too polite. Yes, I see cards

08:54This is like an all-in-one

08:57Payment card that you can use for pretty much everything so you can use it to pay for things at

09:03grocery stores convenience stores

09:05You can use it to pay for road tolls when you're driving to catch a train

09:11To catch the bus you can top it up at the convenience store you can pay at a vending machine

09:16You can pretty much use it for everything

09:18It's like having a credit card or a debit card, but you don't actually need a bank card and speaking

09:23of money

09:24A lot of places were cash only which we were kind of surprised by

09:29So making sure that you've got enough cash on you at all times because a lot of places won't accept

09:33debit or credit card

09:34We ran into that a few times, but we went we found like an incredible

09:40ramen

09:42Restaurant and we weren't able to go in because we didn't have cash which was kind of disappointing

09:46So we made a point to always have cash on us after that in a lot of the restaurants. You'll

09:51notice that there's

09:52Tablets that you order from so there won't be a lot of staff out the front

09:56There might be like one host in a lot of like the the diner style ramen restaurants

10:02You order from a tablet and then a robot pretty much brings out your food to you

10:07So you're not really interacting with a lot of people. It's a fun cool experience and it's definitely unique

10:13But it definitely took us by surprise

10:15And then to pay at the end

10:16They'll give you a docket and you go up and like put that into a machine as well

10:20And then it'll give you change if you're paying with cash or you pay with your card

10:23So even if you don't speak japanese, that was one of the good things

10:26You could go to a restaurant and not really have to interact at all

10:29One of the really noticeable things when you arrive in japan is just how quiet and peaceful it is

10:35Like you don't hear much chatter from other people like there's not much noise or anything

10:40Like if you're on a train or a bus or anything, no one's speaking. It's so quiet. So

10:46Definitely don't

10:47FaceTime in public or be doing like having conversations on loudspeaker because it's not the vibe there

10:53Like everyone really respects each other's peace and quiet

10:57There's actually signs on the train saying do not

11:00FaceTime or I don't think I think don't even take phone calls on the train

11:04I heard a funny story from someone who said if you're walking around with a group of friends and having

11:10fun or whatever

11:10And a japanese person comes up to you and says

11:13Oh, wow, you guys are like having a lot of fun. What they're actually trying to say is

11:19shut up

11:21You're talking too loud

11:23You're disrupting everybody. I like it. I honestly like it. It was really nice and peaceful

11:28That being said the hospitality in japan was absolutely 10 out of 10 like we accidentally purchased the wrong train

11:35ticket when we first arrived

11:37and

11:38One of the ladies at the what is it? Japan central. What was it? Tokyo central at tokyo central station

11:46uh, it was so helpful and just they go above and beyond to help you and

11:51They don't want anything return like it. You can feel like they genuinely get joy out of helping

11:57Everywhere that we went petrol stations

11:59Grocery stores convenience stores everywhere everyone was just so helpful even with us not speaking

12:05Very much of the language. They were just really welcoming and helpful and we were kind of worried about that.

12:10Yeah

12:11Um, they could see we were doing our best with trying to translate and and pick up as much as

12:16the language as possible

12:17And I do feel like one of the reasons a lot of people don't visit japan is because of the

12:21language barrier

12:22But I do challenge you to try and go and learn as much as you can because I feel like

12:27throwing ourselves in the deep end

12:28Really helped and we had the best time. Okay, so

12:32There's actually a law regarding slander in japan which means even if something is true. You're not allowed to

12:41Damage someone's business by saying it

12:43So for example if someone gives you poor service and you go around and make a public post about it

12:49or whatever

12:49They can take you to court for that

12:52But on top of that just as far as etiquette goes if you're at a restaurant for example

12:56And you don't enjoy the food you don't think the food's the best you've ever had it is

13:01Extremely rude to tell them. Hey, like please tell the chef that I didn't like this or send it back

13:07or criticize it

13:08Which is very different from western culture

13:11Like we're used to just like people being very upfront and saying I want to send this back

13:16It's not cooked well enough or whatever. That's very rude in japan

13:19You do not ever do that if you don't like something you go somewhere else, which is kind of how

13:24I always

13:24Yeah, do it anyway to be completely honest. Yeah, things just are what they are and if you take it

13:29or leave it

13:30Yeah, but this is just something we read we never experienced like bad service or a bad meal

13:35so and I think because it goes back to the fact that they

13:38Take such pride in their work and they're so I mean they're amazing cooks

13:42So you're not really going to get bad food there

13:44But if you don't like something remember it is

13:48Extremely rude to let them know that and that being said they don't seem to like half-ass anything like

13:54If they commit to being a chef or even to being like a cleaner or owning a hotel

14:00They go all in like this is something that lloyd and I really admired about japanese people is that they

14:06Like taking pride in what they do, but if they're going to do something

14:10They're going to fully do it and fully commit to it

14:12And that's just part of the culture there and being the best at it as well

14:15And they really are the best at so many things like out of any country in the world

14:20Like you know, we already mentioned the transport and everything the food's incredible

14:24They're so advanced and they just haven't really

14:28Adopted a lot of the things that just don't work in a modern society

14:31It kind of feels like they've they stopped at a point where things were working and they've kind of been

14:36like

14:36We're not going to take on anything else that doesn't seem to work for us, which totally respect and we

14:42really really loved that. Yeah

14:44Okay, well

14:46Our camera actually just shut itself off as we were wrapping up that video

14:51but

14:52That was our 17 things that we wish we knew before traveling to japan

14:57We hope that you found the video helpful and if you did at all, please

15:01Remember to hit the like button and subscribe to our channel for more content like this

15:07We do also have a second channel, which is more unfiltered

15:11Raw vlog type stuff. So if you want to check that out, we'll leave a link for that below and

15:16as always

15:17Thanks for watching. Thanks for being here. We really appreciate you guys and we'll see you in the next video

15:22Cheers

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