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Our guide to Japan! - EP.17
Our guide to Japan! - EP.17
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About this episode
Exploring Japan's unique culture and experiences, Bobby and Aaron share their top must-dos and don'ts for travelers. Highlights include visiting Nara to interact with wild deer, participating in shrine rituals, and indulging in local vending machine snacks. They emphasize the importance of trying authentic wagyu and experiencing underground car meets. The duo also advises against visiting American chains like Starbucks, managing expectations, and utilizing translation apps for smoother communication. Their lighthearted banter and personal anecdotes make this guide both informative and entertaining for anyone planning a trip to Japan.
Topics:
travel tips
cultural experiences
local cuisine
vending machines
car meets
shrine rituals
public transportation
language barriers
shopping experiences
expectations management
In this episode we give you our recommendations on Do's and Don'ts of Japan.
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Yo and welcome to episode 17 of the right hand drive guys podcast.
I'm Bobby, this is Aaron.
Yo.
And today we are going to give you our guide to Japan, which will kind of round out allof our episodes on the trip and kind of give you the cliff notes to what to do and whatnot to do while you're in Japan.
All right, here we go.
So when we're talking about what you should do, what you got to do, like what you haveto do.
Okay.
What is your will each go right?
What is your number one must do while you're in Japan beyond the completely absoluteobvious?
I would say going down to Nara and seeing the deer, the wild deer in the middle of thecity.
I want your butt packed.
Seriously, if you need a little lift, it's like a literal public petting.
Yes, absolutely.
It's insane.
It's in a park.
And I mean, you can't miss it.
You'll find it.
Do your research.
Right, right.
I mean, if you take the train to Nara, like you get off and it's right, you know, a fewblocks from the train station.
Yeah, and they sell you the little food for a yen or whatever.
Yeah, yeah, you start seeing these little carts.
And they have the little deer biscuits.
Yeah, it was crazy.
Just like, right after you pass that, that's where you started seeing all the deer.
And you go to this park and they're everywhere, dude.
Some of them are aggressive.
Some of them are chill.
Yes, they're like, if you have like horns or antlers, yeah, just wear closed toe shoes.
Yeah, for sure.
Because they step on you.
They nudge your butt.
Like they're definitely, they're like college kids.
And I feel like they just act like college kids.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
Ready to go.
So if I had to pick my number one, do I would say you absolutely must give offering toa shrine in order to participate in that local spiritual culture.
I feel like that was one of the, I guess you could say, turning points of our trip wasjust like connecting with that spiritual side of the Japanese culture.
Yeah, it was cool.
Yeah, I brought us to the spot and showed us how.
Which we had kind of actually gone to wanting Kyoto.
Right.
But we like stood there like all nervous and we are not understanding.
Right, right.
I was like, this is cool.
They're throwing coins and the thing and clapping.
Some dudes are clapping loud.
Yeah.
You just don't know what's going on.
And then you realize, okay, that's like their ritual thing.
Right, right, right.
Which is, if you don't know what you do is you step up to the offering box, toss the coinin.
Bow twice, clap your hands twice, fold your hands and make your wish, then bow again.
Wow.
Yeah, it's a whole thing.
Is it, it is called a wish, huh?
Yeah, guess so.
Yeah, okay, word.
So yeah, I recommend, you know, Bobby's recommendation is giving offering to shrine.
And I also recommend the deer and narah because that was just, especially for my wife, thatwas a really great experience, right?
Yeah, that was so good.
We're dragging around to do car stuff and like we finally did something that's like, justmore kind of in touch with nature, even though they're kind of domesticated.
That would say.
Right, right.
It's kind of wild.
Like you could sit on the couch and watch, like Simpsons or something with these deer.
They're so lame.
Do seriously.
You probably bring one home.
Like I wouldn't be surprised if I saw one in the train station.
Oh yeah, how would your dogs get along with a new deer brother?
Dude, Brown Dog will get right along with it.
Yeah, him one way or another.
So another thing that we recommend for the do is hit the vending machines.
Yeah, yeah, don't be afraid.
Dude, load up on your coins and just spend away in the vending machines for snacks, drinks,hot cold, dude, everything.
And like, it's not like American vending machines where you got, you know, fricking kick cats andreeses, just overly process.
Yeah.
Dude, no, it's actually like some pretty dank drinks and like coffees and like, oh yeah,like, and all the boss.
All the boss is awesome.
Yeah, it is intimidating because there's so many variables that you can't breed.
Right.
Right.
So like, even using translate app, you don't know if that's light roast, dark roast, youknow, any of that.
Yeah, no, you're just kind of going for it.
You're guessing and dude, guess away.
Yeah, don't be afraid, you know, like don't, don't, don't shy away from a little bit ofthis vending machines.
Yeah.
And so we ended up finding Aaron's new favorite drink.
Go ahead, tell him about it.
Yeah, do the boss coffee.
No, the CC.
Oh, no, the CC lemons.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm a sucker for lemon drinks.
Yeah.
Yeah, the CC lemons and it said on it like 36 lemons in each.
Yeah.
No, no, you said that.
That was so funny.
You said to someone, you're like, yeah, no, there's like 36 lemons in here.
And they're like, no, no, dude, look at this.
Worth 36 lemons worth.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So yeah, it doesn't actually have 36 lemons.
It's just a lot of vitamin C, which on a trip like that, a lot of times you want to bepacking vitamin C, vitamin D.
Right.
Those things that are going to help you.
It's kind of wild how many like drinks and sodas and stuff have like actual like vitaminsand stuff like that.
Rather than here, it's just another flavor.
Right.
Well, it's artificially flavored, right?
Here, it would be yeah, artificially flavored there.
It's like real.
Yeah, so hit the bending machines.
You'll have no hard time finding them.
Right.
So the next on our do list is absolutely do get some wagyu.
Yes.
And what are those called at the little with the little grills in the table?
Do you know what that's actually called?
I don't know what it's actually called.
But go there.
But there's, yeah, dime a dozen everywhere.
So I would for sure go to a place with the grill in the table because then you're in controlof the, you know, preparation of your meat and stuff, which is cool.
Right.
In plus it's just cool to see like the platters they bring out and just the, oh yeah, it'slike, it's cool.
Yeah, it's all they need to do with sparklers on them.
We felt pretty much like the shit.
Yeah, it's pretty well.
It's a good experience.
Nothing like you get here.
Yeah.
And it's really like again, which if you listen to any of our previous episodes about this,it's really low contact.
Like you're not sitting there waiting on your way.
Right.
Most of it.
Right.
Most of it was on the screen.
Yeah.
And we, and they would, it would just be there within a minute.
Like we would just hit beef tongue.
And then boom, beef tongue was on the table.
Right.
Yeah, it was pretty cool.
Yeah, and that's another thing.
Don't be afraid to try the beef tongue.
Yeah, try the beef tongue.
Like it really isn't bad.
I don't even think it's like actually tongue.
It tastes way too good to really be tongue.
Dude, who knows?
It was, wasn't it?
Yeah.
And also, one of the first restaurants we stopped at had horse meat.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
I was like, dang, this is real loud.
So maybe, maybe the first don't.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Don't always assume it's a.
Yeah, do not always assume, right?
It's regular meat.
Like you use the translate app.
Right, right.
Because it might be horse meat.
Because they have pictures of everything in these moments.
And you see this beautiful horse just main.
Yeah.
You're like, you're feeling so bad.
You see the thing.
It looks like steak, too, right?
And it's like all marble down and everything.
You're like, oh, dude, that looks like a thing.
Like these meat.
No, dude, that's the horse meat.
And it is a tank piece of meat.
Just not what you're looking for.
Right.
Yeah.
So, hit up the meat spots, but don't hit the chains.
I can't remember what was that one chain that we was joking about.
Dude, it was some.
It's so American sound.
It was cowboy something.
Yeah.
It was cowboy something.
Yeah.
But do go to the Donkey Hote.
Yeah, yeah.
The Donkey Hotel.
No, the Donkey Hote is, dude.
There's, yeah.
They're like a Walmart on steroids.
Yeah, just so much stuff.
So much.
Dude, the like craziest store I've ever been to in my life was that one we were at NewOklahoma.
Yeah, it was like grocery store in the basement.
Yeah, and it was like four stories to all, but like, so yeah, down to the basement.
It was like this huge grocery store.
And like we walked the entire grocery store just like, yeah, we were just like, well,the fish and like, yeah, it was really cool.
Taking all that in and then like going to the snack aisle and seeing all their differentsnacks and like different drinks and stuff.
Yeah, and dude, I mean, people are there just trying to do their grocery shopping and we'rejust geeking out over like drooling the different kind of red bull they have or whatever it mightbe.
Yeah, it was really a good experience.
And like you'll see brands that you haven't seen for like 10, 15 years.
Right, right.
And then upstairs.
Thanks for my clothing.
Yeah, to like they got Louis Vuitton.
They got all kinds of stuff like tronics like you name it.
It's all there.
It was insane like literally everything that adult toys like everything like, like, wouldn'tcome right next to the car stuff was the adult stuff.
My house like what?
All right.
It's a strike that the dude's over here.
They just they just attract them out of this area of the store.
This is where they buy all their naughty stuff.
So go to the donkey hotel, get all suited and booted.
I we were in the camper, obviously.
So I couldn't handle that pillow.
So I got a pillow.
Right, right.
Anything you might need that you didn't bring over like, it's there.
It's there.
And like, when we went to leave, we knew the next or back.
That's where you found that too.
So like these places are everywhere and they're, I don't know, they're an experience.
Yeah, and they're a little, some of them are a little beat a little more dirty.
It depends on which one you go to, but yeah, hit, hit them up for all those needs.
The next on our do list is find I personally, I ordered it like this.
I mean, but it kind of goes blanket statement.
Just find some of the meats in Tokyo that aren't necessarily like Daikoku.
Like I say, find underground Tokyo meats.
And I'm being very specific about that as any actual Tokyo underground meat.
Right, right.
Follow them on Instagram.
Yeah, because those are like high quality.
Right.
They're like the sickest car.
Oh, yeah.
Like literal.
Like the one that we got like invited to was like crazy.
Yeah, like every, every car was on top.
Right.
It was a lot of cars from week fast.
Yeah.
It was like just wild.
Like my cars is one of the more basic, unmodified.
Like my car did not stand out there whatsoever.
Right.
Right.
And as X's do, like RX 7s.
Yeah, yeah.
And I mean GTRs too.
Yeah.
But like not a single one was not perfect stance on perfect wheels with perfect accent.
Like everything was so meant.
So find, you know, find if you can, the actual Tokyo underground meat.
But otherwise just try to find maybe the one that not everyone's going to and you mighthave a more intimate experience.
Right.
And which actually brings us up to Daikoku, which, you know, that's, that's obvious.
Right.
We definitely had everybody talked about that.
But you can, you can literally squeeze that.
Oh, yeah.
On your way through.
If I take the Bay Shore route anywhere, just scoop off the side and check out Daikoku.
There's going to be something there.
There absolutely will be.
There was not a time.
Any time of day.
But there was.
Yeah.
It's insane.
And so, but, you know, the prime time, I would say is between 6 p.m. and 9.45 to 10 p.m.
That's like super prime time.
Right.
I felt like, you know, for the evening, you know, it was about 6 to 9.45 anytime, except for
one night that if we went there after 9.45, it was closed.
Right.
So.
Yeah, that's the only thing that sucks.
Yeah, you shut down.
So like Aaron said, maybe it is a good idea to hit it during the day because there stillis going to be some stuff.
But maybe just a lot more tourist cars.
Right.
A lot more common people.
Yeah.
You know, so whichever you decide to do, that's one that you have to do.
Next on our due list would be hit a motor sports event.
I'll let you go ahead and blow on this one.
Yeah.
So if you're obviously in cars, then like try to hit up a motor sports event, whetherit's like a drift event, like we obviously went to the Metzari and add a Bisu.
And like it was, it was sick.
You get to see like a complete different side of motor sports and how Japanese people dothings in that way.
Yeah.
Compared to how, like, right, right, right.
You're like, dude, they have a lot less rules and regulations, at least at that event.
Yeah, it is kind of hard to find some of these things since like, I don't know, Japan's a smallcountry, but it seems like it's really spread far out.
Yeah.
And some of these places and like, you kind of have to know where to mouth like about thesethings.
But if you follow enough people on Instagram or, you know, know these tracks and know howto look up their schedules, you can see, you know, what time attack of time attack eventsgoing on one day or what track days going on here one day.
Like.
And if you go to any of those, you're going to see something cool, right?
It doesn't have to be the main event.
Right, right.
It doesn't have to be anything crazy, you know?
And like on top of that, if, you know, you have a favorite circuit on any of these video gamesyou've been playing, like, you can go see that track in real life and like experience that.
Even if they're, let's just say, isn't an event going on.
Surely there will be some, you know, potential cars in the paddock and, you know, the museumattached to a lot of these tracks.
Right.
It's all around you.
Yeah.
Um, so go check out an event, um, you know, even if it's not some main stage event, like, evenif it's something little on the side with locals, just check it out because you're just goingto get that whole vibe.
And it's like, it's legit.
It makes you feel great.
Like being in the mat, sir, I felt like this different feeling of just being involvedin like, almost like I was behind the scenes.
Like that in my head and like all of what we were doing just felt like behind the scenes.
Right because we were there.
Yeah, yeah.
But we've always seen it on video or whatever.
Whatever.
Yeah.
So go hit that up.
And, you know, we obviously, we try to keep these podcasts, uh, time constraints around30 minutes.
So we could go on dues all day.
We could sit here and just talk about dues, dues, dues, but yeah, it would be verylong and you wouldn't still be listening.
So our last due for today is hit your favorite shops.
Like just do it.
Just set aside the time and just hit those shops regardless of as long as they're in yourbeaten path of where you're actually traveling.
But like, just hit them because there was not a single shop that we went to that we weredisappointed with.
And we even went to look for shops that weren't there anymore.
What was it?
The heartbreak kids or something?
Oh, yeah.
Kids heart.
Yeah.
So we went like to find kids heart and we park.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
Yeah.
And it was right up like, it wasn't up the street, but it was like not too far from garage.
It was like, kind of, yeah, up the street across and up the street.
But so we decided we tried to check out kids heart.
Because it's like a known drift shop from back in the day, right?
Yeah.
And we like, he has it on like Google Earth or something, you know, and then like, we'restanding there.
And we're like, dude, it should be right here.
Right.
Should be right here.
What they did.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I found a magazine article where they featured the shop and like the corner we were standingon.
It was like the next lot over.
You could see like another sign in the building next to it, but their shop had been torndown.
It was all just a rubble.
It was just, it was gone, right?
Yeah.
It was like, that sucks.
But we still had no regrets.
Right.
Spending that 10 or 15 minutes because like we still went there.
We still were there, you know, just because the shop wasn't there.
We still experienced that space, you know, that in that sense.
So it wasn't like, oh, what a huge waste of time.
Right.
It was like, oh, damn, this is like part of history right here.
This is where kids heart was.
And it's not, you know, and so we're like witnessing how, you know, some of these shopsand some of these brands are turning over.
Yeah.
And the industry is changing.
Right.
Again, yeah, good.
Now I was going to say another one, you know, to that same effect was like trial.
Like that was just in between a stacked and I think global auto that one day, remember?
And I was like, hey, let's just stop and trial real quick because I saw on the maps, likeit's right there on our path.
Why not?
And that was like a six stop.
Like, yeah, I didn't expect that because I honestly hadn't heard of trial beyond like,you know, being mentioned in passing on like an option or something like that, you know,way back in the day.
So I was like, trial.
Yeah.
Same here.
And you know, I like didn't know much about them.
I never really, I looked into them super hard.
I know they had some cool looking recarrows back in the day.
Yeah.
And I've obviously seen like the logo and stuff, but never really.
Yeah, the shop was sick.
Definitely.
Like a bunch of cool cars in the parking lot.
Like, yeah, I mean, I would say it was, it was top.
Like if you go for like cleanliness, complete setup, like top three or four of the shops thatwe went to, just their whole thing.
But yeah, it was cool to go there.
And now like, I've heard of them and I know exactly what they do now.
Right.
You know, so that was sweet.
And that was one of the shops where we first saw some like kind of cool cars and theyhad the little K truck like wrapped in recarrows stuff.
Yeah.
So do go check out the shops that you've always wanted to see and then stop it one that youdidn't think of.
Right.
Exactly.
Like even if you don't think you might be into it, I still hit it.
Right.
Yeah.
Because if we had just been like, oh, we're not into this screw trial.
Like I'm glad I went.
You got that cool deal on the little cell phone holder.
Yeah.
Yeah.
They had like a little package deal of his like 10 bucks that came with like three orfour option stickers on the boring, like a wet sport.
Like like G zone.
And I forgot what else but I could feel a little nicknacks like an HKS key chain.
Like, I was like, what good stuff.
Yeah.
Like what?
Here I am paying $47 for one t-shirt.
I was in this school.
I'll take it.
So do not do not.
Okay.
Like there are things that you don't want to do.
And I mean, you could do them.
You just might either embarrass yourself.
Be waste your time.
See you waste your money.
Right.
Right.
These things, it's just, you probably just don't waste your time.
So don't go to a Starbucks.
Like if you, you know, like some people love Starbucks in America.
Some people hate it.
You know, and if you love Starbucks in America, you're probably not going to love it inJapan because it's much more basic and like way less like way less additives, way lessoptions, way less pretty much everything.
Right.
So don't go to a Starbucks.
Like just find a little local coffee shop.
Like, that's what we ended up doing.
And or get your vending machine coffee.
That's what I ended up doing.
That's what we ended up doing yesterday.
Is the machine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like just pounding the boss, the caffeine ones.
Those were the ones to hit.
So yeah.
Anyways, just don't go to places like that.
Like leave that stuff for America.
Here you do the next one.
Do not have any expectations.
Yeah.
Don't have any crazy expectations.
Do don't don't think you're going to get off the airplane and you're going to get taxedaway in an R34 and like seeing, you know, whatever, just crazy stuff everywhere because it'snot really like that.
It was it was a few, I mean, granted.
Yeah, you had to be in the right place at the right time and that's all chance.
But like, there's not really like a lot of crazy stuff like that.
It's all over here.
Right.
Right.
It's all over here.
And, you know, and also don't have these crazy expectations of like being able to go in anyplace and understand these things and don't let it like bring you down that you can't readanything or might not necessarily like understand how their process is work or whatever it mightbe.
You know, just try to go with the flow and like enjoy the time in the moment.
Right.
Yeah.
Don't be this like frustrated like mass because you're like feeling in a rush.
Right.
Yeah.
Or just, you know, out of place and, you know, and you're in another world.
Literally.
Yeah.
It is wild like way different feeling.
But I never really found myself like getting too too frustrated.
I feel like I feel like it was just like, oh yeah.
No, I'm like the silly American.
Yeah.
I didn't do all my research like I should have.
So here I am.
Right.
Right.
And they're cool with it.
They get it.
You know, it's just, right, just don't have any like, don't think it's not a little bit ofwork.
Yeah.
For sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like a lot of people have seen our trip and they're like, dude, you guys did amazing.
How'd you show so much into the, the, the, the, and I'm like, dude, you're just seeing likethe, the good parts.
There was times when we got lost and where each of us individually got lost at separatetimes and we're so pissed.
Like you can imagine if anybody out there, you know, you, you're in this place, you getlost.
You're in New York City, you're driving in circles.
You're pissed.
Right.
Yeah.
So that was us a few different times.
One, one time Aaron got lost and like, or like had to turn around a bunch of times.
Yeah.
And the RV and I was so afraid of running over someone's, because I was on this sketchylittle like one lane neighborhood thing, like right off this main road.
It was, I don't know, and trying to navigate that in this RV that I'm already afraid of like,because we get to pay for anything.
Right.
Yeah, I was just not trying to mess it up and like every time I put it in reverse to turnaround, it's like screaming this beep or like, beep, beep, like dude, and yeah, it wasa mess.
Yeah, it's stressing me out just talking about it.
Yeah.
But we, he shows up finally and he is, you know, when you have a buddy and he's like pissedoff because he stressed out and like, you don't even want to say a word to him.
Yeah, that was him.
And it was just like, oh, you got lost.
Okay.
Anyways.
Yeah, you know, I found myself.
Yeah, yeah.
Of course.
I'm in Japan.
I'm going to get lost.
Yeah, screw it.
You have to.
You literally have to.
You're going to get lost.
What's 15 minutes?
So don't get stressed and don't have expectations.
It's going to be okay.
If you are silly enough to book on the afforded trip to Japan, then you deserve to get stressedbecause you don't have nearly enough time.
Right.
Yeah.
Don't buy train tickets one by one.
Get your cards so that you can go ahead and just, you know, just, you know, justget the train cards.
That way you just scan your card or is there and like, so do you can slap it.
Slap it.
Yeah, on the sensor.
And it's going to just save you so much time and make.
Right.
And you just load it up.
Yeah.
The high cocoa cards are where it's called.
Yeah, or I see.
I see.
Depends on where you're at in Japan.
But yeah, there's a few different ones.
Yeah, yeah.
It was pretty easy.
They, it's simple to use.
Yeah.
And like, whenever you go to refill, you can select an English.
Yeah.
It's simple to reload like, load that thing up and go wherever you want.
Like, don't worry about buying tickets.
Right.
Yeah.
Don't, yeah.
Don't be trying to buy tickets unless you're getting, you know, a specialized ticket, likein a special cabin or whatever.
Shinkansen.
Yeah.
Otherwise, don't worry about it.
And so that brings us to kind of the next, like, don't, like, unless you own a car there,like, or want a rent for a few days, like, just don't drive.
Yeah.
I personally would recommend skipping all that using public transportation because a you're,unless you own the car, like I said, but if you don't, a you're paying for a rental fee.
Right.
You're paying fuel in the big hitter.
Go ahead, tell them to the tolls.
The tolls.
Holy cow, dude.
Damn.
The tolls are insane, especially for that RV.
Like, that's obviously a little bit bigger, but like, even for the normal car, it's insane.
Yeah, it's insane.
Like, I'm like, I'm happy to eat ramen for lunch now because I'm trying to pay off thesetolls.
Dude, yeah.
I mean, you travel from whatever, like, from Tokyo out to what was the town where we firstcaught the train.
Shazuka.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
So that was like two hours or something.
Yeah.
And dude, the tolls at the end of that was almost, it was over $100.
Yeah.
Like, it's crazy.
It's like, whoa, dude.
That's straight like what?
Yeah.
Holy cow, it costs a drive over there.
So that's what we're saying.
Like, take that public transit.
Right.
Right.
In place you're not having to, like, if you take public transit, you're not worried about gettinglost and taking the highway.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
I don't know about not worried about getting lost.
If you have to switch trains a bunch of times, like, yeah, where you want to go, like,yeah.
But true, I fully agree.
You're definitely not driving in circles.
Right.
You may ride to somewhere you don't want to.
Not a big deal though.
Yeah, but just don't, don't drive unless you got to.
Another thing that I threw in here was like, a lot of people, it seems like kind of getlike concerned about their cell phone in Japan.
So don't get a SIM because that's like what you always hear.
Yeah.
Oh, get a SIM.
Oh, yeah.
It's like, what?
No, dude.
No, it's 2023.
You just self-arise it.
Like, we have a rise in.
Right.
It's literally a thing you can click on in its 10 bucks a day.
Yeah.
And you just, you just send a text to eight, nine, whatever, dada, dada, and boom, you'regood.
Of course, then what happens though?
Yeah, then you run out of data.
You have to take 10 more bucks.
And you have to text Verizon.
You got to text them speed.
So like, we're sitting there anytime our phone is not working.
We're just texting Verizon over and over.
Speed, speed, speed.
Yeah.
Well, it's sucked.
The only thing that sucked about that was we were there two months and like, that wastwo billing cycles for me.
So like, my bill for two months was like way over.
Oh, yeah.
But that was not right.
It's like minor when, yeah, it was just like, I thought I paid for it all in the firstmonth.
And then the second month, oh, yeah.
You still had some of those $10 charges.
Yeah.
So I mean, for 14 days, you're $140, D plus if you did any speeds.
Right.
You know, but I was tethering it to my computer.
So I ended up, yeah, I was speeding pretty heavily to say the least.
So yeah, don't get a sim.
Just hit up your cell phone company and ask them.
And like he said, it's 2023.
Every cell phone company has an international travel plan.
Right.
Just do that.
Save yourself the stress.
And yeah, just do it.
Just do it.
Just getting a new sim for like maybe you don't want to spend your time in Japan with that.
I guess the only way that maybe that would be beneficial is if you did get a sim in Japanwith a Japanese phone number, then you can text other Japanese phone numbers.
So that, like maybe if you were there for business or something like that, I could see becausenow you have an in-country phone number that you can communicate on.
But if you're just traveling like us, like don't even waste your time with that.
So pretty much one of our last ones is do not forget to use your translate app.
Yeah, yeah.
That's like a cheat code.
And like the most stressful situations, you like completely forget about it.
Yes, it's true.
Like, dude, if you're having some sort of language barrier, dude, just do yourselves both a favor,pull your phone out and just say, say it into this.
Let them talk into it.
It translates it for you.
And you get it.
And you get it.
It might be a messed up word here or there, but like you can reply back and they'll knowlike there's at least some sort of.
And you can type in English and then they'll say it in Japanese and that was like clutchbecause I'm like trying to ask for melatonin and they're bringing me to the pillows.
Right, right.
Different things.
And finally I just typed it in and she's like, oh, melatonin.
You know, I'm like, yeah, no, for sure.
Yeah, but say melatonin.
Yeah.
She's like, no, we don't got that.
Like dang, but you know, so use the translate app.
Use the Google app that translates words and pictures.
Like we were using that all the time.
All the time on menus on everything.
Anytime we needed to read something, we had our phone in our face, which sucked, butwas great.
Right, right.
Definitely a tool worth using.
Yeah.
So like, don't be afraid to look like a ding dong.
Like no one's going to come out and make funny.
You for trying to understand what they're saying or like that.
No, you're putting an effort.
Right.
You're putting an effort and you want to like communicate and they they're not goingto frown on you.
Yeah, it's not anything like that.
So, you know, and of course, we're for sure available to answer anyone's questions.
If you have any questions, you can DM us on our HD GUIS on Instagram.
You can write comments on the episodes on YouTube, whatever.
We try to keep up with it and we'll just try to direct you in the right spot.
So maybe you can meet somebody that can give you the opportunity like we got, you know.
So for this episode, number 17, our Doos and Don'ts guides guide to Japan.
Yeah.
I'm Bobby.
This is Aaron.
See ya.
Peace.
[Music]
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