10 Most UNDERRATED Things in Japan | Feat. @CDawgVA

oh no i've let him back in the studio say hello to cwa the best thing to come out of wales since gimli i did excuse me yeah to play skinny as well what are you drinking i would like or sake on the ocean this is the only thing i've bought and it is a some sort of kiwi liqueur kiwi why did you pick a really strong one you're a strong man strong welsh man cheers welcome guys today we're going to talk about 10 underrated things about japan we did overrated right yeah i think people wanted us to do underrated things i will say it's a bit hard to think of underrated things because i probably just talk about them a lot because i like them it's unnatural for us to be positive about something that's true actually absolutely that's the real problem so we've got a list we've got five each you're enjoying the the kiwi chew high that kiwi's really strong so this is an underrated gem all right well what's your first thing chris my first thing is japanese family restaurants i'm talking cocos i'm talking bickery donkey i'm talking royal host do you have a favorite yeah i'll tell you what i don't like tell you what my favorite isn't the size the italian one i don't but the portion sizes are very lackluster so size area is like an italian family restaurant right you get like a glass of wine for like a dollar what and it's the worst wine you'll ever drink why did you order wine there i wanted to try it i wanted to see what i don't know why it's like from the gutters january january was a rough month for adsense chris went to size area with this one and bought some wine but there are good family restaurants the best three royal hosts bakery donkey and cocaine royal host yeah because you can actually get like really good food in order i remember they they did this like set that was like this like kale salad that was like crispy and then it came with a lobster roll and it was like the most excessive thing ever i've never even had a rob i've never had a rob roll lobster roll loves to roll can we can we put this in this is i'm i have never had a lobster roll in my life i said it right 63 attempts i had to think as well right now and it was amazing good place though if you're stuck in the middle of nowhere there's always one around you can drop in get some food get your robs to lol and have a cheeky coffee what's yours though and it's cheese very very cheap now well i gotta say i think one of the most underrated things in japan is ichiran ramen chris your favorite ramen we okay one food in japan that i feel like doesn't get nearly enough credit for how good it is i think i know why but unagi unagi is still amazing yeah it's eel and it's like cooked in a restaurant away it's like what is it it's like smoked out on a grill and then it's left to dry and then they put it on the rice bed with the sauce and then you can also put like spices on if you want to it's really nice quite a really nice sort of sticky soy sauce on it right yeah it's actually quite expensive it's a sort of it's a premium dish so it's unsurprising that you love [ __ ] off though it's really good cheapest you'll find unagi for is maybe what two thousand yen so twenty dollars uh because it does take a really long time to prepare a lot of the really good restaurants that do it will ask you to book beforehand you can't just turn up but there are a lot of places that are just like fast food places kind of like denny's where you can just walk in get your naggy for cheap and uh you can get a full set you know we get a misu [ __ ] i can't talk today yeah misusing the rob still holds and you know they make they also make a specialized soup with an aggie then they use the intestines of the fish to like flavor it delicious it's actually really good it sounds gross it is good and we had it in kyoto right we stayed in like a traditional japanese egg that's right we ordered it and we got some food sent to us and called i'm not even rich oh gosh and there's like let's get some money no no no that wasn't the story at all chris is already lying all right it was like 2 a.m and we'd have a lot of drinks and for some reason unagi was the only place that was open at 2am which is really unusual for naggy places most people be like i'll get a kebab i'm drunk like unlucky from the rivers okay okay unagi is eel right and a lot of the time i think a lot of us have this concept of eel well the uk jelly deals it's a cuisine that looks like it belongs in the 15th century slimy jelly deals when i heard it was a cuisine here i was like i'm not gonna eat that and then i had it and it's incredible it's a solid nine out of ten it doesn't taste fishy at all it's closer to like a meat flavor honestly than it's a fish flavor it's really just [ __ ] sake everything's going wrong it's gonna unedit this this is the most you can see with the real this is the most authentic car i'm having a mental breakdown here i can't focus moving on from connor's unagi and his dodgy presenting skills i'd say the most underrated place in japan is actually fukushima really it's a critical one i think our image of fukushima right is not good nuclear disaster exclusion national reputation but do you remember where you did drifting for the trash day special why are you really doing it in fukushima uh the coolest temple in japan it's called the sazado temple it's a stolen design from leonardo da vinci and it's like it's a spiral staircase you've shown this video it's so cool they've got kitakata a ramen town that has more ramen shops per capita than anywhere else in japan like there's just so many amazing things there's even a town called ochijuku near where we're going tomorrow i mean connor and i actually go into fukushima tomorrow for a secret video but there's a town called it's like this really beautiful samurai town there's so many great things and the tragedy is we know fukushima for all the wrong reasons but i've made like four or five videos there over the years and it's just an incredible place they've got great ski resorts great food the exclusion zone is actually on the sort of far eastern point of the prefecture fukushima is like i think it's the second or third biggest prefecture i think it's the third biggest after hokkaido and water it's really bloody big but anyway fukushima i will like link some videos to it in this in this and go and check it out because it is a really cool place do you want to go really nice hot springs as well moving on to number four what you got connor well this is something i have spoke about a bit on the podcast but i love going to the cinema i love going to the theater i'm a big sucker for the whole experience i movies should be watched in the theater right and luckily coming from the uk i can tell you that we do we do not do it well japan does it amazingly not only are they immaculate you never have to worry about being popcorn leftover or anything everyone is extremely quiet yeah even even in movies where i kind of wish people would get a little hyped you know and kind of shout a little bit but it's really nice you never have to worry about is there gonna be some kids that are noisy or suddenly gonna be throwing popcorn or something which happened i i know i completely agree with you though like they're very clean the people are actually good they never speak i remember when i was back in the uk last time two years ago whenever it was i saw a movie downsizing terrible film don't watch it actually it's quite funny go watch it matt damon funny for like the wrong reason funny for the wrong reasons but i watched it and like those people in the cinema just talking the entire time in the uk i remember just people just talking and that is something that's quite common i just i don't feel as relaxed and i found actually living in japan i go to the cinema way more than i went in the uk for that reason a lot more affordable as well tickets are cheaper um popcorn and drinks and all that and my hair is cheaper and more modern screens and things yeah there's a lot they have a lot of those like four x d ones where the chairs [ __ ] shake you yeah yeah there's a there's a 4d cinema somewhere i think it was in osaka that i went to and that had like something that just like touched your leg i don't know what movie requires that what what movie required the jeffrey epstein experience like yeah there was like a rag and it basically it blows some air like that it like touches your leg touches your thigh yeah be careful what movie you watch in a 4d sermon what's your number five chris number five is cycling you don't shut up you don't cycle you you haven't touched a bike since uh that one abroad in japan that one 28-part series yeah one video to be fair i haven't actually got i knew i was right cycling in the uk people want to run you over because they think they're gonna get some sort of prize if they run you over like you just love it it's horrible uh and i don't enjoy cycling in the uk in japan the country is perfectly optimized for it some of my fondest memories like living in japan and just getting on a bike and cycling somewhere that that cycle joined across japan right it was really bloody pleasant the filming not so much don't don't film every day and cycle every day that's a recipe for ptsd there's a lot of videos that are like that where i'm like that looks amazing i'd love to do that but also i don't know how you feel when you watch japan no really wanker sober cardiac arrest you need to sign me to cycle a fair while i know no i think japan is a really good country for cycling if you come to here as a tourist go somewhere like kyoto perfect place to cycle around but the first time i cycled when i came here i went to kamakura this beautiful ancient city just outside tokyo i got like an e-bike e-bikes that's the best thing is the ones where you cycle yourselves or they have a little electrical yeah you get the thrills of cycling but no effort required the only way chris broad will cycle is if there's an engine in it that's that's that's that's underrated e-bikes but like yeah japan is really good for cycling everyone here does it everyone grows up doing it so the country's sort of built for cycling i agree with that i i definitely want to do it more doing it in the countryside seemed like just an absolute joy doing it in uh hiroshima was amazing oh yeah with amazing over the inland sea it's hard but i do recommend if you're coming here and you're going near australia you should definitely give it a shot because it's so easy you just go to the place rent a bike for like seven dollars and then that's it like you can just cycle it just take as slow as you want just get there within a day that is like the best physical challenge you can do it's way more fun than like climb mount fuji get on a bike cycle across the inland sea that's that's that's like a top like experience to do in japan what about you though corner number six what we got well for all the americans watching this who are like [ __ ] cycling actually i like cycling but i'm much more of a driving fan myself i know you like to ride as well yeah of course you do you chris has his own car though because he lives in sendai it's a lot more practical to have a car in sendai especially if you want to go around sandai the other prefectures tokyo not so much parking is like 1199 on tetris difficulty and it's just it's miserable but renting a car is really easy driving out of tokyo is really easy and then driving anywhere else in japan except for tokyo and i imagine kyoto and osaka it's just a tree it's so nice it's beautiful roads are amazing and actually drivers in japan are pretty good they they very rarely like tailgate compared to the uk which one ran me off the road also when i've made uh you know mistakes that i because i wasn't familiar with the roads people aren't like [ __ ] hogging their horn immediately they're just kind of like i just give a sec to see if he figures it out the only criticism i have and i and i love driving and i rent cars a lot when i travel like is the cars are kind of boring japanese cars like yeah if you're a car not farm if you're a karna i would imagine that there are no exciting cars to rent it's just boring it's like it's practical just make sure if you drive in winter you get a four wheel drive as i didn't when i went skiing with conor about a year ago and we got stuck on a hill and it was a night oh yeah we did and we had to get some guy in the hotel to get his truck to kind of tow us off it was really embarrassing anyway enough about cars what's your seven so my next underrated one is this satori it's not underrated it is underrated it's overrated get out it's literally i'm going to eat get my nerf gun and shoot you in the slightest mediocre meat on a stick you just sort out yakitori is the best food in japan the finest chicken no and onions carefully grill it over a charcoal ground he's very special charcoal in japan to cook it very slowly so the meat is kind of juicy and succulent you always get the ones i don't like when i eat with you as well because i was like get the mozzarella stuffed chicken and i'm like ah that's not even that's not your message but yakitori like it skewered me i just don't know why it's not popular in the uk it's just a beautiful thing you sit around the bar the guy grills it grilling it away i think we see it as like a diy thing we don't really see like why don't i do it at a restaurant when i can get it at home there's skill required to it the way they marinate it the way they gently cook it and turn it like the chef will sort of watch as they cook it very slowly and turn it and they cook to perfection they marinate it with a bit of seasoning and then they can jump up to other japanese foods i feel like it it it's in the middle no it's not all right well we'll agree with this it will to our killing all right what's your next one i've got the very exciting topic of shipping logistics where's jay with here oh yeah okay hear me hear me jay was there good one shipping box let me explain okay you might not experience this if you don't live here from living in the uk you've been living in japan for too long so you've forgotten how terrible it is to be in like the uk or america when you order something it arrives within like three to five days and then it arrives on the seventh day you can't even even select the day you want it most of the time sometimes you can be to pay out the ass right and even then it's like we'll come between 6am and 9pm and it's like great so just tell me the entire day in japan you can not only select the day but you can select what time in the day and it always turns up in that time you can select between 8 to 12 a.m 12 till 2 2 6 and then six till nine pm so like it's really flexible and it always arrives every single time if you miss it it's really painless to your schedule also shipping stuff really painless here if you wanna like go to like uh you've gotta go skiing for example in like hokkaido you don't want to take your skis with you it's really easy to ship them to the hotel quite painlessly and then ship them back the hotel will do it for you super efficient i i agree with you and and for the tourists out there if you come and buy anime merch or something in akihabara or you buy a bunch of gifts or whatever if you don't want to lug it around and you have a lot of money to burn you can just ship it back to you you can ship it directly very fast very very fast all right it's a boring one but it's true what's your final and fifth or ninth minority mathematician what's your final pick then chris my final pick is i think underrated thing japan is a 24-hour country or rather the cities in japan are 24-hour cities they're always very into japan but it's not unique to japan but like coming from europe or certainly not europe central europe europe yeah europe is awful i mean first of all convenience stores are open 24 hours which i absolutely love it's very useful i'll be bored i'll be like i want to eat some chicken pop down to my family mark job done but beyond that like if you want to go on a night out in somewhere like tokyo the fun never ends you can kick off at like six you can go to a restaurant another bar there's always one more place that's open like i remember i went out with a irish friend recently in uh episode in tokyo and uh he he's uh he's a good mate he's irish and he's like oh chris i got work tomorrow i better go home like like one more drink one more drink kill him he's like one more and then like it likes later three three hours later we forgot on our names because we drunk so much but like there's always just somewhere open and i just love that there's always like a yakitori restaurant i open at 3am you can pop into oh there's a good show on netflix called midnight diner i think where they have like a restaurant that opens at midnight right and like and i understand it because people will go out for work parties they'll go and have a drink and then at midnight they'll go out and eat someone get something ramen as well if you want to ramen often all night or like until foreign and snack bars and hostess bars and things like that yeah use a lot to do but even then just like if you want to get any work done a lot of the time you can you know print something right companies open print is always working it's like there's no real time limit there's something about that there's something about like just being able to just the the day doesn't sort of end at 10 p.m or 11 p.m better than the uk where pub sort of shut up like midnight whatever like what about you though your last point connor underrated thing about japan kind of similar i think bar hopping is something that you don't really hear about a lot just because i feel like it's hard to kind of show the experience to a viewer you know you're not showing them that kind of nervousness of like okay is this just going to be a [ __ ] bar or is everyone going to open up and talk to me or am i just going to bomb it you know it's a really exciting thing especially in like tokyo around the areas where they're really open to foreigners if you are a foreigner you know there's a lot of bars you can just go into your thing just start talking golden girl aren't they a gold guy's not that bad i feel like it gets a bad rap but it's actually pretty welcoming and people are really nice there are obviously some very sketchy characters around that area but generally the bars themselves are pretty nice golden eye golden golden eye girl night great game golden guy yeah it's like a little district of like shacks i love it because it's like blade runner-esque and it's actually a lot of this is modeled on golden guy but uh yeah obviously yeah like these like the pipes and stuff like the little narrow streets lots of little bars in there people like quentin tarantino love it when he comes to japan he often goes there it's a really cool place to just kind of get to actually talk to japanese people a bit even if you don't speak much japanese it's a good way to kind of learn because they're often very small yeah i like a talk like a bar in somewhere like golden gai is like this from from here to the end of the campaign yeah you've got the mamasan or the owner who sort of stands here the customers sit around and they keep them talking like it's nice it's nice yeah i i think it's something that again it's like it's really hard to show it but like i the first time i came to japan i was actually so nervous but i went into these bars pricking myself just being like no one's going to talk to me surprisingly i got some really fun nights out even though i could only name anime titles in japanese couldn't say a word it's a good place to practice japanese definitely definitely like i think once you have a little bit you want to practice they really appreciate it and uh yeah it's just really fun put yourself out there you will be nervous but i really recommend just giving it a shot and just being open-minded but that is our 10 underrated things in japan hope you enjoyed it guys solid list i would say did we miss anything though let us know in the comments below thank you for coming con i've got a new thing when people come here right i want to get like a polaroid photo of them so let's let's do that wow how um how white girl love you pull a nice expression no i don't like that good one you look like someone you wouldn't want to meet anyway in here yeah down here but for now guys as always man thanks for watching yeah oh god we'll end the video with this uh this frightening image but uh thank you for joining us in the ramen shop and cheers for coming connor as always thank you so much for having me and cola and i about to set off for a journey to fukushima underrated prefecture to do something very soon on wacky weekend over on my channel right about his channel he got him this one he got the good one what are you about three they are the best weekends they are i want to go on a ferry bollocks that was a good day see you later guys have a good

Channel: Chris Abroad

Views: 2,072,559

Keywords: abroad in japan, cdawgva, trash taste, japan travel, japanese food, chris abroad, ramen

Id: FkHk_G_zNxg

Length: 19min 13sec (1153 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 15 2022