Good evening guys and welcome to Journey Across Japan Tonight we are in the city of Osaka (大阪市), nightlife capital of Japan And joining me, as I eat and drink my way through the city, is Mr. Pete Donaldson I'm on my holiday, so I'm ready to get funky Osaka (大阪市) is Japan's second-largest city, although with a population of 20 million It's still larger than the likes of London, Los Angeles and Paris Undeniably grittier than Tokyo (東京), Osaka locals have a reputation for being laid back and outspoken And in my experience generally friendlier from the Tokyo (東京) counterparts There's no easier place in Japan, to strike up a conversation with a stranger and tonight is no exception As we learn the local dialect from some students pretend to be cool Take a nostalgic trip to a retro video games bar Incinerate our mouths with Osaka most popular dish And even throw in an elaborate Blade Runner-esque, neon lit montage sequence Hopefully by the end of our night, you'll have some extra ideas and what to do, the next time you find yourself in Osaka (大阪市) We all know, all good nights out start with a decent meal, given that Japan's second largest city is often referred to as Tenka no Daidokoro, or the Nation's Kitchen It seems fitting to kick things off with Osaka Style Okonomiyaki pancakes Easy to eat and hard to pronounce, Okonomiyaki typically consists of batter, pork, shrimp and shredded cabbage Smothered with mayonnaise worcester sauce and dried bonito fish flakes And in this case, I've ordered some extra cheese, partly because my greed knows no bounds and partly just to piss off Pete The fact that you added cheese to this concoction, Chris, means that it's very hard to cut Those chopsticks skills I can't really, I can't get on it, because there's a permafrost of cheese underneath This is a good way to start the evening, if you come to Osaka (大阪市), one dish you need to try, okonomiyaki It'd be a crime to miss it, but given all the, all the drinking, we'd probably end up doing tonight It's a good place to start out, we've actually got our first drinks here, some sake (酒) and Pete It looks like Pete cut his finger in a glass I'm having my favorite drink that I often have in Japan when I do visit, it's called a Red-Eye. Chris, what's in it? Red-Eye, beer and tomatoes P: It's beer and tomato juice. C: That's disgusting P: Beer and tomato juice. C: Can I try it? Is it literally just beer and tomato? How can that work? Not even any spice in it It's just fizzy tomato juice That is just fucking horrible I think, I'll just stick with the sake, do we even have that in the UK? Good, let's keep it away from the UK God, no Well, we're stuffed full of okonomiyaki, we've had our sake and now the night can truly begin Isn't that right, Pete? Let's do this! We need more? How many more? I'll take them all Whilst in many countries of the world, drinking alcohol in public is either forbidden or frowned upon In Japan, not only is it legal, but very common to see people out drinking in parks and open spaces And there's nowhere better to do that in Osaka (大阪市), than the dynamic and vibrant neighborhood of Amerikamura, quite literally America town One of the fashionable centers of Japanese youth culture for over 40 years and just to show Amerikamura's dedication to all things American They've even got a replica Statue of Liberty Looming overhead, it's just like America, isn't it This stuff, 9 percent drink, it is so fucking lethal, I don't know what they put in it. Have you had this before? Have you not? oh, you're in for a treat, alright it's weird, I'm quite alcoholic resistant. Is that a word? I'm quite good with drinking alcohol Doesn't really affect me, but this, 2 cans of this And I'm straight off to Narnia If you ask anybody who drinks this stuff, any foreigner who comes to Japan who drinks this, they'll testify that this is a potent drink Let's see it has an effect on Pete I want to meet Mr. Tumnus, to America town Well I'm not drinking that again Oh, it's horrible Doesn't taste like apple, it tastes like cyanide What apple, there is apples? There's lemon, there's orange, blueberry and we got Apple But it doesn't taste like apple, it tastes like gas, like petroleum Do you feel like you're in somewhere that is, is different right now? Lot of kids hanging out in the circle It looks like a level from Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, a lot teenagers hanging about, a lot of people with thick, chunky BMX tires Just lads with a lot of street wear on You cross one street in Osaka (大阪市), you can hear like hip-hop music start playing, you see all these crappy clothes shop start cropping up And then it looks like this, there are a load of BMX's around After just 10 minutes of moping around drinking Pete and I, successfully blend into America town, when we find ourselves being invited over to join some friendly students I'm happy These nice locals, are going to teach Pete some Osaka dialect What is Osaka dialect for cool? So I am from the north of England I also have a different accent to everyone else To sort of say, yes, in my accent Why aye man P: Newcastle, why aye man Really? Yeah, why aye man Aho means stupid Hey guys, Amerikamura, get a drink, rock up, meet some people have some fun, and now, it's on to the next place Not only are there some amazing retro systems in here, there are also some amazing stuff we never got in England We never got even in Europe, this is great, thanks for bringing us here, Chris You're welcome Mr. Donaldson, I'm a good friend You are a good friend So guys, we're now in a videogame bar and I'm about to kick his ass at Bomberman on the Nintendo Super Famicom or as it's known in America The SNES The Super Famicon was before my time, I was born in 1990 and I was too young for this, but I did had Bomberman on the Gameboy So that's why I learned there the rules, the ways of Bomberman The ways of Bomberman or ancient Japanese art of the way of the Bomberman I'm bottom right, guys Top left What's that? Is that guy riding a fucking squirrel or something? Games bars are once a lot more common in Osaka (大阪市) and Tokyo (東京), where you can sit down drink and relax Whilst playing retro video games in a relaxed environment, more reminiscent of being a friend's house than at a bar Sadly however, more and more are closing down under pressure from large video games companies So my advice is try visit one, while they still exist In hindsight, this games pretty fucked up I'm a guy laying bombs, while riding a kangaroo, who-who's dreamed this up? No, no, yes, yes, I won, yes and a celebratory Celebratory Chicken McNugget, there you go Celebratory? Like the chickens never laid an egg The taste of victory In any other YouTube situation, he didn't insist on doing something twice But because he's won, I know for a fact, this is the final time will play this game Yeah We're done here Osaka (大阪市) most popular dish, can be found on almost every street corner in the downtown area and the often smell the sweet sizzling batter Long before you spot the stand the side of the street Wow, that was a lot of alliteration, wasn't it? This my friends is Takoyaki Literally fried octopus balls, we have two flavors Salt and sauce, and the sauce is worcester sauce What is the salt? Just salt? Just salt, what is the salt? I want the juice sauce We can share, Pete I will start with salt This was 350 yen for five balls, which is about 3 dollar 50, very cheap That's bloody good, ain't it? It's super good very hot though, your mouth is about to be incinerated, so be careful I have these before and they are hot for about the half like of uranium, like 50 years They look so inert, but you know for a fact there is molten hot takoyaki inside So what it is, it is basically it's kind of batter with mayonnaise and fish flakes on top and worcester sauce here and inside we have sliced up chopped up octopus Which some of you may not like the sound off, but actually it tastes amazing with the batter, with the mayonnaise, with the sauce I'm still, it's too hot for me to try that Pete is good to do it though Get close of Pete crying Yeah, to hot Look at his face The shop staf are captivated by Pete's inflamed face, look at how red Pete's going, ladies and gentleman Because they're so delicious, you want to put them in your mouth right away And I realize that sounds a bit weird, because we are eating balls, you want to put them in your mouth, really really quickly But they're just so hot It would be a crime and absolute crime to come to Osaka (大阪市) without trying takoyaki though, like For me, what's Pete, what are you doing, Pete? I'm cooling it by, there's a breeze coming down this Avenue, so I'm letting the ball linger in the breeze If you come to Osaka (大阪市) and you come to eat takoyaki, bring a windsock Know which way the winds going so you can cool them down You burst yours I burst it, my takoyaki ball has exploded So the other day, yesterday I think, I asked you guys what we should do in Osaka (大阪市), one of the most popular things that came up was karaoke Now I hate filming karaoke, because of copyright issues on YouTube, it's a great way to get this video taken down Removed off YouTube and my entire evening of filming and editing going up in smoke, and yet we are going to karaoke Right now, so it's going to happen So it's just going to potentially put the whole video at risk, but it's going to be worth it Because we're able to hear Pete Donaldson sing So the way karaoke works in Japan, you get a room to yourself, you get a booth and you get a little touchscreen Panel like this, you put in the song you want, hit the button and off it goes So simple as that Even I could do it at 1am Even Pete Donaldson could do it and it's all you can drink as well, it's nomihoudai Which means you sit here for like 2000 yen, which is 20 dollars you can drink as much as you want for 2 hours, and that's pretty fucking good The good thing about karaoke is, it's all in one room The food is fried chicken, already have that in that basket there, it's gone Fried chicken, drinks, It's all there, songs music, drinks, relaxation, karaoke You could be in here for 2 or 3 hours and I'm out of love, I'm so lost without you, I don't know the rest of this song Well guys, we've done our karaoke for 90 minutes, I can't feel my voice I want to go to bed now I want to go to bed, but we've got one more thing to do, Pete We've got reenact a scene from Blade Runner, we've gonna have scenes of you Walking along with some slick music, after that you can go to bed Okay then Well I hope you enjoyed our little music video with Pete in, it was very rushed we made it very quickly I say music video, it was just a clip with some music and Pete walking around the slow-motion Yeah, they turned off some of the lights, but we did have the food, we've did enjoy the karaoke Well one of us did We did enjoy the lights and the fun times And we even played a little bit of Mario Kart and I definitely won, bye He didn't win, but at least he learned some Osaka dialect That's all for now though guys, will be back same time tomorrow with Kobe beef Kobe beef No matter where you are might be watching from out there the big wide world, thanks for watching guys, and we'll see you tomorrow I have to say, if I was on death row, I have to decide one meal, this meal that we've just had would probably be it This is Pete Donaldson's hotel room, ladies and gentlemen I was washing some clothes and they weren't quite dry, so I had to spread them out Pete, it looks like your suitcase exploded over your fucking room, what's going on? Don't even want to look around the corner and see what there is I'll leave you to it Night Good night, Pete Good night
I love Pete so much.
I feel like Sharla and Chris complement each other's personalities, while Chris and Pete somewhat contrast each other, and it's just so, so, so good to watch.
uncut video of karaoke for patreons???? anyone??
I know Chris and Sharla have been careful not to show the entire songs that they've sung in the karaoke.
But if YouTube decides to be anal and remove the video anyway, I really hope they had a backup copy with them on their hard drives so that they may re-upload it with the suspected "copyright violations" segments edited out.
Would hate to see a repeat of the unjust removal of Chris's Mt Fuji video, where Chris said YT even blocked him from editing the video anymore.