Japan Travel Update June 2021 | Shots, Games, Passports, Student Visas, Tourism

how you doing everybody welcome to another japan travel update this is for oh we lost no cookie this is for june 2021 i wanted to say uh welcome and and thank you so much for the last year i've been giving these updates going all the way back to january 2020 when this um pandemic started to try to help people plan their trips to japan for the future and it's been really challenging i don't think a lot of us thought that this would go on this long but here we are june 2021 and this is the update i believe it's june 10th today right now um yeah i do have a new haircut apologies it was shorter than i expected um let's get let's get right into it so a lot of things have have happened over the last month the the vaccine rollout has really picked up and this is a great thing for everybody who's thinking of coming here to japan in the fall because uh if we can hit that target of one million shots per day which is what prime minister suga is aiming for then we're going to peak in the city of tokyo with this pandemic in the third week of august if we can get to 1 million jabs per month if we can't and we stay at around 600 000 then we peak in the middle of october which is very different situation so if you're if you're hoping to come here to japan uh let's let's give prime minister suga all the support that he needs to get that job done so then if everybody feels safe here in japan tourism here will start right away um todd smith writes in here why was japan so slow in the vaccine rollout there's a couple of reasons number one i've been over this just a couple of days ago i was at the large scale vaccination center in otimachi i was kind of curious wanted to go there to take a look at it to get a better understanding before i did this travel update that area um is very very busy first of all they're they're giving 10 000 inoculations per day to people over the age of 65 that have inoculation cards that have made a reservation um they're being being bussed from tokyo station to the site which is about a a one and a half kilometer walk uh with the yellow hatto buses which are not in operation because there are no tourists here to take those buses so i think it's it's a really great coordination between private businesses and local government uh to uh not just give jobs to those bus drivers into that company you know contract but also to get people to the site and it's working they're getting uh close to or i believe exceeding depending on the day that those 10 000 shots they're very busy inside and it's working like clockwork this is just one of a few large-scale vaccination sites there's another one in yoyogi park that's being built changing from a large large-scale live viewing area to a vaccination center because there aren't going to be any international tourists to be outside enjoying the live streaming so they're turning that into mass scale vaccinations which is probably good they could do 10 000 more shots a day i think prime minister suga might be closer to his goals uh universities and workplaces will start their vaccinations um i think the date was june 23rd or june 24th uh universities and workplaces will start to vaccinate their people there again starting with uh people 65 and older so i think if they can have these large-scale places like they did in the united states with stadiums and and drive-through uh vaccinations japan can get to where the us was a few months ago which was a million or two million shots per day therefore speeding up exponentially the the time that this country peaks thus i think by autumn of 2021 we should be able to return to uh tourism again i don't know what it's going to look like but maybe by the end of this live stream you will have an idea yes this is a live stream there is a chat here so everybody who's watching you have you can write in your comments and discuss we also have a discord server that has resources for this pandemic and travel to japan you can take a look on there as well as ask questions if you're thinking about traveling in the fall or even in 2022 we have about 13 000 people on the discord server a community that that is not just here in japan but also all over the world that's that's trying to get visas in the travel into the country it's it's a nice resource uh for you and i'm happy that we have it moderators will share that discord server right here but it's it's discord dot gg slash only in japan is the link free invitation to anybody and everybody um uh so it's it's been pretty good news on the vaccination front here um i was not impressed with the rollout the they started vaccinating in february and i've been tracking this all the way up to about the middle of may that's when things started to ramp up and it started to look promising the reason why it took so long is there just not enough professionals to give the shots japan has a shrinking population of the population of of people that are doctors and nurses is very small it's not enough so the people that need to keep existing services rolling um like doctors who are doing cancer treatment doctors that are doing surgeries emergency room doctors they they got to stay in their jobs because there's still stuff happening the state of emergency that's being that was extended in tokyo to june 20th right now we are in a state of emergency another reason why i can't bring you too many too much content from the road unfortunately until the june 20th this is keeping people home thus there's not a huge need for emergency room doctors there's not enough like traffic accidents and things like this they're way down because people more people are staying at home um it's not so crowded out there uh the numbers have been pretty good in japan this is um this is a promising sign because that it just means that the state of emergency is working what is a state of emergency it's not a lockdown i've explained this in in past um updates it's basically just an appeal from politicians to keep people home and it works because those that break it are usually shamed and that's sometimes guilt is more powerful than than monet uh penalties because you could be super rich if you're ashamed there's no coming back from that so people people tend to follow the rules um it's it's been working pretty good tony p writes in here thank you for keeping us updated uh john we all really appreciate it hope all is well with you and your family everybody's doing well and um leo is getting his afternoon milk and then nap uh kenney's doing well as well i'm doing good too so um let's get right to it about the state of emergencies there's a a state of emergency what is this state of emergency it's supposed to be flashing lights but this meme will now be something else on the internet sometimes it doesn't work out so well um so this comes from kyoto news up there just to be pauline 2k could very well have been hokkaido is in an emergency declared tohoku is not their numbers are pretty good and then places around kanto which is around tokyo here uh gunma tochigi uh looks like gunma saitama kanagawa and chiba are under quasi-emergencies designated so they have some of the rules but not all of them tokyo has all of them because the situation is is not so good here in tokyo ichikawa which is where kanazawa is um this this isn't the truth like the chubu area the the center there there's aichiken in the red and that looks like gifu and miye and then we have here the kansai region is under a state of emergency they had the um uh one of the variants um that has been listed as the uk variant i know it that's where it came from it's not don't get me wrong but the japanese used to japanese news still uses uk variant so i apologize to those in the uk and uh we have fukuoka in the red there and kumamoto which is in a quasi and then okinawa is still in a state of emergency so that's kind of the situation here but a lot of the country is doing okay with numbers uh okinawa is still classified as red so that just gives you an overview but this quasi state of emergency is ending for three prefectures after this weekend um actually thursday they decided to is that today is it a thursday it is whoa so today they decided to lift the quasi-state emergency in three of the prefectures can you guess what they are no gunma ishikawa and kumamoto which i showed you on the map kumamoto is near fukuoka down in kyushu ishikawa is kanazawa which is on the sea of japan side and gunma is that one prefecture in the center of of japan in the tokyo's kanto region that's going to be lifted what does that mean that means that restaurants serving alcohol requiring them to close by 8 pm as well as attendance caps on 5 000 people attending uh are going to be lifted meaning you can hold bigger events and you can start to drink some booze again i got a feeling there's going to be some parties in these places so be careful if you are in these areas don't take this for granted okay don't ruin it for everybody i love gunma too kuma's really cool uh takaragawa onsen in minakami which is in gunma prefecture is one of my favorite places and maibashi is a pretty pretty roaring town hey mj's here wishing you and your family well hope that mail i know i still got mj i got like a year and a half of postcards you're gonna have a barrage of beauty hitting your mailbox my friend thanks so much for for uh for that i appreciate it so i can't wait to see you again back in japan and irvine's here i hope map camera is open terrace in october map camera is gonna be fine in shinjuku uh they got some good stuff in there it's probably the best place to buy cameras in japan especially used stuff um so uh oh we got another one here thank you so much thanks for providing content still in state emergency john hope travel does open up during the fall winter i finally get to meet you missed an opportunity twice really that's vin vintendo yeah i got those you found me cars it'd be nice to to say hi to everybody and not have to to run away when somebody chases me and saying hey john and i go who are you and i run away that's not going to happen once we get vaccinated hopefully this will come soon which is going to be really really soon the next thing on my list of news is prime minister suga vows to finish vaccinating japan's population by november this is from yesterday so like i i wanted to do this update last week but i knew there was going to be a barrage of news this week and i waited and i were rewarded with a lot of information now prime minister suga who took over for prime minister abe last year has had a really tough time and and it's not easy to come you know take over for a pop a prime minister that had been in office for for a very long time in the middle of a pandemic right before the olympics so i have to give credit to prime minister suga um i think he's he's handling himself the best that he possibly can i'm not a political person i just i just want to encourage him to do the best that he can because he's the one in power and i will always take the high road with this it's been really tough though it's been tough and the criticism has been warranted as well but he has made a pledge to get everybody vaccinated by october or november which means i think october if you can get ramped up the production that means kids and families uh people under the age of 18 will be getting those shots later on in the fall probably at my age i was talking to other people in their mid-40s and they said yeah it looks like we'll probably be able to get the the vaccines in august with a chance in maybe september and uh maybe kanai will also get hers in in september too we're not sure but that seems to be where we're at right now currently if you take a look at the live stream from yesterday which was at the um or was it two days ago two days ago at the mass vaccination center in otemachi you get a chance to see what this looks like with all the old people being bussed in it's it's kind of a uh it's a really interesting site to see how japan was so chaotic with this vaccination rollout and now has got their stuff together and it's just purring right now it looks like it's very well organized and during the live stream a viewer who was working inside came out to say hello and i asked her if she was really busy inside he goes yeah yeah really busy inside it's being run by the japan self-defense force because there are not enough doctors and nurses and dentists which have now been um been knighted to give in inoculations of the of the um pfizer and moderna vaccines which are approved here so this is good news to have uh the prime minister say that he'll vaccinate the population by november that means that it looks like we're going to be the worst that the all right the worst that i think the situation will be how do i say this i think things will be over by october for us it's not over over but we'll we'll be in a better place in october for sure but if the prime minister can can ramp up vaccines to a million per day it'll be a lot sooner so again i'm really rooting for this more than 40 million shots will be administered by the end of june ahead of the tokyo olympics 40 million shots will be administered most of them will be the first shots of the pfizer vaccine which was the one that was approved um for use here uh that's the only one i believe maybe moderna has been approved too but the other ones are waiting approval from japan japan's process is a lot longer this is another reason why the vaccines were delayed japan wanted internal tests of the fiber pfizer vaccine before proving it this delayed the vaccine by two months and uh you know it could be a good thing if you find something wrong with it but they wouldn't accept the international tests and maybe we're going to be safer from it i don't know but that's just the situation fredzo studio thank you thank you very much very cool beans yeah so if these vaccines can roll out then i'm gonna i'm gonna put my my crystal ball down and break it because i don't wanna do this these kinds of episodes anymore because i want good news i'm guessing i'm going to stay on target and say october we're going to start to see um tourism open up after the paralympics and i think it's going to be with an asterisk mark and tourism will ramp up japan is a very cautious country that doesn't like to take risks so i'm guessing tourism package tours will open up there'll be tours that include quarantining for a certain amount of period i think there will be some quarantining despite the fact that you might have been vaccinated with both doses there's a chance that even if you have like i'm just going by things that that people have heard here in japan that they're trying to confirm if even with the vaccine you can still get sick but it depends on the variant and also some people might need booster shots so there's a lot of things that are right now being debated with the reopening of tourism because the population is not behind the olympics it's not behind opening up the borders to tourism because there's a lot of unknown risks and the country is just not vaccinated yet but this is really good news to see that the prime minister has made a pledge japan has a population of 126 million um to date four percent have been fully inoculated that means both shots but the pace is picking up uh nearly 60 percent of the respondents to a poll said that they they want the olympics to be postponed and uh stay tuned to the end as i give you my final opinion on this all right it's still it's it's a heated debate and if you turn on the news you'll see over and over again what uh how people feel about the olympics on the news it's tough albert writes in here we have enjoyed your videos for over a year thanks for all the great content it is very informative and entertaining best wishes to you and your family uh we hope to be there in april 2022 and i will be here too albert thank you so much i'm looking forward to this cherry blossoms next year it's going to be so much more exciting um when the situation is better um so there you go with the vaccinations it's good news the prime minister was also asked this is the last one on this one i'm going to move on to uh vaccine passports prime impregna prime minister was asked um if he had considered these vaccine passports and would wouldn't this be a nice time to announce that and he said that they're highly considering this at the moment so the official stand right now with the japanese government despite all the news reports as of yesterday and i don't think it's changed japan is still considering vaccine passports they haven't decided which system to go to they're analyzing this so there's nothing that has been determined so will you need them for travel i don't know and neither does the government yet so uh stay tuned i think by july's travel update we'll have a much clearer image of if you need one of these passports and and how to get it as well what do you need in order to register maybe japan will each country will have a registration online and or something like this i don't know so we're gonna figure this out ramsay silent writes in here i wanted to go in october but having missed the date changed three times on my going i'm not planning on april may probably wise i think by then we'll just we'll be much closer to the way things used to be despite there probably will be some protocols in place even next next year this comes from the japan times from yesterday uh japan eyes issuing vaccine passport from this summer so this came from the same meeting where the prime minister was questioned about the olympics and and the inoculations and his goal of getting everybody vaccinated by october um japan times released this the japanese government is considering issuing certificates from this summer starting this summer to coronavirus vaccine recipients that would assist them with overseas travel so japan is understands that people want to travel internationally again as well as come here they're considering that's what this article says and this is based on the heels of what prime minister suga said yesterday to reporters um japan times does some pretty good reporting it's getting better i know about 20 years ago it wasn't quite as internationally reputable with a lot of spelling errors and stuff like that but japan times has got a heck of a lot better with a growing number of countries checking visitor inoculation records as a border control measure the vaccine passport in quotes is expected to facilitate business travel uh japan very much wants to get business travel back on track especially japanese businessmen who want to travel abroad chief cabinet secretary kato-san said that he's heading the preparation team so kato katosan is doing it a preparation team comprised of foreign and health ministry officials are looking into the issue the vaccine passport will initially be a paper certificate so it's not going to be on like a smartphone initially they're writing japan times are saying it's going to be a paper certificate which makes sense for japan because we're very paper based japan loves paper cash is still pretty big here um i go to the atm to get cash it's kind of cool to hold paper coin like you don't like my friends in the u.s so they just touched for payment and everything in the in japan we still use a lot of cash tigra sorry if you've said it before but do japanese travel hotels places have kitchenette kitchenettes um that's a good question the let's say the the biggest chain of business hotels right now might be toyoko in and apa hotel they have laundry machines in all of the business hotels usually if it's like 5 000 to 8 000 yen for a room at a business hotel you'll have an amenities like a kitchenette but inside of the room that is something you'd probably want to search for i don't see kitchenettes inside of the room like hot pots and things like this um there are some there's something called weekly mansions that you might want to look into if you search on weekly mansions this is something that they've had in japan for for decades they come with a kitchen it's basically an apartment that you can rent by week and it's essentially like airbnb the weekly mansions have still do okay because they have contracts with with business to business stuff but you might want to just look into an airbnb then if you want a kitchen in there tasty chronicles rights in here what is japan's game plan to vax to homeless i you know what if they're over the age of 65 they're eligible to go in and get vaccinated um right now if they don't have an address or they don't get a card they can walk into the vaccine center and um i'm trying to get the information on waiting times like if there's a cancellation people can just jump right in and get the vaccine i don't know what the plan is it hasn't been publicized yet and i think it's that's going to be something that um japan has to address thanks for bringing that up and i'm sure if somebody's watching in the japanese government let's not remember the people that don't have addresses that can't get those vaccination cards let's see if we can try to vaccinate them thank you tasty um and i feel weird calling you tasty tasty japan is so these vaccination pacifists will be paper-based and mostly for business travelers because business travel will open up before um tourism which is the way that the world works fairly or not if the government decides to issue the certificate if it would then negotiate with other countries on whether japanese nationals with certificates would be exempt from quarantine after entry on how japan would treat visitors with similar certificates so it's going to be a country to country um situation not an app maker but japan the country of japan is trying to look for their own way to do this so this is kind of an interesting note because i know that technology is probably the way to go with apps and stuff but apps can be tampered with and there's some risk to that especially with different variants now being popping up the variant from india again this is where it's from i don't know the code number is in the news now and there was a cluster found in a school of people infected with the variant from india how it got here we don't know if there are no tourists coming here and there's no business travelers coming here i'm not sure how it got in i just think somebody was allowed in so somebody's traveling here there's somebody returnees i don't know but that variant is here and it's causing us a minor stir at the moment because it's just a minor amount of people with it um if the government decides to issue the certificate's right they'll negotiate with the other people we will hold more discussions to respond well to moves overseas so i think japan has their option and then they're looking at and seeing what's happening overseas if the united states which is usually the leader in this kind of stuff has um a way for tourists like a unified way for tourists to be able to show and the airlines which are leaders here require their own then i believe the government of japan will accept that as a way in because they usually follow what the us does usually eventually eventually because they're partners and i almost said in crime but we're allies um the united states lowered the japan travel advisory to level three which they look they raised to level four like two weeks ago so it was like this so it came it went up and down um really quickly level three means um to take to take great precaution um it went from the highest level four is do not travel to level three which is you can travel but take great precautions um and this follows the update from the cdc um which lowered um the level for japan on monday as well from four to three i think this has to do with the vaccine rollout and the state of emergency in highly populated areas like tokyo osaka fukuoka okinawa and hokkaido which had major outbreaks it's working the state of emergency so the numbers i think it was somewhere like 300 people were infected in the entire city of tokyo which is got a population of you know tens of millions right it's a very highly populated and dense city so the the numbers are stabling stabilizing about 300 a day but that's from the state of emergency once we lift it it's going to spike up again if the vaccinations are not rolling out i don't know if they're going to extend the state of emergency beyond the 20th my guess is no because it looks like we're keeping the numbers under the 20th however with variants being introduced into tokyo that are more contagious this is something that governor koinke is certainly looking at and considering she still has 10 days to make judgment on whether or not to extend the state of emergency even for another week it's possible that that happens so vaccines can more people can get those vaccines that's good news that the u.s finally lowers it to level three but he's they're still urging americans not to travel um yet japan's key electronic shows this is very important too to get an idea of where japan will be in october look to the conventions look to the shows tokyo game show there's a combined exhibition of advanced technologies uh um called uh was it siatek or cea tec uh that's a huge convention it's scheduled from october 19th to 2022. uh this year's theme is towards society 5.0 with the new normal has been moved to online again all right so this is a very important because it shows you that the organizers don't have confidence that people will be allowed in to make the same kind of spark that they had two years ago so they're going to do it online i guess the costs are very great to hold a physical convention unless you have event people at the event it doesn't make sense to hold it because it's just losing more money so they're going online again in october because the situation is wishy-washy we're just not sure this decision was made ahead of prime minister suga saying that people will be vaccinated by october so i don't think they're going to change their mind on this um will the olympics be held all right before i get into the olympics which is look at it's it's it's important and i've had my ear to the ground and listening to this i put a link in the description of this video all right this is the um phase measures for resuming cross-border travel this comes from the ministry of foreign affairs this is a printout from here there's the link up there in the top right the link is in the description of this video as well as the link to my new only in japan channel go go there and subscribe if you haven't already it lists out what you need to do to get into japan it was updated june 1st 10 days ago so um there is a michael you did get a shout out right now um it was updated june 1st so this is this is good news that they are updating it um thomas from the uk i want to shout out thomas who's a patreon supporter thomas got his student visa to come to japan finally after waiting a very long time so for those of you with student visas please take this take note thomas is coming to okayama and he is excited and i'm excited for him too and i hope to catch up with thomas down there but i've been keeping in touch with a lot of patreon supporters and a lot of people who have student visas or just can't get in into japan um they are processing them now and um in the uk since thomas got his visa we can we can we can um uh like we can check that box and say that they are coming in i still can't get my student visa if you have applied and you have the coe certificate a certificate of eligibility and everything all the paperwork is in and you've resubmitted it then it will probably just take a little bit of time before they will approve it i i think it took several months for thomas to get his through and he wanted to be here a lot sooner but he did get it so now i know that they are issuing student visas it's just going to take time and i hope that those of you who have a visa for work and you can get here in the in the country i know that japan has been extremely strict with this but with the vaccines now coming out and the situation uh coming down the waves that were worse than the worst time last year in the in the midst of the pandemic in 2020 2021 was way worse in japan so those numbers from last year were bad but this year was worse so this was not the time to come to japan a couple of months ago now it's starting to subside and it's starting to get better summer is here better weather so those visas are going to be processed a little bit quicker and i have a feeling they're going to pick up the pace um there's a twitter group if if the twitter group founder is watching you can leave a message right here um but there's a lot of people waiting for those visas and uh i know that they're getting processed now because we i finally get confirmation from somebody who's been waiting a very long time that they got theirs so just a little bit of good news for students out there waiting for it um if you have if they if they rejected your visa and please call the embassy or consulate and ask if you can resubmit it call the university or the school or the workplace to have that certification maybe sent back to you and faxed to the government and start that process over again it just seems like now it's starting to work a lot faster i hope that sounds that sends a little bit of good news does mastercard work i don't i don't know i got amex and visa i don't use mastercard actually um does anybody use jcb japan credit bureau i always wondered like somebody's got to use it um wow so i got i got a ton of news here so a lot of it the rest of it is regarding the olympics which is a pretty interesting i might read this at the end too the stages needed right now to enter japan that might be interesting for the for the historical record of this but the rest of the news is basically on the olympics discover works by the way the discover card is being accepted by the tokyo mitsubishi the mitsubishi ufj uh banks except discover card but they don't accept visa and mastercard very weird i don't know how discover did it i think that was like a sears robux company i don't it's a little monet finance news all right the olympics will they take place it's yes until they say no however uh ten thousand volunteers uh quit their volunteer duties uh last month a lot of them were were volunteers for foreign tourists so they weren't really needed that much anyways so i guess it's it's the olympic the japan olympic uh committee uh was quite concerned anyways that uh a mass percentage of the people ass uh who volunteer and quit uh if more volunteers quit then they might have to take measures and cancel but 70 of 80 000 are still in on it and then there were others volunteers in the city of tokyo that that left but um because of the decrease in the amount of people coming and the amount of um diplomatic assistance assistants like friends of friends or lobbyists who can come in with politicians has been decreased as well so that means that there are not as many assistance volunteers are needed for the olympics anyways so but it's still concerning news to have ten thousand volunteers quit um the the end result was now the olympics uh committee is is thinking of mulling over the idea of vaccinating all 70 000 game volunteers ahead of the olympics they do have mass vaccination sites um skiji market which is now gone it's going to be a parking lot starting in august that's a mass vaccination site right now that might be where the volunteers go to get their vaccinations and in a week they'll be able to vaccinate all 70 000 of these people um thus alleviating their fears of getting sick and keeping them if more migration like people cancel i have a feeling they're going to initiate this because without them you can't run a you can't run uh the olympics without volunteers helping to facilitate a lot of stuff here all right unless you have robots and i would not pass up to i would not underestimate japan's robot ability all right it's possible it's very possible the olympic body says visitors will not be tracked real time by gps this is something that people were freaking out all right first of all when you travel abroad you're no longer at the laws of the united states or wherever you're from you now have to adhere to the laws of the country you're in all right keep that in mind so your freedoms of the you know like bill of rights and all this it doesn't work here you're under japan law if you get arrested you're you know what is it up up that creek that's duty creek okay done so don't get her don't get in trouble here but you don't know what the laws are so one of the laws one of the things that they were doing is using gps and i have this on my on my telephone let me see if i can show you the app here this is a a um covered tracing app i have installed on my phone um i've used this for 194 days all right i can check if i've been in close contact with people this is from the ministry of health labor and welfare and this uses my my data to track where i am but it's not used to track where i where i am on a map or anything just in case i'm in close contact with somebody else or in a cluster of people and that app does not track users by gps right so you have to self report thank you for the information you have to self report if you have a positive result then the app i guess by somehow finding out where you were not by gps will notify you that you are in close contact with somebody who has acquired has has been infected so you might want to get tested yourself or quarantine it's a useful app i think this is a way to contact trace from the government it doesn't use gps and they're asking people bluetooth they're asking people to install this on their phones and uh you know again it just alleviates a little bit of risk and if you can notify people that they were in contact with somebody in a super spreaders uh environment i think that's a pretty good idea so um it works i can check my closed content close contacts and i am i'm okay all right so i'm good um for those visiting japan uh and during the olympics they're probably going to ask people to install apps like line or skype so that they can keep in touch with you and let you know if uh you've been in contact or if a situation arises they want to have you all connected while you're here this is something they may initiate in october when tourism does continue it's kind of interesting to see how they how they respond with the olympic athletes coming some of these procedures may carry over into tourism in october so let's keep that in mind but um muto toshiyosan told reporters um i believe he's uh let me see who exactly he is part of the part of the committee here the ceo told reporters that everyone entering japan from abroad including athletes officials and media members will be required to submit plans of their first 14 days in the country and turn on gps functions on their smartphone this is what he said if we have to monitor the movements all the time it would require manpower when there are problems i think it's important to have the gps function to allow visitors to make sure they did not do anything wrong all right um he said that this he said use of the system already agreed on by the olympic officials around the world will allow the organizers to confirm afterwards that the visitors followed the plans they submitted they want confirmation it does feel like a little bit of a house arrest it is not using real-time gps all right so like i'm not actually sure how this works but uh battery ran out can't use gps all right stop stop right there those that that do enter in japan including returnees have to do a 14-day quarantine one of the things that one of the things that is mandatory is that they install this gps app so that they can as well as a way to get in contact they want the gps app to make sure that you don't leave all right this is true this is what i've heard from from somebody who returned to the country so they have a gps app to tr to make sure that you're not leaving your your house or your your quarantining now you might think that you could leave your phone behind right just leave it in your house and just leave because then if they're tracing your phone just leave it there right but they will randomly call you on the social media phone number that you give and if you're not there you're in big duty trouble all right so you have to be you know they will check up on you to make sure you're really quarantining if not you will be fined and shamed this is apparently the where we're at with this um to make sure because too many people have broken protocol the honor system did not work with a lot of people duh so that's that's what we got notch abroad um what will come from the 1000 yen departure tax wasn't it meant to help pay for tourism social security yeah the games with with travel restrictions it can't have made enough money will they remove it i hope so there's a 10 tax on departures i believe that they've revamped the technology now you can um exit and enter japan a little bit quicker because of the technology i can confirm they have it because i saw it when i um was traveling in 2020 and when i came back at the end of 2019 no no yeah 2019 did i return in 2020 i i did see it international the international arrivals that they had um initiated these this new high-tech security stuff for re-entry and things like this so it did speed up the process i don't know but attacks seems to be forever i don't i don't think they're collecting much now anyways yeah ten bucks that's a cup of coffee or two beers or something okay that's significant to me to most people um so there's that the gps ah japan is a place where you are quickly criticized japanese viewers and i'm saying this as a from a place of deep affection for all of my viewers in japan are the most critical especially when they're anonymous and japanese viewers can be downright bullies and and very tough all right i just on the last video despite the fact that i said peter and i were riding on a on a private train right and we we were pcr tests didn't have to give our uh we had to do a lot in order to to go mask-less on the shinkansen which is private shinkansen akash kitty shinkansen we still have japanese users who didn't understand that and had to criticize me and be armchair detectives to try to figure out this guy's not wearing a mask on the shinkansen how dare he it was arshing concept all right who could do that but japanese um are very critical of each other too so japanese social media is very s it stings alright you will be attacked hard and it's worse here and a lot of the olympians on the japanese team are feeling it there it's it's situation of hey what seems here but i guess if they open up in november they will open up for students first and businessmen no i i'm gonna guess that students if you have a visa you're gonna be allowed in starting now i think that they're processing it it's just slower all right um i can address questions through the live chat at the end of this which is in about five minutes i think i'll finish up the olympics here uh japanese olympians are under a great amount of stress and i feel for them they are in they are damned if they do and damned if they don't i can say that because it's an expression it's not a bad word look they can jump in line and get vaccinated all right because the olympic committee and pfizer are working together to vaccinate all the olympians but jump line jumpers in japan are what is the word castra size they they are completely criticized and and and shamed right if you cut in line or break a rule right you feel it so these olympians who have social media as well are feeling it now the olympic committee is telling him and i'm talking about the handball captain i won't use his name um but um he was in an article recently saying that he felt it and he wanted to uh tell the handball team not to get vaccinated because it could those vaccines could be used to save the lives of someone 65 or older he's very he understands how social media works he understands his responsibilities as well as a good person so he's under pressure but the olympic committee is saying to him like you got to get vaccinated these vaccines are are already designated for you if you don't use them you just are putting people at risk by being an olympic athlete so he is kind of in this position where he's between a rock and a hard place he doesn't want to jump in line maybe he does secretly i don't know but i mean by doing that he feels guilt because he knows that there are people who who who are probably more in need of that vaccine than he is as an olympian however as a representative of of the country um and the situation where the the olympic committee is vaccinating athletes this 31 year old is going to get that pfizer vaccine so um 30 40 doses for the handball team um and the handball team is apparently getting criticized um on social media for this so i don't know it's just it's just like a conundrum for these for the olympic athletes and look it's it's it's a couple thousand vaccines they're probably going to get vaccinated anyways um rock in a hard place i'm not one of those people are going to criticize them you know shame on you jumpers look i'm not going to criticize olympic athletes if they've been allotted for them they train pretty hard uh they're going to give us some entertainment this summer i don't know it's just i'm going to take a you know the positive point of view here um look the situation hasn't changed foreign visitors are not coming july and august the games are still going to be held the state of emergency is going to be ending on june 20th as of today vaccinations will be finished for the japanese population by october november according to prime minister um this will be updated again next month i'll give you another update japan is now closed to foreign tourism will reopen in the future we're not sure when so that's exactly where we are right now in june 2021. japan is closed at foreign tourism we don't know when it looks like october could be sooner it just depends on how fast the vaccinations go and how safe the general public thinks we are um i had a couple of other things here this is um from another website uh i'll put the link in the description of things that you'll need to enter japan i was thinking about going back to the united states and there was another youtuber who went back to to the us to get vaccinated or a couple of people that did this um you do need to get pcr tested you do need to do a 14-day quarantine you do need to have a paperwork to come into japan they ask you to install a line messaging app the japanese government websites are quite confusing so it would be a good idea if you do travel to japan now or you do have a coe or student visa and you did get in call the embassy and make sure you have the latest information a few days before you leave because this information changes pretty quickly the link to the government site um is in the in this video check that out before you go it was updated june 1st for those that are wondering um if worst comes to worst you want to be sure that your travel insurance policy is up to date make sure you travel with travel insurance if you're traveling this year anywhere outside of the united states or in any country outside of your home country get travel insurance just get it because you don't know what the situation is going to be when you get to that country they could have the parliament could have decided to ban you while you're in the flight on the airplane and getting back can cost you tens of thousands of dollars i don't know um depends so you might want to seriously consider getting that that's all i got for this travel update um it was pretty uh interesting if you do like the travel updates click that thumbs up button i do uh respond to your likes as an indication you do appreciate this this content so i've been doing them once a month ever since um yeah tabby eats could go back to hawaii for the shot a lot of my friends could we have a baby and kanai is japanese i'm american we thought about going to guam guam has a vaccination an air vnv air vacation and vaccination i believe it was what it is but um it requires too much time so we're just going to wait it out here and get the vaccine as the rest of the japanese public well i haven't left japan since 2019 i've been here the whole time yeah i i miss people back home i miss being able to travel it's really hard but that's where we are i but a lot of friends are going back to the united states to get things done we do that travel insurance there's some travel insurance links on the jnto um covet site and i'll put that link in this description as well they have some you can also get travel insurance upon arrival in japan but you might want to have it before you leave just in case you might not be able to even enter the airport to get that insurance who knows what is considered essential services in japan um npc i don't even know what essential service means anymore what do you mean by that there's uh i'm not sure what what what that is um referring to the fact the visa is coming in here if you can if you have an employer you can get in here teachers were considered intentional services so a lot of the people watching were english teachers you're considered essential why can't you go to the usa because i have to do 14 days quarantine there in 14 days quarantine here and um with a three-month-old son that's just it's just really hard to do that and i got stuff that i have to do i have work commitments to be here so it's not something that i can do i'd love to that's 28 days a month that's basically a month sitting inside at home for quarantine i think that this will change over the next month as the vaccines start rolling out i think the us will change as the population gets safer maybe it's it's not 14 days but it's six days with pcr testing on arrival and pcr testing after six days who knows but um i think the 14-day quarantine might be a little bit much but japan is always going to air on the side of risk-free if they can alleviate risk they're going to do it so 14 day isolation is in place variants take up to 21 days to show up as well so there you go with that i don't know um how the variants are going i just know that it's it takes a long time but if the most of the population is vaccinated i think that that gets rid of the the risk at least in the eyes of tourism i don't know if you pre-test before coming here you don't need to be quarantined i think it also comes with the japan side coming back you definitely need to be quarantined and the rules are still in place um i'm not sure i think the last time i checked we coming from japan you needed to have a 14-day quarantine in the u.s again this all changes pretty quickly um carl writes in here i read essential services meant something substantial would be cancelled without your presence a lot of english schools would have to cancel or close the school if uh foreign english teachers were not replaced by outbound teachers uh scottie atroid's in here thanks for all your hard work and great information uh this too shall pass and will this will i'm you know we're all pretty much more optimistic now than we were just a few months ago so i'm pretty optimistic yesterday after two days ago seeing the mass vaccination site and i probably will take you to skiji market to get a look um here's the craft peach tea that i bought at akihabara and i did not want it uh we'll go take a look at the mass vaccination site over in uh tsukiji and see how that's working and there's a couple of other mass vaccination sites including yoyogi park i might return there and check it out from singapore jen how you doing thank you john for all the updates i am awaiting to apply for a student visa in hokkaido next year i hope to visit japan again soon and someday get a i found you card from you i hope you do too here's something for you and your family thank you jen uh stay safe john you too jen and um i hope that you can get that student visa as quickly and painlessly as possible i think by next year i think by by autumn everything will be running very smoothly and i know that the japanese universities are hurting because they don't have those that those foreign students coming in hokkaido would be a lot of fun uh but i would love to talk to you about your experience too after you've been in hokkaido for a little bit i've always thought about moving up there for a couple of months just to see how the lifestyle differs in hokkaido than other areas of japan i know it is different you need a car up there will you give uh we will give you a we found you duck yes yes i have about like 200 miniature ducks that i can also give you um i'm thinking about leaving those ducks in random areas during live streams for people to pick up too i'm thinking about it just like japan's thinking about a vaccination card um for the next seven minutes before we get to one hour i'm taking your questions um you don't have to give a super chat i'm looking at the stream right now which area of tokyo are you not familiar with some of the islands i haven't been to and the countryside near okutama i'm familiar with okatama but there's some some small towns out there uh i don't know there's some places in otaku um i haven't visited yet and i've i i get around i ride my bike a lot i know the city quite well there's places i don't know what about western parts of tokyo yeah there's a lot of places out there but there's there's hiking i've done a lot of hiking out out in oketama and some of those areas out there in western tokyo so i've filmed two tokyo i nhk world episodes out there where we drove around to all the attractions in western tokyo a couple of times i'm pretty sure i hit most of the big ones so one of the good things with being part of the the tokyo eye show on nhk what animal is the stuffy thing in the background does someone want to tell a faisal what that is right there does anybody know faisal the internet will tell you i'm pretty sure he's very popular here enjoying it writes in okapi any updates for vaccinated tourists trying to get in um august uh a-u-g-g-i-s yeah i'll just reiterate what i said a little bit earlier on here that is that a5 wagyu who wrote that a c t n g a five wagyu how dare you that is not a wagyu that's okapi and if you eat him you have a mouthful of polyester or whatever he's stuck with i'll just reiterate right now japan is considering um a vaccination card roll out so that might be required to come in here uh if you have if you're an essential worker in the sense like they need you then you will be able to come into japan for your job or for a student visa um thomas from the uk got in on a student visa so um just want to let you know that i know somebody who just got their visa all right uh for tourism uh it's right now not possible to come here you can check the jnto um covid website it has i'll find it on my phone right now they have been doing an excellent job jnt of the japan national tourism organization of giving you information of what tourist attractions are open and not open and what nationalities need visas and not and which visas have been canceled and which countries can come here and not come here and they they're keeping you up to date um with the situation based on travel that is a site that i go to to get a lot of my information that i pass along to you uh jnto is like i i've been working with them for quite a while now so you might want to check this out japan endless discoveries you might have seen that japan.travel uh this is the travel restrictions the table of contents are right here area subjected to entry band they have everything on this website that will help you find it including the countries specifically that you're living in and your situation right now phase measures for resuming cross-border travel which is on the government site i shared this link in the description of this video already right there's denial concerns like all this information is in here on there on the um uh jnt website so go check this out and every month i at least go once to this website to get an idea of of where we're at so the jnto and the jto twitter is also good and by the way i got twitter too twitter.combackslash onlyinjapantv is my twitter handle um send me a tweet let me know what you think of this if you have any questions you can tweet it to me or or you can use the discord server we have 13 000 strong it's twelve point six thousand it's twelve thousand six hundred but i just rounded up thirteen thousand strong in there um about fifteen to sixteen hundred people online all the time that are there answering your questions and sharing information uh discord server has been pretty cool yeah yeah tweet me i'm i'm getting close to i i i'm new to twitter if you tweet me i will tweet you back and we'll have a twitter battle all right just you just tweet me i don't even know what that means i have 8 000 twitter followers it's pretty weak for japan based youtubers but i like my i've been doing more twitter i even got in a twitter fight with another youtuber that was settled amicably you have to be careful with what you tweet i got into a twitter fight but uh we're two guys um that settled it amicably it's all good uh any last questions hey look i got wait t tkh18269509 just followed me on twitter why i just got a notification how cool is that uh what do you think of dependent visas i'm currently living in nagoya um what do you uh what do you hey thank you roxia 12 is following me oh what do you what do you will they be allowed before tourists dependent visa oh do you mean like hey andrew uh andrew lan does is is following me on twitter look at i'm getting all these updates like crazy aussie day vietnam following you on twitter i i don't know about the dependents is it john4400342 these twitter handles are along i think i'll get the 5 000 by the end of this the um this is totally poco we don't we don't need to have a have a meeting we're we're all good we worked it out um i think that like dependent visas you mean like a spouse visa i think that those will be okay um but like if it's a new spouse visa it's just gonna take some time to work through it's hard for me to to be able to wow got someone another twitter follower how cool is that air to the ron always got your back thank you air the ron by the way your um aaron buggy has been doing quite well daniel sand just got a new twitter following danielson reminds me of cobra kai uh nakturan welcome so i'm here to take your questions for the last minute here do you know the japanese government would accept new coes during this time i would assume that they would if you have a a coe from an employer call the embassy and accept it your employer should know that because they have to do the footwork so uh i believe that they do if they're reissuing back visas right now call your embassy in consulate each one might have different procedures and different different um policies based on the situation of that country so i think it's going to be a lot harder for people in india to come to japan because of how bad the situation is compared to the united states which is which is well vaccinated um and uh might be easier to come and get get uh into the country at the moment so it just follows according to the current situation does anybody tell you you look like the karate kid does anybody want to respond to this person what do you think all right and you know what you know ralph macchio can can come here to come here to japan like he did for like two days to film cobra kai last season but he got to face me all right if he really wants to come to japan he's gonna face me i'll i'll take him on serious that's serious eyes ralph all right you know what ralph i don't even know if you're watching look since 1984 and we're about the same age i've been teased and teased wax on wax off oh can you paint the fence if someone is painting a fence they they'll like call me up and go john look what i'm doing i'm painting a fence like so what yeah i had to face it okay i'm cool it doesn't bother me at all all right king wong can't wait to get back to japan postpone my trip for fourth time ah the king how could you do not do not treat the king badly s mt.com is following you on twitter whoa ralph is an old man poor guy irvin he's like my age all right he's like same as me i think i'm doing okay i have aged quite a bit over the last 10 10 years but i think we all have aged can you catch a fly with chopsticks yeah i can if it's dead on the ground hello you have to put in the criteria while it's flying it's light lightweight wow you're such a wealth of info and incredibly personable you've got yourself a new virtual friend joel vales thank you i like virtual friendships john is the crowdy kid but in cartoon version what no i am very real ouch my my chef is going to japan for the olympics to help he's excited that's actually a pretty cool story if your chef would like to talk with me about it um digitally that'd be pretty cool um let me send me an email only in japan tv i got a contact form on the website send me a send me a message and uh if he has some time i'd love to hear about his experience cooking at the olympic village and i'll put him on the show um through a studio live stream that'd be pretty cool that would be a lot of fun right that'd be a lot of fun all right folks it looks like we're out of the questions here um now you're just teasing me i don't want to stay around for this does japan have provisions for those with of us with religious exceptions from the vaccine i would say no i'm not i'm not sure i think that that would work inside of the u.s but look japan has japanese law so they adhere to their own laws and i don't think they're going to have a provision for that i think it's just going to be something that will be very difficult until there's mass huge i'm not i can't say for sure if what what the possibilities are contact the embassy or consulates that's it's a valid question what is a good bug repellent flamethrower bug zapper having animals around you so they'll go to them instead of you i don't know bring your bring your wife who's more tastier than you because she gets bit like crazy japan is much more about the rules writes and nosh abroad in his very right what was the issue with the other youtuber um i'm not gonna get into it but we're all friends here it's all good mutual respect for hard-working uh people when are you doing the next live stream probably tomorrow june is a month i gotta get this channel i had to take a lot of time off because we had a family member that was sick i kind of explained this to you it's not about the birth of of of leo these aren't excuses anymore but family is extremely important to me and i think that that comes before doing this there's also the state of emergency which has made it extremely hard to get access to places youtubers are still out there creating though i understand this but i'm under a microscope maybe a little bit more than other people i have um sponsors that i'm working with that that uh i understand their reputation and their risks i have a big trip coming with jnto next uh on the 22nd of june after the state of emergency i'll be helping them out with the project so i don't want to get sick for them and i want to make sure that i do everything the right way and this is how i can keep my good relationship with the people that i work with i can give up making content for a couple of weeks if that means um a stronger future uh and stronger content in the future access is about it's it's all about access and bringing you some really special stories so um that's that's the situation so may was a very tough month for for me and the family and uh we're doing a lot better now and i'm getting out more to make those episodes in june i want this channel to be strong for the olympics because i'm going to be using only in japan go to take you around the city of tokyo i am your eyes and your legs to go around to the venues and i want to show you a different point of view that and then nbc and the other channels are going to be doing they'll be inside you we all know that the stories are outside right so all of the stories the street food like whatever is outside the venues i'm gonna bring you these amazing stories and i hope that you do subscribe to only japan go and the new only in japan channel um because i'm gonna i'm gonna make those um episodes uh bring them to you live trying to use the 5g maybe getting it in 4k i've got the the 5g plan already out gocomo is rolling this out like crazy right now so we should have pretty good live streams good audio i'm going to do a really good job maybe some studio live streams where i take my laptop with me and live stream with the venue behind me ask some people to come with me to talk about it get the discord live chat into it and take some phone calls i want to be very interactive and valuable to you as a viewer because this is what this channel was was made for for for like events like the olympics and bringing you closer to japan that's what i want to do thank you for the twitter nightbot thank you for sharing the twitter link i think we just got like 300 new twitter followers on during this which is awesome how about a trip to mount takao that's in the books mount takao is the most hiked mountain in the world just put it like just put it mildly it's also the most boring hike in the world thanks for suggesting that yes i've heard of mr ishida and i've been in contact so he's a nice guy uh i've been in contact with a lot of youtubers say m-o-n for john maintenance yes thanks for the useful update thank you mario you comics thanks for following me on twitter that's very cool twitter handle handles only in japan tv i'll be using that a lot more with the olympics coming up and giving you travel updates through twitter and discord as well as uh instagram um we just passed 80 000 followers on instagram that's a lot less than some other youtubers but it's a lot more than a lot of people so i'm very grateful for everybody who follows me on social media and i try to make sure i give you stuff that's useful that you can learn from um frank watts it's nice to see frank if tourists can came with proof of having the vaccine shots could they do a quick covet test and eliminate the 14 day frank they're working that out right now it's hard to um i can't give you that information right now but according to the uh and albert welcome is a new insider thank you albert uh according to the prime minister yesterday oh you cute is following me oh that's cute according to the prime minister yesterday and alec warwick thank you for following me on twitter uh the the um procedures are being considered right now including a vaccine certificate because how do you prove that you've gotten that vaccine how do you prove that you are vaccinated is it by your word right i i don't think the government of japan is going to take your word that you just come in and say oh i've been vaccinated this is look at look at the injection marks all up and down my arm you're probably going to get deported so udon it depends thanks so much for the questions it was very colorful this is a lot of fun tour tour poco if it looks hot please guy get some ice cream that's good curl yang thanks for following me on twitter uh siam thank you i appreciate it uh amazon boxes more show up john they did they did i got a uh a a samurai sword umbrella so big shout out to katayama thank you for that i had this now i have two of them thank you katayama one for kanai one for kanai um i was allowed maybe i'll do another q a just for random questions later on i do that twice a month for patreon supporters by the way oh do you want to see the postcard for this month i can show you that talk to talk to okapi for a minute you saw leo's asleep so can i said to keep it down this is the postcard for this month all right and on the back of it i can't i don't want to show you all of it but there's a a picture of kanai in a bikini but this is kanai and i um at an onsen in nijima which is an island in tokyo um you can sit in the uh hot onsen hot spring waters looking out over the ocean it's free this is a free onsen uh on the island a two hour jets uh jet foil ride from the city of tokyo gets you to the island in the middle of the pacific so this is the postcard for this month you can put on your refrigerator i think it came out pretty nicely um but that's hot water that we're sitting in and that's the pacific ocean so if you do sign up it helps us support the channel and i really do appreciate it um if you want the bikini card just go to patreon all right i i made the photo kind of it's not a big photo but it's there all right thanks thank you ronald thanks everybody i have stay safe and uh um i'll be back tomorrow for another live stream um i don't think i'm gonna be doing another um fireside chat but i might do a fireside chat tomorrow after the live stream uh to take some of your questions on travel to japan this is something that we have like clubhouse inside of the discord server where you can ask questions like a show bye bye everybody thanks for the new members max walker who else is here rebecca s thank you i appreciate it

Channel: ONLY in JAPAN * GO

Views: 25,331

Rating: 4.8811402 out of 5

Keywords: Only in Japan, Japan, John Daub, Japanese, Tokyo, Japan Travel Update, entry, proceedure, visa, travel, Vaccination card, airline, ticket, situation, when can I travel to Japan, Is Japan open

Id: Onh9OOGO0hk

Length: 72min 20sec (4340 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 09 2021