Hey guys! Today I'm here with SHARLAAA from
Sharla in Japan! And today we're going to talk about the things we wish we knew about
Japan before we moved here. Hopefully they're helpful. Hopefully we're not just stupid people.
Here's something that I really wish I had known... This happened on my first trip to
Japan, so I was 17 years old. Didn't really speak Japanese. I had like not even the basics
down. I knew a few words like ringo and orenji. Your fruits. Seriously, it was bad. But we
were shopping and the people at the store would be like "irrashaimase!" when you go
into the store. And I figured they were like saying hi to me, because in Canada you'll
go to the store and they'll be like "Hi, how are you?" or something. So I was like, oh
I guess they're saying hi, I'll say it back. So they'd be like "Irrashaimase" "Oh, irrashaimase!"
I'd say it back to them. So any of you guys who speak Japanese know how idiotic that is.
Nobody that was with me told me I shouldn't be doing that so I did it several times. And
then finally my Japanese teacher who was with us saw me doing it. He was like "NONONONONO
they're WELCOMING you to the STORE. You don't say it back." And yeah, that was so embarrassing.
I felt like such an idiot. So when you go to stores in Japan they will say "Irrashaimase"
and it means "welcome to the store" and it's not something that you say back to them. The
typical response is to just like ignore them. Or you could like nod to them and acknowledge
that they're there but most people will just completely ignore it. It's just something
that happens, it's something that they do, and it's not rude to not say anything back
and not acknowledge them. Yeah, and I was surprised by that in the beginning because
I felt rude not acknowledging them. Yeah, right? Because in America... I still feel
kind of uncomfortable with it. Yeah, I'm always used to saying hi back, or thank you for welcoming
me or whatever. But here you ignore them. I still will usually at least smile. I had
no idea that Japan was so hot in the summer. I was not prepared for the weather here. I
don't know why, but when I studied Japan in Canada we never talked about the weather.
From some reason I guess I just kind of assumed it was nothing too extreme. I wish I had known
that so I could have brought some proper clothing. Because it was so hot! It's the humidity.
It's so humid in the summer. Literally I would walk out my dorm to go to class and within
a couple minutes I would be drenched in sweat. Yep. Not even a couple minutes, like 20 seconds.
It's ridiculous. A lot of places turn on the air conditioning really high so once you've
been in there for more than 5 minutes then you can start to get like really cold. So
even though it's hot you can see I brought a jacket with me to Tokyo. Your hair will
be a frizzy, humid mess. And if you're not used to that then you don't know how to deal
with it. Because in Canada my hair is always smooth and I never have any problems, then
all of a sudden in Japan... I have to be so careful that I have to put oils and products
in it so that it doesn't frizz out in the humidity. All the Japanese people will be
walking around with perfect hair because they're acclimated to the weather. And then my hair's
just like POOOFSHT everywhere. Do bring products that you know work for you. You can get stuff
here but you'll never know how it's going to turn out. And sometimes it can be really
expensive, or sometimes they don't have the thing you want. Especially for me, lots of
different acne medicine they don't sell here. You can get it online but they're importing
it from America online, so... It's a lot more expensive. Bring as many beauty-related products
with you as possible. Probably the stuff in your own country is going to fit your skin
type. You're used to it, you know what works for you. Hair oils, a lot cheaper in America.
Every time I go back to Canada I will bring definitely bras and underwear, because the
sizes are a lot smaller here. And also shoes. My feet are a little too big for Japanese
shoe sizes. How about you? I have a size 7.5 in America for women, and I'm at the largest
commonly found size here, which is 24.5cm. I'm 8. Even like bra sizes, yeah. Bras, yeah.
We won't go into details but just know that you can't get probably over like a B cup.
And it's not like it's the cups that are the problem, it's that the band around the rib
cage is really small. I guess nobody has a large rib cage here. They do have really small
rib cages. Yeah, and I have an abnormally large rib cage so even in Canada I need like
a big size. But here it's just not going to happen. When I first came to Japan I noticed
that they didn't have a Wal-mart level store, which is like very low end. And they don't
have one large cheap center like that. That has everything. There are cheap stores, like
cheap furniture stores and cheap clothing stores, but there's no like one place that
has it all. Right. And because we're used to finding lots of stores that just have it
in one place, I thought that you couldn't really get cheap stuff in Japan. But you can,
you just have to know where to look. So you need to know the names of the cheap stores
specifically so you can go there. So for like furniture stores there's Nitori, which is
a very cheap furniture store. There's the catalog Nissen, which is reasonable. They
have IKEA here in some cities. For clothing they have really cheap stores like Shimamura.
It's not like super cool or anything but sometimes you can find cute stuff there. And they have
of course thrift stores here. YES and the thrift stores are amazing! I think I just
spat in the camera in excitement. The thrift stores here are amazing. They are. The clothes
at thrift stores here are trendy so they're not like really old, like in America--I'm
sure it's similar in Canada. Yeah, they accept everything. So you'll get like sweaty tshirts
with holes in it. It's like why would you try to sell this? Everything has shoulder
pads because it's from the 80s. Oh yeah, yeah. But no, the thrift stores here are really
good. And there are two types: there's the ones that resell brand stuff so they're kind
of expensive, but don't be fooled because they have the really cheap thrift stores,
too. Yeah, there's both. I could just live off of thrift stores here. I don't need anything
else. That's what I do. This is a little abstract but I wish I had mentally prepared for how
inflexible some companies can be here. I talked about this a little bit before kind of, in
my shouganai video. Where sometimes you just have to accept things the way they are. Shouganai,
that's the way it is. Things that we're used to in America like the customer is always
right--and not even being a dick about it, but just like things that we take for granted
like people giving you extra sauce packets. Oh my god that does not happen here. EVER.
Do not ask for a sauce packet. They'll look at you like you're crazy and they won't know
how to handle the situation. I just started ordering pizza here because I was missing
pizza from not eating it for so long, and I like putting crushed red pepper on my pizza.
And in America you get like five crushed red pepper packets or you can ask for more, and
if you ask the worker will literally just put his hand in and grab a giant handful and
put it in your bag. And here I asked for ONE extra crushed red pepper packet. It's a packet
this big and they're like... No. We can't do that. I was like, it costs you company
like 2 yen! Not even. Why can't I have more crushed red pepper?! It's like can I pay extra
for one...? Um... no... I don't think that's on the menu... AHHHH. Yeah, they're not very
flexible dealing with things that aren't on the menu. Or if you want extra of something
or you want something taken out of your burger or something. You want to customize your order.
I don't think you can really do that. No. When I first met Jun's family we went out
to Gasuto. And I got a burger there and it came with onions. And I was like, "I don't
really like onions. Can we ask them not to put onions on it?" And Jun had to talk it
over with his mom. He was like, "Can we.... can we do this?" and they were both like,
"I don't think you can do that." And I was like, "Well, can we just try? Why don't we
just ask?" And so they're like "Okay." And they ask the waiter. The waiter was like,
"Um... okay. I'll... try." And then when it came it just had the onions on it. They didn't
say anything about it. They were just like "Nope. Here's your burger. This is the way
it comes on the menu." You just get things on the menu. And you can take stuff off if
you want yourself. That's just how it is here. But I also feel bad asking because you can
tell the workers get stressed out because they're not used to people asking. They panic.
They're like, "I don't know, I need to ask the manager!!" Like, it's just a crushed red
pepper packet! You don't have to ask the manager! I just want a packet of pepper! I feel really
bad about it. So be prepared. Be mentally prepared. Use a card for the train. Using
the IC card is so easy, so I really wish I had known about that. It took me like 3 years
of living in Japan to realize that it was so much easier to use a card. I don't know
why but I was always buying the tickets. So the problem is when you buy the tickets you
have to look at the map, you have to see where you're going and how much it'll cost. You
have to calculate how much it'll cost and then you have to buy that amount of ticket.
So it's kind of a pain in the ass. But if you have the card, you can fill it up with
money and have, say, 2000 yen on your card and then you can just BEEP. You don't really
have to look at how much your trip's going to cost. It'll automatically just take off
how much money from your card that your trip costs. So it saves you time. There are a bunch
of different brands of cards. There's like PASMO, SUICA... PASMO and SUICA are the two
in Tokyo. I think you guys have some different ones down in Nagoya. Oh, we do, I don't know.
I use one I got in Tokyo. So I don't know the names. SUICA and PASMO are the main ones.
Some of them work differently. The one in Nagoya has a point system. You build up points
and then you get a discount at the end of... something like that. But anyway it's cheaper
to use a card and it's so much more convenient. And I feel uncool using tickets now because
everyone else uses a card. And they just walk through like BEEP BEEP BEEP. I'm always surprised
when I see someone using a ticket. And I dig through my wallet and take out a ticket and
I gotta put it in the machine and pick it up. Even if you're just here for a trip, even
if you're not moving here, get a card. I think it costs 500 yen (a deposit) to make a new
card. But it's so worth it. I'm sure there are tons of things. We'll probably be able
to think of more stuff later. Yeah. Do another video on this. Part 2. There's lots of stuff
we didn't know. But for now that's some of the stuff we wish we had known before we got
here. So I hope it'll be helpful for you guys! Thank you for watching! Again, check out Sharla's
channel if you're not subscribed to Sharla! Thanks for watching! Bye!
